Background Paper: REDD+ Benefit Sharing in Ghana

The submission of Ghana’s Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PP) in December 2009 and with its subsequent revision a year later indicates Ghana’s commitment to REDD+ implementation. Although considerable progress has been made in terms of developing a national REDD+ strategy, capacity building and project piloting, there are challenges to key issues such as development of a benefit sharing scheme, carbon rights definition, land and tree tenure and gender mainstreaming. These and other relevant issues have dominated the REDD+ implementation discourse. This background paper provides an overview of REDD+ progress in Ghana, review existing policy and pilot projects in benefit sharing, presents key challenges to REDD+ benefit sharing implementation, and proposes actions for addressing the challenges. It will also serve as a reference document for all participants of the upcoming dialogue to understand current discussions on Benefit Sharing and the main challenges in Ghana for developing and/or supporting effective benefit sharing mechanisms while stimulating discussions that will be linked with previous dialogue outcomes.