Policy integration as a means to address policy fragmentation: Assessing the role of Vietnam's national REDD+ action plan in the central highlands

The Vietnamese National REDD + Action Plan (NRAP) seeks to reduce emissions from forest clearing and land use, especially from the main drivers of coffee and rubber commodity expansion. Achieving the NRAP goals, however, means negotiating a complex and fragmented forest policy arena, with conflicting sector goals, disconnects between global and local ambition and action, and imbalanced power dynamics between actors. We map the fragmentation of this policy arena and explore the extent to which the NRAP is able to integrate policy responses to drivers to achieve emissions reductions. We examine what the NRAP sought to integrate, what was not taken into account, what is integrated at which scale, and which actors are part of integration (or not) across the policy process components. We conclude that if policy integration does not affect a ‘whole of government’ shift in priorities or change in mandate among driver sectors, fragmented policy arenas will persist and forest-based climate mitigation objectives will not be achieved.