Assess current country plans, policies, practices, and capacities

Stage 2

2.1 Assess current country plans, policies, practices, and capacities

LEDS scoping map

Click on a country in the map below to get a list of climate change, clean energy, and land-use programs and policies that have been added to the LEDS gateway.

Below you can add a country-specific program, organization or tool to the LEDS gateway that will populate the country pages to inform LEDS scoping activities.

Programs and Projects (1155)	Add
Tools (1639)	Add
Research Institutions (288)	Add
Policy Organizations (140)	Add
Networking Organizations (116)	Add
Clean Energy Companies (13745)	Add

2.1.1. Summarize development goals

Check List

The stakeholder group and technical teams can:

Review and summarize existing documents such as national strategies and sectoral development plans (e.g., national multi-year economic development vision and strategy documents)
Review existing policies, practices, and technologies, by sector, to assess their impact on development and emission trends
Assess existing institutional capacity to develop and implement LEDS strategies. Review which ministries are actively contributing to LEDS design and implementation and the skillsets of the staff members committed to the initiative. It is also important to assess whether this available capacity might be sustained over election cycles and turnover.

Products

Assessment of current plans, policies, practices, capacities

Existing policies affecting economy-wide emissions trends
Existing policies, technologies and practices by sector and how they affect emissions and removals in that sector and in other sectors
Existing institutions and institutional capacities
Existing national and regional development goals
Existing GHG emission reduction goals or strategies (if any)
Existing REDD+ strategies and programs

Analysis of lessons learned from relevant previous sustainable development efforts in the country

Policy reforms
Technology transfer or stimulation
Government, NGO, and private sector programs and projects

Summarize national and regional development goals, e.g., as articulated in public documents and strategies. It is crucial that the LEDS process responds to and supports national development goals. For example, weaving broader gender equity development goals into the LEDS will improve ownership and resource commitment to the LEDS.

2.1.2. Review existing energy strategies, programs, and data

A number of countries have developed strategies and development programs for the energy sector, and may also be partnering with organizations like the World Bank, UNDP, or GTZ on energy programs. These should be reviewed to understand potential complementarities and ensure that multilateral efforts support the country's process to develop and implement a LEDS.

Stakeholder groups and technical teams can also determine whether there are sufficient data available to develop business as usual (BAU) projections for the economy and development, including energy demand and supply.

Potential data sources

2.1.3. Review existing land use strategies, programs, and data

This stage is an opportunity for countries to consider Landscape LEDS within the context of multi-sectoral LEDS, national development priorities, and existing climate related programs. To ensure that the landscape LEDS incorporates existing studies and actions already underway, stakeholder groups should begin with an initial review of:

current climate initiatives generally and climate and landscapes initiatives specifically (e.g., climate action plans, NAMAs and NAPAs, World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility activities, World Bank Forest Investment Program activities, UNREDD, bilateral programs, and general climate initiatives through World Bank, UNEP, etc.)
existing land use initiatives (e.g., illegal logging initiatives, sustainable forest management programs, agroforestry activities, agricultural intensification initiatives, etc.)
existing REDD+ and forest conservation initiatives at a national, sub-national or site level
data related to forests, agriculture, land management, and climate issues (e.g., forest inventories, agricultural assessments, forest resource assessments, forest and terrestrial carbon inventories, deforestation-related studies, GHG emissions inventory, carbon supply curves, etc.)

Countries that are already participating in the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), UNREDD, or bilateral REDD+ programs will have undertaken initial analyses, planning, and strategy design processes. Many of the core elements of those programs are consistent with the landscape elements of the LEDS. The LEDS process is designed to be broader than these REDD+ programs and integrates the FCPF and other REDD+ processes with development objectives. Stakeholders can use this section of the LEDS framework to identify areas where additional technical and financial assistance is needed, and to incorporate REDD+ and landscape activities into a multi-sectoral LEDS. Countries that do not have ongoing landscapes or REDD+ programs can use this module to develop a LEDS for landscapes from the beginning. In both cases, this process maps out the elements of a LEDS that effectively incorporate the reviewed studies and identify remaining steps.

2.1.4. Assess policies that influence landscape emissions, including land use, governance, and forest and agricultural policy

This stage should be stakeholder-led, including the private sector and non-governmental community, given the stakeholder group’s ability to evaluate policy feasibility from multiple technical, market, and social perspectives. Additional stakeholders could be included in a final review and iteration of the policy portfolio.

To identify key drivers of landscape-based emission, the stakeholder group must assess land use, governance, and policies that influence land cover and land cover change, such as forest, agricultural, energy (especially biofuels and household cooking energy), transport (especially placement of new roads), resettlement, and rural development policies. The stakeholders should also review past experiences in all policies areas that may have an impact on landscape-related emissions and absorptions. Past policies could include experiences with reducing deforestation and forest degradation, forest landscape restoration, intensifying agricultural production, and managing landscapes. This assessment will contribute to the prioritization of activities and identify promising approaches for the emerging LEDS. This analysis should provide data on land use and other trends and important insights into lessons learned, challenges, and opportunities to overcome those challenges.

The LEDS should address the drivers of deforestation, degradation, and landscape emissions identified in this assessment. The LEDS may include reforming policies that caused landscape emissions in the past. It should be designed to overcome the challenges and issues that led to underperformance in previous programs.

Questions, steps and products for land-use sector policy assessment

	Key Questions	Check List	Product
Assessing policies that may influence landscapes emissions and absorptions, including land use, governance, forest and agricultural policy	What land use, governance, forest and agricultural policies cause landscape-based emission and absorptions? What policies and economic drivers create incentives for high-carbon land use? What different ministries and agencies are involved in land use decisions? Who are the agents of deforestation and degradation, and the actors affected by this activity? What past experiences with reducing deforestation and forest degradation, intensifying agricultural production, managing landscapes and restoring forests offer important insights into lessons learned, challenges and promising approaches for landscape LEDS?	Identify proximate causes of landscape emissions including sanctioned and unsanctioned activities Identify underlying drivers of landscape emissions Identify experience with, and opportunities for, forest landscape restoration Identify possible interventions including programs, policy reforms and other activities that would resolve these drivers of emissions or encourage forest landscape restoration Assess the economic, political, environmental and social implications of different possible interventions Review past efforts and lessons learned from this and other countries Develop a common vision of priority drivers and interventions to address those drivers. At this stage the list of potential interventions can be overly-comprehensive, and can be further refined as the plan is developed.	Identification of causes of landscape emissions including policies and governance conditions Prioritization of interventions that address causes of landscape emissions