Institutional gaps at the country level can be immense. Too often, they have included a lack of documented rights claimed by local people and weak con- sultation processes that have led to uncompensated loss of land rights, espe- cially by vulnerable groups; a limited capacity to assess a proposed project’s technical and economic viability; and a limited capacity to assess or enforce environmental and social safeguards. Such problems are not due to a lack of potential. For example, although deforestation associated with the expansion of the agricultural frontier has been a serious problem (and one of the world’s largest contributors to green- house gas emissions), our analysis shows that.
