Appropriateness of Existing Forestry Financing Approaches

It is not a coincidence that project documents for projects dealing with du Haut Atlas, Plan Directeur de Reboisement, PNABV, Aires Protégées, and others present similar strategies for their funding. Most invariably resort to a combination of similar approaches for prospective financing, including:

self-financing to some extent (invariably small) by local beneficiaries

increased financial support from existing user groups

new domestic (private and public sector) partners and their financing

new bilateral and international donor assistance

new taxes.

A brief summary of the financial requirements for a sample of programmes and their proposed funding sources is presented in tables immediately following.

The basic approach to funding programmes according to the above schemes is not unsound. However, the practical issues surrounding the application of this approach warrants review. The issues surrounding the distribution of cost amongst beneficiaries and stakeholders are discussed in sections 3 and 5 of this report and must be considered in respect of each of the Ministry's programmes - as well as those of other ministries where such programmes are in any way related to, overlapping with, or otherwise influencing forest land and environmental management and development.

Three key areas of concern with respect to all programme funding are:

maximising the efficiency, for Morocco as a nation, of all programmes combined

maximising overall programme benefits

minimising overall programme administrative, management, implementation, infrastructure and monitoring, etc., costs

The Programme funding factors requiring the most immediate attention in respect of assigning user costs and funding responsibilities deal fundamentally with:

establishing the distribution of the benefits amongst social partners - within the context of all of Moroccan society

assigning user costs in an equitable manner in recognition of both direct (e.g. grazing fees) indirect (e.g. soil and water conservation taxes) resource consumption and use patterns

limiting resource development and use where the net results are negative and unsustainable (e.g. degrading of the environment, wasteful of resources, etc.); inadequate funding cannot be used as a reason to justify continued unsustainable practices

leveraging donor funding as much as possible through the use of "high internal inputs" and "low external inputs" approaches (e.g. local labour and other inputs and techniques and technology)

monitoring the performance of all of Morocco's forest land and environment Programmes to adjust their implementation, as required, to maximise overall benefits consistent with the above factors.