REDD+: A fine example of worst practice

Throughout the “Age of Aid” (1944–1989)⁴ development has been seen as essentially economic in nature. Increasingly, however, it has become apparent that it is economic only in its consequences. It is something else - entitlements, democratization … social capital - that makes development possible. A different paradigm is therefore needed, and we begin by sketching that by way of the various “experiments” - nationalization, privatization and communitization - with Nepal's forests over the past half-century. Nationalization and privatization turned out to be abysmal failures; communitization a great, and continuing, success. We relate all this to the differing patterns of interaction between four fundamental forms of social solidarity - individualism (eg markets), hierarchy (eg governments and aid donors), egalitarianism (eg activist groups) and fatalism (eg carriers of the “double burden”: poverty and social exclusion) - and go on to show that only when each is (a) able to make its “voice” heard and (b) is following its dharma⁵ (acting according to its distinctive morality rather than undermining it) do we get development. REDD+⁶, we then show, using examples of its implementation in Africa, is unremittingly hierarchical and does not satisfy these two conditions. We conclude with some suggestions for remedying these policy defects.