Assess current country plans, policies, practices, and capacities

Stage 2

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2.1 Assess current country plans, policies, practices, and capacities

LEDS scoping map

Click on a country in the map below to get a list of climate change, clean energy, and land-use programs and policies that have been added to the LEDS gateway.

Below you can add a country-specific program, organization or tool to the LEDS gateway that will populate the country pages to inform LEDS scoping activities.

2.1.1. Summarize development goals

Summarize national and regional development goals, e.g., as articulated in public documents and strategies. Best practices encourage leadership to communicate the centrality of these development goals to the LEDS.

2.1.2. Review existing energy strategies, programs, and data

A number of countries have developed strategies and development programs for the energy sector, and may also be partnering with organizations like the World Bank, UNDP, GTZ, on energy programs. These should be reviewed to understand potential complementarities and ensure that multilateral efforts support the country's process to develop a LEDS.

Stakeholder groups and technical teams can also determine whether there are sufficient data available to develop business as usual (BAU) projections for the economy and development, including energy demand and supply.

2.1.3. Review existing land use strategies, programs, and data

This stage is an opportunity for countries to consider Landscape LEDS within the context of multi-sectoral LEDS, national development priorities, and existing climate related programs. To ensure that the landscape LEDS incorporates existing studies and actions already underway, stakeholder groups should begin with an initial review of:

• current climate initiatives generally and climate and landscapes initiatives specifically (e.g., climate action plans, NAMAs and NAPAs, World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility activities, World Bank Forest Investment Program activities, UNREDD, bilateral programs, and general climate initiatives through World Bank, UNEP, etc.)
• existing land use initiatives (e.g., illegal logging initiatives, sustainable forest management programs, agroforestry activities, agricultural intensification initiatives, etc.)
• existing REDD+ and forest conservation initiatives at a national, sub-national or site level
• data related to forests, agriculture, land management, and climate issues (e.g., forest inventories, agricultural assessments, forest resource assessments, forest and terrestrial carbon inventories, deforestation-related studies, GHG emissions inventory, carbon supply curves, etc.)

Countries that are already participating in the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), UNREDD, or bilateral REDD+ programs will have undertaken initial analyses, planning, and strategy design processes. Many of the core elements of those programs are consistent with the landscape elements of the LEDS. The LEDS process is designed to be broader than these REDD+ programs and integrates the FCPF and other REDD+ processes with development objectives. Stakeholders can use this section of the LEDS framework to identify areas where additional technical and financial assistance is needed, and to incorporate REDD+ and landscape activities into a multi-sectoral LEDS. Countries that do not have ongoing landscapes or REDD+ programs can use this module to develop a LEDS for landscapes from the beginning. In both cases, this process maps out the elements of a LEDS that effectively incorporate the reviewed studies and identify remaining steps.

2.1.4. Assess policies that influence landscape emissions, including land use, governance, and forest and agricultural policy

This stage should be stakeholder-led, including the private sector and non-governmental community, given the stakeholder group’s ability to evaluate policy feasibility from multiple technical, market, and social perspectives. Additional stakeholders could be included in a final review and iteration of the policy portfolio.

To identify key drivers of landscape-based emission, the stakeholder group must assess land use, governance, and policies that influence land cover and land cover change, such as forest, agricultural, energy (especially biofuels and household cooking energy), transport (especially placement of new roads), resettlement, and rural development policies. The stakeholders should also review past experiences in all policies areas that may have an impact on landscape-related emissions and absorptions. Past policies could include experiences with reducing deforestation and forest degradation, forest landscape restoration, intensifying agricultural production, and managing landscapes. This assessment will contribute to the prioritization of activities and identify promising approaches for the emerging LEDS. This analysis should provide data on land use and other trends and important insights into lessons learned, challenges, and opportunities to overcome those challenges.

The LEDS should address the drivers of deforestation, degradation, and landscape emissions identified in this assessment. The LEDS may include reforming policies that caused landscape emissions in the past. It should be designed to overcome the challenges and issues that led to underperformance in previous programs.

Questions, steps and products for land-use sector policy assessment