4. Improvements of National Forestry statistics process

The Ministry of Agriculture should speed up the establishment of a Forestry Research Wing within the Department of Integrated Agricultural Research. The research wing would be more suited to undertake research on wood products and develop existing methodologies for data collection, compilation, and validation.

Networking should be encouraged with all stakeholders in the Timber Industry to facilitate information sharing. This would greatly improve skills of personnel in the management and dissemination of data related to wood products.

The Southern African Development Community should embrace and speed up the establishment of the SADC Timber Organisation. The establishment of this organisation would result in the harmonisation of timber standards and collaboration of member states in different aspects of forestry. This would have the effect of developing capacity through sharing of technology, and improvement of the forestry statistics process. This would also improve the documentation of forestry issues at a regional level.

The CSO, the Ministry of Agriculture and other stakeholders in the timber industry should sensitise industries involved in the manufacture and trade of wood products. The CSO should also raise the acceptable response rate for data collection from 50% to at least 70%. This would have the effect of increasing and improving the precision of the estimations.

Strict regulations on data reporting could also be imposed to compel all existing establishments to report to the CSO timely. Thus, a time frame should be attached to improve efficiency of reporting. The stakeholders should also initiate the formation of an Association of Forestry / Natural Resources to improve contact and consultation between various organisations in the natural resources sector. This would enable stakeholders to define guidelines on trade, data collection and dissemination, reporting and publicity of the sector.

In Botswana, different Sections/Agencies dealing with natural resources and forestry issues are scattered in different government ministries. The government should explore the economics by pulling these units under one ministry. This would minimise fragmentation of forestry / natural resources data. The sections / agencies would also have a conducive environment for closer co-operation. This would have the effect of maximising use of available expertise and resources. The government would ultimately save on expenditure as duplication of duties performed by these various sections / agencies would be highly minimised.