7. Conclusion and recommendations for improvement of the national forestry statistics process

Lack of accurate data and information on the production and consumption of forest products is a bottleneck for a sustainable forest/woodland management in Eritrea. In order to have meaningful data and information concerning wood products, however the following points are recommended: -

Promote co-ordination of data and information found in different organisations;

Measurements of forest products has to be standardised and accurate conversion factor is needed;

Production and consumption survey especially for fuel wood & charcoal should be done regularly;

The system of data collection on wood products is obtained from the concerned institutions (like the customs office) upon request. Therefore, easy access to available data should be organised;

The forestry sub-sector is constrained with limited capacity to handle and process wood products data and disseminate to the clients. Therefore, training of forestry staff in data base management is very important;

Regional and sub-regional offices of the MOA should be equipped with computer facilities so that data and information on forest products can be easily transferred through e-mails on time;

Reporting formats need to be easily understandable and thus, it has standardized

Production and consumption assessment on pole and other round wood products outside the forest, that is consumed locally, should be conducted, since there is lack of data on these products.

In conclusion, all wood products, no matter if they are imported or exported have to be well recorded, analysed, validated and disseminated to data users. These data also need to be updated regularly.