Two decades of community forestry in Nepal: What have we learned?

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Two decades of community forestry in Nepal: What have we learned? rights related to access to natural resources can be exercised in practice. “The project through its poverty reduction and livelihood improvement approaches has been successful in starting a process of structural transformation in the CFUGs and not just delivering welfare provision. It has reached the extreme poor where most projects do not even recognise these people as a separate group and so they remain invisible to development support. The individual coaching of extreme poor households (often extremely socially excluded) has begun to build confi dence and remove some elements of their exclusion.” Mary Hobley, NSCFP External Reviewer 2007 The holistic concept of poverty in all its social as well as economic dimensions that is used by NSCFP must be stressed, as the specifi c livelihood plans and provisions for the bipanna is only one part of the way in which poverty is addressed. The misconception that it is the main way has led to some criticism, as indicated by the following comments. “Through providing very little support NSCFP has aimed at having a big impact on poverty reduction. Does this really help?” Bishnu Lal Ghimire, DFO, Okhaldhunga “After much intervention, the population of the poor in the project districts is still over 40% whilst the cash investment of the project funds to directly reach the poor is less than 5% of the total budget.” Damber Tembe, NORMS Community forestry promotes wood, food and fodder together From the project perspective, the main way in which poverty is addressed is by raising awareness and willingness amongst CFUG members to do something themselves about the poorest and most disadvantaged, starting by treating them with respect and dignity. The LIP is then one particular mechanism for channelling support – one that is administratively complex to manage, and difficult to increase in volume without attracting negative dynamics (such as jealousy and fund misappropriation). From 2000 onwards, NSCFP has monitored the extent to which CFUGs 26
Two decades of community forestry in Nepal: What have we learned? make “pro-poor” provision in their planning and implementation, and the extent of social inclusion in decision-making processes. This is discussed in the section on governance. Key issues for the future • Given the inherent potential inaccuracy of using well-being ranking on a one time basis, a system of regular repeat ranking should be introduced and institutionalised, ideally every three years but at maximum every fi ve years. This could also be used for monitoring the number of households that have increased their well-being, stayed the same, or are no longer present due to migration or death. • The LIP as a concept is effective; for an investment of $ 200 most extreme poor households are able to signifi cantly improve their livelihoods. It is therefore worth replicating in future – either as part of a forestry programme or in separate poverty-focused efforts. • Loans to highly vulnerable, infi rm individuals should not be encouraged. The provision of some form of social security assistance from local government is more appropriate. 27
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REFERENCES Two decades of community
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