Poverty-Forests Linkages Toolkit - IUCN

18 OVERVIEW
POVERTY-FORESTS LINKAGES TOOLKIT
It may not be possible to find an organogram illustrating
different levels and reporting relationships between
those levels. Thus, it may be necessary to generate one
through interviews at the national and then at the local
levels, looking for discrepancies. By conducting interviews
with PRS officials, forestry officials and other
ministries with special responsibilities, it becomes possible
to understand the lines of authority and routes for
monitoring information.
Building interest in the toolkit
Sections 2.4 and 2.5 have suggested at some length the
lines of enquiry needed for toolkit users to understand
the context in which the toolkit might or might not
be applicable, but they have not addressed the fact that
poverty and forestry stakeholders need to be convinced
that it is worth putting some effort into choosing a
pathway which will build more consideration of forests
into the PRS.
Involving the forest sector
Probably the strongest starting point is within the
Forestry Ministry or Department, where there ought to
be an interest in making the poverty case on behalf of
forests, particularly as government budget cycles begin
to develop more directly out of PRSP priorities. The
ideal way to begin, along with preliminary discussions
and fact-finding, might be with a seminar in which
the toolkit users explain the toolkit’s purpose and the
kinds of data it can produce. If there is a strong body of
donors for the forest sector, there should also be presentations
to them about what the toolkit is for and what
it can do.
The toolkit relies on quick ‘snapshot’ methods, generating
and collating data from small-scale, forest-focused PPAs,
selected from a number of sites around the country. These
indicate the level and nature of reliance on forests, and
the forest-related impediments to and opportunities for
poverty reduction identified by local people. The toolkit
helps to make a case for greater consideration of the poverty
reduction role that forests can play.
At the same time it is important to explain that if the
toolkit successfully makes the case for more precise
information about the contribution of forests to local
people’s cash and non-cash incomes, two further steps
have to be taken.
(i) First, the Ministry responsible for forests must make
representations to the PRS secretariat and working
groups, asking for questions to be inserted into existing
data gathering instruments such as household
surveys and agricultural surveys, in order to capture
the contribution of forests to household incomes.
(ii) Second, the forest sector must itself decide how it will
gather poverty and forests data in the future, as part of
its annual local-level data gathering. Once it starts to
collect such data itself, then its own sectoral monitoring
can be taken into account in the overall indicators
framework of the PRSP. The toolkit may also be able to
help generate ideas about how the nfp (national forest
program) can develop a more proactive stance to poverty
reduction, and work more closely with the PRSP.
The toolkit data can help with the formulation of both
of these types of questions.
If there is a forest sector advisory group in country, the
toolkit should be presented there, and regular updates and
report-backs made as the process unfolds in the field, and
when data gathering is complete. If there is not, an advisory
group for the toolkit process should be established in
the forest ministry/department, containing both key staff,
including those responsible for forestry data collection,
and donor representatives.
Involving PRS officials
From the poverty side, the first reaction of PRS officials
to suggestions that the forest sector has a contribution to