Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources
A Corruption Risk Assessment for REDD+ in Kenya
KENYA REDD+ ANALYTICAL SERIES - ISSUE #1 NOVEMBER 2013
UNEP
Empowered lives. Resilient nations. The Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources is vested with the Government mandate is to monitor, protect, conserve and manage the environment and natural resources. This mandate is discharged through specialized agencies including the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD), Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and the Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI). The Directorates of Environment and Natural Resource based at the Ministry headquarters provide the required policy guidance. Two Departments have been established within the Ministry for effi cient discharge of responsibilities; the State Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the State Department of Water. Climate Change response Programmes, including REDD+ are coordinated from the State Department on Environment and Natural Resources.
The UN-REDD Programme is the United Nations collaborative initiative on UN-REDD Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+)
PROGRAMME in developing countries. The Programme was launched in 2008 and builds on the convening role and technical expertise of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). UNEP
Empowered lives. The UN-REDD Programme supports nationally-led REDD+ processes and Resilient nations. promotes the informed and meaningful involvement of all stakeholders, including Indigenous Peoples and other forest-dependent communities, in national and international REDD+ implementation.
U4 is a web-based resource centre for development practitioners who wish to eff ectively address corruption challenges in their work. U4 is operated by the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) – an independent centre for research on international development and policy – and is funded by AusAID (Australia), BTC (Belgium), CIDA (Canada), DANIDA (Denmark), DFID (UK), BMZ and GIZ (Germany), Norad (Norway), Sida (Sweden) and The Ministry of Foreign Aff airs, Finland. A Corruption Risk Assessment for REDD+ in Kenya
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ...... 1 List of acronyms ...... 3 List of fi gures ...... 4 Executive summary ...... 5 1. Introduction ...... 9 1.1 Objective and purpose of this report ...... 9 1.2 Methods of research ...... 10 1.2.1 Range of methodologies ...... 10 1.2.2 Limitations ...... 11 1.3 Trends in deforestation and forest degradation in kenya ...... 12 1.4 The status of REDD+ in Kenya ...... 13 2. Context ...... 15 2.1 The historical role of corruption in Kenya’s forestry sector ...... 15 2.2 Key developments in forest governance in Kenya from the mid-2000s ...... 20 3. Corruption contributing to deforestation and forest degradation in Kenya ...... 23 3.1 Forest land tenure, excisions & evictions ...... 23 3.1.1 Devolution and community lands ...... 25 3.1.2 Infrastructure development and industrial expansion ...... 26 3.2 Illegal logging and forest crimes ...... 28 3.2.1 Cross border trade ...... 30 3.3 Charcoal sector ...... 32 3.3.1 Cross border trade in charcoal ...... 35 3.4 Management of government plantation forests ...... 35 3.5 Participatory forest management and community forest associations ...... 37 3.6 Private concessions or non timber forest products in public forests ...... 40 3.7 Common elements and trends ...... 41 4. Addressing corruption in the forestry sector...... 43 4.1 Transparency and access to information ...... 44 4.2 Strengthening accountability and oversight mechanisms ...... 48 4.3 Deepening decentralization ...... 52 5. Perspectives on corruption risks of REDD+ activities in Kenya ...... 55 5.1 Positive views on governance implications of REDD+ in Kenya ...... 55 5.2 Understanding perceptions on corruption risks ...... 57 5.2.1 Distributing benefi ts ...... 57 5.2.2 MRV ...... 59 5.2.3 Land use planning, land allocation & free prior informed consent ...... 60 5.2.4 Integrity of civil society ...... 61 6. Policy implications and recommendations ...... 63 Clarity and planning for a benefi t-sharing policy ...... 65 Establish policy and mechanisms on transparency and access to information ...... 65 Community mapping of forests for REDD+ MRV ...... 66 Strengthening participation in REDD+ activities and improving knowledge ...... 67 Supporting independent oversight for REDD+ activities ...... 67 Harmonizing and strengthening mechanisms for public reporting of corruption in REDD+ activities ...... 68 Strengthening government capacity to detect and redress corruption in REDD+ ...... 68 Establishing a code of ethics for REDD+ activities in Kenya ...... 70 Enhancing regional collaboration in law enforcement and anti-corruption...... 70 7. Conclusion ...... 71 Bibliography ...... 72 A Corruption Risk Assessment for REDD+ in Kenya
Acknowledgments
This report was prepared for Kenya’s Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (MEW&NR) by André Standing (U4/CMI) and Michael Gachanja. It received overall guidance from Alfred N. Gichu, National REDD+ Coordinator, MEW&NR, Josep Gari, UNDP, UN-REDD Programme Africa, David Githaiga, UNDP Kenya and Estelle Fach, UNDP, UN-REDD Programme Geneva. A number of valuable comments were also received from Susan Kinyeki, Kenya’s Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission, as well as from Tim Clairs, Tsegaye Lemma, Claudia Melin-Mcleod, Berta Pesti, Tina Solvberg and Kimberly Todd at UNDP/UN-REDD Programme.
Please cite this report as “A Corruption Risk Assessment for REDD+ in Kenya”. 2013. Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources & UN-REDD Programme.
1
A Corruption Risk Assessment for REDD+ in Kenya
LIST OF ACRONYMS
ALRMP: Arid Lands Resource Management Project
CFA: Community Forest Association
COMESA: Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa
CPA: Charcoal Producers Association
DRC: Democratic Republic of the Congo
EAC: Eastern Africa Community
EIA: Environmental Impact Assessment
FLEGT: Forest, Law, Enforcement Governance and Trade
FAO: Food and Agriculture organization of the United Nations
FD: Forest Department
KEACC: Kenya Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission
KEFRI: Kenya Forestry Research Institute
KES: Kenyan Shilling
KFS: Kenya Forest Service
KFWG: Kenya Forest Working Group
KWS: Kenya Wildlife Service
MEW&NR: (Kenya’s) Ministry for Environment, Water and Natural Resources
MMBB: Miti Mingi Maisha Bora project
NEMA: (Kenya’s) National Environmental Management Authority
PFM: Participatory Forest Management
TRJ: Truth, Justice and Reconciliation
UNDP: United Nations Development Programme
UNEP: United Nations Environment Programme
UN-REDD Programme: the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries
USD: United States Dollar
VAT: Value Added Tax
WWF: World Wildlife Fund
3 List of figures
Figure 1 : Type of respondents in UN-REDD online survey ...... 11
Figure 2 : Stakeholders’ responses on confi dence in various objectives of CFAs ...... 39
Figure 3 : Stakeholders survey responses about availability of information in various aspects of forest management ...... 45
Figure 4: Survey responses about confi dence in achieving various objectives ...... 51
Figure 5: Survey results about confi dence in several possible benefi ts of REDD+ ...... 56
Figure 6: Survey respondents’ confi dence in data related to reduced deforestation and forest degradation ...... 59
Figure 7: Survey respondents’ perception of vulnerability to political interference on land use decisions ...... 60
Figure 8: Survey respondents’ perception of eff ectiveness of CSOs and NGOs watchdog activities ...... 62
Figure 9 : Survey responses on options to mitigate corruption risks ...... 64
Figure 10: Stakeholders’ perception of the existing feedback and grievance mechanisms in forest-related activities ...... 69
Figure 11 : Proposed steps in a grievance and redress mechanism for REDD+ ...... 70
4 A Corruption Risk Assessment for REDD+ in Kenya
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report, commissioned by the National REDD+ Coordination Offi ce in the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources (MEW&NR) and the UN-REDD Programme, in collaboration with the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, provides an analysis of how corruption may infl uence the ability of REDD+ activities in Kenya to have successful economic, environmental and social outcomes. It also provides recommendations by a variety of stakeholders in Kenya to respond to these risks.
Section 1 details the purpose, methodology (and its limitations) and current context of REDD+ in Kenya. Several methods of research have been used to develop this institutional and context analysis: literature review, including published and non-published media sources, over 30 interviews with key governmental and non-governmental stakeholders at the national level and in the Kwale County, an online perception survey fi lled anonymously by 40 stakeholders, and a data gathering workshop held in July 2013. Section 2 considers the historical context, describing how past policy and institutional failures, including corruption, are an important factor in understanding the history of deforestation, forest degradation and the failure of the state to regulate and sustainably manage and conserve forests for the benefi t of all. In the 1990s and early 2000s irregular excisions of forests, mismanagement of state plantations as well as corruption in the then Forest Department escalated, leading to a loss of government credibility to manage forests responsibly. This culminated in the presidential moratorium on harvesting timber from state plantations. These developments infl uenced signifi cant governance changes in the mid 2000s, with the enactment of new forest legislation and the establishment of a new semi autonomous forest agency, Kenya Forest Service (KFS). The Forest Act 2005 provided among others, for stakeholder participation in forest management. The nature of forestry governance continues to evolve through the emergence of the outsourcing of conservation of public forests to the private sector, the lifting of the moratorium for harvesting timber, the regularization of charcoal production, as well as through the process of devolution established in the Constitution.
It is important to acknowledge that many people spoken to for this study reported that in comparison to the ‘crisis’ years – roughly the mid 1990s to the early 2000s – integrity and accountability in the governance of public forests has improved over the past decade. Yet despite this, interviews undertaken for this report highlight a number of areas where corruption still manifests. These interviews also showed that the nature of corruption has changed refl ecting the transformation of forest management policies. Section 3 describes reported corruption issues: