Ghana has established a Feedback and Grievance Redress Mechanism (FGRM) for receiving, evaluating, and addressing project-related grievances from affected communities or stakeholders at the community or project level, region, or country.

Potential conflict sources are;

  • Resource use and access
  • Land and tree tenure
  • Benefit Sharing
  • Participation and inclusiveness
  • Resettlement and compensation payment, among others.


The REDD+ Feedback and Grievance Redress Mechanism (FGRM) will be operationalized in four steps. Parties seeking to have any REDD+ dispute resolved will file their complaint at the district FGRM office within the ER programme area where it will be received and processed before it is communicated to the National FGRM coordinator.

  1. If the parties are unable or unwilling to resolve their dispute through negotiation, fact-finding or inquiry a mediator chosen with the consent of both parties would be assigned to assist the Parties to reach a settlement.
  2. Where the mediation is successful, the terms of the settlement shall be recorded in writing, signed by the mediator and the parties to the dispute and lodged at the FGRM registry. The terms of the settlement will be binding on all parties.
  3. If the mediation is unsuccessful, the Parties will be required to submit their dispute for compulsory arbitration, by a panel of five (5) arbitrators, selected from a national roster of experts.
  4. The awards of the arbitration panel will be binding on the Parties and can only be appealed to the Court of Appeal. All questions of law would be referred to the High Court.

The five (5) member Arbitration Panel will be made up of a qualified arbitrator, a lawyer, a forestry/natural resources expert and a governance expert. At least one of them should be a woman. The proposed timelines for the FGRM process is forty-five (45) working days.

FGRM steps and time-frame

Steps in Process Number of Days
Grievance update and record acknowledgement 5 working days
Process, research and fact finding 15 working days
Response 5 working days
Implement agreed response 20 working days
Total process timeline 45 working days