2018 Conference

Individual Paper Presentation

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is a leading mechanism for forest governance and climate change mitigation. The inclusion and participation of stakeholders is one of REDD+’s safeguards, which aim to give legitimacy to this global mechanism, as REDD+ has raised concerns for its potential of recentralizing forest governance and causing inequitable consequences. This paper asks, then, how are national programs addressing inclusion and legitimacy in practice? Ecuador is an excellent case to explore this, as it is the second country in the world to have fulfilled all international requirements for REDD+ implementation and results-based payments, including the creation of participatory mechanisms, such as the REDD+ roundtable. Through discourse and content analysis of interviews and program documents, the paper examines the different meanings of the concepts inclusion and legitimacy, and extends insights from critical appraisals of participatory development (e.g. Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Li, 2007) to multi-stakeholder participation. Results show that the roundtable is perceived as successful in terms of inclusion—particularly for government and UN officials—, as it has a wide representation of academic, private, and grassroots/indigenous organizations. It is also recognized as one of the few spaces for civil society participation, in view of a government that severely limited its funding and actions, sanctioning and even persecuting some organizations. But, paradoxically, the roundtable’s role is questioned by all attendees who were interviewed. Their critiques included factors that go from the inexistent incorporation of their feedback in program design, to perceiving that the roundtable is an instrument that only legitimizes ideas that follow government agendas. Conclusions suggest that if governance seeks to find solutions that respond to local perspectives and needs, it should consider not only power differentials but different development aims and ideas of what wellbeing is. (empirical research results presentation)