Context
The Paris Agreement (PA) promotes voluntary cooperation among countries to achieve their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) targets. Article 6.1 of the PA describes Cooperative Approaches to enable higher ambition, which may include market and non-market approaches for cooperation to support conditional NDC targets through results-based climate financing.
The East and Horn of Africa comprises poor and developing countries with high and extreme vulnerability to climate change. In the global climate change vulnerability ranking among countries, Tanzania, the least vulnerable in the region, is positioned 140th with a vulnerability risk of about 50%. In the specific NDCs of the target countries, the forest sector has set specific targets for emission reduction for several activities, including enhancing GHG removals from landscape restoration and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. In some countries like Kenya, meeting NDC targets has also been conditional, with some pegged on finances from carbon credits/carbon trading. This implies that governments in this region wish to exploit available opportunities in carbon projects targeting conservation of carbon stocks, soil carbon conservation, climate-smart agriculture and afforestation as a source of finance for meeting their NDCs. There are also non-land-based carbon projects, including efficient cookstoves and clean cooking.
Due to ongoing and historical bias as well as a lack of access and inclusion, Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) have not had the same access to carbon markets. As such, a capacity gap has emerged among Indigenous Peoples and local communities, which must be addressed to ensure fair and equitable access to carbon trading opportunities. However, countries in East Africa often do not have clear guidance on safeguards and the rights of the vulnerable Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.
The scope of the TA encompasses several key objectives to enhance the skills of a pool of community leaders (defenders) to ensure that the rights of the IPLCs are taken into consideration in designing carbon projects and carbon trading agreements, including the production of community guidelines for safeguarding rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local communities in each of the carbon trading countries of the Eastern Africa region. These guidelines will inform the IPLC and other stakeholders’ decision-making, monitoring, and reporting and form a legal basis for their rights in carbon trading agreements contributing to climate change mitigation and sustainable forestry practices.
The Africa Coalition of Human Rights Defenders makes the Request for Support.
Goal
The overall objective of the technical assistance is to produce guidelines for safeguarding the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local communities in Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. In that regard, the technical assistance aims to develop guidelines for determining benefit-sharing mechanisms for Indigenous Peoples and local communities based on each country’s Policy, Law and Regulatory frameworks (PLRs) and the national circumstances. The benefit sharing mechanism guidelines will be aligned with the UNFCCC Cancun Safeguards, which consist of seven broad principles that can help to ensure that REDD+ actions “do no harm” to people or the environment, as well as “do good” and enhance environmental and social benefits. The guidelines should follow the international guiding principles of Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).
Key activities
- Conduct a participatory review of existing training materials/approaches on carbon trading agreements and identify if there are gaps/areas where the development of community guidelines on benefit-sharing mechanisms could be strengthened.
- Assess national capacities in addressing and reporting benefit sharing mechanisms in carbon trading laws and regulations and facilitate the IPLCS to attend the regional and in-country training.
- Conduct regional training of IPLC groups on FPIC and Cancun safeguards and guide how to domesticate safeguards concerning their national circumstances (Policy, Law & regulatory framework, groups of IPLCS, community association with forests, types of carbon trading agreements, etc.
- Conduct in-country training and capacitate IPLC groups in each country to develop guidelines for safeguarding their rights in carbon trading agreements, including setting a Benefit Sharing mechanism within This includes empowering IPLC to negotiate outcomes that benefit them and be able to demand information and hold parties to account.
- Provide advocacy support for community safeguards in carbon trading agreements through our website and selected media.
- Develop a sustainable framework to report on ongoing activities and initiatives on the forest carbon markets and support access to climate finance to support adaptation and mitigation actions in the East Africa region.
