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| Developing a toolkit for facilitiation of support for small forest enterprises, IIED 2008 |
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| Country(ies) | Burkina Faso, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, India, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Mozambique, Nepal, Uganda |
| Implementing agency(ies) | Int. Inst. for Environment and Development (IIED) |
| Funding agency(ies) | DANIDA, Department for International Development (DFID), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), SDC, World Bank Group |
| Date completed | July 2008 |
| Geographic setting(s) | Rural |
| Issues/challenges | Forest Connect is an international alliance dedicated to reducing poverty by better linking SMFEs to each other, to markets, to service providers and to policy processes such as national forest programmes (nfps). It currently involves active programmes of work in 11 countries: Burkina Faso, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, India, Laos, Mali, Mozambique and Nepal plus a broader network of supporters in 48 countries linked by an international social networking site (see above for link). With spiralling demand for forest products, anchoring timber and non-timber forest product (NTFP) rights to responsible but profitable local enterprises is seen as a key step in reducing poverty, avoiding deforestation and averting and adapting to climate change. |
| Web site | Click here for the Forest Connect Networking Site |
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Description
The Forest Connect alliance is co-managed by the Natural Resources Group within the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Community-Based Forest Enterprise Development programme (CBED) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). New support from PROFOR and the FAO hosted national forest programme (nfp) Facility aims to draw on the emerging experiences of this alliance to develop (and roll out across Facility partner countries) a toolkit for the facilitation of support for small and medium forest enterprises. This workshop aimed to develop the framework for this toolkit based on the expressed needs of country partners; the document generated by the workshop can be downloaded from the link below, or via the Forest Connect networking site.
The workshop closed with commitments to support country team work over the next year ¿ with a potential toolkit revision meeting at the same time in 2009. IIED would take the lead in developing some basic content for the agreed toolkit modules and soliciting inputs both from inside and outside the Forest Connect alliance. Communications would be maintained through an active email list and through the Forest Connect networking site, linked to increasingly sophisticated national websites. Country partners would endeavour to strengthen their steering committees with a view to increasing buy in from key stakeholder groups. Action learning to improve prospects for particular SMFEs and their association was now firmly in view over the coming year.
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