This project is a partnership between CIFOR-ICRAF and the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) that began in 2025 to address a key knowledge gap among ESCAP member states. While many member states see carbon financing as a policy priority, understanding of the opportunities, risks, and bottlenecks in blue carbon finance remains limited. CIFOR-ICRAF was brought in to strengthen this understanding, enhance member state capacities, and build regional networking around blue carbon. The collaboration focuses on how blue carbon mangrove value chains (BCMVC) function and are governed at national and subnational levels, aiming to turn research insights directly into actionable capacity development.
The objectives of the project are to (i) deepen understanding of governance and finance along the chain; (ii) strengthen capacities of governments and communities to engage equitably; and (iii) foster regional learning through a learning package, an e-course in English and Bahasa Indonesia, and regional knowledge-sharing events.
Tag: benefit sharing
Follow the money: Can REDD+ finance compete with established and emerging land investments in Mai-Ndombe, Democratic Republic of Congo?
Climate finance is often considered an avenue of transformational change to address deforestation. However, financial dynamics influencing forests extend beyond climate related initiatives; forest landscapes are subject to a myriad of actors and interests. This paper examines if and how REDD+ finance can lead to transformative decisions in a complex political landscape of competing land uses, interests, and financial flows in Mai-Ndombe, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). We employ a critical global political economy perspective to investigate inequality within global forest governance. We use a telecoupling framing combined with open-source research methods to examine public information and databases on company ownership and structures, to capture flows of finance and commodities. Our study demonstrates that, in Mai-Ndombe, climate finance incentives have limited influence in the presence of dominant interests and investments in extractive activities; particularly when mining, livestock, timber, and carbon concessions overlap, and oil exploration permits are in use by state and private sector actors. REDD+ strategies in the DRC inadvertently reinforce historical inequalities by focusing on local interventions; this overlooks persistent power relations that are visible in discursive practices, financial flows, and incentive structures centering around extractive land uses. The methods and data in this paper provide insights into how finance and investments in both climate change mitigation and industrial land use are driving land-use change and inadvertently reinforcing inequality. We encourage funders, policymakers, and researchers at the intersection of climate and forests to move beyond oversimplified narratives of who is to blame for deforestation, and instead trace the financial flows to examine who actually benefits.
Power dynamics and actor interests in community forestry: Insights from Mount Cameroon National Park buffer zones
Community forestry in Cameroon has underperformed in promoting participatory sustainable forest management, improving community livelihood and equitable benefit sharing predominantly due to the complex power dynamics within its governance. A comprehensive understanding of buffer zone transformation into CF, power dynamics, and the mechanisms through which diverse actors with often competing interests drive outcomes in this sensitive landscape remains a critical gap in existing literature. This study applies a novel Power-interest-outcome (PIO) framework from integrating ACP framework and the PIDO approach to assess the power dynamic and actors’ interest in Etinde, Woteva and Bakingili CFs buffering the Mount Cameroon National Park. We identified dominant and actor’s constellation via mixed-method of household surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews and social network analysis, assess their mobilisation of coercion, incentive, and dominant information, categorised their ecological, economic, and social interests and examined how these interests, mediated by constellations, shape CF outcomes.
Findings revealed three actor constellation-driven contested CF governance process dominated by State-Donor constellation which mobilises coercion, incentives and dominant information for their ecological interest, resulting to a moderate-positive ecological outcome. Economic and social outcomes are constrained by elite capture, with communities receiving less than 10% of intended revenue, while reinforced customary elite legitimacy hindered their participation, demonstrating that dominant actors strategically shape CF outcomes, marginalising community priorities. Theoretically, this paper advances ACP by integrating actor-interest-outcome dynamics. Practically, it highlights policies to address livelihood and elite capture concerns. Future research should explore longitudinal power shifts and comparative analyses across governance contexts.
Rooting impactful forest carbon benefit sharing in local definitions and understandings: Lessons learned from Vietnam
Forest carbon markets are increasingly promoted as a potential solution to reduce emissions and help countries meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement. However, concerns persist among key stakeholders – particularly Indigenous Peoples and local communities – about the extent to which they will benefit from these initiatives. Central to the debate is the question of benefit sharing: who should benefit and how should those benefits be distributed? In countries like Vietnam, this remains a pressing issue for policymakers, practitioners and local communities alike.
Various governments and carbon standard-setting bodies have developed guidelines of an ‘effective’ benefit-sharing mechanism. However, these frameworks are often top-down, heavily influenced by Western norms and disconnected from the lived realities and perceptions of local stakeholders. Using Vietnam as a case study, this paper explores how local actors conceptualize and define impactful benefit-sharing mechanisms. Our findings highlight a significant disconnect between international frameworks and local communities’ daily experiences and values. The paper argues for a re-grounding of benefit-sharing concepts that are responsive to multi-scalar perspectives and rooted in local understandings of fairness and impact. Only through such an approach can benefit-sharing mechanisms be considered truly just and effective.