Inclusión social en el proceso REDD en el Perú: una perspectiva de gobernanza en múltiples niveles

REDD is one of the latest additions to a series of incentive-based mechanisms for reducing carbon emissions. Although international negotiations have not eliminated uncertainties regarding its social, economic and political implications, many developing and emerging countries have begun to engage in REDD. Peru, the country with the world’s fourth largest tropical forest area has good reason to participate in REDD: deforestation currently causes about half of Peru’s annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.In the last eight years, public and private actors across scales have undertaken various initiatives – resulting in a multi-level governance patchwork with top-down and bottom-up processes and institutions that operate in parallel. Our study addresses this hotchpotch and its challenges to key aspects of good governance.First, we mapped Peru’s complex REDD governance architecture and the role of major stakeholders. At the national level, we scrutinized Peru’s readiness preparation proposal (R–PP) and its plan for the Forest Investment Programme (FIP), the REDD stakeholders roundtable, decentralization of forest-related competencies, and the dif cult birth of new national laws on forests and full, prior and informed consent (FPIC). At the regional level, the study focuses on the two key regions of San Martín and Madre de Dios, mapping their most important forest policies and forms of stakeholder self-organization. Finally, we investigated four pilot projects with very different legal status that re ect the broad scope of REDD projects in Peru.Second, we conducted a stakeholder-based assessment of different dimensions of social inclusion in Peruvian REDD governance. Despite the exibility offered by the numerous processes, we found areas that need improvement. In some cases these are merely teething problems; others are deeply rooted in socio-economic imbalances and political culture. The challenges include: the insuf cient nancial, technical and human capacities of ministries and regional governments; a legitimacy gap due to the dominance of certain NGOs and companies; information and participation asymmetries of forest users in REDD projects, which can cause social tension; insuf cient consideration of informal settlers; and insecurity regarding the distribution of REDD revenues among investors, NGOs and forest users

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Peru: a challenge to social inclusion and multi-level governance

REDD is one of the latest additions to a series of incentive-based mechanisms for reducing carbon emissions. Although international negotiations have not eliminated uncertainties regarding its social, economic and political implications, many developing and emerging countries have begun to engage in REDD. Peru, the country with the world’s fourth largest tropical forest area has good reason to participate in REDD: deforestation currently causes about half of Peru’s annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.In the last eight years, public and private actors across scales have undertaken various initiatives – resulting in a multi-level governance patchwork with top-down and bottom-up processes and institutions that operate in parallel. Our study addresses this hotchpotch and its challenges to key aspects of good governance.First, we mapped Peru’s complex REDD governance architecture and the role of major stakeholders. At the national level, we scrutinized Peru’s readiness preparation proposal (R–PP) and its plan for the Forest Investment Programme (FIP), the REDD stakeholders roundtable, decentralization of forest-related competencies, and the dif cult birth of new national laws on forests and full, prior and informed consent (FPIC). At the regional level, the study focuses on the two key regions of San Martín and Madre de Dios, mapping their most important forest policies and forms of stakeholder self- organization. Finally, we investigated four pilot projects with very different legal status that re ect the broad scope of REDD projects in Peru.Second, we conducted a stakeholder-based assessment of different dimensions of social inclusion in Peruvian REDD governance. Despite the exibility offered by the numerous processes, we found areas that need improvement. In some cases these are merely teething problems; others are deeply rooted in socio-economic imbalances and political culture. The challenges include: the insuf cient nancial, technical and human capacities of ministries and regional governments; a legitimacy gap due to the dominance of certain NGOs and companies; information and participation asymmetries of forest users in REDD projects, which can cause social tension; insuf cient consideration of informal settlers; and insecurity regarding the distribution of REDD revenues among investors, NGOs and forest users.Third, we introduce and discuss options for addressing some of these challenges, including:• Streamlining REDD processes with policies from other sectors such as agriculture and mining, and improving spatial planning;• Formalizing channels of communication and consultation to ensure fair and equal opportunities for exchanges between civil society and the ministries;• Establishing an independent entity as part of a multi-stakeholder safeguard information system (SIS) that will frequently provide forest users with in-depth information about REDD processes and help users to develop their own ideas about REDD;• Integrating forest users – not just as bene ciaries but rather as co-implementers of REDD projects;• Encompassing push and pull factors, for example, through a levy that channels a portion of REDD revenues towards eradicating poverty in the Andean highlands in an effort to stem migration into forested areas.REDD can only be as socially inclusive as the political, legal and social systems in which it is implemented. In Peru, this implies enhancing the overarching policies of social inclusion in the country, disentangling land titles and their governance, and improving mechanisms for veri cation and enforcement

Diminishing benefits of urban living for children and adolescents’ growth and development

Optimal growth and development in childhood and adolescence is crucial for lifelong health and well-being1–6. Here we used data from 2,325 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight from 71 million participants, to report the height and body-mass index (BMI) of children and adolescents aged 5–19 years on the basis of rural and urban place of residence in 200 countries and territories from 1990 to 2020. In 1990, children and adolescents residing in cities were taller than their rural counterparts in all but a few high-income countries. By 2020, the urban height advantage became smaller in most countries, and in many high-income western countries it reversed into a small urban-based disadvantage. The exception was for boys in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in some countries in Oceania, south Asia and the region of central Asia, Middle East and north Africa. In these countries, successive cohorts of boys from rural places either did not gain height or possibly became shorter, and hence fell further behind their urban peers. The difference between the age-standardized mean BMI of children in urban and rural areas was <1.1 kg m–2 in the vast majority of countries. Within this small range, BMI increased slightly more in cities than in rural areas, except in south Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and some countries in central and eastern Europe. Our results show that in much of the world, the growth and developmental advantages of living in cities have diminished in the twenty-first century, whereas in much of sub-Saharan Africa they have amplified