Framework for the Assessment of Policy Coherence and Public Expenditures

Methodology for quantitative analysis of policy coherence in the land use sector in collaboration with FAO

Climate change is increasingly impacting agrifood systems, including forests and other natural resources, intensifying hunger and poverty. Effective forest policy and its implementation are vital in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement objectives. Globally, forest-related climate finance has almost doubled from 2015 to 2019. Yet, financing into nature, especially in the contexts of forests, remain underreported. Relations to specific land use goals are hardly analyzed and information on their effectivity is missing. In addition, there is hardly systematic information available how public expenditures for forest finance align with national policies and how coherent they are, specifically with regard to deforestation abatement and agricultural production as well as other deforestation drivers.

Background and Objective

In 2023 and 2024, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has collaborated with the Government of Uganda and Ghana for a pilot of Forestry Public Expenditure Reviews (PER). The Forestry PER methodology requires deeper integration to facilitate a comprehensive assessment of policy coherence and the alignment of public expenditures with cross-sectoral policies and climate commitments. Policy coherence is understood as an attribute in policy-making "that systematically reduces conflicts and promotes synergies between and within different policy areas to achieve the outcomes associated with jointly agreed policy objectives (Nilsson et al. 2012). Conflicts between, among others, nature conservation and economically motivated land use are widespread. This project aims to develop a method for the systematic and quantitative analysis of national policy coherence in the forestry and land-use sectors. The further development of analytical methods is needed to analyze and promote policy coherence and relate these to the existing PERs. A pilot study on such a link of policy coherence analysis and the PERs is envisaged for Uganda and Ghana. A quantitative method for allocating national budgets to policy objectives and their implementation is currently lacking and will be developed in the project.