The Sixth Meeting of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) Participants Committee opened here yesterday with Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud highlighting government’s concerns about process, questioning whether other countries face the same level of scrutiny as Guyana.
Guyana is participating in the FCPF, a World Bank fund to pay for protecting forests. The FCPF assists developing countries in their efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) by providing value to standing forests. By creating economic value for tropical forests, the facility seeks to help developing countries generate new revenue for poverty alleviation while maintaining the natural benefits such as fresh water, food and medicines that the forests provide local populations.
Addressing the participants at the opening of the meeting, being held at the Pegasus Hotel, Persaud yesterday referred to the fact that several countries received grants of US$200,000 earlier this year, despite their Readiness Plan Idea Note (R-PIN) being approved after Guyana’s. In the light of this, he said Guyana has concerns from a process point of view. “We would like to know if the same level of due diligence that is being applied to Guyana was also applied to these other partners. After all, we constantly talk of the need to ensure that there is transparency and consistency,” he said.
The US$200,000 ($40 million) grant, when it was officially announced in July 2008, was to aid in preparing Guyana’s Readiness Plan (R-Plan) for combating tropical deforestation. Guyana was one of 14 developing countries selected as the first states to receive money. “It is indeed unfortunate that we were only able to have the grant agreement for the initial US$200,000 available for signing in May 2010, even though we were told that this would have been available soon after the Readiness Plan Idea Note was approved in June 2008,” Persaud said. US$70,000 from the grant will go to the National Toshao’s Council for consultations in indigenous villages with interpretation in the relevant local dialect, he said.
According to Persaud, he made the point, to put other members FCPF “on alert”. He stressed that Guyana is not being critical of the World Bank’s FCPF procedures. “On the contrary, we reaffirm again our commitment to meeting the objectives of this initiative.
But there must be a clearly defined process so that we know what the next steps are. We must not be subject to changing goalposts and benchmarks. For example, we must know what conditions we have to satisfy for disbursement of the remainder of the FCPF monies,” the minister said. “Unless this is done in a transparent manner, it makes a mockery of the planning process; it also offers no motivation to pursue implementation of the RPP (Readi-ness Preparation Proposal) in the aggressive, comprehensive manner that our multiple stakeholders have indicated,” he added, challenging the FCPF to provide guidance in a more structured manner so that countries are well informed and prepare for the next steps.
The minister pointed out that the FCPF initial grant is US$200,000 and Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) awareness and consultations cost over US$200,000. “What guarantees can we get that the disbursement of the remaining US$3.4 million will be done in such a manner that ensures continuity of the process,” he asked. He said it is also important for the FCPF to help catalyze the provision of additional funding to help countries not only in the implementation of the RPP but also in helping to integrate it in a country’s low carbon growth model.
In a brief response, Manager of World Bank Carbon Finance Unit Joelle Chassard said they will take the feedback and examine how to do better and more efficiently.
Persaud told the delegates that Guyana is delighted to be the host of this event for many reasons, but particularly because Guyana fully supports the principles on which the FCPF is based. He lauded Guyana’s forestry practices pointing out that this country has 18 million hectares of one of the world’s last remaining intact tropical rainforests
He said that Guyana has a large indigenous population, considered to be the stewards of the forest and there is also a very environmentally conscious civil society, which has been a watchdog. Persaud declared that Guyana is and always has been committed to the global consensus that reduction of global warming and climate change are absolutely necessary for the well-being and survival of the earth.
Research shows that reducing deforestation and forest degradation is the most cost effective way of reducing greenhouse gases and global warming. Guyana has in the past expressed concern about the international community’s commitment to commit funding at the scale required. There is also no new international agreement which will help to create the market based mechanisms and finalize the other critical factors needed to support practical implementation of REDD, though the scheme is supported by the United Nations.
“The lack of strong political will and commitment in the international community will put at risk even the most comprehensive, practical, feasible and nationally supported strategies like the LCDS,” Persaud warned yesterday.
However some countries have been strongly advocating REDD+ and in Oslo, Norway on May 27, 52 developed and developing countries agreed to partner to save forests, setting up a common framework to monitor efforts. Guyana also has a deal with Norway, which could see Georgetown receiving US$250 million by 2015, as performance payment for avoided deforestation. Guy-ana formally joined the FCPF in 2008 and since then has met and even exceeded in some cases, what was required, Persaud said. A World Bank led team has visited here four times on due diligence missions and another is expected in September.
A number of issues are expected to be discussed during the PC6 meeting, which ends on Thursday.
