Toolkit for RECOFTC

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The PROFOR poverty-forests linkages toolkit
RECOFTC September 2007
Gill Shepherd (IUCN and ODI) for PROFOR, Jill
Blockhus, TNC, formerly PROFOR
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Introduction

• There has been growing interest in the role that
  forests play in supporting the poor and in
  reducing poverty.
• However, the case for forests has not yet been
  well-made to policy makers in key Ministries such
  as Finance, Planning or Local Government.
• PROFOR, IUCN, ODI, CIFOR and Winrock
  International decided to remedy this by
  undertaking country case-studies and by devising
  a toolkit for measuring forest dependence, and
  for getting locally gathered data incorporated
  into national level data-gathering.

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Presenting problems

• The problems have been two-fold
• On the poverty side, there is a tendency to
  underestimate the contribution of forests, and
  off-farm natural resources in general, to
  livelihoods.
• On the forestry side, reporting is typically in
  terms of the physical resource (trees planted,
  forest cover improved, timber sold) rather than
  livelihoods.
• Most countries lack the data to illustrate how
  forests contribute to the livelihoods of poor
  households.

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The Poverty Reduction Strategy Process

• About 70 poor countries are engaged in PRSP
  processes, and the PRS has become the standard
  planning framework for these countries.
• The process involves a comprehensive and
  participatory diagnosis of poverty, the
  prioritisation of actions to be taken, and the
  development of targets, indicators and systems
  for monitoring and evaluating progress towards
  them.
• Monitoring is based partly on data gathered by
  national statistics institutions, and partly on
  sectoral poverty monitoring.
• The first step for the toolkit team is to
  discover
• the progress made to date in the PRS process
• The relationship (if any) between the countrys
  forest/natural resource ministry and the PRS
  process

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The PRSP and the Forest sector

• There is demand from Forest Ministries for new
  forms of reporting in the context of demand that
  they supply the PRSP with summary poverty data.
• From the point of view of the PRSP, there are two
  choices
• to modify the way in which forest data is
  collected and processed annually within the
  forest sector
• To seek for ways of inserting forest-relevant
  topics and questions into more general surveys.
• The second is easier in the short run, but in
  the longer run the first will also be essential.
• The toolkits rural data-gathering can contribute
  to both.

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The toolkit in brief

• The toolkit
• rapidly assesses dependence on forests
• provides a means for poor people to comment upon
  forest laws, policies and programmes and their
  impacts on local livelihoods
• delivers snapshot data on topics impossible to
  get at quickly through orthodox quantitative
  methods
• However, it cannot
• systematically monitor progress towards poverty
  reduction over time
• change political hearts and minds

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Toolkit Contents

• A set of rapid appraisal methods to gather
  information on cash and subsistence values
• Suggestions on how to present the results to
  planners and government agencies
• Explanation of the PRSP process
• Series of case studies illustrating the
  contribution of forests to households (Guinea,
  Indonesia, Laos, Mexico, Nepal and Tanzania)

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Field Tools and their purpose

• Tool 1 Wealth Ranking
• Purpose To select the households who will take
  part in the focus group exercise
• Tool 2 Local Landscape Situation Analysis
• Purpose To make a visual assessment of the
  range and type of local resources with the
  guidance of villagers
• Tool 3 Timeline and Trends
• Purpose Record changes over time in forest
  resources, agriculture, population density,
  governance arrangements, etc.
• Tool 4 Livelihoods analysis
• Purpose To determine cash and subsistence
  reliance on forests and the proportion of annual
  income coming from forests

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Field Tools and their purpose

• Tool 5 Trees and Forest Products Importance
• Purpose To rank forest products by importance
  for cash or subsistence use
• Tool 6 User Rights, User Responsibilities and
  Benefits
• Purpose To obtain villagers perspective of all
  forest stakeholders, the benefits they derive
  from the forest, and the rights and
  responsibilities they exercise
• Tool 7 Forests Problem and Solution Matrix
• Purpose To identify and rank forest problems
  (related to policy, regulation or tenure/access)
  and to suggest solutions
• Tool Village report-back
• Purpose to report findings and to leave
  villagers with results in visual form and with a
  sense of next steps.

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Applying the toolkit in the field to generate
information for the national level
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Wealth ranking can be a difficult topic

• The toolkit exercise begins with wealth ranking
  and sample selection within a chosen village
• In Tanzania, key wealth indicators were cattle
  and land holdings
• A wealthy household owned 30 or more cattle and
  10 or more ha, while at the other end of the
  scale, a very poor household 0-1 cows and 0-1 ha
  of land.
• In Indonesian Papua, wealth and poverty could not
  be discussed directly. It was decided that since
  wealth and age went together, focus groups could
  be chosen from older married, younger married,
  and young unmarried men and women.
• In southern Ghana much difficult discussion was
  finally resolved as follows. The wealthy lived in
  their own houses (not family compounds) and were
  large cocoa farmers. Others ranged from small
  cocoa farmers down through seasonal crop farmers
  to those with no land and no permanent job.

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Wealth Ranking

• Selecting 4 wealth-ranked focus groups (2 male, 2
  female) by
• Writing the names of all village household heads
  on cards.
• Sorting of cards by the village Committee into
  tins representing the 4 wealth categories.
• Selecting male and female wealth groups.
• The tools are subsequently worked through in
  these groups, without explicit discussion of
  wealth or gender.

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Livelihood Analysis

• A households income comes from all the non-cash
  and all the cash sources which enable a household
  to get through the year successfully. It
  includes
• All the items grown on farm or gathered from
  forests (including timber) or other off-farm
  natural resources, and sold.
• All the items, grown on farm or gathered from
  forests (including timber) or other off-farm
  natural resources, and eaten or used at home
  without being sold.
• Money received in wages or through trading.
• Money sent by other family members living and
  working outside the community.

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Livelihood Analysis poor/very poor women
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Livelihood Analysis poor/very poor women
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Livelihood Analysis rich and middling men
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Livelihood Analysis rich and middling men
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Contribution of forest resources to incomein
Busongo village Tanzania

• 1. Publicly available data
• The total number of households (village level
  data)
• the per capita income figure available for this
  region of Tanzania (national level data)
• the average household size for the area (National
  census)
• 2. Toolkit data
• The villages own wealth ranking of households
  (18 rich HHs, 29 middling HHs, 150 poor HHs, and
  58 extremely poor HHs)
• The villages own assessment of the key criteria
  by which wealth was measured in the village
  (cattle and land)
• Using these, we could estimate that
• rich and middle-income households had an average
  annual household income figure of around 3940
• poor and very poor households had an annual
  income of about 850.
• These figures exclude forest non-cash income.

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Contribution of forest resources to income in
Busongo village Tanzania (2)

• 4. Using the proportions derived from the
  livelihoods tool we can see that
• For rich and middle-income households, forest
  non-cash income adds 867 (22) to the annual
  income.
• For poor and very poor house-holds, forest
  non-cash income adds 188 (also 22) to the
  annual income.

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Example of main forest products sold in the
village of Simpa, Wasa Amenfi West District, S.
W. Ghana

• Notice the prepond-erance of only one or two
  main products for sale, plus a few very minor ones

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Example of main forest products consumed in the
village of Simpa, Wasa Amenfi West District, S.
W. Ghana

• Notice the far far wider range of products to be
  found in the non-cash consumption list, for the
  villagers of Simpa

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Forest Problems and Solutions

• Each of the 4 Groups
• brainstormed a set of
• what they saw as key
• current problems in the
• landscape, and ranked
• them.
• The ten most important
• problems identified by
• each group were then
• discussed in more detail.
• Possible solutions were identified along with
  suggestions for where the problem could be dealt
  with in the village, in the District or
  nationally.

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Forest Problems and Solutions as seen In
Busongo, Tanzania

• EXAMPLES OF KEY PROBLEMS
• Growing landlessness and reduced access to forest
  resources
• Several forest product marketing problems were
  raised, from difficulties with local police on
  the road, to the need for more expertise on gum
  quality, in order to add value to the gum sales
  villagers make.
• Extension help was requested with accessing
  better seed and tree-planting material

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Identifying opportunities for getting
forests-poverty linkages into data-collection
systemsin Tanzania

• OPPORTUNITY 1
• In Tanzanias PRSP, Topic 1 is concerned with
  growth and the reduction of income poverty, and
  within that, Goal 4 aims to reduce income poverty
  of men and women in rural areas, with the target
  of increased contributions from wildlife and
  fisheries to rural incomes.
• Potential action Forestry was not originally
  included in this system due to a lack of
  understanding of forests contribution to poverty
  reduction. The designers of the monitoring
  database are now revisiting this assumption .

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Identifying opportunities for getting
forests-poverty linkages into data-collection
systemsin Tanzania

• OPPORTUNITY 2
• PRSP priorities and targets are linked
  sectorally through the Medium Term Expenditure
  Framework (MTEF) and budgeting processes tied to
  financial resource allocation.
• Potential action The Forestry Division has to
  make a case for its contribution to poverty
  reduction, and to suggest indicators it could use
  to do so. The toolkits findings are being used
  in this process.

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Identifying opportunities for getting
forests-poverty linkages into data-collection
systemsin Tanzania

• OPPORTUNITY 3
• Forest and natural resources contributions to
  poverty reduction are not currently captured by
  the Household Budget Survey (HBS).
• Potential action Additional forestry questions
  are now being debated. Staff were convinced by
  data from the toolkit test that forestry needs to
  be included in the HBS questionnaire.

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Usefulness of the toolkit to different kinds of
actors

• Part 1 National Level and Part 2 Field Manual
  for
• International Organisations and Donors
• National Government ministries
• Development networks
• Part 2 Field Manual only, for
• Local level Government
• Local level Government NGOs
• CBOs and local user associations
• Country case studies
• Research institutions and all other interested
  groups

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Trying out the toolkit

• We are currently testing
• PROFORs Forests-Poverty Toolkit
• widely.
• You can download the current draft
• of the toolkit at
• http//www.profor.info/toolkits.html
• and if you are interested in trying it
• out we are happy to offer support.
• Send an email to
• gillshepherd_at_compuserve.com