Summary of the second session of the Safeguards and Integrity Working Group in Africa
Introduction
The Democratic Republic of the Congo hosts part of the world’s second-largest tropical forests and with it the potential to benefit from climate action within global carbon markets. Realising that potential depends on much more than counting trees, it requires credible evidence that climate results are both accurate and fair. On 11 June 2026, the UN-REDD Programme's Safeguards and Integrity Working Group (SIWG) for Africa held its second session co-hosted with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Percy Uyonduka and Rodrigue Mayawu of the DRC's National REDD+ Coordination unit (CN-REDD) walked participants through the foundational tools that assist the DRC to demonstrate the accuracy and integrity of their REDD+ actions. The session was facilitated by the UNEP UN-REDD team, with introductory framing by Sarah Beard, and conducted bilingually in English and French with simultaneous interpretation.
The centre of the conversation focused on two tools that, together, underpin the environmental and social integrity of REDD+: the Safeguards Information System (SIS) and the National REDD+ Registry. These systems serve distinct but complementary purposes.
A registry records carbon results and ensures their traceability; the SIS documents how those results were achieved in line with the Cancún safeguards. When the two are interoperable, a country can strengthen the credibility of their national carbon markets and build the confidence of donors and investors to engage.
Why the Safeguards Information System matters
Sarah Beard, Safeguards Specialist with the UNEP UN-REDD team, opened by situating the SIS as one of the four Warsaw pillars of REDD+. The system holds information demonstrating that the Cancún safeguards are both addressed and respected throughout design and implementation, supported by the relevant legal frameworks and institutional arrangements. Under this framework, countries retain considerable flexibility in designing their systems, provided these remain consistent with national safeguards approaches, UNFCCC guidance and are integrated into the national strategy and action plan.
She noted that SIS design often lags behind other pillars, as it depends on policies and measures that take time to establish and mature. That is precisely why several pioneering REDD+ countries are now revisiting and redesigning their systems in light of that progress. She distilled a functional SIS into four building blocks: meeting national needs and international requirements; organising information around how safeguards are addressed and respected; defining institutional functions and arrangements; and meeting technological requirements for data storage, protection, access and sharing. Sustaining the system over time depends on three further conditions: high-level political commitment, an operational budget covering capital and recurring costs, and adequate human resources and institutional capacity to keep it running.
Beard also introduced REDD+ registries as databases that administer, track and transfer information on carbon credits, distinguishing accounting registries, which record credits without issuing or transferring them, from transaction registries, which manage the issuance, modification and withdrawal of credits and suit governments with greater carbon market experience.
The DRC National REDD+ Registry, years in the making
Percy Uyonduka, environmental and social safeguards expert with CN-REDD, presented the National REDD+ Registry as a strategic instrument. Developed within the country’s REDD+ process since 2009, the registry pursues five objectives: centralising information, ensuring transparency, preventing double counting, facilitating access to carbon markets, and ensuring an equitable distribution of benefits.
Every project entering the registry passes through an eight-stage procedure verifying its technical, legal and financial conformity, with the resulting homologation certificate recognising the holder’s rights over the credits issued. From there, every credit follows a unique, traceable life cycle from issuance to retirement, protected by double authentication, encryption and role-based access controls. The registry rests on the 2018 homologation order, which the country is revising, and incorporates the seven Cancún safeguards as translated into national principles, criteria and indicators. It also aligns with the Gold Standard and VCS methodologies, which govern most of the country’s private projects, and responds to the requirements of ART-TREES and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
The Safeguards Information System in the DRC
Rodrigue Mayawu, IT engineer who helped develop both tools, presented the DRC’s SIS. He traced its evolution from the identification of needs between 2015 and 2020, to the validation of the country’s first summary of information in 2022, and to the current deployment of a redesigned, interoperable system. Where the earlier system operated as separate entities, interoperability with the registry is now active, allowing safeguards information to flow across both platforms.
Grounded in the national constitution, forest and environmental codes, and the law on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, the SIS draws on national tools including free, prior and informed consent, a grievance mechanism, and standards that translate the Cancún safeguards into concrete criteria and means of verification. Its core functions, Mayawu explained, are to collect, analyse, monitor, report and disseminate safeguards information. He made clear that the SIS and registry form two complementary parts of a single national architecture whose interconnection is essential to the integrity of the future national carbon market.
Closing of the session
In closing, Uyonduka was candid about the work still ahead: defining country data-gathering requirements in line with international standards, strengthening documentation in areas such as benefit-sharing and gender, and operationalising tools that have existed in concept since 2012. The operationalisation of the SIS and its interconnection with the registry, he noted, condition the DRC’s access to ART-TREES finance and Article 6. The UNEP team thanked the DRC for serving as the group’s first co-host and reaffirmed the SIWG as a space for technical exchange and bilateral collaboration, noting that the recording, presentations and resources would be shared with participants.
The session at a glance:
|
Participants |
Countries represented |
Session length |
|
39 participants |
13 countries |
120 minutes |
About the Working Group
The Safeguards and Integrity Working Group in Africa is a space created by and for practitioners and experts working on the design, implementation and monitoring of REDD+ safeguards across the region. This Working Group is coordinated by UNEP in the context of the UN-REDD Programme. Its objective is to share experiences, good practices, common challenges and lessons learned, with a view to improving the implementation, monitoring and reporting of safeguards, and strengthening the environmental and social integrity of REDD+ in Africa.
If you are interested in joining this Working Group, please contact Sarah Beard ([email protected]) and/or Sofia Arocha ([email protected])
