There is growing evidence suggesting that nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in lower-middle-income countries and emerging economies are facing challenges about their sustainability due to changing aid patterns for development. While the changing development context and the challenges posed to NGOs are increasingly receiving research attention, an understanding of how organisations are responding remains very limited. This article draws on 65 qualitative interviews and presents findings about how NGOs in Ghana, West Africa, are responding to the emerging concerns about their sustainability in the context of the changing aid landscape. Findings suggest that NGOs in Ghana are combining at least six main strategies to attain sustainability. We have categorised these as: (1) eggs-in-multiple-baskets; (2) costcutting; (3) strength-in-numbers; (4) security-under-partnership; (5) credibility-building; and (6) visibility-enhancing strategies.

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This paper analyses the design and implementation of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, conserving and enhancing forest carbon stocks, and sustainably managing forests (REDD+) in the West African region, an important global biodiversity area. Drawing on in-depth interviews, analysis of policy documents and observation of everyday activities, we sought to understand how REDD+ has been designed and implemented in Nigeria and Ghana. We draw on political ecology to examine how, and why REDD+ takes the form it does in these countries. We structure our discussion around three key dimensions that emerged as strong areas of common emphasis in our case studies-capacity building, carbon visibility, and property rights. First, we show that while REDD+ design generally foregrounds an ostensible inclusionary politics, its implementation is driven through various forms of exclusion. This contradictory inclusion-exclusion politics, which is partly emblematic of the neoliberal provenance of the REDD+ policy, is also a contingent reality and a strategy for navigating complexities and pursuing certain interests. Second, we show that though the emergent foci of REDD+ implementation in our case studies align with global REDD+ expectations, they still manifest as historically and geographically contingent processes that reflect negotiated and contested relations among actors that constitute the specific national circumstance of each country. We conclude by reflecting on the importance of our findings for understanding REDD+ projects in other tropical countries.

SUMMARYThis paper investigates the dimensions of justice in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation plus enhancement of forest carbon stock (REDD+) in West Africa. By paying explicit attention to transparency, equity and legitimacy (TEL) in Nigeria and Ghana, the paper examines justice considerations in REDD+ implementation with a focus on tenure. We draw on analysis of policy documents and interviews with stakeholders in both countries. Our results show that commitment to the pursuit of justice in both cases is limited when examined through the elements of TEL. Efforts to recognize the tenure rights of indigenous peoples, effective representation in decision making and transparent disclosure of information to all stakeholders were limited in Ghana by the tacit evasion of tenure ambiguities, especially in the migrant-dominated REDD+ pilot areas. In Nigeria, such limits were shown in a similar evasion and in the strategic orchestration of tenure complexities evident in the changing local forest access under a protectionist regime. We argue that explicit attention to TEL as mediating dimensions of the normative elements of justice provides important insights into how environmental policy instruments such as REDD+ might both enable and disable justice for local people living around project sites.

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