Countries are encouraged to identify drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the development of national strategies and action plans for REDD+. In this letter we provide an assessment of proximate drivers of deforestation and forest degradation by synthesizing empirical data reported by countries as part of their REDD+ readiness activities, CIFOR country profiles, UNFCCC national communications and scientific literature. Based on deforestation rate and remaining forest cover 100 (sub)tropical non-Annex I countries were grouped into four forest transition phases. Driver data of 46 countries were summarized for each phase and by continent, and were used as a proxy to estimate drivers for the countries with missing data. The deforestation drivers are similar in Africa and Asia, while degradation drivers are more similar in Latin America and Asia. Commercial agriculture is the most important driver of deforestation, followed by subsistence agriculture. Timber extraction and logging drives most of the degradation, followed by fuelwood collection and charcoal production, uncontrolled fire and livestock grazing. The results reflect the most up to date and comprehensive overview of current national-level data availability on drivers, which is expected to improve over time within the frame of the UNFCCC REDD+ process.

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ABSTRACT. Benefit-sharing mechanisms are a central design aspect of REDD+ because they help to create the necessary incentives to reduce carbon emissions. However, if stakeholders do not perceive the benefit sharing as fair, the legitimacy of REDD+, and support for the mechanism, will be weakened. In this paper, drawing on data from CIFOR's Global Comparative Study on REDD+, we analyze national policy processes in 6 countries and incipient benefit-sharing arrangements in 21 REDD+ project sites. Through our analysis of current practices and debates, we identify six rationales that have been put forward to justify how benefits should be distributed and to whom. These rationales encompass a range of perspectives. Some hold that benefit sharing should be related to actual carbon emission reductions or to costs incurred in achieving the reduction of emissions; others emphasize the importance of a legal right to benefit, the need to consider aspects such as poverty reduction or the appropriateness of rewarding those with a history of protecting the forest. Each rationale has implications for the design of benefit-sharing mechanisms and the equity of their outcomes. We point out that, given the wide range of rationales and interests at play, the objectives of REDD+ and benefit sharing must be clearly established and the term "benefit" defined before effective benefit-sharing mechanisms can be designed. For stakeholders to support REDD+, the legitimacy of decision-making institutions, consideration of context, and attention to process are critical. Building legitimacy requires attention not only to fair distributional outcomes but also to consensus on relevant institutions' authority to make decisions and to procedural equity.

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Climate change and related adaptation strategies have gender-differentiated impacts. This paper reviews how gender is framed in 41 papers on climate change adaptation through an intersectionality lens. The main findings show that while intersectional analysis has demonstrated many advantages for a comprehensive study of gender, it has not yet entered the field of climate change and gender. In climate change studies, gender is mostly handled in a men-versus-women dichotomy and little or no attention has been paid to power and social and political relations. These gaps which are echoed in other domains of development and gender research depict a ‘feminization of vulnerability’ and reinforce a ‘victimization’ discourse within climate change studies. We argue that a critical intersectional assessment would contribute to unveil agency and emancipatory pathways in the adaptation process by providing a better understanding of how the differential impacts of climate change shape, and are shaped by, the complex power dynamics of existing social and political relations.

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