0315-A2
Olivier Dubois 1
There is an increasing consensus about several aspects of the forestry-poverty problematic, i.e.
However, some major challenges lie ahead, including:
All these challenges need to be addressed to carry forward the following agenda for action regarding forest-based poverty reduction:
Growth is not the only route to poverty reduction. Aspects related to distribution of assets (e.g. land), vulnerability and human development are proving equally important. This requires a broad definition of forestry, which encompasses sources of forest products outside as well as inside forests. In doing so, the term 'forests' should be interpreted as referring to all forms of tree cover which poor people draw upon for forest outputs (Arnold, 2001).
Sustainable Livelihood Approaches (SLAs) are a good starting point to address the multi-facetted character of poverty, and in particular the fact that poverty is not only income and/or food based. SLAs consider not only natural, physical and financial capital, but also social (kinship and networks) and what is termed human capital (e.g. education and health). Hence, SLAs reflect the three currently accepted dimensions of poverty, i.e. subsistence needs (food, shelter, etc), income and vulnerability/powelessness. The latter dimension of poverty is strongly linked to the limited access of the poor to livelihood capital assets. This, in turn, depends heavily on disparity in bargaining power amongst local stakeholders, with the poor often at a loss in that respect. Therefore, it would be useful to add a sixth capital asset to those mentioned above, i.e. political capital (Bauman and Sinha, 2001).
The need to account for power differences and the political character of land and natural resource management explains the growing consensus amongst environment and development practitioners that one needs to move from participatory to negotiations approaches. However, the implications of negotiation processes for disadvantaged groups are seldom critically examined. A strategic approach to negotiation is thus needed, with an emphasis on power brokering, joint social learning and empowerment of weaker parties.
Beyond diagnosis stage, SLAs often fail to take into consideration the importance of the informal (subsistence) sector, as distinct from the large-scale (often corporate) formal sector. The former is usually crucial in the coping strategies of the forest-dependent poor, while the latter has often overlooked and sometimes hampered them. The proportion of informal to formal jobs in the wood industry sector is estimated to be at least 5-10:1 (ILO, 2002).
Forests are an important natural capital. Past development efforts have primarily focused on building natural capital, however. Equal attention has not been paid to how forests are used in combination with other natural assets and other livelihood assets to sustain livelihoods. This has resulted in gaps in our understanding of the contribution of forest products to sustainable livelihoods and thus poverty reduction.
Tens of millions of people depend on forests, and the contribution of forest resources to their livelihoods can come in different guises - see Box 1.
Box 1: What do poor people get from trees and forests?
Source: FAO/DFID, 2001 |
However, it is difficult to be very precise about the proportion of poor depending on forest resources because "dependence" can vary according to circumstances and how livelihood patterns evolve over time. Qualitatively speaking however, there is a general agreement about the categories of forest dependence, i.e.
These categories are not mutually exclusive. However, it is often convenient to make the distinction between two broad categories of "poor", i.e. the `very poor', who use forest resources mainly as a safety net and the `less poor' who have the opportunity to use forest and tree resources beyond meeting their subsistence needs, i.e. as sources of income. It is important to note that these two categories of poor often compete for the local forest resources, e.g. the wealthier may wish to convert forest used as source of food and medicine by the poorest of the poor into agricultural plots. On the other hand, though the wealthier in a community, with more resources to devote to forest product gathering and production, are often the heaviest users, the poor usually derive a greater share of their overall needs from forest products and activities. Therefore, any significant reduction in the local forest and tree capital affects primarily the poorest section of the population.
Although useful, the above sometimes leads to an exclusive focus on these categories when it comes to tackling poverty through forestry. In doing so, it overlooks key players in the way forestry contributes or not to poverty reduction, such as forestry staff and intermediaries. These stakeholders often put pressure on and/or provide valuable services to both categories of poor defined above. Thus, ways and means to address these must be sought when working on forest-based poverty reduction (FBPR). More broadly, this is just one illustration that FBFR will only work if the livelihoods and concerns of the `non-poor' forest stakeholders, and their formal and informal interactions with the poor are also taken into consideration.
Despite the difficulties in characterising "dependence" mentioned in the previous section, an array of figures has recently been produced, aiming at illustrating the magnitude of the linkages between the poor and forestry, and especially the amount of poor dependent on forest resources for their livelihoods - see Table 1.
Table 1: Some figures illustrating people and poor's dependency on forests and trees
Figures |
Sources |
(i) People's dependency on forests and trees
|
World Bank, 2001b |
These figures call for some comments:
The facts and figures presented in Section 2 show that the rural poor often depend on forest resources for a living, and they provide some indications on the magnitude and nature of this dependency. However, they are desperately inadequate when it comes to making sense of the quality of this relationship, how it evolves over time, cause-effect links, and how it relates to non-forest livelihood strategies. Indeed, despite ample evidence of the crucial role forest resources often play as safety nets and sources of income for the rural poor, the relationship between forest resources and poverty alleviation is far from straightforward. Promoting this link is challenging because of the very nature of some forest products and services, and the fact that these links often hinge on relationships between the poor and other actors in the forestry sector. This is a complex matter, as illustrated by the four types of associations described in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Four possible associations between poverty and forests
`Poverty Increase' |
`Poverty Reduction' | |
`Forest Reduction' |
A |
B |
`Forest Increase' |
C |
D |
| Adapted from Mayers (1997) |
This Figure shows that context is all-important, and shifts between the situations described above can occur over time. For instance, a logging company might have different influences on poverty and forests according to its logging practices or employment policies (e.g. % of local versus outside workers); influence of agriculture as a source of income will affect the links differently depending on local farming practices, etc.
In short, while there certainly are important links between many rural poor and forest resources, the potential of forest-based poverty reduction should not be overstated. Most potential seems to lie in the safety net function of forest resources in times of hardship for the poor. On the other hand, the advantages of forestry are likely to be much less obvious when it comes to income generation through commercial operations, especially in comparison to other livelihood options. In this case it is often at best a complement to other income-generating activities, and most current income-generation activities of the poor in the forestry sector are informal. However, one should not underestimate the indirect importance of forest resources, i.e. as a means to access and/or secure other capital assets that directly affect the poor, such as water supply and quality, soil fertility, and bargaining power.
In September 2001 the Forestry Department of FAO held a Forum on "The role of Forestry in Poverty Alleviation", with DFID support. The discussions held during this Forum resulted in a Policy Brief containing an "Agenda for Action" which highlights four points of action for international agencies to take into account in terms of increasing forestry contribution to poverty alleviation, i.e. (FAO/DFID 2001).
A. Strengthening Rights, Capabilities and Governance
B. Reducing Vulnerability
C. Capturing Emerging Opportunities
D. Working in Partnership
These points for action cut across all the facets of the forestry sector. They highlight issues that require interdisciplinary planning and action, and functional partnerships amongst those providing support to the implementation of this agenda.
Governments in many countries are currently facing difficulties in harmonising the three frameworks that they are asked to use as regards poverty and forest development, i.e. NFPs, SLAs and PRSPs. Reasons for this are briefly discussed below
(i) Weak integration of SFM/NFPs into PRSPs
PRS and their related papers (PRSPs) are the recently-created frameworks for governments to address poverty, and also the basis for country support/assistance programmes of many donor agencies (including WB, DFID, GTZ, etc). The links between SFM/NFPs and poverty/livelihoods/PRSPs are hardly there (Oksanen and Meersman, 2002). True, SFM has social acceptance as one of its key principles. However, it focuses on the forest resources, while livelihood approaches; which are people-centred, Improving the interface between the two would be mutually reinforcing. In particular it would help in bringing the social criteria of SFM down to the forest management unit. Countries like Uganda are actually working along these lines through demand-driven, farmer-led and privately-delivered forestry advisory services. These services are funded by public funds, including a poverty action fund resulting from the cancellation of Uganda's debt as a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC). Implementation of this system is in its infancy, and is rather an exception; which confirms the broad rule that links between NFPs and PRSPs are currently. This state of fact is worrying for future support to forestry in developing countries. Many donors nowadays see forestry not as a sector but as an issue that will only deserve support if it is linked to PRS and PRSPs (and/or environment conservation and/or governance). Thus, Forest Departments in many developing countries risk being left out of future support by development partners, if they don't reshape themselves as significant contributors to poverty alleviation.
(ii) Difficulty to `sell' forestry to planners and economists in charge of PRSPs within government and development partners
Reasons for this include:
* Weaknesses in valuating forest resources in economic terms in the context of poverty reduction/livelihood strategies
This concerns not only formal, but more importantly the informal transactions that are a major part of the livelihood strategies of the poor.
* Poor consideration of natural resources outputs and dynamics in poverty diagnosis approaches of PRSPs
On the one hand, current PRS-related poverty diagnosis tend to overlook the potential and actual contribution of natural resources to people's livelihoods. On the other hand, sustainable livelihood approaches tend to better capture the links between natural resources and people's livelihoods. However, so far, there has been no systematic use of SLAs in PRSP contexts, perhaps because these are demanding in time and skills. Two possible ways to improve this situation could be pursued, i.e.
* Death of information on the dynamics and cause effect linkages of the poors' dependency on forest and tree resources
While nobody questions the strong dependency of many rural poor on forest/tree resources, the picture becomes much less clear regarding the dynamics, quality and cause effect links of that dependency. As a result, criteria to monitor changes and performance of interventions in that respect are crudely missing. Thus, monitoring reports of PRSPs do not mention forestry.
(iii) Good governance as a key ingredient for forest-related poverty reduction
There is a growing international consensus that good governance - i.e. the formal and informal norms, standards and actual `rules of the game' - and sustainable human development (thus poverty reduction) are inseparable. However, governance aspects are hardly taken into consideration in PRSP processes and documents, despite its importance being emphasized in the WB PRSP Source Book.
The greatest need for capturing the potential of forest-related poverty reduction strategies may then be for:
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Baumann, P. and Sinha, S. 2001. Linking Development with Democratic Processes in India: Political Capital and Sustainable Livelihoods Analysis. ODI Natural Resource Perspectives, Number 68, June 2001.
DFID, EC, UNDP and World Bank 2002. Linking Poverty Reduction and Environmental Management- Policy Challenges and Opportunities. July 2002.
FAO/DFID 2001. How Forests Can Reduce Poverty. Policy Brief, November 2001.
FAO 1996. Forestry and Food Security. Brochure prepared for the World Food Summit, 1996.
ILO 2002. http://www.ilo.org/public/public/english/dialogue/sector/sectors/forest/emp.htm.
Mayers, J. 1997. Poverty and forests: A preliminary review of the issues, and how they can be tackled. Unpublished, IIED, London.
Oksanen, T. and Meesrman, C. 2002. Forestry in Poverty Reduction Strategies - An Assessment of PRSP Processes in Sub-Saharan Africa. PROFOR, Drfat 25/09/02.
Poschen, P. 2002. The Forests, The Poor and The Foresters. Presentation for the International Workshop on "Forestry and Poverty Reduction - How can development, research and training agencies help", Edinburgh, 13th of June, 2002.
UNDP, UNDESA (United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs), and World
Energy Council. 2000. World Energy Assessment, UNDP, New York.
World Bank, 2001b. A Revised Forrest Strategy for the World bank Group. Draft 30 July 2001, WB, Washington, DC.
World Bank. 2001a. World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
World Bank. 2000. World Bank reviews global forest strategy. News Release No. 2000/193/S. http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/news/pressrelease.nsf.
1 Forestry Policy and Institutions Branch, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome. [email protected]