Poverty Dimensions of Public Governance and Forest Management ...

63
4.3 Output 3: ‘Increased awareness among NR researchers, policy-makers and development
agencies of the types of changes which will be needed to ensure that current decentralisation and
natural resource management policies contribute to poverty alleviation’
The original intention was for awareness-raising activities to be undertaken before the submission
of the present report.
However, in view of the scoping character of the present study, the Team Leaders felt that it
would be inappropriate to present the findings formally to their partners without being able to
give them some indication of the likely follow-up from the funding agency. The decentralisation
process in Ghana is not yet well-advanced, and there are a number of sensitivities arising out of
this research which can only be effectively addressed in the context of an action-research
programme.
Formal awareness-raising activities have therefore been withheld until the report is submitted.
They will be conditioned to some degree by the likely follow-up from the funding agency.
Three sets of activities are envisaged:
a) Discussion of findings with resource users, in local informal settings.
This element of the programme will proceed in April-May. The field research team has by now
established good rapport with a range of resource users and decision-makers, at District and
locality levels. It is envisaged that the field team will return to its study sites, in sequence, to
discuss the findings in informal settings with the various groups with whom they have been
working over the last year. These discussions will take place largely in vernacular languages and
in a manner appropriate to the needs of the stakeholders involved. Thus, formal workshops will
be avoided, and the accent placed on carefully targeted meetings to maximise the participation of
the relevant categories. .10
b) Formal presentation of findings at a national policy-makers workshop or workshops
10 Note (6/02): These meetings have now been undertaken, and the research report is being drafted. The
feedback was extremely well-received by the villagers.
63