Institutional Mechanisms for REDD+ - Case Studies Working Paper

incentives for populations to engage in more conservative practices, but are intended to enable the aggregate
institution to manage the resources at stake better –and thereby ensure they will perform as expected.
In both the Enduimet WMA and the Suledo Forest, villagers decided to invest the funds they received at their
level to improve access to education rather than to offset the opportunity costs of conserving the resource at
stake. Some villagers of the Enduimet WMA complained, however, that revenues generated through the
WMA were not sufficiently invested in protecting the population and crops from wildlife or to compensate
their loss. Conservation behaviors seemed to be more driven by the fear of punishment if they killed a wild
animal than by the payments they received through the WMA. The situation seems to be quite different in the
Suledo Forest, where some communities (pastoralists mainly) already had strong incentives to protect the
forest because of the resources they need from forests for their livelihoods (e.g., fuel wood and cattle grazing
space) and because of the co-benefits they enjoy or anticipate (e.g., secure tenure, strategy identified by
Maasai pastoralists to increase the monetary value of standing forests for farmers). These benefits significantly
decrease the opportunity cost to engage in sustainable forest management (at least for pastoralist groups, if
not for farmers). As a result, the size of required benefits may be lower in the case of Suledo than it is for the
Enduimet villagers.
Financial sustainability:
As noted above, establishing WMAs and VLFRs requires major investments from facilitation agencies to
strengthen the capacity of village government and aggregate institutions (as well as District officials). In the
long run, however, both institutional models are designed to be financially autonomous in the sense that the
managing institutions‘ budget can adapt to the amount of revenue collected since they do not require upfront
investments to operate.
The situation would likely be different if they engaged in REDD+ initiatives. Village or aggregate institutions
would depend on new facilitation agencies to go through the whole administrative process of designing and
registering a REDD+ project. They would likely need to pay external experts to meet monitoring, reporting
and verification requirements associated with the project. These fixed costs may or may not be covered by
REDD+ payments or a national system depending on the amount of carbon effectively stored in village
forests and on the international market price of carbon credits.
Community engagement:
Interviews conducted for this study as well as past assessments show that villages of the Enduimet WMA are
facing significant communication challenges with the AA. The fact that few villagers are involved in village
government also contributes to limit community engagement in both WMAs and VLFRs.
In the case of the Suledo Forest however, villagers mentioned that they would monitor ZEC decisions more
carefully for the next harvesting contract. They perceived that an increased commitment would make a
difference and contribute to improved decision making. Villagers of the Enduimet WMAs did not seem to
share this belief, as a majority reported they had not been involved in the establishment of the WMA. 125
The issue of scale was mentioned by many as key to allow for effective community engagement. AAs tend to
communicate better when they are composed of fewer villages than if they have many villages in the AA.
125 Ibid., p. 35: ―The respondent believed that he participated in the public meetings, but when it came to knowledge and making decisions about the
WMA, the leaders had the authority. This belief was commonly shared amongst those who did not think they were involved in the establishment
of Enduimet WMA.‖
66 PRRGP INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISMS FOR REDD: CASE STUDIES – WORKING PAPER