Co-Chairs’ Summary: Scoping Dialogue on REDD+ Benefit Sharing in Washington D.C. USA

The Forests Dialogue (TFD) convened a scoping dialogue on REDD+ Benefit Sharing hosted by the World Bank on 23-24 March 2013. The dialogue engaged 40 experts (Annex 1) representing a wide spectrum of stakeholder groups including government, non-governmental organizations, Indigenous Peoples, community members, inter-governmental organizations and research institutes. These participants brought to the dialogue a diverse set of expertise and perspectives in REDD+ policy design and implementation at sub-national, national and international levels. TFD’s Benefit Sharing initiative is conducted in partnership with International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) through the project titled REDD+ Benefits: Facilitating countries and communities in the design of pro-poor REDD+ benefit sharing schemes funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) – International Climate Initiative (ICI) and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). The dialogue is the first scoping exercise under this TFD initiative, which aims to:

- Develop an understanding of the current state of REDD+ Benefit Sharing in several key countries and to identify the challenges of designing & implementing those mechanisms more broadly;
- Build a “community of practice” among locally-rooted, well-connected REDD+ practitioners to share experiences and develop practical tools that support effective, efficient and equitable benefit sharing for REDD+;
- Promote appropriate economic, policy and institutional arrangements at the local, national and international levels to facilitate equitable and efficient delivery of REDD+ Benefit Sharing mechanisms.

This report summarizes the discussions from the dialogue including current key issues and questions that warrant further discussions among stakeholders. Dialogue agenda, presentations and group discussion summaries can be found on TFD’s website.