Does Forestry have a Role in Poverty Reduction Issues and Concepts

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Does Forestry have a Role in Poverty
Reduction?Issues and Concepts

• Mary Hobley
• Poverty Reduction and Forests
• 4-7 September 2007

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Yes and No!
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Forestry- poverty reduction assumptions

• Poor people live in and near forests
• Targeting forest areas therefore is pro-poor
• Poor peoples livelihoods are dependent on
  forests
• Securing their livelihoods through access and
  tenure reform is pro-poor
• Participation of the poor leads to inclusion
  leads to benefits (rights, access to resources,
  decision-making)
• Community level action is more pro-poor than
  state-managed processes
• Institutional and organisational reform of the
  forest sector institutions will lead to more
  pro-poor outcomes
• Civil society is a better facilitator of pro-poor
  outcomes than the state
• Increasing democratic opportunity for control
  over resources will lead to more pro-poor
  outcomes.

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The equation

• If forests are devolved to the local-level
• with community tenure and
• decision-making power over use of forests,
  including commercialisation
• it will be pro-poor

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BUT why is it not pro-poor?

• The unproblematic use of community poor
• The unproblematic use of customary
• The absence of power and politics
• The absence of gender, age, ethnicity, caste
• The unclear equation between poverty and forest
  dependence
• Unclear effects of different property regimes on
  poor e.g. community private property versus
  public property with community access rights (or
  privileges) versus individual property

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Consequences of our assumptionsforestry not
poverty first

• Original intentions were not pro-poor, at best it
  was devolution to the local
• Polarised debate state versus people
• Pragmatic focus on community or groups way of
  organising and reaching (managerial not
  political)
• Parallel structures to local government
  accountable to parent organisation,
  bureaucratic influence, negative effects on
  elected multi-purpose councils
• Representation deficit - controlled voice, single
  issue, representative?
• Awareness of exclusion but limited tools
  understanding to build inclusive processes
  (inclusion doesnt happen by insisting on
  presence)
• Barriers to inclusion nature of forum, process of
  selection, power relationships, risks to voice,
  capability to have a voice
• Benefits gender and class inequities, barriers
  to inclusion, over-regulation, high opportunity
  costs, low value benefits high value benefits
  high entry costs exclude poorer groups
• Poverty dynamics - weak understanding limited
  pro-poor effects

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• Unpacking poverty

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Deepening poverty understanding in forestry

• Spatial poverty (forest dependence argument)
• remote rural areas
• Temporal poverty (safety net argument)
• seasonal within life-cycle
• Structural poverty (transformative argument)
• social, economic and political exclusion
• little or no voice (declining, coping, improving,
  capable.)
• Some suffer all three levels of vulnerability

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Unpacking the community and the poor the
poverty/vulnerability continuum
Elites Gatekeepers
Declining poor
Coping poor
Improving poor
Capable
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Forest poverty reduction policies must
differentiate controllers of the resource and
stepping stones

• Elites
• Gatekeepers to networks, resources,
  decision-making
• Work with to open space for other voices in
  decision-making
• Contest through advocacy, social movements,
  supporting democratic processes
• Capable
• Work with as intermediaries to build entry to
  decision-making, and help articulate voice for
  others, important not to focus solely on these
  people, rather than building voice of those who
  are excluded
• Ensure their access to forest resources and
  decision-making does not prevent access by other
  groups by building livelihood security of other
  groupings as well
• Improving
• some security to act in solidarity with others
• able to develop capability to build their own
  voice
• Together with capable most likely to access new
  forest-based opportunities and use as
  stepping-stone

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Stepping stone, safety net or slippery slope?

• Coping
• less likely to be able to use their own voices to
  challenge power structures
• more likely to be reliant on others to be proxies
  for their voices (advocacy)
• supporting access to forest-based livelihood
  opportunities through a combination of social
  action, protection of access to safety net
  functions short-term, social protection and
  investment in human capital possible slippery
  slope
• Declining
• no capability for social action
• close to destitution
• in need of social protection measures and
  advocacy locally and outside, not just protection
  of safety net functions of forests slippery
  slope

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Implications of the analysis

• Poverty
• to be understood in a dynamic and differentiated
  way - different support needed for those moving
  out of poverty and those stuck or declining
• Poor people and their vulnerabilities to be
  centre-stage and not the forests
• Formal and informal relations
• complexity of power relations affects peoples
  capacity to obtain access to resources and
  constrain others access
• high risks attached to the poor challenging these
  political spaces in person or through their
  proxies
• Limitations of forestry
• Need for wider livelihood-based approaches linked
  to governance arrangements that promote
  structural transformation (local, national,
  international)

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Potential for poverty reduction

• Determined by the nature of political regime
• Not amenable to single agency solutions
• Socially differentiated approaches
• Spatially differentiated levels of remoteness,
  interconnectedness to markets, other employment
  opportunities
• Resource-base differentiated - dependent on
  nature quality of resource forests,
  forest-agriculture mosaic, agriculture with trees

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Conclusions what can we do through forestry?

• We can
• improve assets capabilities increase
  livelihood security for improving and capable
  poor
• improve the enabling political policy
  environment
• enhance the voices of the poor (extreme poor???)
• build the advocacy capabilities of those voicing
  for the poor
• We cannot
• Directly affect major changes in the livelihood
  security of the extreme poor
• But can
• Influence policy and debate into programmes
  focused on reducing livelihood insecurity across
  whole spectrum of poverty

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Whats missing?

• Support and change in all dimensions of the
  governance framework linked to differentiated
  understanding of poverty
• Building an enabling environment alone does not
  change responsiveness of service provision
• Focusing on responsiveness without change to
  voice and livelihood security does not
  necessarily bring access to the poor
• Voice of the few does not change access of the
  many to resources
• The central state, local government and civil and
  political society are necessary factors for
  pro-poor outcomes it doesnt work to focus on
  one without the others
• Working outside the sector may lead to greater
  change e.g. on land policy reform and social
  protection measures

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The six understandings for pro-poor forestry

• Start with the poor differentiation and demands
• The changing role of forests and trees in
  livelihoods
• Politics and power to build active citizenship,
  local governance
• Role of the state and relationships with civil
  and political society
• Role of the market and enterprise and potential
  for growth
• Global geo-politics and effects on local-level
  livelihoods