REDD+ is a response to the growing urgency of mitigating climate change and hindering the deforestation of tropical forests. The simple thought of “making trees worth more standing up, then cut down” and therefore storing carbon in trees, has proven to be quite complicated and complex, especially as bilateral agreements are based on result-based payments. However, what is considered a result can be much more than just the amount of reduced carbon-emission. Brazil is the country with the most tropical rainforest in the world, and Indonesia is home to the world's third largest tropical forest, and therefore important partners in the work towards reducing GHG emissions. These two countries and their bilateral agreement between Norway will be in focus in this thesis. After over 13 years, the programme has met many challenges, including miscommunication and inconsistent approaches in the bilateral agreements. Another concerns safeguarding, a requirement to have a system for in REDD+ agreements. This has proven to be almost impossible to monitor and report on. Further, the funding from Norway comes through the ODA budget, which presents additional requirements which have caused difficulties. The programme goes through evaluations, and the government does use research in their strategic planning and in the development of REDD+. Still, there are lessons learned after these years which suggests that better understanding and collaboration between researchers and practitioners is beneficial. This thesis investigates the issues with REDD+ agreements being funded through the ODA budget, and the difficulties of safeguarding as part of the requirements to receive result-based funding. Further it explores how practitioners and experts in Norway collaborate towards REDD+ today, how they share knowledge, how they interact with each other and if they have the same understanding of what the programme is trying to achieve - and what is necessary to achieve the set goals. It argues that more informal collaboration between practitioners and experts to create a common understanding and connection is necessary and would be beneficial in gaining more information regarding national contexts before mapping out plans or setting goals, which could be part of resolving issues found in connection with having safeguarding and ODA finds connected with result-based payments
