Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

Box 1.11
Improving Equity and Governance and Addressing Elite Capture in Nepal
Nepal has a great deal of experience to offer in understanding
the benefits and concerns of locally managed
forests. It was the first country to have a national
forestry policy allowing communities to form forest
user groups (FUGs) that, after they elect leaders and
develop a constitution and management plan, can be
assigned control of and benefits from specific forest
plots. To strengthen their groups against potential
challenges as forest productivity and value increase
through management, the groups have formed a
federation.
Elite capture is a key issue to be addressed during
decentralization, as was the case in some situations in
Nepal. How local control impacts equity in asset distribution,
and whether local groups can develop the
transparency and other mechanisms necessary to avoid
corruption, are important considerations.
An NGO, Women Acting Together for Change,
worked closely with the FUGs on equity, democracy,
and transparency through a process that included
household visits to FUG members to discuss good governance
of forest resources. The community then carried
out community resource, social, and economic
assessments, and workshops in which the leaders and
members identified what good governance would
mean in their group and identified very specific goals
with clear indicators that they designed into posters to
monitor progress. An evaluation of this project found
that many groups rewrote their constitutions and management
plans giving special advantages to poorer
members, and established open group audits. They
elected lower caste and women members to some of
the leadership positions, often for the first time, and
identified totally new goals.
At the Fourth National Community Forestry Workshop
in Nepal (2004), regional directors and
researchers noted that at that time leadership in the
FUGs and their federation were the only democratically
elected bodies in the country, forming a basis for
future democracy.
Lessons from this example include that in a country
with very stratified social traditions, even when there is
positive legal support, it takes skilled facilitators and
group analysis with democratic approaches to mitigate
elite capture and lack of transparency and to create
positive outcomes for the poor.
Source: Women Acting Together for Change 2004.
the poor’s market integration may increase poverty, not
reduce it (see box 1.13). This issue is further discussed in note
1.5, Making Markets Work for the Forest-Dependent Poor.
Some specific steps for consideration include the
following:
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Facilitate the organization and legal recognition of local
groups for collecting, processing, transporting, and marketing
natural resources.
Analyze commodity chains and market weakness and
develop strategies that benefit the poor.
Support market studies and locally managed market
information systems so that the full range of forest products
and outputs are considered.
Create simple management plans in which local users
make at least some of their own rules related to use of
forest products.
Support systems of regular user monitoring, and sanction
rule conformance of other users backed by the
government.
Use of science and technology to support and
empower local forest management initiatives and
objectives. Too often, an unintended consequence of using
complex scientific and technical plans and institutions has
been the exclusion of local people from planning and
managing, or marginalization of local technical, social, and
institutional knowledge. This is evident in the common
practice of demanding complex, costly, and sophisticated
forest management plans from local communities. Such
misuse of science and technology should be reversed.
Some specific steps that can be taken include the
following:
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Develop minimum management standards directly
related to forest and poverty outcomes rather than
abstract management procedures.
Develop locally adapted tools that are understood and
manageable by local actors themselves regarding evaluation
and quantification of natural resources and shared
use by communities.
NOTE 1.2: COMMUNITY-BASED FOREST MANAGEMENT 33