English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

Addressing poverty and promoting good governancereduction in line with the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) ofhalving poverty by 2015. 5This is reinforced through the four pillars of its Poverty Reduction StrategyPlan (PRSP), notably;• Economic growth• Social and human development• Specific targeting to the extremely poor and marginalised• Good governance.The PRSP was developed on the basis of considerable background research,[for example, the Gender and Social Exclusion Assessment undertaken byWorld Bank (WB) and Department for International Development (DFID)– Bennett (2005)], but will soon need to be updated. The Government ofNepal also recognises the spatial dimensions of poverty in that there is aspecial remote area development programme, focusing on districts andareas within them of high altitude and poor accessibility.2.2 Sector levelAs a source of fuel, fodder, timber and many other products, forest playsa particularly important role in the livelihoods of Nepal’s rural population.This was acknowledged in the country’s 25 year Forest Plan (1985-2010), in which community forestry – under which full responsibility forthe management and use of the State forests is handed over to legallyregistered CFUGs - was seen as a forest category that could ultimatelytake up 60 per cent of all the state forest. CFUGs are defined on the basisof all the households using a particular forest. They are formed on thebasis of resource governance and are not necessarily coherent with thelocal administrative units such as Village Development Committees (VDCs)which tend to be larger. At present, the total area of community forestin the country stands at over 1.2 million ha managed by 14,439 CFUGswhose membership consists of about 1.6 million households (DoF 2010).In Dolakha, Ramechap and Okhaldhunga districts, the total communityforest area is 94,600 ha, comprising 65 per cent of the total potential of146,700 ha forest land; significantly, 85 per cent of all households aremembers of one or more CFUG (NSCFP 2009). Community forest attemptsto contribute to all four pillars of the PRSP, but it has been criticised inthe past for failing to reach the poorest. Indeed, it has sometimes even5See www.npc.gov.np for more on it.68