The Gambia: Capacity building in Community-based Forest Enterprise Development

At the end of 2000, the Gambia Forestry Department identified FAO´s Market Analysis and Development (M A& D) approach to assist communities in the creation of income generation activities from the Community Forests, in line with the Gambian Forest Management Concept (GFMC). As a result, the (M A& D) methodology was introduced in a pilot area in Western Division of The Gambia in 2001.

After encouraging results obtained during the pilot implementation of (M A & D) the Forestry Department decided to extend the use of this methodology to two more territorial divisions. This became the basis of the Technical Cooperation Programme project signed in 2002 between the Gambia Forestry Department and the FAO.

The main objective was to train the Forestry Department personnel in M A& D methodology in order for them to facilitate the development of community-based enterprises utilising products, resources or services from community forests.

During the project implementation, the national trainers successfully organised and facilitated products´ stakeholders meetings in the two divisions involving 14 villages and helped villagers to collect missing information on technical and market issues. The villagers were exposed to possible alliances with traders, technical service and credit providers. Through these stakeholder meetings, seeds of future alliances were planted and confidence of villagers raised.

Key achievements made during the project:

  • an M A& D module was included in the National Forestry School curriculum. This is an important step in the institutionalisation of the M A& D process since through this inclusion all the new Forestry staff will consider M A& D as an integrated instrument of their participatory forestry tool box.

  • Initial training efforts were aimed at building the capacity of a multi-level staff pool. As a result, national co-ordinators, national trainers and members of the field staff were soundly trained.

  • The field facilitators helped the Community Forest staff to organise village workshops to share collected information and do the final selection of products. The list of products selected in the two divisions included honey, timber/logs, handicraft and splits from rhun palm, Borassus aethiopum, firewood, ecotourism, tree nursery, kembo, Prosopis Africana, poles.

  • The pilot tests activities involved a high number of concerned Forest Committee members, who conducted market surveys and also helped to unveil illegal exploitation and trade of forest products.

  • Valuable forest products and services, which had not been in the focus of communities and the Forestry Department, were identified through MA & D research on the local and international markets.

    The M A& D methodology was successfully adopted by a total of 26 villages. First, as a pilot experience in 14 villages located in the Western Division, during 2001-02, and then in six villages from the Low River Division, plus six villages more located in the Central River Division, during 2003-04.

    There are more than 500 villages actively involved in Participatory Forestry nationwide and only 26 have started production and trade activities based on M A & D which have generated significant income and positive impact on the way they manage their forest resources. The Forestry Department wants to introduce and train staff in two new Divisions and to train more trainers and field staff in the 3 divisions where the concept has been introduced.

    Once the project ended, a case study was prepared in order to share the experiences achieved by the project in a national policy framework such as that of The Gambia. In order to access this case study, please click on Publications.

    For additional information on this project please click here.

    For further information please contact:

    Sophie.Grouwels@fao.org
    Forestry Policy Service (FOEP)
    Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy
    Phone: +39 06 57055299
    Fax: +39 06 57055514
    • last updated: Monday, October 1, 2007