Over the last decade, the challenge of how to increase and diversify financial resources in support of sustainable land and resource use, especially in developing countries has dominated both national and international policy agendas (EFTRN 2008). Many countries in Southeast Asia have tried a wide range of mechanisms to mobilize resources from different sources to improve the productivity, profitability and sustainability of smallholder production systems as part of continuing efforts to promote green economies, and establish genuine measures of global progress (FAO 2011; UNEP 2011; Kubiszewski et al. 2013). These developments have led to a search for institutions at national and subnational levels with the capacity to absorb, manage, utilize and build upon international investments. Local governance conditions, which do not provide an enabling environment for private investments, are a key part of the problem as they contribute to heightened risk. A financing gap has emerged because of poor disbursement of public funds to support, for example, REDD+ activities, and an extremely limited forest carbon market.
