All Division 9 (Forest Policy and Economics) Meeting
Rolf Böhme Saal (Konzerthaus Freiburg)
IUFRO17-1097 Transformational change through REDD readiness in Nepal: realities amidst expectations
Bhandari, N. S.* (1)
(1) District Forest Office Syanja, Department of Forests, Putali Bazaar, Nepal
Abstract: The national REDD+ program in Nepal was initiated in 2008 by the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, under the grant support of FCPF/World Bank. The readiness phase, which marks the first phase in the mechanism, has established an institutional set up for REDD governance and prepared policy documents including a draft REDD strategy. Only recently, the country has obtained additional funding for readiness. Preparations for a sub-national project are underway, with the country in pipeline for the carbon fund of the World Bank. In light of these developments, this research sought to comprehend how the readiness process is interacting with and influencing the broader forestry governance in the country. The results support a better understanding of how likely the transformational ambitions of REDD+ are in the context of
Nepal, and point to necessary changes to the approach undertaken thus far.
The study is based on a documentary analysis and qualitative interviews with experts working with REDD+ in the country. The findings indicate that the readiness process has not been not able to reach its objectives due to the persistence of ineffective governance in the forestry sector, which has largely affected the REDD+ policy-making process. Problematic governance issues include path dependencies and the 'stickiness' of the bureaucratic institutions, along with a lack of political commitment. In the light of the lack of cohesion within the pubic authorities involved in the process, donors have turned to NGOs bestowing them with considerable resources. Moreover, the donor-driven readiness mechanism with
'tailored' readiness activities has affected the empowerment of government institutions through the heavy reliance on experts and consultants.
The research argues that unless donors and policy makers work to reform the forestry sector governance in Nepal, transformational change through REDD+ will be an immensely challenging task.
REDD+, readiness, institutions, donors, governance
Rolf Böhme Saal (Konzerthaus Freiburg)
IUFRO17-3300 Governance capacity of public actors in forestry: An analytical framework for facilitating social innovation
Rogelja, T.* (1); Secco, L. (1); Shannon, M. (2)
(1) University of Padova, Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, Legnaro (PD), Italy; (2) University of Freiburg, Faculty of
Environmental and Natural Resources, Freiburg, Germany
Abstract: The shift "from government to governance" should have brought a decline of command-and-control regulations and a redistribution of power and responsibilities. In most European countries, these reforms included public policies and sectors. Nevertheless, it seems that the forest sector is still hierarchically organized, with predominantly public actors, where decision-making is top-down. To what extent, do these structures constrain the forest sector's social innovation? The European Commission views social innovation as a means to address complex societal problems. But to day, social innovation in the public sector has received less attention, perhaps thinking that institutional inertia was incompatible with innovation. Today, however, the question is how should the public sector foster innovation, not if. The aim of this paper is to explore the governance capacity of public forest sector for social innovation in the European context, which we understand as the ability of actors to work together in solving common problems in forestry. To fulfill this aim, we conducted a rigorous and extensive review of the literature on social innovation, focused specifically on governance capacity in natural resource management. Several elements of governance and social innovation emerged and created our framework for analyzing governance capacity, especially of public actors in the forest sector at national and local levels. Preliminary results indicate that for social innovation in forestry, governance capacity is found in the relationships among the state-private sectors, the state-civil society actors, and private sector-civil society actors. This suggests that principles of collaborative governance strengthen social innovation capacity.
governance capacity, social innovation, forests
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