A team from the forest consulting company Indufor will be in Guyana this week to engage with stakeholders as part of the independent verification for Guyana’s fourth year’s performance under the forests partnership with Norway. Government says that overall Guyana’s performance against the requirements of the Joint Concept Note (JCN), which sets out indicators to be met, has been strong and the country has fully implemented the majority of actions which the JCN targeted for completion during this reporting period. However, government has complained again of delays in accessing funding through the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF) mechanism and said that this demonstrates the need for further investigation into the functioning of the GRIF and options for its improvement.
The Office of Climate Change recently released the fourth annual progress report on REDD+ Enabling Activities, which covers the period July 1st, 2012 to June 15th, 2013. The report was prepared by the Government of Guyana (GoG) to reflect its progress over the reporting period. Since the end of 2009, the GoG has published an annual report documenting progress in completing the enabling activities, as these are described, and on an annual basis updated, in the JCN. This is required under Guyana’s forests partnership with Norway, under which the country will receive up to US$250 million from Oslo in performance-based payments for the period up until 2017, based on an independent verification of Guyana’s deforestation and forest degradation rates and progress on REDD+ enabling activities.
The enabling activities reported on are grouped under five indicators; namely, the strategic framework; continuous multi-stakeholder consultation process; governance; the rights of indigenous people and other forest communities as regards REDD+; and integrated land-use planning and management. The report said that progress was assessed through gathering and review of
