Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

Immediate measures
Identify priority countries based on anticipated
policy interventions. Donor agencies and concerned
stakeholders should identify countries, lending situations,
and prior conditions that suggest forests may be vulnerable
to policy reforms and related activities. For institutions such
as the World Bank, the results of this analysis can be helpful
during preparation of country assistance strategies, forest
sector investments, and specific policy loans, to prioritize
the specific programs and country situations where economic
and sector work on potential impacts will be needed
most. For example, if there are regional trends in macro policy
reform (such as the trade agreement in Central America),
it would be important to focus the analytical work on
this change. An indexing system based on relevant data and
the DPL pipeline can be used to identify the countries and
situations where more needs to be known about prior conditions
surrounding forests and forest people (see note 6.3,
Identifying the Need for Analysis on Forests in Development
Policy Reforms). This information would then be conveyed
to appropriate departments and other networks in
development organization involved in preparing the policy
intervention, and further activities planned accordingly.
Medium-term measures
Conduct necessary analytical work on cross-sectoral
and macroeconomic impacts. Analytical work should
focus on identifying opportunities for policy loans to bring
about significant improvements in the benefits flowing
from forests for poverty alleviation, sustainable economic
growth, and the global public goods aspects of forests, and
minimize unintended negative consequences.
The World Bank’s DPL policy paper (World Bank 2005)
outlines a five-year program of implementation of environmental
analytical work to support DPL operations. This
includes CEAs and SEAs or other appropriate analytical
work in countries where (i) DPL volume is large, (ii) adjustment
lending makes up a large share of country GDP, or (iii)
reforms are proposed in environmentally sensitive sectors
such as forests, agriculture, natural resources, energy, mining,
transport, and water supply and sanitation (OPCS
2004; Mani 2004).
Adapt analytical tools for due diligence for
forests. CEAs and SEAs are seen as appropriate instruments
for assessing the effects of development policy operations
on the environment. However, some variations in
their design and resource allocation may be required for
them to effectively identify situations where policy interventions
have significant potential to have an impact on forests
and forest people and then for implementation of the necessary
upstream analyses (see note 6.4, Assessing Cross-Sectoral
Impacts).
“Rapid CEAs” are already evolving in some areas of operations
in the World Bank, and have value as a means for due
diligence for forests, natural resources, and the environment.
The Rapid CEA in Bosnia and Herzegovina (see box
6.4) proposes to use both historical data on the performance
of previous structural adjustment operations in the area of
environmental impacts, and recent environmental plans, to
quickly identify which policies and sectors supported by the
development policy credits pose significant risks to the
environment, forests, and natural resources. This would
appear to be precisely the objective of due diligence in these
circumstances.
Design analytical studies to inform policy processes,
such as Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, NFPs,
Country Assistance Strategy Development, Policy
Lending, and Poverty Reduction Strategy Credits.
Development practitioners need a detailed understanding
of national policy processes before designing analytical
studies on cross-sectoral impacts or impacts of macroeconomic
reform on forests. The studies should, in addition to
using rigorous analytical tools and reliable data, involve key
stakeholders (see box 6.2) in an effort to enhance acceptance
of the findings.
Summarizing an approach for the World Bank. Mainstreaming
forest considerations requires due diligence on
forests with regard to cross-sectoral impacts, given the multiple
objectives of the forest strategy, and the potential
importance of forest outcomes for larger economic development
and poverty alleviation objectives embodied in
World Bank DPL and related lending. A sequence of activities
should be followed to develop the capacity of World
Bank staff to identify and deal with situations in which significant
forest impacts from broad economic reform lending
are possible:
1. The Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network,
the Sustainable Development Network, and the
Development Research Group should undertake an initial
evaluation of forest significance in countries where DPLs
or large-scale, cross-sectoral activities are ongoing or
planned, using the methodology outlined in note 6.3,
Identifying the Need for Analysis on Forests in Develop-
CHAPTER 6: MAINSTREAMING FORESTS INTO DEVELOPMENT POLICY AND PLANNING 209