Welcome to the session. What has read achieved empirical evidence for transformational change? Why are we here why are you here? If you have a fever you go to the doctor or you maybe your first you pop an aspirin or something And then it doesn't get better you go to the doctor if it doesn't get better You don't go to the clinic you still have the fever after going to the clinic. Maybe you start praying but The whole the important thing is you're acting on evidence You have something that you measure your fever and and you react to it and try to to control this so it's some pretty simple we humans do it all the time and We are sometimes a bit surprised that we don't see this happening so much in policy processes. There's very rarely an assessment of Policy impact and that's what this session is about talking about the example of red plus and So this is I'm just Going to introduce you to the to the session. My name is Christopher Mathews I'm a team leader for climate change in in C4 the Center for tropical forestry Research and this session is jointly organized by us together with the independent Evaluation unit of the Green Climate Fund and Wageningen University. We are very proud that we have this collaboration Starting in in small ways and in larger ways Working together on on the on these important questions and So we would like to share some of these results with you and and another partner in this is FAO Where we all where we also going to have the speaker So the speakers are starting with karma chatting who is the Green Climate Fund board member and He's from Bhutan we have dr. Joe poody who leads the independent assessment unit of the Green Climate Fund And she's going to talk we have dr. Amy Duchel Who is my colleague in C4 working on assessment of red plus projects? Then we have dr. Martin or professor Martin Harold from Wageningen University also talking about the topic and we have Margot Bush co-bricks from FAO. So it's a long setup of speakers for this late hour and We have professor Harold Engelsen professor for economy at The Norwegian University of life sciences who is going to moderate the session and As I said before we have a long list of speakers So we I'd like to ask all the speakers to keep to your time Please so we don't eat up the time for discussion that is planned For for the last half or more or less so we have somebody showing you here When it when you have two minutes to go and then when you are close to finishing so please stick to the time And with this I'd like to hand over to Harold for the moderation and I'm just going to sit here and I would like to add also we have a Questioning questions may be coming in from an online audience to the session. This is live stream And so we might in the discussion also refer to those questions So if you're not sitting in the room, but listening to this outside, please send us your questions through this Skype setup that is this available. Thank you good afternoon and Chris has already introduced so it's my Privilege to be the moderator Not in the meaning of being moderate, but rather to ask the questions that you all wanted to ask but don't dare to do This is as you know a joint event between primarily C4 and and the And the green climate fund C4. We are using this I'm associate also C4 using this occasion to launch a new book transforming red that Amy Christof myself and three others have been contributing to as editors and also a number of 62 orders the book is available on the back and You may have a copy there or of course view it online. I Have a confession to start with I Was wrong When I got involved in red first cop ten years ago in Poznan here in Poland I thought that after ten years who would have a number of good impact studies. We would know does red work or not We would know what policies Work better than others. What type of projects work in which context after ten years? billions of dollars and Norwegian crowner We would know all this answer and now we are here to take stock and maybe see I was wrong We have far fewer There are a few key questions that we cannot fully address or answer properly to guide us We are here however to take stock and both of the work that we'll see presented here to see what do we know and where are we and Some of this including this book is kind for critical analysis written by researchers that we want to be critical And that's good. We should be critical about the implementation of red but To read from the back of this without losing sight of the urgent need to reduce forest-based emissions to prevent catastrophic climate change So I think when we have this critical attitude to see what works or not We have tested a few approaches, but that does not mean that we are critical to the objective of red Namely to reduce forest-based emissions. So with that I'm happy to give the floor to the speaker Who is a board member of the GLF karma? setting but as Christopher also said working with the National Environmental Commission secretary of the great country of the town So karma the floor is yours and I encourage you to come here to speak It's kind of More authority, thank you First of all It may never come to bottom. I feel like a politician. That's why I try to avoid coming to the podium to speak Anyways, thank you and thank you again to the independent evaluation unit direct head of the independent evaluation unit Dr. Jopuri who has been kind enough to give this opportunity to me to to share some of my views Please don't be disappointed to hear that When I say I'm not a expert on red plus. I'm not an expert in a red plus at all I'm here just to learn support as a member of the GCF board To this process since the red plus has also been introduced in GCF Of course in in the context of the GCF the red plus has been introduced just now to look at the mitigation However, I think we have other elements which can also be Done by the countries in terms of other areas like increasing in terms of the livelihood of the country and then Communities and region people's health. So these are some of the areas that we have been also trying to see how Can be incorporated within the GCF portfolio for the red plus The red plus project was launched in GCF to some in sometimes in 2017 with the Funding size of about 500 million project based on the first-come-first service kind of a thing for the countries to access the fund Just now the one of the areas that the GCF is also focusing is to some extent from our own perspective It is also a learning perspective for for member countries who are trying to get access from the GCF We feel that there are lots of areas which is also already happening in the red plus by different donors and different Export agencies in terms of the support to different countries. For instance in my own country We have already now started quite a lot of assessment and we are now we have our own Sys red plus strategy, which is is again needs to be implemented My personal As a member of the board and also having been in this process I for last two years, I feel that Member countries who are also trying to get access through the red plus has to be be kind of proactive for especially for accessing this fund from the GCF But at the same time, I think some of the member countries are also quite advanced in terms of their own developments in the red plus so this is what the the Challenges that we we are facing especially in the the LDC countries among the Developing countries in terms of the red plus. I just wanted to cite one one critical area of Support that the Bhutan in particular is looking forward in terms of getting the support is like in terms of Trying to implement their own strategies of dread plus we have now already done the the develop the the this the red plus strategy through the the forest carbon partnership fund which was Allocated to Bhutan But saying this one of the area that Bhutan also Has in terms of the challenges is the especially like many other developing countries from the among developing especially the LDCs The challenges is the expertise within the the red plus one of the Even within the GCF context We have we are also trying to Clarify in terms of the the so many Definition in terms of criteria that has been put forward For instance now we are trying to say we have this so-called paradigm shift which is required But we we are also not very sure what it means in terms of the paradigm shift There are different views that is being expressed. So these are some of the from the the GCF and the convention point of view, which is also very much Confusing for the member countries. These are some of the challenges But this is also to my view is an the opportunity for country to look at how it is being viewed and how it is Being implemented in the the context of rest plus So Finally I I have not much to say as I was saying but I just I have come here to just to give The moral support of being a board member Representing LDC so I'd like to stop here and I do not want to delay any further and not speak much on the red plus Since we have experts who are they're here to deal on the on the red issue. Thank you very much Thank you so much To get that perspective that of GLF which is really Going to be the the kind of the main funding arm of of UNFCC next speaker is Amy You must switch a little bit to because Joe's Presentation will partly build on what Amy so Amy's a senior scientist at C4 She has been working on particularly M2 the module 2 that has tracked starting with 23 Red projects and now we're doing a third wave of not a full 23 a third wave of Data collection on that Great. Hi. I'm Amy Duchel as Arald said from C4 and I want to thank you all for being here tonight after a long day What I'm going to talk about today is understanding what works in forest-based climate change mitigation From some of our experiences at C4 over the last 10 years So as all of us know who are here today We cannot stay below 1.5 degrees warming without forests protection of forests recovery of forests and sustainable forest management and what we really want to know is You know what have different types of forest-based mitigation actions achieved? So far to inform future efforts and and we argue at C4 that rigorous impact evaluation is needed So rigorous impact evaluation of different types of forest interventions to really understand What works best where when why and how much does this cost to be able to inform to promote learning But also inform future efforts when we say rigorous impact evaluation I mean we're really just talking about attributing an observed outcome to a given intervention whether it's a policy a program or an activity so Really nice review of different types of forest conservation policies came out in plus one in 2016 And this was led by a colleague of ours at his name is Jan Borner He's a C4 senior C4 senior associate and also a professor at the University of Bonn And what they did was look at a variety of forest conservation policies Ranging from protected areas to payments for environmental services different kinds of law enforcement so command and control measures and and certification among others and Essentially the conclusion. I mean this graph isn't so easy to understand but basically they were looking at basically the percent of Reduced forest loss because of these different intervention types using a quasi-experimental approach So actually a counterfactual trying to understand, you know, what was the actual effect of the intervention? In a treated area versus a control area and essentially the outcome or the conclusion of these studies this collection of studies Was that, you know effects are actually quite small. There are not super effective Let's say policies programs at least that were analyzed here And and that there's a lot of variance of of the the effects So the long whiskers that you see on some of these these results show that they're sort of imprecise results And so quasi-experimental approaches. There's very high internal validity because you're actually using a counterfactual But what they found from these studies that they were often case-specific so it was hard to You know take them out of the particular context where they were being applied to learn lessons for other contexts and And that would be external validity And so then we tried to do a review of the red plus literature To understand, you know, what have we learned about red plus and and especially in terms of some of the more global comparative studies and things like this and Essentially what you see here are different types of studies. So reviews randomized controlled trials quasi-experimental approaches which are so those are in red but randomized controlled trials the quasi-experimental approaches and Then other case comparisons and then at the bottom case reports looking at different types of outcomes So the carbon outcomes are in black the non-carbon outcomes like well-being livelihoods tenure are in kind of gray and participation outcomes are in white and Something striking about this was the lack of studies that are experimental either experimental or quasi-experimental So the lack of ability to actually attribute an observed outcome to a given intervention But then also a remarkable lack of focus on carbon or land use outcomes Especially given that that was the original primary focus of red plus of course other co-benefits are as important We would say but it but it's interesting the lack of studies on carbon outcomes So C4 is global comparative study on red plus. I mean some of those there's one randomized controlled trial So the graph before there was one randomized controlled trial. That's Jaya Chandra and many of you might know that study. It's from Uganda. It was on a PEDS program And and the other both basically the level down are the quasi-experimental and most of those are actually coming from our work Which is impact evaluation of of local or at initiatives on the ground and so basically since 2010 We've worked on in six countries Brazil Peru Cameroon Tanzania Vietnam and Indonesia in 22 initiatives in 150 villages and with 4,000 households and essentially we collected data before Interventions were happening in 2010 After it wasn't actually after it was it ended up being during in 2014 And then we've gone back this year to collect a third round of data in in 2018 at a subset of the sites and the idea here is that you're working in treatment and control areas to try to Understand what the impact is of these given interventions So what are some of the results so far from our work, but also from the broader literature? Basically the few Evaluations of local red plus initiatives on forest and land use outcomes show Moderately encouraging results and I should actually say that when we do these literature reviews We were very open to any type of of red plus initiative at any scale But most of the literature has focused on these pilot projects You know there are strong limitations with a project approach I think a lot of us know that but the bundle of interventions that are being used at these local sites Ranging from payments for environmental services alternative livelihood enhancements tenure clarification these kinds of interventions It's important to understand what the impacts are because they could be used in in higher level jurisdictional programs So we did find actually moderately encouraging results of the few Studies that focus on carbon and land use outcomes at the local level Social and other environmental outcomes we found that well-being effects were small with a mixed sign But more likely to be positive when incentive components are included I think this result is really important because we hear you know red plus is such a highly charged Ideological subject and I think a lot of sides are saying red is great for local people red is terrible for local people And a lot of this is not necessarily based it may be based on a site Or a really strong experience, but but when we did this sort of broad study these broad reviews. We actually see that The impacts have been small overall on well-being and more likely to be positive when there are incentives land tenure is still a persistent challenge And interestingly studies on biodiversity and adaptation outcomes are still extremely scarce finally, I want to Highlights some for some new research on subnational jurisdictional approaches, and this is led by my colleague at Earth Innovation Institute to Claudia Stigler who's sitting there. Hi, Claudia And and this is promising research because what we've done is looked at nearly 40 subnational jurisdictions across the tropics and and Basically found that most of these states and provinces have made very strong commitments to reducing deforestation And most of them have put into place policies programs or initiatives of some kind towards reaching those goals And the next step of that work that's already started is actually looking at the impacts and so assessing rigorously the impacts of certain Interventions in the bundle on the outcomes that we're observing on the ground both environmental and social and they're having us Earth innovation is organized in a side event on Monday, so so please where that report will be presented So please go to that So let me end With some of the takeaway messages from our work There's a need for more reliable evidence on the impacts of forest based mitigation forests are critical We need to know more about what works in terms of policies programs and and initiatives There are huge challenges in evaluating impacts in a rigorous way Especially in terms of real-world policy and programs that are constantly evolving the choice of controls if you're trying to do something quasi Experimental the results are highly sensitive to how you choose your controls There's a diversity of interventions when you know when you talk about red plus. It's not just payments for environmental services It's many things So how do you parse out the different effects of the different interventions in the bundle? And then how do you get at the real effects versus general noise of data? These are all huge challenges that that researchers are struggling with so we're calling for a scientific upgrade and impact evaluation So really looking at the social and environmental Impacts of a diversity of interventions in the same place and this has been coined conservation impact evaluation 2.0 I think this is the kind of information that we need as we move forward Especially with red plus at a at a jurisdictional scale. So thank you Thank you so much kept your time Joe puree is head of the independent evaluation unit of Of the Green Climate Fund and still have a problem with GCS and GCF. The one is the study the others The the fund so please are trying to get me Your presentation Thank you so much. I wrote I'm Joe and I work with the independent evaluation unit and I'm going to talk about evidence and forest and what's next and Up front right up front I do want to say that I really appreciate the work that our old and Amy and Christopher and C4 at large is done in looking at what works with respect to Forestry and with respect to red plus Mainly because this is something that we are trying to investigate and examine Also the independent evaluation unit not just with respect to forestry But you know with respect to a whole lot of initiatives that the GCF looks at so today I'm going to look at two things first bias and the second thing is behavior. Yeah, so let's talk about bias first If I was to ask you what are the top few things that can help to individually reduce green house gas emissions quick answers I'll wait. I can wait by new bunny. Please don't count my time So any answer one answer flights great anyone else Meet yeah, so top four things that can help to individually reduce greenhouse gas emissions Clearly having fewer children living car-free avoiding a transatlantic flight. We are not doing very well and Consuming a plant-based diet. Yeah, and the amount of green house gas emissions that you mitigate ranges from 59 tons per person per year from if you have one fewer child to 29 tons per person per year if you consume a plant-based diet. Yeah, and of course it varies by context But I'm just saying averages and so there was there's been a lot of studies and but this particular study that was published in nature basically looked at this Experience in developed countries, so Australia United States, Canada, etc. Okay, that's good But guess what now? Let's look at what are the sorts of international policies that or policies that we adopted the International agency level to when we are thinking about green house gas emissions Yeah, in any kind of evidence and evaluations. Unfortunately, we don't talk Unfortunately about what is most effective we talk about whether what we are doing is effective So we already presume that the strategies that we are employing are already Effective and we only look at whether the implementation of those strategies are effective But clearly that needs to change that needs to change because our paradigms are shifting very clearly and very Manifestly, I mean the special report one point five is showing that our paradigm has changed Why aren't we re-examining the strategies that we are using? so Now to also speak to some of the points that Amy made a couple of years ago my own course as an I we looked at the evidence on Land use and the impact that this has so land use policies We looked at area and for I don't need you to look at the slide Don't try and make out what's in the fine print. It's fine print for a reason. Yeah, I don't need you to read it. So The the we tried to look at some evidence and we tried to understand well, okay To what extent our area management techniques law and enforcement incentives training But all of that helping to bring about a change in forest cover Are these policies effective essentially and we looked at everything that's going on in developing countries And we looked at all of the evidence that we could count as good quality evidence So the causal attribution that Amy talked about We looked at evidence that shows in a causal attributable way the evidence that's telling us whether our policies are working or not but only in developing countries and For all years ever So what did we find? Again, don't so the bubbles the little round bubbles essentially show you You know some types of evidence, but we've basically found a headline Message was we found 221 studies that qualified and these are in developing countries. So that's the one caveat Only two studies looked at cost effectiveness Amy spoke about, you know, how few studies there are in red plus that look at and there's one that you Uses randomized controlled trials to understand causal attribution guess how many in red plus Actually include costs when they're trying to understand cost effectiveness zero When you look at forestry studies only two studies at large really looked at cost effectiveness So if you're a policymaker, you have no idea what to do if you've got $10 to spend and you definitely don't know Even for zero zero to zero point five standard effect size whether you should be spending it on forestry or something else so that's not very good and Zero of those studies actually connected all of this with greenhouse gas emissions and These are high quality studies, but they look at intermediate outcomes and they don't look at far out outcomes So first point is we have bias in what we produce in the kind of evidence that we produce We have to start to change that so My lesson one let's consider bias and how we produce evidence Now I'm going to go to the second thing that I want to talk about which is behavior and ensuring that we measure the last mile Okay Science ladies and gentlemen is not enough. I know I'm saying this to the wrong audience Okay, but look at obesity look at drug use look at smoking look at alcoholism We all know that some things are bad. They're privately and personally bad and we still don't adopt behaviors that are personally Good for us. Why do we expect people to change their behaviors when they're thinking about climate change? We have to start thinking about this in a very different way so Energy programs recycling taxes for on you know for energy, etc. Land use anything related to climate change insurance policy programs. They all have something common to them Let me give you an example of crop insurance my co-authors and I looked at this a while ago and we'll set we looked at crop insurance being provided to small holder farmers in Developing countries and we looked at all of the evidence again evidence review and we found that of the 50 studies that qualified In those studies the uptake of actually fair insurance policies So it was actually good for farmers to buy it from the insurance company The uptake was at a maximum 30 percent if you basically cracked 30 percent You succeeded and then that fell off the attrition rate was even greater in the second year So unless you provide incentives or really link it with you know other social programs Farmers small holder farmers do not want to buy insurance programs Why is it that we keep thinking about these programs without thinking about about the behavior change that it demands of them? So the key point here is that something happens in that last mile We can have agencies and organizations putting policies out there and thinking about supply driven stuff But we have to start looking at that last mile. How do we change behavior? Okay, I'm going to so addressing the last mile is really this is the work that's now been done by Richard Taylor Conman Tversky etc. Nobel Prizes have been given and you're really pitting the cognitive part of your brain with the contextual part and You're thinking about how to change the choice architecture How can we change that so that people are making the right decisions for themselves and making the right choices for themselves? I'm going to give you one example and this is of doctors Doctors know that they have to wash their hands. Of course, who else would know that better, right? Okay, so but it there was a study that was done in the United States and found that there were a hundred thousand lives That were lost primarily because surgeons did not wash their hands going from one surgery room to the other A hundred thousand that's significant. So What did these researchers from the University of Miami along with Imperial College of London do they looked at installing hand? Sanitizers at the entrance of surgery rooms. Yeah, and they said, okay Well, would that help but then they also did something else They installed they did treat. They also constructed treatment groups. They put men's eyes on top of Hand sanitizers.  Yes, hand sanitizing behavior went up by 15% When you install women's eyes photographs, it went up to 21 or 22% Yeah, basically a six percentage point increase over the control group with men's eyes It was definitely much more effective. Yeah, then women's eyes. So about double but sorry When you look at spraying the lemon scent it triggers something off in your brain with lemon You associate antiseptics and you associate Cleanliness and they ended up washing their hands increased to 47% So we've got to start to think about things like that when we are thinking about the last mile So there's a lot of work that's been done in this space Think about how you can affect or change norms to change behavior work done by the behavioral insights team in London looks at how we use energy and comparisons between us and our people around us that we associate with Definitely changes our energy behavior energy use behavior. Okay, I know I have to make the last statement Vani So give one minute, please so Think about some of the things that we can alter as we start to think about this change the default in the United States What has been tried and tested now is if you change the default on organ donation and make that the default choice Rather than the opt-in choice that has changed organ donors to 80 percent Yeah, so if we can do that for example getting renewable energy as the default choice and then Non-renewable is the opt-in choice. Let's see how that works think about priming and The example here is smaller plates. Even if you're at a buffet table put smaller plates people will eat less Think about salience and the example here is having fruits closer to you and the doughnuts further away That's just easier for you to reach out to the fruits rather than the doughnuts that are lying further away and Last thing is ego. So again behavioral scientists have looked at this and in the context of Halloween's the little kids One group the control group was not asked anything But there was just told please pick up only one piece of candy The other groups were asked for their names and were asked for their dresses The group that was asked their dresses and names were much more likely little kids Were much more likely to pick up one piece of candy than the control group if you put mirrors behind candy jars The little kids can see themselves. They're much more likely to pick up one piece of candy than not so Basically, let's think about the last mile and what changes behavior and my last two messages are think about a no regrets up Pathway consider bias and how we produce in use evidence and think about the last mile and what changes behavior. Thank you Thanks a lot. So now we have some practical advice. For example, don't get more children. I just won I just wonder you have one less child. I mean it depends on the reference point I have four fewer children than my grandparents. So I've done quite a good job there and And Next speaker is from one of their partners of C4 as Namely Martin Harold who's a professor of remote sensing and GIS at the Wageningen University in the Netherlands Thank you very much. Good afternoon everyone Is it actually on Understand on stage It comes Hello, yeah, that's a bit easier. At least I hear myself a bit louder. So when we talk about red plus and we also talk about red plus achievements we also have to talk about data and open data and Transparency and there is a lot of stuff that has happened since red came on and Before I go into that in a bit more detail I would also like Amy remind us that this interest and this need for forest related mitigation is basically as strong as ever With this IPCC 1.5 report with all the information We have and we have looked at that the forest sector is an important Contributor to achieve the climate goals and it's actually a permanent one It's not different than any other sector to do that and we should really not overlook the opportunities there because sometimes We'll have to explain ourselves as forest people To that and I think we have moved beyond that. So that's my starting statement We do know that the forest and the land to sector is relatively complex To and that's where information is also coming to play a role that we talk about transformational change It requires engagement requires information it requires assessment of performance and that is not only related to things we talk about here at the co-operated to the global stock tech where we have to kind of work out how these various sources of information have to come together to give us a general Well a number on how close we are to 1.5 We have about a transparency framework that we hope to hear much more about at the end of this cop But we also have to understand that Information is very important and open sharing of information is important really to engage stakeholders to really foster participation to jointly learn and to really help the accountability of stakeholders that are actually active in Lent your sector mitigation and so that is really Where also data information play a role because we have been focusing a lot on really helping countries to bring their reporting capacities Up to speed all of red all red plus countries have improved their capacities They use a variety of data sources to report to develop reference levels and these kind of things and that has been a great achievement What we have not seen a lot and that's what I would like to give you three examples on is really how the data and some of the Data sources are be used are used beyond that specific course So the first example I'm gonna give is about this is a map. It's it's sample points So sampling or monitoring we do sampling every now and then which shows you the color shows you what is the land use that follows Tropical deforestation so green and that's mostly in Latin America in Latin America. You see a lot of conversion to pasture Africa is a lot of Orange colors, which is basically small holder acaculture and you see in Southeast Asia some pinkish colors Which is tree crops or all palm and so on so just you start into really observe land use This is based on satellite data and you say this is great information tells us about the drivers It tells us the things that are happening on the ground But then you have a look at the studies in countries on how such information has actually impacted debates and Discourses about deforestation this information is not often picked up because they're often strong Coalitions related to business as usual that have really dominated these debates So we have not really done very well on using that information also for that for these purposes The IPCC could practice guidelines that the countries are using to report are just being revised updated and that's particularly important for red plus because The last update was 2006 basically before red plus came really saw the light of day So a lot of new input in these guidelines are related to what developing countries Should be doing in terms of estimation and reporting one of the updates that are Is also ongoing at the same time is to update these default values So default values are information that can be used in absence of data and absence of national data They're used sometimes for technical assessments. They are actually also used in the scientific literature or also for local impact studies and so on and So all these tropical biomass and forest growth data have been updated and The the nice point here is it was a relatively Open collaboration between research networks being countries providing data the FAO and you're in that providing data the World Bank Carp and partnership facility providing data to actually really do a good job in updating these numbers Right and so in an area where you know data sharing and open data is Remains an issue we see very positive signs that these partnerships are really starting starting to happen and really take Advantage of all these data sources coming together and that's and that's a very good sign and my last point is Related and that's also a satellite based tool when you have very frequent satellite data and there are some data from the European space agency related to the Copernicus program where you actually provide weekly information even in cloudy areas such as Indonesia, so this is data about VL. They'll provide weekly updates about what's changing So what you're seeing here? This is an oil power plantation, which is actually being harvested and we grounds or what you're seeing Mostly is actually land management. This is not land use change. This is land management But it points out that with these Very dense time series data you start to track Spaceship explicitly on what's happening on the on the land also related to land use So we start to see opportunities to use information not to report what's coming out at the end But to really track to near real-time assess and even you know use that info information for action to for example You know assess if there's anything illegal giving a certain depth definition Using it for enforcements and all these all these kind of things So basically to sum up Open tools and data and data data sources are really fundamental for enhancing transparency underpinning country Capacities countries have used a lot of open source tools and data on stakeholder in Engagements and to support the accountability of stakeholders We have we have underused the available data to for exactly really assessing options Assessing trade-offs and really to support the implementation We had a lot of focus on actually reporting. What's what we're expecting to come come out So if we talk about transformational changes and using formation to underpin these transformational changes We have to do much better there and the opportunities are there and to this idea of more Spatially explicit tracking on what's happening is something that is becoming feasible. Thank you Thanks a lot just on time so all the Speakers should be commanded for that last speaker I Was I thought if I should ask I first introduce her as a rep as an indigenous representative because it's the only Polish speaker in the panel, but Malgo Bisco Bricks is a Program officer with FAO and and then there was the the UN red program Marie FAO is one of three partners in the forestry department So you have the floor and soon you will have the presentation Good evening everybody. Dobry vietur. If there is anyone from Poland good. Dobry vietur is good evening in Polish so just to prove that I'm a Partly indigenous so thanks a lot and first of all I'd like to congratulate C4 and All the authors and contributors for your new publications That's a very impressive and thank you all for putting this interesting event together What I'd like to contribute to this Discussions which I think it's very very timely to look into Evidence of red plus and what and what in principle in the red plus Achieved in terms of its catalytic role and transformation So a couple of observations, you know on on that from our perspective. I represent the UN red program I'm gonna tell you a little bit where we work and what we do and a little bit about it Experiences of ten years of capacity building and capacity development on on red plus and then a few takeaway messages from from from our side So just For for those of you who may not be familiar with UN red program Although I think that many of you are very familiar Because it's not a new program. We have been established as a response to NFCCC decisions already in 2008 and this program is a partnership of FIO UNDP and UN environment and With major support from Norway, Denmark, Japan, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland and the European Union It was actually believe me or not the first joint global UN program on climate change by the time when it was established In the size and the shape that it took We've been working in 64 partner countries and it's for the time being the program first through quite large interventions in specific countries and a lot of smaller targeted interventions on capacity development in more than 45 countries has been now changing into somehow Sort of a global knowledge hub related to technical issues Now as this event is talking and dealing with the issue of evidence and also the the issue of Transformational change towards climate mitigation in the forest sector I think red plus when it's when started when launched in 27 was actually meant to be very quickly Transformational but today we know that achieving this results Requires much time longer than it envisaged initially So a few words on this how we look at it and how the program the UN red program was set up in its first phase for the First ten years we've been working on a red plus readiness phase phase one And we're supposed to finish this and accomplish and then help countries to develop all the capacities Infrastructure have it sustainable and then move to implementation and results I think from our experience we can say and we've been trying to Explain this on the graph is that this readiness phase in order to be sustained requires quite some more quite some more attention and The three phases of red can actually be happening in parallel and I'll tell you a little bit more on how we have looked at this capacity development and and the evidence so in order to look specifically into One of the red plus readiness pillar national forest monitoring systems as you know data Information transparent and reliable and accountable is a Pre-requisite for red plus and marketing can tell you a lot more about this As you have seen also in the previous presentation So all the red plus countries were supposed to develop sustained and and and firm national forest Monitoring system at one of the pillars. So we've looked into a ten years of capacity development we've invested substantial amount of money into this and Driven primary by a desire to understand, you know, what truly has changed you know and where are the gaps and How and why those gaps exist and how to fill in these gaps by targeted Interventions I should also say that you know reporting on forest resources. It's actually nothing new For Fio forest resource assessments Countries were reporting to Fio for last 50 years, but things has been changing during last 10 years substantially So here's one example and I'll show this graph On national forest monitoring system 10 years of capacity building. So we looked at four pillars satellite land monitoring system forest reference levels those are the two Higher bars here on the graph and then the two blue represent national forest inventory and national GG inventory systems So as you can see there are two issues or two two messages that come out from this graph Well, first of all that there is a substantive progress in capacity development in countries And that it has grown quite rapidly in from 2014 15 up to now And you can see also that satellite land monitoring system and forest emission levels We're quite sort of higher much higher than the national forest inventory and the other one did the GG so Now why is that? Why are those differences so big and also he's just in this Similar similar message, but just presented in a little different in a different way Why the progress in capacity development in national forest inventories or GHG was so slow I think that's quite an interesting issue for us as we want to know precisely how to then channel funds in a more targeted way and I think one of the one of the feedback we've received is that the resource NFI obviously a resource intense and lengthy process Many developing countries have little prior experience. So it's a pretty much Experience from scratch exercise kind of thing Also valuing national forest inventories is not always recognized. So often seen as a foundation of organized forestry But only in direct relation to resource management In terms of GG what the feedback we've received from many countries is that the GG is not really a focus of the UN red Capacity building and not typically led by forest services. So he is in an institutional problem because the two in you know the cross sectorial cooperation as the forest services dealing with the other pillars are mostly relevant in ministries of environment or forestry services while the GHG Inventories are in different departments. So this institutional kind of a bottleneck is really really visible Visible here, but the overall conclusion is that The progress has been made and this study tells us and shows us, you know that there are remaining gaps in capacity development and That we can direct these resources that that are available in a strategic way to fill in those gaps where We're needed in terms of in terms of building this Capacities I want to show also another example and this is an example which deals with some other elements of Overall discussion on the definition of transformational change and also different Elements of for example GCF investments criteria where you have an element related to scaling cup or replication Here's an example of a of a simple intervention that was what you see on the slide. It's Panama and You know that most of Panamian forest almost 50% is covered Three one-third percent by indigenous territories of the 50% of the forest and we've been teaming up with some of those indigenous communities to Actually use drones and some other technologies to Monitor forest resources and to monitor actually also other resources the program became to be proved to be very Small intervention, but very successful Decisions were made by general congresses of indigenous peoples, you know forest protection on managing resources So and it's also a good example of sort of a bottom-up approach, you know and a small intervention that can be actually scaled up So there are a number of indigenous groups, which I can list here, but for the sake of time I know I have to finish very soon. I won't go into details I think that's that's sort of a good example of eventual elements that could be really scaled up and and and brought up with through this bottom up Bottom-up approach. So the issue is here, you know also how to replicate what's the replicate replication potential and also from a program such as you and red how can we Sort of program such elements that can be scaled up at very early stages of our interventions And I think that's something that many Assistant development agencies could could do maybe maybe maybe better and we can maybe program this better Okay, so my last two slides are Related to you know to your key questions. So what has red plus achieved and Maybe red plus has not achieved What many actors have expected a decade ago? Rapid and cheap solution to emission reductions in the tropical forest But maybe those expectations were simply unrealistic My takeaway message from this slide actually is that there are plenty of Intermediate results of red plus and also a lot of investments that has been made by developing countries But red plus countries to actually move forward with those different elements You have a number of figures here on the slide For example 40 countries are moving forward with developing national forest monitoring systems quite impressive big exercise I have talked about earlier about About, you know a progress in this in this development Number of countries are looking into red plus and flak these synergies You know looking into illegal logging aspects into governance issues several countries are making big progress in safeguards and Last but not least 50 plus countries have included red plus in the end of this commitment So I think I think this is a positive development and I'd like to argue that this recognition of This intermediate results is very important and specifically also a recognition of all the investment made Investments made by red plus countries, and I think it's important for us to keep a momentum for change Who is this? And I think I'll skip this. I just want to say also that just to continue on the positive note Plus has some tailwind and I think that we need to continue this change and keep the momentum and There are some some elements with where I think you know some few thoughts for For a future discussion, you know technology and technology development which several speakers before me also pointed out And innovations and cost effectiveness can provide a lot of a lot of opportunities a lot of opportunities to accelerate red plus Growing capacity in red plus countries. I think this is this is very impressive and also the knowledge Where to target interventions to actually trigger, you know further capacity development and to keep the momentum to sustain and to institutionalize the red plus infrastructure. We know where this needs to be happening and and and and we know how to do that You know maybe also Highlight, you know the commitment of non-state actors and I think the Marrakesh partnership the climate action agenda, you know a Private sector governance in the initiative cities, you know, there are plenty of players that are getting more and more aware and And yeah, I think this is all Good messages, which I would Recommend we don't forget about and we take this into into account and I think I'll stop here Thanks a lot for ending on a Positive note, I mean when we are discussing red, we can of course have the endless half full half empty glass discussion, but clearly pointing to a number of Tailwinds and maybe you shouldn't use this airplane Metaphors if that if you should fly less, but anyway, we got the message and we have a Last speaker that I would like to invite to them to them To the podium here Helen Magata from the tab tabba foundation in Philippines. She's the indigenous representative of the or the observer for at the GCF You had a long name an alternative Alternate active observer you expect indigenous peoples represented to be active anyway But it's dressed up server for developing countries in in the GCF. So please I Would like to thank the presenters for the very excellent presentations. I think I will just I just want to raise some some points and I'm not an I'm not a red expert. So my reflections might not be Coming from from from the point of view of a natural scientist But more from somebody from from the community So first I think one of the things that I I was looking for in the presentation is about is that Talk about human rights Human rights indigenous peoples rights. I mean the remaining 80% of by the remaining Biodiversity in the world are in indigenous peoples territories However, only 50% of them are managed and accessed by indigenous peoples territory indigenous peoples and 10% only 10% are being legally recognized That are owned by indigenous peoples. So when we talk about forests, we don't just talk about carbon and and Yeah, we don't just talk about how it's going to mitigate climate change But we also talk as you you have said Sustainable livelihoods communities and we also talk about tenure access who decides How the the land is going to be for what and when? Another another thing is about evidence I like how each of you has presented the different evidences of what red plus has Achieved so far, but I think one of the questions that I also want to see is that how has It changed people's lives in terms of empowerment. What does it mean for an indigenous woman in the Cordillera? That's my community To have such projects in in in their community And what about other unintended impacts for example? I know that red plus is is sticky sticky issue for for some communities and so what What evidences or what are? stories beyond the numbers that you have presented about unintended impacts of red plus for example division of communities or What does what does it do to in to? Reminalization for example environmental defenders Another one is about participation when we talk about participation The usual experience is that it talks about national government agencies Meeting at the national capital, but what about Community-based for example monitoring and information systems. I saw that the last Presentation presented a very nice experience of How indigenous peoples are using drones to to monitor their forest? However, unfortunately, this is not the the case for for all countries. So How and how is this going to be connected for example to behavior change that? Joe has has said for example in the Philippines We have the national green national greening program and the people would say oh We have to plant trees because we are going to get paid for it So how how are this project? How are this programs being connected to behavior change? Yeah, and the other thing is that I found well this is very personal I found that the some of the the presentations are very technical and I am wondering how this are communicated for example to communities who are actual Managers of their forest and what does it mean to them all of these numbers? I'd like to I'd like to end by telling a story that The the conditional cash transfer in the Philippines for example, we went to one community and one of the chief chief of this village came and said Because the conditions of the program is that they have to go to school 80% attendance of the children to school they have to do regular checkups and they have to attend monthly Development sessions or educational sessions of this of the beneficiaries So he said and then they get some amount of money So he said I think if we were if only we were consulted we would say Can you instead of giving us cash? Can you give us? horse and That horse should not be named Should should not be given to me But it should be given to the community and the people were laughing But then he continued to say that you know because if you want us to comply with the conditions of the program and The the schools are three kilometers four kilometers away from the village then how are you expect us? How do you expect us to comply with the conditions of the program? So instead of giving us cash give us horses because he said I know that giving us Road might take some time. So maybe horses can be horses are are better. So Yeah, I will end with that and we'll be happy to Continue You should sit thank you so much and There were some questions asked but I think you will have time to also come back to this but I Would like I mean most of the expertise is not sitting here, but in the audience. So I would like to invite questions or comments brief introduce yourself If there are anyone would like to start Yeah, there's a microphone coming Everybody and that's kind Martinez. I'm working for the global environment facility and we finance or so part of this this process in particular the phase two phase one and two of the red plus and And I found very interesting on what you presented in this study in very Consist manner give a good picture and as we try to work with all the other partners and we're invited indeed By the by the couple so the by the US people see to work together with GCF I was interested to see if in this study You were able to identify the countries that had made Good use of several funding and and could have better results because they could use several Sources of funding because in our project which I always to to invite the countries to use any kind of funding they can And especially when there are GCF and others. So we'd like to know if you have this kind of perception. Thank you Thanks three more Good afternoon, my name is roundy has shown and one of one of the co-authors With Ireland Ireland also in the book which has been launched today And my question is actually be on a critical side of things. Well, historically The global north has donated it has different sorts of programs towards the south with a long list of Requirements and so in also a very strict way of how the money is used What kind of results and also the should the holy the whole notion of impact assessment emerged from from the work of the World Bank wanting to see what's the actual impact of this money With red especially with result-based payment. There was a reverse of that logic So first a country obtains the result and then it's given the money as a sort of instantire to to keep Going reducing without actually in theory too many strings attached on how the money is used But as we are seeing now, there's some some of that logic has also been questioned again So my question is would is are we not risking maybe putting so much of a strong burden in developing countries terms of showing the Also, not only the results, but also the effects and impacts of of the money. That's been now paid through these different schemes Just to rephrase the question so it's just If we are both measuring and making payments based on results and also asking to measure the impact of the money Donated based on the result. Are we not asking too much? That would be a question for for GCF Where we have result-based payment payment based on on the results But based on past result and then you ask also the money given for those results to have an impact That's kind of double Not double counting but asking money to work twice It was one gentleman there Sorry Mark Korean Nicole de Saint-Selegeson that you can in Montreal. I guess I just have a question about the donor The role that donors are playing in red And if there's any comment on the different type of guidance that's been provided by the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and UN red was that who was that to to? that was for a Malgo for the panel Okay, there was some behind Thank you, and thank you for very good presentations. I'm Peter Eversen from the Climate Change Secretariat I'm from the unit that are responsible for facilitating the technical assessment of the federal reference level and the results and I of course we did start to talk about red plus already came on the agenda in 2005 But we also have to remember that the whole process in here Takes some time so only last time when we went Poland in Warsaw did we have the rules about MRV and then only then could countries start to submit reference level and so this is five years now and every year We are receiving more reference level now reference level for but plus is covering almost 70% of the forest area in developing countries So we think this is quite a good achievement and in fact we will have a side event about this Achievements tomorrow at lunchtime in one of the other side event rooms So this is more common not really a question But of course we have to keep in mind that the decision-making process in the cup is not as fast as we maybe something Sometimes would like but so countries of course have to wait until the decisions are there Thanks Lady over there Okay, maybe on the back. Okay, the lady over there has Center representative to speak for her. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Elias Semenakis from Manchester Metropolitan University and desert net international Thank you very much for your very interesting talks, and I would like to just ask Martin basically How close are we getting to achieving The role of remote sensing is taken even more seriously to actually being sure that the reporting is Closer to reality. We know that we've had instances where for example, I think was 2016 Indonesia reported less Deforestation than Ireland. So I can't remember the source of this, but I use it in my lectures quite a bit So are we getting closer now that we have radar data sent in those etc to actually being able to use that as a model leasing sort of You know Reassurance, let's call it that the reporting is actually be closer to what actually happens on the ground. Thank you Okay over here and we have one more and then we have to have a round off answers Thank you very much. My name is Nick Beglinger from the clean tech 21 foundation in Zurich I have a question a comment the question is also directed to whoever wants to tackle it Countries treats forests very differently in their NDCs Could you comment on how that relates to red plus and red plus success in particular? And also give us an overview of sort of the different types of treating forests in NDCs And what your opinions are about that the comment is quick on the technology We run the hack for climate innovation program and have several projects that look at the land management space I just would encourage to look at it from a technological point of view to include satellite pictures to include local sensing and particularly to apply artificial artificial intelligence to Make the most out of the data that you collect we have very interesting experiences on how AI can be applied with very interesting results Looking at the past giving us indications in the future where deforestation is most likely to happen and therefore a way to prioritize development funds I Think there are a couple of more, but maybe I should draw the line and hopefully we get another round But then maybe I can start as we did with karma first if there are anything you would like to respond to for example that question raised by Rowney on Countries Ecuador Brazil are now being paid for results at the same time they They GCF requires that these money are spent on activities to further reduce Which is not exactly the logic of result-based payment or have I misunderstood or maybe Joe would like to join Thank you. Actually, I was gonna in fact ask this question Especially because as I was saying I'm not much into the technical technicalities of this and when I was asking about the result-based payment with within my own Contacts to my country focal point Probe Before I am not going to I don't know the answer But I just wanted to ask the question myself to some of the experts here as the monitor pointed out most of the experts are within the Audience and also here, but just to get to the understanding of the result-based payment for for Bhutan I was told that it is even not even worth going towards the result-based payment kind of our system because What we are going to be investing is not much going to have a return from that perspective so when you are I think when our focal point is also trying to talk to the GCC of GCF in terms of the support I Think the GCF has also opened up the support in terms of the three phases So from that perspective, I don't have the answer But I just wanted to get some answer from this and secondly, I would like to take the advantage of maybe the floor as well as the panelists to ask I I just found out with one of the recent survey which was done by the Yale University and Columbia University in terms of the environmental performance. How is there any linkage with the red survey when you do that? How the information being When it is being used in the red Survey or something like that to get them on the result on the Performance of the environment or something like that. This is I just wanted to ask Because I was quite surprised to see when I looked at the result that was being published by this By this Columbia University and the earth science Bhutan is at at the level of 137 ranking in the environment performance and this has shocked my my I'm being asked my my new government which has come into force recently How why is that but I don't know because when I saw lots of presentation here in terms of the red In terms of trying to do the data gathering and also information gathering in terms of the sink and all from my perspective, I was thinking that You know Bhutan we are trying to fight trying to remain carbon neutral We are net negative But then when we look when we have done the forest natural forestry inventory has been done We are still in fact what we have recently submitted to the Unitary policy in terms of our sink in fact from that Inventory our sink capacity is even more and then relating to that Export in terms of red I thought there was a linkage and This is just to take advantage of me not knowing anything on the red plus but From that perspective, thank you. Sorry. Sorry for not being able to know engage in Joe would you like to answer some and I also have some additional questions? But this the one I asked or any other you like to respond to briefly. Yeah, thank you Thanks, Sarah. So on the results based payment and I'm not very sure Ronnie what your question is It's not meant to be a grant mechanism As you know, it's analogous to impact investment, right? So you are investing for impact and you have to verify your impact so it think about it and if you think about it perhaps in That context or within that framework, maybe so perhaps we can do a bilateral discussion, but that might help to also provide some Understanding and like Karma said The way it's being put together is that there is of course there are three phases and there is support also for building the MRB's So it's not as if it's Yeah, so Perhaps we've discussed this a bit more Arrowed with your permission. I quickly actually do want to go to a couple of the points that I said Helen made and maybe respond to that and I thought they were extremely well made because if you look at the evidence that's coming out So if you look at for example, if you compare joint forestry management with community-based management systems and State-based management systems The evidence and the last that there was a systematic review that was done in it on this was I think in 2015 Actually found that joint Management systems are just far more effective. Yeah, that are shared between the community and the state what it did find and this sort of And this agrees with a whole lot of other studies as well is that the impact of this if all you're looking at is Poverty is actually not very much So it's very close to zero, but also in terms of forest forest impact It's very little so it's right in the middle of the range that Amy presented between zero to zero point five actually they The meta analysis shows zero point two one Yeah, so it's right in the middle and it really begs the question You know should we not be looking at cost effectiveness studies far more and also be looking at the core benefits Very few studies look at core benefits and we have to start targeting those if we want to think of these as investments Interestingly, you're also for red plus countries. So I think it's 47 countries Where red plus has gone evidence only exists in 24 or good quality evidence only exists in 24 of those So just half. Yeah, so I think a lot of the questions that you're asking are right on the money And then the one more question and then I'm going to hand it back to the moderator on your question Peter I think on How does how do we look at the different treatment of red plus programs in NDCs? It's so at least to the GCF. It's country owned The country determines as to what is included as part of you know, if their NDCs of course, but also what's included in terms of defining what is part of the red plus and The GCF then takes that on the GCF does Provide scientific advice, but after that it backs off great Amy Helen ask a question. How has red changed people's lives? Okay, yeah, there are a lot of other questions that were up for other panels But I'll just I want to thank Helen for those observations first of all I mean it was she came in as a discussant and was listening and reflecting really spontaneously So thank you for that and I mean again also like Joe a lot of what you said completely resonated with What we're learning and seeing and and something I didn't mention that I think is absolutely important is this question of participation and And we what we have seen I mean not only for let's say Interventions labeled red plus, but really any forest conservation interventions and and looking at reviews of these kinds of things that really genuine engagement of local people is still a frontier for Implementers and those who are trying to engage communities and and what we've seen is that I mean often times, you know We all know communities are heterogeneous. There are wealthier people. There are men. There are women. There are there. They're different You know power dynamics within those communities and and there is a strong risk of Enhancing equit inequities that already exist with those who are more articulated often men the ones who are more aware of Interventions happening in the communities as opposed to women and poor households and this is something that I didn't mention that that we did see and And and and then how is red plus changing people's lives? Well, I don't know. I mean, I think you know at least What we've seen so far is that a lot of the let's say well-being Impacts are incipient and some of that is simply because of you know red plus and and some of these interventions really didn't move as Quickly as we had hoped and and so you aren't actually getting a lot of of action on the ground And to to the local people who are her really the ultimate beneficiaries of all of this and and not only beneficiaries But also should be considered, you know co-implementers. I think that's when you said this we don't want cash Give us horses. I mean I can't tell you how many times we've heard that in the field You know not those exact words, but that kind of idea so Listening to what people actually need and what can support rule development and what can engage them meaningfully in these processes is absolutely keen It's really not happening Can I just you're working with proponents? Are they happy to be evaluated with a risk of you coming out and say sorry Your co-project had no impact Amy are they happy to be assessed by You're asking me questions No, I mean I think impact evaluation is extremely sensitive And I think that's also why we don't see a lot of randomization, you know something like randomization and where you're randomizing treatment I mean this is highly sensitive, especially if you're not an implementer and and I think I mean, you know Joe is working on this now I mean leading a learning oriented real-time impact assessment of GCF funded projects And I mean I think the whole idea of when you're coming in to evaluate and working with implementers is a partnership and a collaboration And so it's not calling people out for things. They're doing wrong But understanding the challenges that we're all working towards the same thing actually and the point I mean what we're trying to do and I guess what Joe is trying to do too is really providing You know a platform for learning and constructive feedback to be able to improve these efforts Martin you had a few questions, but but maybe summarize If I try to summarize it is This that also you and and Malgo pointed out that we have increased the capacity a lot of information Is that being used to change policies? Yeah, I think that was kind of the endpoint that I wanted to end up is is There is more information satellite data are you so all red plus countries are using satellite data For their reporting free and open satellite data if you have more opportunities European free and open data sources work. There is you know machine learning and artificial intelligence I mean there's a lot of stuff that is happening. It's a very dynamic Sector there is more opportunities than what we see But the pledge was really I think we have to be better in using that data really to to get to action Now we have focused a lot on trying to report what supposed to come out at the end But very little to actually really support action And I think there's much more that can be done and we have to think quite differently on how we can make use of the data how we can use that data with the right people and that kind of stuff so That's where I see the biggest impact of these new evolving things That are happening and of course if you have something open and transparent, right? You will have diversity. That's just that's an unfortunate downside of it. If you have only one data set Then okay, you have one number if you have two data sets that doesn't necessarily agree with the first one Then the confusion starts and but that's an effect that you have and there but there are there ways to deal with that We have expert guidance developed You know that there is some things on how we can advise people to deal with deal with that But that should not deviate us from the main objectives. We should really get use it to underpin action And I don't know if you and thanks and I think I would agree and my answer to your question would be yes In a short in a short way, but I just want to reflect on few other things which were raised here or earlier If I got your question right, I think there was something about you know the view from donors And we are not a donor and maybe there are some donors in the room So someone someone may wish to to comment on this but you're also asking about, you know The the application of different guidelines fcpf and you and red so you and red presser does not have any own guidelines We are fully aligned with you and FCC process And then I want to pick up on Helen's comments And I also try to highlight this in my own presentation and thanks Helen also for bringing this up. I I have presented you know an example of a was sort of a one-time intervention a case of Panama But I fully agree that we really need to scale up and we need to know how to do the scaling up And I think we we have still some work to do on this and some homework to do And we need to learn how to program the scalable components from the very early stages of our Program and projects design, and I think that's something what what's really necessary And and then there was one more comment. I think from from Pascal here on different sources of funding and from our perspective from you and red and different agencies are supporting number of countries Working towards red plus investments, and there is just you know a full range of funding That is being considered and a lot of you know mobilization of private sector and And and private funds, and I think that's the only way to move forward to have red plus transformational and I'm gonna stop here Thank you. Yeah, we have to stop very soon Just a one last question for Helen here in the book We claim that red has provided a platform for indigenous peoples to raise issues At least race them and talk on the national agenda Would you give red credit for this? Well, I think We cannot fault indigenous peoples and local communities in in maybe becoming critical in many climate change initiatives because most Well, I would say most of the time many of these initiatives are usually top-down and are being imposed in communities But I think for red plus it has well It it has opened up a platform for indigenous peoples to raise their issues But in terms of how effective and how it's going to really change Communities and people's lives. This is something that we we still need to look into like Apart from carbon what core benefits are our Communities really taking or yeah benefiting from from all of these initiatives Thanks a lot and we have to close now because you're told we have to finish by eight last word by Christoph Well, just very briefly. Thanks for being here. We want to Provide you a little bit with some results based payments. So we have Some lunch sorry dinner Lunch tomorrow now dinner now if you just walk out the back door to the left and then you walk in again on the other in the next room there is some sort of Room with tables and there should be some food. I hope Last time we promised it and then we didn't have it but this time I think it's there so Yeah, thanks for being here and thanks for all the speakers and I hope you help me giving them a clap of hands so appreciate and see you over there


To say thank you to Wyder for the opportunity to share my views in this book and in particular thank Tony and Alan for their leadership in coordinating this project. I think the story of the extractives in a lot of the low-income countries can be summed up in a kind of folklore in Ghana, a Ghanaian folklore that is about the hunter and the game, and that's how it goes, that we are happy with the game of the hunter. We really love the soup prepared out of the game of the hunter, but we really are disgusted by the dress of the hunter. So if the outfit really disgusts us, but we want to eat the product of his game, I think it is the same with most government who really are happy together, foreigners change, they are happy together, the revenues and so on and so forth, but really are disgusted by either the perceived or the real negativities of the extractives. And for that reason, sometimes they are deprived of the opportunity to really fully understand the full story of the extractive. I think that's really the crux of the matter. So what I sought to do in the book was to say that, look, let's, I was singing the folkloric song from my head. Now what I sought to do in the book was to say that, look, let's accept the reality that there is huge potential in using the extractives as a basis for sort of catalyzing development and transformation in these regions. And that, I mean, the transformative power that is inherent in the extractive actually depends on the kind of regulations that you have. So in effect, what I argue is that the heart of the transformative role of resource exploitation is an effective regulatory framework. So I guess that's the key thing. And I am not going to bore you with definitions of what a regulation is in order because it's all in the books. But suffice it to say that they are just the rules of the game. And of course, if you come up with a regulation, you expect to influence the eventual outcome. And that a well-functioning regulatory system must be balanced. It must have accountability, transparency, and consistency. Now again, we all know the benefit of effective regulatory framework because obviously it will guide the promotion of investment in the sector. It will also help establish procedures and help manage the utilization of the resources. So basically there are benefits in using regulation as tool for resource transformation. So basically that's what we're looking at. Now let me focus on Ghana. I am sure people know Ghana. I mean, for those who have read history, you knew Ghana first as gold coasts, just reflecting the perceived insatiable amount of gold that was there. I don't know whether it is true or not. But suffice it to say that Ghana is a resource rich. It's known for gold, bauxite, manganese, and diamonds, and other industrial minerals. In fact, in about 10 years ago, the European Union provided some resources to government to do a broad airborne geophysical studies which actually came up with a number of other minerals which were previously unknown, I think about 28 of them. So the potential is quite great. But I think also that for Ghana, there has been a bit of exaggeration of how much the minerals really support the economy. They do support the economy, but how many minerals we have and how it affects the economy. For instance, if you look at the four major minerals that have been mined, that is bauxite, gold, manganese, and diamond, over the years at commercial rates, you see that gold constitute about 95% of the value. So the total value of the minerals is dominated by gold. So effectively, we are a mono-mineral economy, if you like, in terms of value. But that is not to say that gold is not a significant mineral there. In the last about 30 years or so, we have the mineral sector bringing in close to 17 billion in investment to Ghana and still the leader in attracting investment into the country. In terms of production, we know that for Africa, it is number two South Africa. And then it has also been oscillating between eight to 11 in terms of the world leg. I also am careful about exaggeration because sometimes we are number two to South Africa. But until recently, if you saw the gap between the amount of gold produced by South Africa and that produced by Ghana, it would sound like children who wrote exams, one got 87, the other got 28. 87 was first, 28 was second. And so you go out to say, mommy, I was second in class, you know, the gap is quite big. But of course, unfortunately, unfortunately, it's closing up slowly because South Africa's good production has been going down. So that's what it is. And in terms of revenue, you know, over the years, it's moving. In fact, if you look at the data from the 1980s, you realize how much the mineral sector has been contributing in terms of internal revenue to the government. And last year or so, we were about 16 percent of total revenue. In fact, it peaked in 2012, where the mining sector alone contributed about 27 percent of the internal revenue. It is still the leading contributor of internal revenue. Sometimes government even forget. And when they are talking about sectors that produce internal revenue, they even forget to mention mining, even though that's really the leading contributor. Employment is a bit controversial. People have been arguing that since Ghana moved from underground mining to open-pit mining, the number of people directly employed has reduced. This might be true technically. But if you look at the level of outsourcing that has gone on, you see an increase in employment in other sectors. That's an area. This afternoon, a colleague from Ghana did a presentation, and I drew his attention to that side, which probably may be hiding there, because you may have a sector that is actually working only for the mining sector. But if you're looking for the contributions, you will look elsewhere. So that's what I see a paper come inside. Let me just quickly go back to. So we've indicated the kind of contributions that the industry has been seeing, I mean, making in Ghana. This is just a graphic presentation of, you know, it's been growing up over the years, gold, diamonds, bauxite. You see that one has been going down because at the moment Ghana produces diamond only artisanally. 100% of the diamond producing Ghana is produced by artisanal miners. We don't have any formal, major formal diamond producers, but the others are, and you can see the figures keep going up. And I've just indicated the contributions. Since 2000, gold has dominated the merchandise sector, the revenue from the export sector, and the, but politicians still talk about cocoa, which is interesting if I'm not too long ago, our head of state also spoke about cocoa as a leading contributor of foreign exchange. But it is not the leading contributor is a mining sector by far yet, you know, it gets forgotten. So I've spoken about the internal revenue. Now what are some of the challenges of using regulation in Ghana? And this is where I am going to share some of my own personal experiences in this area. First of all, Ghana, at least since the 80s, since the introduction of structural adjustment program actually moved quite a lot of its policy from command and control to sort of new liberal system. So and part of it specifically for the mining sector was to come out with new regulations, new laws that sort to attract investors. And so and the effect is what we have seen. Now the challenges that we see now, first, and I'm just going to limit myself to about four of them, multiple regulations, the mining sector is the only sector that is quite heavily regulated in Ghana, and I believe in most part of Africa. In Ghana, there are at least six institutions that regulates the mining sector. And obviously, when you have multiple institutions regulating the sector, the tendency for conflict is quite obvious. And, you know, so and you see that I share one example, in fact, there had been serious fight between the Minerals Commission, which I heard it, and the EPA, the over the management, the regulation of tailings down. The Minerals Commission thinks that it's got the regulatory rights on tailings down. The EPA thinks it has to pronounce on the management of tailings down and that conflict has reached on for a very long time. This is just only one example, and there are several of them that, a couple of more of them that you find in the book. Now another problem is the capacity of regulators, and I think it is not peculiar to Ghana. I'm sure when you go to most of these, most of our, you know, countries, you would find similar challenges, and I share one example. In the Minerals Commission, just before I left, there were about 220 staff there out of that, less than 40% were technical, less than 40% of the staff was technical, and out of the ones that are technically oriented, about 60% were over 55 years. So they were gradually going to go out and see the numbers are not only small, the technical people are gradually going out, and there was a need for serious attention. Another problem is political interference. Ghana did very well by creating the Minerals Commission that is supposed to be constitutionally independent body in quotes, and which meant that to get a mining lease, you didn't have to go to the minister, like it happens in other countries, you don't have to go to the minister. Your application was for first come, first serve basis, and you have to go through this so-called autonomous body called the Minerals Commission. Or it finally goes to the minister, and in fact the law says that even when the minister had issues with that, and it is not approving, it has to refer the issue back to the commission. I think the idea was very, very good, but normally, and generally there have been much less political interference, but you see a lot of, well, over time these things happen. I'll give you a couple of examples. We were in the process, well, normally it happens when there's a change of government. The new government comes and it is suspicious of everybody, everybody in the, I'm sure it happens everywhere, and that they think that whatever action you are taking, you will take against them. I don't know where that came from, but then the minister announces, we have sat nine district officers, no process, no reference to the conditions of service, nothing. Or when you are in the process of recruiting, maybe it's a non-stop order recruitment. Why? Because they are supposed to be autonomous, and we pay ourselves, we are not even paid by. So these are some of the challenges, and of course the balancing act of dealing with the LSM, the large-scale mining companies, and the small-scale mining companies. We know the proliferation of small-scale mining companies there, and some of them also working in the area of, so these are the large-scale mining. Now these are just the concluding remarks. First of all, we think that the role of natural resource extraction in socioeconomic development and transformation of resource-endowed countries is not a myth anymore. I think it's something that we need to accept. I think once we accept the realities, we will try to understand the gamut of things around it. This means that we need to strengthen our regulatory institutions and build their capacities. Politicians should allow the professional institutions to work. I think we need to improve inter-institutional collaboration and partnership rather than keeping our heads, you know, sort of knocking our heads against each other. Then of course, we need regulation by assistance, not by insistence. In most jurisdictions, the regulator thinks that it's a police man around, and therefore all it has to do is to crack the whip. I think that thing is longer. We need to be more assisting in regulating than insisting, and of course, we must reduce bureaucracy through the wise use of technology. And finally, I was rather, you know, thrilled by what I saw in Australia, where they have a one-stop regulatory institution. So I have always suggested that to my government, that let's look at that.  You don't have to travel here to another regulator, to another regulator, and before you have your project coming, it's already unimportant. So thank you very much.