Snapshots of International Community Forestry Networks: Country ...

Learning from International Community Forestry Networks: India Report
(SPWD, IIFM) and outside (RECOFTC; Government Forestry Institute in Bogor, Indonesia; Gaja Mada
University in Indonesia; Chinese Academy of Forestry). Other members of IBRAD, who were not
interviewed, had also been to FTPP/RECOFTC workshops.
However, there were also complaints about FTPP workshops by one person: “There could have been
improvements in the way the workshops were held. Clarity on the role of the workshop was lacking; many
things were repetitively discussed; money would come in very late, sometimes one year after something
had been planned; some countries got money, others didn’t.” It was felt that problems such as late arrival of
money led to frustration among members. Despite giving feedback on these problems, not much action was
taken on this.
Follow-up:
Follow-up activities were also found lacking in the FTPP meetings by one interviewee: “Meetings were not
held often enough, and there was no follow-up. Sub-networking was not encouraged or supported. For
example, if during a meeting 2-3 countries got along and wanted to have independent networking or
collaboration on something, this was not supported continuously. It was supported only once with some
funds, between India and Indonesia.”
One interviewee attended the AFN meeting in Hawaii in 1994, but there was no follow-up thereafter.
3.4.2 (c) Training and Capacity Building
Only FTPP/RECOFTC were identified with training and capacity building activities. There were no
criticisms regarding the content of training. However, it was felt by one person that training activities were
very limited and had no impact at grassroots level: “They do very good training, but come here about once
a year. They do a little bit here and there. They give training to a few persons through IBRAD or IIT
Kharagpur. But what does this mean? It is not even known whether the trained persons are doing anything
else later on. There is no follow-up. It creates awareness at a particular level – but that level is not at
grassroots. The FD failed initially because it did not take into account the base – now networks are doing
the same top-down thing. It is like a university. This is not the function of a network, which has to be
bottom-up.”
IBRAD, and to some extent RDC-IIT, were closely associated with FTPP/RECOFTC training programmes.
As described earlier, IBRAD was a partner in two international training programmes run in collaboration
with IIFM and SPWD. The exposure gained through this collaboration was greatly appreciated at IBRAD
since it fed into their own local and international training programmes, and led to capacity-building of
IBRAD. Discussions on training modules at RECOFTC, grants given to IBRAD to host an international
network meeting in 1995 (which resulted in a publication 89 ), the collaboration on the international training
programmes, and interaction between IBRAD and FTPP/RECOFTC through the exchange of reports and
publications all led to increased confidence and capacity at IBRAD in developing national and international
training programmes: “When you discuss issues with international participants, you test your ability at the
international level. That gave us a forum to sharpen our thoughts and skills, and to get feedback for
IBRAD’s own training programmes in India.” A small amount of money was received from the network to
help organise follow-up workshops, network meetings and publication of material. A computer was also
received when IBRAD began participating in thematic email conferences on conflict management and
training.
There were various off-shoots of the training collaboration with FTPP/RECOFTC, for IBRAD as well as
RDC-IIT:
• IBRAD subsequently organised three international training programmes independently over three
years. This is an ongoing activity. It was felt that IBRAD’s work became known at a global level
due to its association with FTPP/RECOFTC.
• There was collaboration with Gaja Mada University in Indonesia where IBRAD conducted two
training programmes on Participatory Forest Management for the Indonesian FD. People from
89
Meeting proceedings were published in a book entitled Enabling Environment for JFM, ed. SB Roy
(Inter-India Publications, New Delhi, 1995).
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