Poverty Dimensions of Public Governance and Forest Management ...

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government will strengthen national government and nation-building through dialogue and
consensus.” (2002: 28)
Though the resourcing of the programme remains uncertain, the GPRS acknowledges that a
number of steps need to be taken to make local government more effective, including the creation
of a national Local Government Service, to staff the district-level bureaucracy, review of the
Local Government Bill to reinforce local autonomy, and strengthening of the local revenue base. 6
b) The orientation of the GPRS with respect to natural resource policy.
The draft document is particularly weak in this respect. For instance, the GPRS advocates
strengthening of the environmental legislative framework in much the same way as is now being
done by district assemblies- an approach subjected to criticism in this report. Thus the GPRS
states:
“In order to improve the environment and natural resource management, existing laws and
regulations relating to the protection of resource utilisation must be implemented. The Bush
Fire Law will be reviewed, strengthened and enforced. Programmes such as community fire
fighting volunteers must be strengthened with allocations from district assembly common
funds by districts.” (p78).
This favours the kinds of punitive policing attitudes to environmental management of which this
report is particularly sceptical.
The GPRS’ overall strategy for the agricultural sector is also questionable as a means to reduce
poverty: For example:
“Government will need to play a supportive role in achieving the transformation of the
agricultural sector from its subsistence orientation to a commercially attractive, viable, and
dynamic activity. This is vital for the achievement of sustained equitable growth. However,
agricultural transformation will not be achieved without a corresponding transformation of
the attitudes of individuals to work in general and commercial farming in particular. It
requires a transformation from a culture of subsistence to a culture of business focused on
profit and accumulation. Pivotal to the process of change in the rural environment is the
reform of traditional land administration systems. Under present conditions land as an asset is
excluded from the national economy and its value denied to the farmer. It is not tradable.
Legal title to land within the concept of communality is an essential prerequisite to attracting
entrepreneurship into farming and the promotion of agricultural industry. Without legal title
6 Notably, however, the main means by which strengthening of the local revenue base is to be achieved
appears to be through the encouragement to Districts to “develop innovative revenue and funding sources
for which training will be provided” (p.125) – which at first site does little to address the fundamental
imbalances in the revenue base. Notably, also, the traditional authorities are seen as a part of the
decentralisation process, not – as many would view them – as an impediment to it. (p.124)
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