Social and Environmental Soundness (SES)

REDD+ success depends on equitable engagement of community stakeholders, as here in Nepal.
Photo: Paula J. Williams

REDD+ will only succeed if activities are feasible, sustainable and sound from a financial, social and environmental perspective. As such, then REDD+ needs to address a range of issues, including land and carbon tenure, gender, human rights, democracy, governance, and benefit sharing. REDD+ must equitably engage many stakeholders, especially local communities, living in, or near, forests, but also private sector actors who drive deforestation. International agencies have agreed that REDD+ initiatives should "do no harm" to forest communities or the environment, but many advocate that REDD+ should do more, i.e., "do good" by reducing poverty or improving biodiversity conservation. REDD+ brings risks and opportunities for rural populations, especially indigenous peoples, and needs social and environmental safeguards, standards, and guidelines to manage those risks. FCMC will assist USAID to assess best practices and develop SES guidelines and training applicable to a range of USAID-supported activities, and support work on impact assessment, monitoring, reporting, and verification of social and environmental costs, benefits, and impacts. FCMC will undertake this challenge by supporting REDD+ stakeholder consultation processes and testing SES standards at various levels, while enhancing capacity among various stakeholders and within regional institutions.

The concept of "social and environmental soundness" encompasses a range of different issues, approaches, methodologies, interventions and monitoring. This approach includes the establishment of safeguard policies, identification of tools and methods, best practices standards and assessment of impacts, as well as utilization of participatory and inclusive approaches to the identification, design, appraisal, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of interventions and broad stakeholder engagement. It is vital that all activities ensure the equitable participation of stakeholders, including often marginalized populations such as women, the poor, vulnerable groups and indigenous peoples. Moreover, it is important that the social and environmental dimensions be well-integrated with each other, rather than considered as separate elements. The environmental and biodiversity issues of REDD+ will receive additional attention, in terms of the analysis of issues and development of training materials, to be done under this Task.

Although SES is one of the five main tasks of the FCMC Program, it also must be seen as a cross-cutting issue that is interwoven into all Program activities. The efforts to be conducted under the other Tasks need to be socially and environmentally sound, based upon broad stakeholder engagement and consensus building, including local community participation. All FCMC activities need to be gender sensitive, and wherever relevant, support the active participation and engagement of women.

Full List of SES Documents: