As identified in many fora, the lack of political commitment to sustainable forest management in some parts of the world has been a fundamental obstacle to implementing C&I. There are many reasons for this. When faced with urgent and politically sensitive alternative uses of forestland, such as maintaining food security and employment, SFM, where the benefits are largely long term, does not feature high in political priorities. C&I processes themselves could play a part in remedying the situation. At present, however, their capacity to influence policy-makers is varied. MCPFE plays an active role in influencing ministerial level commitment in Europe and shaping the European Union forestry policy. Although a voluntary process, covering 44 European countries and the European Community, many of the resolutions adopted at ministerial level are translated into national forest laws. Also, a common pan-European work programme ensures the implementation of those activities that are of pan-European value. MCPFE is also important for the European Union. Since the European Union does not have a common forest policy, MCPFE plays an important role in EU decisions related to forests.
There is no formal ministerial component to the MPCI process working group deliberations. Each member country determines the extent of the involvement of its own policy-makers at the national/subnational levels. However, the process operates in a manner that generates political interest, visibility and involvement by holding meetings in each of the member countries. This commitment to implementing C&I, as reflected in the recently published first country reports on sustainable forest management and the consolidated first forest overview report, reflects its influence on policy-makers (MPCI 2003).
In ITTO, there is a high level of commitment to C&I. Ministers of producer countries are well aware of C&I work and many attend ITTO meetings regularly. A unique feature of ITTO is that member countries get funding for C&I-related work through projects and policy-related work such as regional/national training workshops and convening international conferences. Members meet twice a year during which all aspects of forest management (including C&I) are discussed. In addition, the ITTO Secretariat maintains regular contact with member countries. In 2003, the forestry ministers or their representatives of the 14 member countries explicitly endorsed the harmonized ATO/ITTO principles, criteria and indicators.
Progress in other processes is not as great. In the Near East process ministers have not signed or endorsed it and no regular reports are provided either, in most countries. In the Dry Forest Asia Initiative ministers have accepted a task force report. Apart from that there are no regular meetings or briefings. In fact there has been very little interaction between members and they have met for the first and last time in 1999. A meeting of national focal points of the Dry Zone Africa process in 1998 recommended that political commitment was essential for effective implementation and sought an assurance of such support. (Dry Zone Africa, 1998). It has been endorsed by the respective Forestry Commissions but not by ministers. But no regular briefings are provided to ministers nor have there been recent meetings of member countries. The Lepaterique process progress included an expert meeting in 1997 followed by regional workshops and seminars with countries carrying out national validation exercises to assess identified C&I. The Tarapoto process has taken a similar path beginning with an expert meeting in 1995 and evaluation of relevance of C&I by member countries in 2000. More recent information on the last two processes was not available.
Overall, the capacity of the processes to influence policy-makers varies, with some processes operating with a high level of political commitment while many are at the other end of the scale with very limited or no political leverage.
In many countries, the responsibility for implementing C&I rests with technical government agencies and/or research organizations, without the involvement or input of those agencies responsible for policy formulation. In addition, the lack of understanding and awareness and the absence of capacity in countries have tended to prevent C&I receiving greater prominence in the political agenda. Also a number of countries have gained membership of C&I processes somewhat automatically by belonging to a particular region or organization where C&I have been promoted, rather than through their own determination. Member countries in some processes established through a high level of international support may feel lack of ownership. In all such instances the level of country commitment has often been low.
There are three levels of action for C&I processes to enhance their capacity to influence policy makers: international or regional, inter-process and domestic levels.
A number of international initiatives have been taken to generate political commitment. One main reason for setting up UNFF itself was to engender political commitment to SFM13. High-level segments of many international fora, such as UNFF and FAO’s Committee on Forestry, are also aimed at gaining ministerial-level commitment to SFM including implementation of C&I. The recommendations of the recent UNFF ad hoc expert group on MAR to use C&I to assess country progress towards SFM (UN Forum on Forests 2003b) and the use of C&I as the framework for the planned update of FAO’s global FRA 2005, will also help generate greater commitment to C&I by policy-makers. Bilateral donor relationships are also an important means of encouraging political commitment to C&I (see José Antonio Prado, 2003).
The critical need for political commitment is at the national level where it is mostly lacking in some parts of the world. But in recent times market dictates appear to have stimulated a degree of political commitment to SFM, especially in countries dependent on forest trade. This has taken the form of an interest in the need to adopt timber certification, which is gradually becoming an important marketing tool. C&I are an essential basis on which some certification processes are developed. It is also confirmed by ITTO's C&I training and field-testing which showed that a major motivator for the commitment of a number of countries to C&I was the desire to eventually seek certification of their timber products (Johnson, 2001).
There are several actions that C&I processes can take to gain the commitment of policy-makers. Among them, high priority needs to be given to promoting awareness and understanding among the political leadership as well as senior officials and the general public. Cooperation and collaboration among processes, the availability of a secretariat/liaison office facility to co-ordinate work within processes could go a long way in addressing some of these issues.
13 See ECOSOC Resolution 2000/35.
