Background to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility

Developing and industrialized countries have requested the World Bank to explore a framework for piloting activities that would reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation using a system of policy approaches and performance-based payments. The proposed framework is called the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) will assist developing countries in their efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation - called REDD - by providing value to standing forests.

The new Forest Carbon Partnership Facility is designed to set the stage for a large-scale system of incentives for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, providing a fresh source of financing for the sustainable use of forest resources and biodiversity conservation, and for themore than 1.2 billion people who depend to varying degrees on forests for their livelihoods.

The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility will build the capacity of developing countries in tropical and subtropical regions to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and to tap into any future system of positive incentives for REDD. In some of these countries, the FCPF will also help reduce the rate of deforestation and forest degradation by providing an incentive per ton of carbon dioxide of emissions reduced through specific Emission Reductions Programs targeting the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation.