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

Two decades of community forestry in Nepal: What have we learned?
6. GOOD GOVERNANCE
“In the NSCFP area, there is increasing accountability of related stakeholders such as
CFUGs, CFUG committees, DOF and FECOFUN…. Synergies have been built among
multiple partners.”
Nawaraj Neupane, CEEPARD, Dolakha
“Through its good governance programme, NSCFP has supported [CFUG] executive
committee members in realising their duties, rights and responsibilities.”
Nir Bahadur B.K. Identifi ed poor and vice secretary, Sallaghari CFUG, Kathajor,
Ramechhap
According to the UNDP, “Good governance ensures that political, social and economic
priorities are based on broad consensus in society and the voices of the poorest and the
most vulnerable are heard in decision making over the allocation of development resources.
It includes essential elements such as political accountability, reliable and equitable legal
frameworks, bureaucratic transparency, effective and effi cient public sector management,
participatory development and the promotion and protection of human rights.” 14
The concept of “good governance” used by NSCFP followed the defi nition used by
UNDP (see box above). The key principles of good governance that were specifi cally
promoted were: transparency, accountability, equity, inclusive participation, effi ciency
and effectiveness. These principles were implicit in early project phases, but became
increasingly explicit over the project lifetime. Good governance was encouraged in
all three main sectors of society: government (the Forest Department), the private
sector (the service providers and private forest-based enterprises); and civil society
(the CFUGs and their federation FECOFUN). It was applicable to all project
activities and partners, in both capacity building and in project practice – including
the behaviour of project staff. That said, governance-based interventions followed
the same trend as described for human resource and institutional development
– shifting from an early focus on the Forest Department, to a subsequent focus
on the NGO service providers, and then to the CFUGs. As greatest efforts have
been focused on the CFUGs, it is this experience that is highlighted – especially
as it is through such interventions that greatest opportunities are seen for future
developments in bottom-up governance processes.
First attempts to promote community forestry in Nepal (1978 – 1988) focused on
handing over responsibility for forest management to local government (then the
panchayat, a single party political and village administrative unit). An important
government decision early in the lifetime of NSCFP (as promulgated in the Forest
Act 1993), which had far-reaching implications for good forest governance, was to
14 http://www.pogar.org/publications/other/undp/governance/undppolicydoc97-e.pdf
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