Will REDD+ safeguards mitigate corruption? Qualitative evidence from Southeast Asia

Williams, Aled; Dupuy, Kendra

Abstract

High levels of faith and finance are being invested in REDD+ as a promising global climate change mitigation policy. Since its inception in 2007, corruption has been viewed as a potential impediment to the achievement of REDD+ goals, partly motivating ‘safeguards’ rolled out as part of national REDD+ readiness activities. We compare corruption mitigation measures adopted as part of REDD+ safeguards, drawing on qualitative case evidence from three Southeast Asian countries that have recently piloted the scheme: Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. We find that while REDD+ safeguards adopt a conventional principal-agent approach to tackling corruption in the schemes, our case evidence confirms our theoretical expectation that REDD+ corruption risks are perceived to arise not only from principal-agent type problems: they are also linked to embedded pro-corruption social norms. This implies that REDD+ safeguards are likely to be at best partially effective against corruption, and at worst will not mitigate corruption at all.

Citation

Williams, A., & Dupuy, K. (2018). Will REDD+ safeguards mitigate corruption? Qualitative evidence from Southeast Asia. The Journal of Development Studies, 55(10), 2129-2144. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2018.1510118

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 18, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Sep 2, 2018
• Publication Date: Sep 2, 2018
• Deposit Date: Oct 10, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 10, 2018
• Print ISSN: 0022-0388
• Electronic ISSN: 1743-9140
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 55
• Issue: 10
• Pages: 2129-2144
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2018.1510118
• Keywords: REDD+, corruption, principal-agent, social norms
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220388.2018.1510118?scroll=top&needAccess=true