Grassroots Capacity Building for REDD+ in Asia A brief introduction

1. Grassroots Capacity Building for REDD+ in AsiaA brief introduction Chandra S Silori, Project Coordinator RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests, Bangkok

2. An overview of the project • Phase I: August 2009 to July 2010 Implemented in Indonesia, Lao PDR, Nepal • Phase II: August 2010 to July 2013 Implemented in Indonesia, Lao PDR, Nepal and Vietnam • Phase III: January 2013 to December 2015 Implementation ongoing in Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal and Vietnam In partnership with 18 local organizations

3. The Goal Grassroots stakeholders in Asia are enabled to effectively contribute to the REDD+ planning and policy process, communicate their perspective to policy makers, and thus are well positioned to potentially benefit from REDD+ for local socio-economic development

4. Grassroots Project Locations 18 districts in Western Terai, Mid Hills and Eastern region 4 Provinces –Bac Kan, Ha Tin, Lam Dong and Ca Mau 10 provinces in northern, central and southern Lao PDR East and West Kalimantan, East and West Java, South Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara Sagaing region in North and Bago Division in North East Myanmar

5. Who are Grassroots Stakeholders? • Forest dependent households • Local communities and indigenous peoples • Women, youth, children and other ethnic minority groups • Community based organizations • Community forest user groups • Local forest managers • Government and forestry officials • NGOs, civil society groups and local journalists

6. Capacity development methods and tools

7. Disseminations of REDD+ training products and materials • Training Manuals • Guidebook • Leaflets • Q&A booklets • Posters • Local radio program • Articles • Newsletter • Webpage

8. Outreach of REDD+ Capacity Building More than 700 REDD+ capacity development programs have benefited to almost 35,000 stakeholders, including at least 14,000 local women in four countries Sub-national Level, 113 National Level, 21 14,143 Females 21,338 Males

9. Impacts of the Project

10. Capacity Development “RECOFTC’s REDD+ training has been instrumental for me to establish myself as a resource person in the field of climate change and REDD+ in the country - Mr. BholaKhatiwoda, Chairperson of COFSUN, Nepal For me, the project gave me change to develop my capacity not only as a trainer but also in developing a series of training program related to REDD+: Ms. Kusdamayanti, Senior Trainer from CFET The cascading approach seems to be the new trend for implementing projects, successfully involving the multiple stakeholders in capacity building. This approach is now being reproduced by other organizations as it seems to work well - FECOFUN, focal person for REDD+, Nepal

11. Dissemination of capacity development products on REDD+ • Almost 4,000 downloads of various training materials and products • Free, Prior, and Informed Consent in REDD+: A Guidebook on Principles and Approaches for Policy and Project Development • Putting Free, Prior, and Informed Consent into Practice in REDD+ Initiatives: A Training Manual • Climate Change, Forests, and You: A Q&A handbook for grassroots facilitator • A Training of Trainers Manual for REDD+ for National and Sub-national-level Facilitators • A Training of Trainers Manual for REDD+ for Community-level Facilitators • Gender in REDD+: A Q&A handbook for grassroots facilitators We really appreciate being able to build upon some of the Grassroots Capacity Building for REDD+ training material, and distributing the REDD+ Q&A leaflet in the Lao language. It was highly appreciated by the Lao participants - Peter Stephen Forest Management and Climate Change Advisor to USAID funded Lowering Emission in Asia’s Forest (LEAF) Program

12. Partnership engagement “Through partnership under the grassroots project, HIMAWANTI was benefited a lot, as it helped us to enrich our institutional capacity on REDD+ and climate change and empowered knowledge of our facilitators: Rama Paudel, a Grassroots Facilitator of HIMWANTI in Sarlahi, Nepal YAKOBI has learned and benefited institutionally through partnership with RECOFTC, as a professional organization. Our capacity building and project administration skills have improved substantially and this has opened up ways for us in future too- Representative of YAKOBI, Indonesia.

13. Real life/behaviour changes More trees have been planted and less illegal cutting occurs now, since more people are aware of climate change issues. Women still discuss about climate change, while they walk to forest (outside of the preacher’s meetings) - a group of women's preachers from Andorejo village, East Java, Indonesia

14. Way Forward • Increased focus on capacity development on REDD+ safeguards • Specific capacity development programs on climate change and REDD+ for women stakeholders • Documenting key concerns and aspirations of grassroots stakeholders on climate change and REDD+ • Establishing vertical and horizontal networks and feedback loop to communicate grassroots' concerns to policy makers and other key stakeholders • Through local networks, contribute to ongoing discourses on REDD+ and climate change in project countries • Bringing stories of change from the field and disseminating them

15. THANK YOU Learn more about the project through http://www.recoftc.org/site/resources/Grassroots-Capacity-Building-for-REDD-/ Contact us via: REDDgrassroots@recoftc.org