Land-use finance mapping in Côte d’Ivoire

3.1 Stakeholder involvement

• Project implementers (the EU REDD Facility and Climate Policy Initiative) worked with Impactum, a well-networked national NGO, which facilitated key contacts in ministries and supported data collection and stakeholder engagement from Abidjan.
• The project team worked directly with two senior analysts from the Ministry of Budget, who were appointed to support the study. This collaboration was essential to understand the scope and quality of available data, as well as request the right sets of data from the national budget information system.
• The project benefited from the existence of multistakeholder thematic working groups in charge of the drafting of the National REDD+ Strategy. These groups were mobilised to elaborate the typology and support data interpretation.
• A study committee was established to guide the study approach and assist with data collection and interpretation. Members included representatives from the REDD+ unit, key line ministries and National REDD+ Strategy working groups, civil society and donors.
• Donors were engaged through their donor coordination group on environment. The French Development Agency (AFD), which was leading the group, facilitated data exchange.

3.2 Typology development

The study used a phased approach to develop the typology for the land-use finance mapping exercise:

1. First, stakeholders identified policy areas relevant to REDD+. These were drawn from policy areas covered in the National REDD+ Strategy. Some policy areas potentially relevant to REDD+, such as demography, were purposely excluded because they were not included in the scope of the REDD+ Strategy. The definition of relevant policy areas helped identify ministries and actors to be included in the data collection.
2. For each policy area, relevant activities were identified. They were identified on the basis of policies and measures discussed in the context of the elaboration of the REDD+ Strategy, as well as drivers of deforestation. The level of detail of activities to be defined is a challenging element. Ultimately, it should match the level of detail of the qualitative data that can be collected about financial flows. In the case of Côte d’Ivoire, the identification of relevant activities was an iterative process. As investment data was collected and analysed, new activities were identified and incorporated into the typology.
3. Identified activities were then further separated according to whether they were aligned to the REDD+ Strategy, namely whether they could be categorised alongside the proposed REDD+ policies and measures (‘green’) or not/unknown (‘grey’). There was no data available on the impact of spending, therefore the analysis could not go as far as identifying ‘brown’ activities, driving deforestation. The typology for green activities was further structured among mitigation, adaptation and enabling environment activities, to mirror the approach taken in the REDD+ Strategy. The multistakeholder working groups played a key role in the development of the typology. They discussed and validated the identification and categorisation of each activity.

3.3 Data collection and analysis

The following datasets were used as sources of quantitative data :

• State budget investment data was collected from the Ministry of Budget for 12 ministries considered to be potentially relevant to land use due to their REDD+ relevant policy competences.
• The ministries’ operating budgets were excluded from the analysis due to challenges in determining which budget lines could be of relevance to REDD+ objectives.
• International development partner disbursement data was obtained from the Comité de Mobilisation des Ressources Extérieures (COMOREX), which monitors and manages finance from development partners. This data was also gathered through a survey sent to 21 international development partners to verify information collected and inform data interpretation.
• International sources of finance channeled through Côte d’Ivoire’s treasury could also be tracked in the state budget. In some cases, this information was also found in databases, such as the OECD Creditor Reporting System, the Voluntary REDD+ Database, and the Climate Funds Update.

The following datasets were used as sources of qualitative data :

• The study team used a compilation of project information documents gathered annually by the Ministry of Planning and Development during the annual programming process. Reconciling qualitative and quantitative data was an arduous task. An important share of project information was missing.
• For donor-related projects, qualitative information was collected directly from donors or from their websites.

Budget lines, programmes and projects found in the above datasets were first reviewed in accordance with the definitions outlined above to select a subset of projects that could potentially be REDD+ relevant. This subset of projects was then analysed and categorised by the study team. Following initial coding, consultations with technical ministries and development partners were conducted to improve the understanding of budgeted activities and inform data interpretation where possible.

The overall data collection and classification process is summarised in the figure below:

Figure 1: Data classification process. Source: Falconer et al. (2017) Landscape of REDD+ aligned finance in Côte d’Ivoire.