Project Rationale:

Since the 1990s, there has been increasing interest, worldwide, in the potential of community forestry systems and related modes of local forest management to contribute to efficient service provision, environmental stability, and poverty reduction. This trend is reflected in policy shifts in around sixty countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America that have supported some degree of devolution of forest management to a diverse range of stakeholders: local governments and line agencies; grassroots forest user groups; individual households, and even NGOs. Common to all of these efforts is a widespread recognition of the potential gains for poverty alleviation and sustainable forest management resulting from broad-scale participation of multiple stakeholders across different levels of government and civil society institutions. These gains include, for example, a reduction in forest-related conflicts and illegal logging, stabilization of forest cover, and livelihood security for marginalized forest-dependent groups for whom forests provide a safety network during times of hardship (Dupar and Badenoch, 2002).

It has however become apparent that policies and strategies for devolving forest resources to local institutions have been uneven and mixed in their implementation and impacts across a range of social, political, economic, and ecological landscapes. They have evidenced a variety of institutional arrangements and operational procedures at multiple scales, leading to varying degrees of transfer of power, resources and assets to local forest user groups and communities. Thus, the particular contexts in which forestry decentralization and devolution have occurred, and their links to reforms in other related sectors, have had important implications for achieving environmentally sustainable and socially equitable outcomes in community forestry, especially for women and other disadvantaged groups.

This project will support research and related activities that help to promote a primary goal of the Strategic Partnership on Rights and Resources. This goal is to advance an international, collaborative agenda on community forestry through the promotion of pro-poor, rights-based policies, institutions, and processes at local, national, regional, and global levels. 

Building on its own and partners’ knowledge bases, networks and experiences across a range of countries, CIFOR will collaborate with partners in selected countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, to synthesize, generate, and distil policy-relevant information on connected issues of decentralization, community forestry, and poverty alleviation. With an emphasis on enhancing the rights and livelihoods of people living under conditions of poverty, together with its partners, CIFOR will generate strategic, policy and action-oriented analytical information and help develop approaches, connections and capacities necessary for promoting environmentally sustainable and socially equitable outcomes in community forestry. Specifically, responsive and adaptive tools and mechanisms will be designed to address critical gaps and needs for information, capacity building amongst grassroots actors, and multi-stakeholder networks for experience sharing, dissemination, and follow-up action.

Information gaps and needs will be identified through two inter-linked and complementary research components. Approximately two-thirds of the funds will support thematic studies and related activities focused on intersecting issues of decentralization and efforts to reach scale, and their implications for social equity and environmental sustainability in selected countries. The remaining one-third of the funds will support a flexible, demand-driven action-oriented research agenda on a limited and focused set of topics in some of the selected countries. These will be jointly defined, prioritized and designed by Strategic Partners, researchers and key actors, such as local and national policy makers, forestry networks and federations, to ensure relevance and wide participation and inputs into the research process. Findings, insights, tools and strategic lessons generated in and across sites will be provided to Strategic Partners and other interested actors and institutions. These will be widely disseminated through multi-level platforms such as policy roundtables and issue-based discussions at workshops, conferences, and on websites. They will also be shared through publications, including a co-edited book and extensive media coverage in newspapers and radio and television broadcasts at different scales.

The overall objective of this initiative is to support and promote pro-poor policies, strategies and multi-level institutional processes and pathways that add value to community forestry in the areas of ecological sustainability, livelihood benefits, and social equity for women and other marginalized groups in the selected countries. Specific objectives are to:

Project Data:

• Identify and respond to specific demands for information and capacity-building in community forestry and related sectors in the selected countries and undertake needed research on country-specific issues and on intersecting processes of decentralization, scale-building, and grassroots mobilization in community forestry.
• Strengthen institutional capacities for research, analysis, monitoring, and advocacy on issues related to community forestry amongst local research partners and grassroots organizations.
• Identify and develop mechanisms to promote effective dialogue amongst multiple stakeholders and increase the voices of women and other marginalized groups in that dialogue at local, national, regional, and international scales.
• Strengthen advocacy programs and activities being undertaken by Strategic Partners and other organizations engaged in community forestry and related sectors by providing analytical and policy-relevant information.

The duration of the project will be from January 2006 to December 2008.

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) is a global coalition to advance forest tenure, policy and market reforms. Formed by a group of international institutions and community organizations, the activities of the RRI aim to reduce rural poverty, strengthen forest governance, conserve and restore forest ecosystems, and achieve sustainable, forest-based economic growth.

For more information about Rigths and Resource Initiatives (RRI) please contact the following website: www.rightsandresources.org