Will REDD+ Safeguards Mitigate Corruption? Qualitative Evidence from Southeast Asia

David Aled Williams and Kendra E. Dupuy

Journal of Development Studies, 2019, vol. 55, issue 10, 2129-2144

Abstract: High levels of faith and finance are being invested in REDD+ as a promising global climate change mitigation policy. Since its inception in 2007, corruption has been viewed as a potential impediment to the achievement of REDD+ goals, partly motivating ‘safeguards’ rolled out as part of national REDD+ readiness activities. We compare corruption mitigation measures adopted as part of REDD+ safeguards, drawing on qualitative case evidence from three Southeast Asian countries that have recently piloted the scheme: Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. We find that while REDD+ safeguards adopt a conventional principal-agent approach to tackling corruption in the schemes, our case evidence confirms our theoretical expectation that REDD+ corruption risks are perceived to arise not only from principal-agent type problems: they are also linked to embedded pro-corruption social norms. This implies that REDD+ safeguards are likely to be at best partially effective against corruption, and at worst will not mitigate corruption at all.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2018.1510118

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