Join the AFF-UN-REDD Community of Practice on unlocking African REDD+ finance
1.BACKGROUND
AFF and the UN-REDD Programme are co-organizing an innovative four-week long Community of Practice (CoP) approach, integrating both web-based discussion and a series of webinars on “Unlocking sustainable solutions for effective REDD+ Results Based finance in Africa.” The CoP will be held virtually via Howspace, a UN-REDD Academy platform for learning and knowledge sharing from 15th April to the 10th May 2024.
The aim of the Community of Practice is to catalyze a good understanding of REDD+ finance types and sources, as well as a better knowledge of the result-based financing architecture including carbon markets and associated standards, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, other financial instruments supporting the REDD+ process in Africa. The event will also provide a platform for sharing knowledge products tailored to better address specific capacity needs and priorities of African countries. It will help to explore opportunities to support countries in deepening their engagement with forest carbon markets, that could contribute to harnessing carbon finance as part of their National climate Action strategy.
The discussions will kick off with some basic information on REDD+ process, then continue with a holistic understanding of up-front finance and carbon markets mechanisms (results-based), including its critical role in facilitating well-informed decision-making processes in order to enable the region to diversify its funding sources for enhanced climate mitigation outcomes in the forestry sector.
2. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
The specific objectives of the CoP are to:
- Enhance knowledge of the REDD+ process and the implementation status in Africa.
- Improve understanding of the importance of REDD+ finance within the framework of the financial instruments for nature-based solutions to climate change.
- Improve understanding of the REDD+ finance types and sources including public upfront finance and results-based finance.
- Equip participants with knowledge of available forest carbon markets (compliance or voluntary),
- Enhance understanding of different carbon schemes and standards (such as the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCBS), ART-TREES, LEAF process etc) as well as requirements including costs . to access them.
- Explore endogenous solutions to overcome the challenges and obstacles faced by African countries in accessing results-based payments.
- Provide elements to better support governments to navigate the complexities of forest carbon markets and REDD+ results-based finance, understand the risks and potentials, and making better investment decisions.
- Share experiences, lessons learned, opportunities and challenges on efforts to leverage finance from various sources to strengthening REDD+ Results based Finance.
3. METHODOLOGY
The CoP will adopt a two-tiered approach:
(i) An open-ended web-based discussion using the chat function of the platform, for the whole period of the CoP, where members are invited to share their experiences, ask, or answer questions at their available time;
(ii) A two-weeks long webinar series from 22nd April to 04th May 2024 during which the community members will be provided daily with a presentation (webinar) by selected experts on a specific topic as selected for the day, linked to the CoP theme such as per the detailed programme below. The Webinars aim to ensure a comprehensive and insightful exploration of the critical dimension of REDD+ process and finance, stimulate experience sharing among community members, invited guest speakers and experts.Each presentation will be followed by a number of open live discussions and then continued by the chat session on the Platform to allow participants to continue sharing their country and own experiences and learning from other members of the community.
4. WHEN
This event will take place from 15 April to 10th May 2024. Both web-based (chat) and webinars sessions will be moderated daily from 11.00 am – 2.00 pm Nairobi time/ 08.00 am to 11:00 am-GMT on Howspace.
5. HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Howspace is a virtual collaborative platform that will be used to host the webinar, online discussions and to share resources. To participate, follow the steps below:
- Register on Howspace via the following link: https://reddacademy.in.howspace.com/unlocking-african-redd-plus-finance
- You will need to register in the platform to join the webinars and web-based discussions. To access the Community of Practice, please select the option “African Forest Forum” under the field “Would you like to join a Community of Practice?”
- Once you have registered your user profile, you will be redirected to the African Forest Forum Community of Practice page. A video tutorial for first time users will be available on the main page to help you navigate the platform.
- Join us for the live moderated session in the chat within the workspace under the ‘Engage’ section from Monday, 15 April from at 11: 00a.m Nairobi time / 08.00a.m. GMT.
- You can access a live webinar on the scheduled date by clicking on the blue button that says “Join.” Recordings of the webinars will also be made available on the page.
For more information, download: