Lao PDR Enhancing Access to Benefits while Lowering Carbon Emissions

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The Lao PDR has historically been the most heavily forested country in Southeast Asia, and the forest sector remains important to the national and especially rural economy. Much of Lao PDR’s rural population remain dependent on nearby forests for their daily subsistence as crucial resources. Despite the importance of the forestry sector for the country’s economy and people’s livelihoods significant deforestation and forest degradation has taken place due to land clearing for agriculture, infrastructure development, and other non-forest land uses, and high rates of logging, both authorized and unauthorized. The Government of Lao PDR has long focused on issues of forest management and how best to address deforestation and forest degradation over the years as an important issue in national development. The proposed Enhancing Access to Benefits while Lowering Emission (EnABLE) grant will seek to enhance participation and benefit-sharing of most disadvantaged groups of eligible beneficiaries of the Emission Reduction Program (ERP)'s Benefit Sharing Plan (BSP) in Lao PDR. ERP provides results-based payments for emission reductions, financed by the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). In Lao PDR, the Northern Laos Emission Reductions Payments Project (P165751) referred to by the government as the Northern Lao Governance, Forest Landscapes and Livelihood (GFLL) project is allocated with US$ 42 million and became effective in December 2021. It covers six northern provinces, an area of 8.1 million hectares, and is home to an estimated 1.5 million people. 77 percent of the ER payments will be allocated to communities (90 percent of the 77%). According to the BSP, the Village Development Committee (VDC) will receive allocations from the district level offices, which will be partly used to cover operational cost, and the rest to be channeled for benefit sharing to communities. All activities will be identified and included in a Community Action Plan to be developed in a participatory manner under the GFLL.EnABLE will provide support for BSP implementation in selected remote villages of three out of six ERP provinces, with particular emphasis on inclusion of most disadvantaged groups of these communities and members, including non Lao-Tai groups and women, by improving capacity of the key stakeholders and to provide directly support to the target communities. The grant includes three components, as follows: 1) Improving awareness and capacity of key GFLL stakeholders; 2) Support to remote communities' benefits from emission reductions, and; 3) Project management and monitoring and evaluation.