Dear Editor,
Recently, a private group of citizens signed their names to an open letter addressed to Erik Solheim, Norway’s Minister of the Environment and International Development. The letter was intended to highlight widespread concerns about transparency, governance and unfulfilled commitments by Guyana’s government as they pertain to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the Governments of Guyana and Norway about key environmental issues – namely, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).
Of direct concern, the open letter’s authors urged that funds already in the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF) not be released to the Guyana government and that any such future transfers from Norway to the existing fund not go forward until government officials publicly guarantee good practices of fiscal transparency and broader citizen stakeholder involvement that facilitate the objectives outlined in the MOU. Furthermore, the signers of the letter urged the government to eliminate or minimise what they believe to be unacceptably high risks for misusing these funds.
There is some merit in the concerns identified in the letter and undoubtedly transparency and concrete oversight are prerequisites for moving these projects forward. However, I do not believe that the letter’s statement of facts rises to the essential threshold of dismissing wholesale the efficacy of the currently available safeguards as outlined in the MOU.
According to an October 16, 2010 article in the Stabroek News with the headline, ‘Rainforest Alliance to evaluate Guyana’s REDD-Plus Progress,’ the monitoring and oversight of Guyana’s progress on seven “Enabling Indicators” that would satisfy the requirements of REDD + will be conducted by “one or more neutral expert organizations.” The report indicated that the evaluators, selected with mutual approval by the participants involved, would consult with the relevant international financial institution managing the funds to determine if the REDD+ enablers have been met. Furthermore, this neutral entity, reporting annually to the Guyanese and Norwegian governments, would provide the results Guyana has achieved respective to the outlined indicators for REDD+ performance. The seven indicators to be evaluated include strategic framework; continuous multi-stakeholder consultation process; governance; financial mechanism; monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) as well as the rights of indigenous peoples and those of other local forest communities.
The Stabroek News article also noted that the Rainforest Alliance Programme Group was contracted by the Norwegian environmental ministry to conduct an “independent verification of the cumulative accuracy” of two previous annual progress reports. That citation, taken directly from the published article, suggests to me there already is evidently strong, responsible oversight on this project.
Notwithstanding, the open letter also questioned the competency of the Rainforest Alliance Programme Group, criticising its methodology as “inadequate,” inaccurate,” and “overly optimistic.” Such characterisations appear to be sweeping generalisations based more on speculation than on factual or empirical evidence required to support the assertions.
Furthermore, under the heading containing “need for strong and consistent safeguards,” the authors of the letter took umbrage with the transfer of the oversight of one project aspect from the World Bank to the Inter-American Bank (IDB). They failed to provide an explanation for this position but the assumption appears to be that the IDB somehow is not a sufficiently reliable agency in providing the necessary safeguards for the project.
The open letter’s seventh and final point concerned “restricted access to government information.” Again, without presenting any evidence that independent oversight groups have met obstacles or impediments to timely access of information concerning Guyana’s performance on the MOU commitments, the group mentioned two previous reports apparently showing that government agencies actively resist such independent assessments. I’m not sure if that was the basis used to conclude that this project would suffer the same fate but it seems that – even if the government, indeed, is withholding information – then it would be reasonable to assume that such behaviour would only delay or jeopardize the government’s efforts to achieve a favourable assessment whether it is made by the Rainforest Alliance or by any other independent verifying agency. Such behaviour would be tantamount to the government shooting itself in the foot.
In summary, I cannot support the call to suspend the release of funds rightfully due to Guyana. If independent reports and assessments had concluded that the government had not met its commitments in good faith and that there was a lack of access to critical information for reporting purposes, then I readily would support calls to delay the funding streams. However, this clearly is not what has happened. Furthermore, it would be imprudent to make such a call based on spurious and speculative grounds without the benefit of reviewing relevant empirical facts and evidence.
Moreover, calling to suspend the release or further transfer of these funds only robs Guyana of critically needed capital to finance the nation’s ongoing development activities. I would suggest that we wait and see how the government expends the funds received before we pass conclusive judgment.
Yours faithfully,
Clinton Urling
