What is the issue?

As Angelsen and Wunder (2003) have written, the terrible contradictions between forestry and poverty agendas need to be reconciled. For example, in the World Bank-promoted Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP), only limited attention is given to environmental and forestry issues, which indicates inconsistencies in the World Bank’s sector policies. For instance, the PRSP for Tanzania recognises that forest resources are critical cash income earners for the poor, accounting for as much as 50% of the income in some areas. At the same time, forest degradation is widespread. One should therefore expect this issue to receive priority in a plan for poverty reduction. However, that is not the case. The IMF and World Bank’s Joint Staff Assessment of the Tanzanian PRSP has no mentioning of the environment (including forests) at all; it largely argues that economic and structural reforms must continue, and that these will eventually benefit the poor.

The poverty-forestry initiatives

• IUCN, ODI, CIFOR, PROFOR and Winrock have established a “Working Group on Forests, Livelihoods and Poverty". This includes developing rapid methods to identify roles for forests and forestry in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), and implementing those methods in a series of case studies. We have discussed PRSPs in different countries and how to make a compelling case for more attention to natural resources/forests in PRSPs.

• In Jharkhand, working with the Indian Forest Service and the World Bank, we are developing livelihood monitoring tools for joint forest management (JFM) contexts, tools that should clearly demonstrate the livelihood impacts of JFM. It is expected that the work will have a direct impact on policy and implementation at the state level, will have influence on other processes at the national level (including national JFM, national forest policy and other policy areas), and will contribute to broader understanding of the role and potential of forests/natural resources in livelihoods improvement.

• CIFOR has contributed to the USAID-led exercise on “Nature, Wealth and Power” (NWP) which outlines an integrated approach and best practices to revitalizing Africa. Work is also needed and planned on case studies and on examples of how NWP could be integrated into other frameworks, like PRSPs. A series of meetings were orchestrated in 2004 to discuss the policy lessons of NWP.

  
  

  • Meeting of multiple stakeholders (from forestry to finance) in Burkina Faso;

  • Mali roll-out – a series of about nine, 3+ hour sessions with regional actors, NGOs and researchers, government decentralisation folks and elected officials, the ministries of Agriculture and Environment; a public session at the American Cultural Center; and meetings with the poverty reduction unit, the Prime Minister's Office, USAID, and senior staff in the Ministry of Environment (all except the Minister, who was absent). NWP resonated with most stakeholders as a useful policy and analytic framework. There is a growing recognition that economic and governance structures are biased against rural producers whereas Mali's 7% growth is based on the rural sector and that is where there is overwhelming poverty. These contradictions are recognised. There is acceptance that this can be changed and that NWP provides some insight on how this might be accomplished.

  • NWP was also presented at a CIFOR book launch in Cameroon attended by 170 persons and Ministers from four countries.

• CIFOR has participated in a number of meetings of the Poverty Environment Partnership (PEP), a donor forum where the poverty-environment agenda is advanced. One of CIFOR’s research associates, Arild Angelsen, has prepared various background papers that have played a role in the discussion, including one on the poverty-environment nexus for the forestry sector, and another on the environmental content of PRSPs.

• CIFOR contracted Saliem Fakir, from IUCN South Africa, to explore the role of NEPAD in meeting the poverty and environment targets. For the poverty agenda, NEPAD is seen as the vehicle for setting the framework, but PRSPs are still regarded as ensuring implementation. Environment was a late comer to the various NEPAD processes, and forestry is hardly mentioned in the various NEPAD documents.

Key references

Angelsen, Arild and Sven Wunder. 2003. Exploring the Poverty-Forest Link: Key Concepts, Issues and Research Implications. CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 40. Bogor, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research.

FAO. 2003b. Forests and Poverty Alleviation, by William D. Sunderlin, Arild Angelsen and Sven Wunder. Chapter in State of the World's Forests 2003, pp. 61-73. Rome, Italy.

Wunder, Sven. 2001. Poverty alleviation and tropical forests—What scope for synergies? World Development 29: 1817-1833.