Voices from the field – carbon markets and rural poverty as seen from Madagascar and Mali

Abstract

The carbon market is touted as offering developing countries major new opportunities to achieve sustainable development while simultaneously helping the global community to combat climate change. The prospect is that implementing carbon offset projects and programmes can generate tradable carbon credits while simultaneously delivering development benefits to participating communities. In least developed countries, however, this promise remains largely unfulfilled. Work is underway to bridge this gap via measures like streamlining project development and providing capacity building in target countries, yet progress remains slow. Based on focus group discussions, the paper conveys comments about this prospect and constraints to its realization from seasoned rural development practitioners in Madagascar and Mali who have shown interest in carbon project development. Their perspective is critical yet constructive, and could help guide reforms of existing carbon market instruments and the design of new climate finance mechanisms. It also provides a valuable contribution to ongoing debates regarding the potential significance of the carbon market for poor farmers. The consensus among these practitioners is that the promise of this market for these farmers is real, but the current market structure largely scuppers this potential. They call for urgent reform of market access modalities, so this opportunity can be captured.

Keywords:

• carbon market
• climate finance
• barriers to access
• market reform
• practitioners
• rural development
• small-scale farmers
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• voice

Acknowledgements

The experiences reported in this paper were obtained from the CASCADe support programme, which was administered by the United Nations Environment Programme's Risoe Centre and funded by the Fonds Français pour l'Environnement Mondial (FFEM). In addition to these institutions, we would like to thank the practitioners from Madagascar and Mali involved in the discussions cited in the paper – Fenosoa Andriamahenina, Célestin Dembelé, Mamby Fofana, Xavier Metz, Benjamin Palliere, José Rakotomanjaka, Julia Randimbisoa, Ifaliantsoa Razafindrakotoson, Minombolanoro Razakafoniaina, Ousmane Samessekou, Elisée Sidibe, Adama Telly – who freely shared their insights gleaned from extensive practical experience.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The differences between these markets are not the focus of the present paper, however, but rather the ways that both might offer opportunities to African farmers. 

2 The generally positive views expressed on the potential benefits of carbon projects for local communities may stem in part from the fact that all CASCADe projects promise to deliver strong community benefits, since this was a key selection criterion for this support programme. Their views thus suggest the types of benefits that may be possible when community benefits are prioritized.

3 The PIN and PDD are the two key design documents for a carbon project.