TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE NATIONAL CONSULTANT.
During the last ten years or so most countries in Africa have made an effort to implement comprehensive programmes for development of the forestry sector under the Tropical Forestry Action Plan, or its variants. In some countries such efforts have been initiated more than 15 years ago. During 1999 FAO undertook a questionnaire survey and provided an overview of the status of implementation of the national forest programmes1, 2. In general the impact of NFP implementation has been extremely varied and in several cases the progress has been so slow or even stalled for a number of reasons. In its earlier form as TFAP and NFAP, the national programmes have been often initiated largely to mobilise donor support and this donor-dependency has arrested the development of sustainable programmes that rely on internal resource mobilisation. Efforts, which were primarily donor-dependent couldn’t be sustained once the external support dwindled.
Revitalising NFPs requires a thorough assessment of the experience and to identify what could be realistically accomplished. With this in view, the EC-FAO programme “Sustainable Forest Management in Africa ACP countries” is undertaking case studies on the NFP process in 6 countries in Africa to provide a clear indication of the factors that have contributed to success or otherwise of NFP formulation and implementation. Apart from providing an indication of how the process has evolved and to what extent the NFP process has taken into account the basic principles and guidelines, the study would specifically focus on the economic viability of the National Forest Programmes. In some of the forest rich countries, the sector has the potential to sustain the National Forest Programme with the resources it generates, but often cross-sectoral transfers limits the scope for re-investment, affecting sustainability. On the other hand in several countries the ecological conditions are such that the sector can generate only limited resource and to generate goods and services, the resources will have to be transferred from other sectors. Strategies and plans for sustainable forest management have to take into account the input-output ratios and identify the appropriate level of input-output ratios that can be sustained in the long run.
1 FAO (1999) status and progress in the implementation of National Forest Programmes: Outcome of a survey by FAO, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Rome.
2 National Forest Programmes may be viewed from two different perspectives. The broad sense, the term national forest program encompasses the full range of policies, institutions, plans and programmes to manage, utilize protect and enhance forest resources within a given country. In the restricted sense the term “National Forest Programme” refers to a specific national process for planning, coordination, institutional reform and capacity building in the forest sector in accordance with internationally recognized principles and guidelines. For the purpose of this study, the term is used in its broad sense as adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests and encompasses a wide range of approaches to sustainable forest management.
This review aimed to highlight the above issues will be undertaken through National Consultants from the selected countries in Africa. The terms of reference of the National Consultant are defined below:
Working under the overall supervision of the Chief Forestry Planning and Statistics Branch, Forestry Department, FAO, Rome and under the guidance of the Senior Forestry Officer, FAO Regional Office, Accra and the concerned Technical Officers responsible for the study, the National Consultant will:
Review all the available documents and reports (published and unpublished) relating to formulation and implementation of National Forest Programmes and outline the progress/accomplishments in relation to what was envisaged while initiating the process;
Discuss with key stakeholders, especially policy makers, planners, representatives of
Sectors closely linked to forestry as also those from civil society, non-governmental organizations, local communities, private sector, etc and assess their perception with regard to forestry as also the efficacy or otherwise with regard to NFP formulation and implementation;
Define the indicators of performance and assess the changes as a consequence
of adoption of National Forest Programmes, specifically indicating important accomplishments as well as areas where performance has not been adequate and
develop a scorecard of accomplishment s/shortfalls;
Identify the factors that have contributed to the success or failure of NFPs and critically assess their relevance;
Undertake an economic analysis of National Forest Programmes, specifically focusing
on investment requirements for sustainable forest management, current and potential outputs from forest, cross-sectoral resource transfers and the economic viability of implementing sustainable forest management;
Based on the conclusions from the above, indicate the approaches
To revitalize/strengthen the NFP process and specifically identify how a self-sustainable programme could be developed and implemented.
