More than 300 people from the private and public sector, as well as Civil Society attended a session on REDD+ in Africa at the event.

The second Africa Carbon Forum, held in Nairobi on 3-5 March 2010, brought together more than 1,000 representatives working on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and carbon trading, as well as participants from the private and public sectors and civil society, to better understand CDM and explore new opportunities offered by REDD+. The forum was organized by the Nairobi Framework Initiative, a consortium of five UN organizations and two multilateral development banks.

Throughout the three-day forum, project developers, carbon traders and government representatives acknowledged the great potential for REDD+, but participants also noted the gap between national and project level implementation. Specifically, they identified issues related to addressing the drivers of deforestation and degradation and the cost-effectiveness of establishing carbon assets. Participants recognized the lessons learned from CDM afforestation and reforestation projects and noted that the evolution of REDD+ would likely face similar project development time spans and issues.

The UN-REDD Programme participated in a session entitled “Land use and carbon finance post-Copenhagen – State of the play and emerging opportunities in the area of agriculture, forestry and other land uses in Africa”. During this session, UNEP Programme Officer, Niklas Hagelberg, gave an overview of REDD+ in Africa to an audience of over 300 people.

In addition, many sessions discussed land tenure and rights, and the importance of governance and appropriate legal frameworks. While there seemed to be many obstacles to overcome, it was notable how many were in the process of developing REDD+ projects and how many investors were seeking REDD+ projects in Africa.

The overall impression was that there are great environmental and socio-economic opportunities for REDD+ in Africa and for a low-carbon development path, based on the climate change challenge. Additionally, participants recognized that REDD+ project developers are bound to face the same CDM-related problems but that the existing knowledge and amount of active organizations has grown exponentially.

Plans are underway for a third Africa Carbon Forum, to be held in March 2011 in Morocco.