These technical guidelines are intended to serve six main purposes:

A key reference document for members of the research team;

A means for outside experts to understand and provide critical feedback on the study;

A guide to enable non-CIFOR collaborators to conduct this form of research on their own;

A source of information for REDD+ proponents on research activities conducted at their project sites;

A way for donors to better understand the technical attributes of what they are funding; and

A source of information on methods decisions for team members writing scientific reports.

The first purpose listed above is the...

CIFOR is one of 15 centres within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research(CGIAR). CIFOR’s headquarters are in Bogor, Indonesia. It also has offices in Asia, Africa and South America. CIFOR advances human wellbeing, environmental conservation and equity by conducting research to inform policies and practices that affect forests in developing countries.

REDD stands for reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

In the CIFOR book ‘Realising REDD+’, REDD+ is defined as follows: ‘We use REDD+ as anumbrella term for local, national and global actions that reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and enhance forest carbon stocks in developing...

Climate change is defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes as: ‘a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. It refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity’ (IPCC 2007:30).

Warming of the earth’s climate is now unequivocal (IPCC 2007:30) and threatens a range of problems including: strong effects on biological systems; rising water temperatures, changes in...

This section explains the instruments and the procedures for their use.

Sections 4.2 through 4.5 are introductory in character and provide the ‘big picture’ on how to use research instruments in Component 2. We examine the reliance on both primary and secondary data (4.2), the global database on REDD+ and why it is important for conceptualising the research design (4.3), the link between the research questions and the instruments used to answer them (4.4) and the use of the instruments at intensive and extensive sites (4.5).

Sections 4.6 through 4.17 concern the research instruments themselves. Each section will explain the...

In this section we explain the procedures for carrying out the fieldwork. We begin with the institutional aspects (Memorandum of Cooperation with proponents) which guide the implementation of the field research. We then cover topics relating to public posture and relations with respondents (Introducing oneself, CIFOR and GCS-REDD+; independence of the research; protecting the anonymity of respondents and confidentiality). From there we move to the more procedural aspects of carrying out the research.

The Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) is a signed document that specifies the terms of the agreement between CIFOR and the proponent organisation. It governs what each party...

Component 1 (which focuses on national policies and processes relevant to REDD+) and Component 2 have many complementary elements. In order to assess the importance of different project and institutional designs on outcomes, it is necessary to understand the way in which the wider context, events and relationships affect on-the-ground implementation of REDD+ projects. In addition, Component 2 results will provide an empirical reference point to assess if national REDD+ policies and processes work or not. There are therefore a number of key issues which will be better understood by an examination across the different scales of the two components....

The general rule is that households should be selected through random sampling from the total population in the village. In other words, no ex ante sampling criteria should be imposed, such as respondents being farmers or having forest income. Randomness is the only way to get a representative sample and thereby draw conclusions about the full population from the sample statistics. There are at least four ways to generate a random sample of households. Whatever method chosen, keep in mind the definition of random sampling: each household in the village should have the same probability of being selected.

1. A reliable...

GCS-REDD+ uses the definition of household used in CIFOR’s PEN project. That definition reads:

A household is defined as a group of people (normally family members) living under the same roof and pooling resources (labour and income). Labour pooling means that household members exchange labour time without any payment, e.g. on the farm. Income pooling means that they ‘eat from the same pot’ although some income may be kept by the household member who earns it. One should also note that it is possible to have household members who are no blood relatives of the family, e.g. a household servant,...