The Office of Climate Change and Development, partnering with the United Nations REDD Programme, sought to prepare National Guidelines for a Benefit Sharing Distribution System (BSDS). A BSDS is a required element of a national climate change action plan where a beneficiary country would receive payments to reduce its carbon emissions. Developing countries may receive payments from donor country to finance climate friendly actions if they are able to demonstrate a fair, transparent, and effective distribution system of the revenues received. Crane Associates was hired by the UN-REDD programme and the Papua New Guinea Office of Climate Change to create a National Benefit Sharing Distribution System. The work involved two country missions; interviews with 35 relevant stakeholders; site visits to rural villages and provincial governments; two stakeholder workshops; research on international examples and the UN-REDD Programme and UNFCCC decisions; analysis of relevant national policies and legal frameworks; and a governance capacity assessment using an assessment tool built specifically to analyze the feasibility of implementing a BSDS in Papua New Guinea. The results of this work delivered a guideline on how to establish a National BSDS in PNG. The guiding report recommends that a National BSDS for PNG be created to help implement the key principles, social safeguards, and environmental protections established by the UNFCCC, Climate Finance Mechanisms, and the UN-REDD Programme.
