Empowering local communities with the technical skills and resources necessary to achieve a regular income is vital when addressing many of the problems that afflict developing countries. The market analysis and development (MA&D) approach provides the crucial structures that are necessary to achieve this empowerment through sustainable forest management and utilization of forest resources. Poverty alleviation is addressed by identifying forest products that could be commercialized, and then developing markets for them. This increases individual and community revenue while at the same time encouraging people to protect forest resources through participatory forest management. MA&D is a step-by step participatory methodology for capacity building, arranged in three phases that systematically considers social and environmental concerns alongside the technological, commercial and financial aspects of enterprise development. It uses a series of general tools that need to be adapted to local reality to achieve specific results in the development of business ideas. The Gambian Forestry Department, supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is currently implementing the MA&D approach in three administrative divisions of the country. Following a successful pilot phase in the Western Division, which was launched in December 2000, 22 Community Forest Committees, spread among 26 villages, are now actively employing the MA&D methodology.

Type of Case
Printed publication (book, sourcebook, journal article…)

Publisher
FAO

Region
Africa

Biome
Tropical

Forest Type
All forest types (natural and planted)

Primary Designated Function
All