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from the forest service has altered their tradi� onal role of policing to a role
of advisors. As a result, the forest service has started to collaborate with civil
society organisa� ons. Government staff s are ge� ng aware of equity issues
and have begun to realise the need of inclusion of the poor and marginalised
groups.
Despite posi� ve change, the forest service s� ll suff ers from ill governance.
For example, rule of law is not maintained. Law contradicts with policies
and its own regula� ons. Frequent and sudden change in policies without
consensus makes the working environment diffi cult and confusing. Whilst
forestry requires long term strategic visions, decisions are taken keeping in
mind the short term gains. Forest has several stakeholders but the forest
service s� ll suff ers from heavy workload and is overburdened with legal,
administra� ve, fi scal and technical loads resul� ng in low quality service
delivery. Legal provisions are normally misinterpreted and not complied
with. Tradi� on of dilly-dally s� ll holds. Necessary documents and procedures
for decision making are s� ll held back from public. Offi cials and func� onaries
tend to be accountable only to their seniors and not to the general public.
Duty-bearers with authority and power o� en do a disappearing act. Forest
sector is yet to learn from its own success and failures. The decision making
process is very much infl uenced by short term poli� cal and personal
interests, which leads to ill-u� lisa� on and mis-u� liza� on of resources in the
forestry sector. Tools of democracy such as public hearing, mass mee� ngs
and public poll are rarely used in decision making. Conten� ous issues and
disputes are rarely se� led through wider consulta� on and debates between
duty-bearers and rights holders.
Development aid in the forestry sector and its eff ect
To tackle some of the problems listed above, forestry sector received
support from various donors for a period ranging from fi ve years to twenty
years, They pumped on an average US$20 million a year (see table below)
into the forest sector development totalling of US$190.8 million over the
last twenty years. Support was provided mainly for ins� tu� on and capacity
building related ac� vi� es, (i) train forest staff in order to set up community
groups through a social mobiliza� on process, (ii) enable groups to prepare
appropriate forest management plans, (iii) build capacity of forestry sector
stakeholders in order to ensure ins� tu� onal, ecological and economical
sustainability of the community groups, and (iv) for ensuring quality service
delivery and technical assistance.
Most of the development aid is spent in kind on facilita� on support,
government’s infrastructure building and capacity building, consultancy
services to enhance quality service delivery, social empowerment and
technical assistance through expatriates, project and NGO personnel and
local human resources, and only 20-30 percent of the total development aid
is es� mated to have been spent in cash at local user group and household
levels.
In the event of royal takeover in February 2005, many donors withdrew
Changing paradigms of aid eff ec� veness in Nepal 115