Cross River State (CRS) is an integral part of Nigeria’s efforts to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). The State holds over 50% of Nigeria’s remaining pristine forests covering over 640,000ha. This is however being lost at a high rate that averages at 15,000 ha per annum. In a drive to accelerate action to reduce the forest loss, CRS sought financial support through the Governors’ Climate and Forest Task Force (GCFTF) in order to: a) strengthen the capacity within key government agencies to address REDD+ through the requisite enabling conditions; 2) enhance coordination between local, state and national governments; 3) trigger incentives, including those of a fiscal nature to engender behavioural change to reduce deforestation; and 4) promote public-private-partnerships to support REDD+ implementation.

UNDP provides leadership and technical support to Nigeria to deliver on its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and green growth strategy through interventions in the forest sector. UNDP has provided a range of specialized technical services that include leadership on REDD+ programme development processes to support Nigeria’s goal to develop CRS as pilot State for a nested approach to implementation of REDD+. A process was carried out to achieve intense institutional, strategy-building and demonstration activities in Cross River State. The resultant CRS REDD+ strategy laid a solid foundation for the State to transition from REDD+ readiness to implementation. The financial support of the GCFTF was therefore used to implement a project titled “Implementation of REDD+ in Cross River State”, with the aim to develop a roadmap of actions and to mobilise resources for the state to implement its REDD+ strategy. Project implementation commenced in September 2019 and will end in March 2021.

The project has three main activity as follows:

support the development of an investment programme to be submitted to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to kick start the implementation of the CRS Strategy;
enable the development of a REDD+ Investment Plan for operationalising the CRS REDD+ strategy and for enabling key sectors to align their policies and investments to REDD+; and
enhance the engagement of stakeholders, particularly private sector actors working on commodity value chains linked to REDD+.Purposes of the Evaluation
The project has been implemented since 2019. The objective of the project is to enable Cross River State to develop a REDD+ investment programme that would put the State on course to fully implement strategies and activities to reduce deforestation and forest degradation. This evaluation is to be conducted at the end of the project and will focus on the entire implementation period. The overall purpose of the evaluation is to assess the processes and achievements made and to draw lessons that will be reported to UNDP, the donor of the project. More specifically, the evaluation is intended to:

Verify the project reports and achievements independently.
Compile diverse good practices in the work field during the project.
Highlight the learning outcomes, especially those related to good practices, lessons learned related to gender equality and social inclusion, and jurisdictions of low emissions development.