Managing the Miombo Woodlands of Southern Africa Policies, incentives and options
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3Getting the mix right: policy options for the Southern African dry woodlands3.1Forests are still a valuable resource at household level, but…3.1.1The problemThe cry that forestry is marginalised is one not only heard in the countries of the miombo biome. However, forestry is not being singled out: rural development and environment sectors generally have seen declining fiscal and ODA contributions for the last decade (Madhvani 1999, World Bank 2005a, ODI 2006a). Forestry has been one of the least responsive however: this is partly a result of slow reforms to the old-style forestry administrations and the fact that forestry is cross-sectoral, with mandates overlapping on a range of agencies, and impacts from economic and social processes outside of the sector (Bass et al 1998). In reference to this, the World Bank (2007d) notes that dealing with the problems in forests through incentives and institutional issues within the [forest] sector may be insufficient to address the problems, because many of the major decisions are made in agencies that have little or no involvement in forest issues, and who are relatively rarely contacted by those who do. What conditions are needed to get the local value of miombo recognised nationally and given the resources it deserves? Several conditions are commonly cited as falling into the mix: Making forestry relevant in eyes of the key strategic ministries; getting forestry mainstreamed in other sectoral ministries (e.g. health and energy) but also getting it relevant at a decentralised level (Geller & McConnel 2006); generating evidence to demonstrate the relevance of forestry to macro-economic policy priorities (Geller & Thornber 2005), and to manage the combination of interacting policies on the ground to maximise pro-poor impact (Bess et al 1998). Finally and related to the subsequent sections, forestry itself needs to respond to the new macro-economic growth and poverty reduction agendas by redefining its relation to poverty (Hobley 2007). 3.1.2Clear policy frameworksThe forests sector needs processes that simplify the complexity of its institutional landscape so that it can ‘plug into’ the PRS processes at all relevant levels – whether in relation to, say, traditional health, soil reclamation, infrastructure or industrial production. Analysis by Evans et al (2006) suggests that a more comprehensive coordinated and nationally owned policy framework for rural development sectors like forestry would enable them to respond to the wider changes and influences derived from the PRS processes and the shift towards budgetary support, civil society reform, decentralisation and the increased private sector participation. A clear policy framework that provides clarity on role of the state in forestry and in poverty alleviation is seen as vital for forestry to compete successfully with other policy priorities on the development agenda (Cabral 2006, ODI 2006a). This framework needs to influence other sector processes, raise the profile of forestry priorities, and mainstream forestry into planning and M&E processes. The NFP process has been touted as the approach to developing a comprehensive, coordinated and nationally owned policy framework for the sector as a whole and a tool for raising the profile of forestry (Geller & McConnell 2006). However, the success of NFPs in this is limited. For example, whilst the Malawi NFP process was considered relatively strong on consultation and explicit with respect to prioritising livelihood, poverty and equity concerns in community forestry (Bekele 2001), major challenges remain for realising this intent: the political vision for community forestry remains fundamentally controversial; there are problems with the basic institutional and policy framework; the process itself is stalled in practical terms; the impact of and linkages with broader policy and political change in Malawi are ambiguous (Kayambazinthu & Locke 2002). They argue that the Malawi NFP has not, despite good intentions, engaged directly with the broader challenges raised by the changing face of poverty, including HIV/AIDS, food security, land and livelihoods. Similarly Monela (nd) assesses that the Tanzania NFP has been unsuccessful in tackling the key constraints to miombo management which are multi-sectoral and multi-level (national and local) in nature. If NFPs are not capturing the full range of issues related to the household use and management of miombo and presenting them in a way that provides a clear policy framework, it may be necessary for either the process or the instrument itself to be reviewed. One approach may be to go local in order to go national (notwithstanding the issues with decentralisation discussed later): the production of a general national framework that allows for local flexibility or the development of regional or sub-national frameworks that can feed into integrated planning and implementation at the decentralized level may be relevant (James et al 2002, Hobley, 1996). Sub-national profiling of the role of miombo by drawing it into the integrated development planning processes of local or regional government levels provides the opportunity for delivering forestry objectives or outcomes through the development plans of other sectors, improving efficiency of resource use. The social protection role of forests can be quite context specific for example, and difficult to define nationally (Farrington et al 2004), but at a local level it should be possible to link it up to social protection programmes if the policy space is created nationally for this to happen. . This approach has found success in South Africa, where forestry has been incorporated into Provincial and District development planning through a process of mapping, profiling and stakeholder engagement (DWAF 2003). This may also be relevant if miombo management is not prevalent in all areas of the country; so whilst its national profile may be low, it can be important at a sub-national level. Additionally, opportunities in Miombo are strongly determined by their biogeography (as illustrated for Zambia by Bwalya 2007) so to capture the locally-relevant value of the dry woodlands requires frameworks that capture the value of miombo in its local context. 3.1.3Upstream analysisThe development policy dialogue at the macro policy level can provide an opportunity to engage finance and social policy sectors in dealing with some of the wider, cross-sectoral issues of forestry and as such mainstream forestry into the PRS and related development policy planning processes. However, Lawson et al (2005) found for Tanzania that this opportunity was often not grasped – government capacities for cross-sectoral working were weak. In turn it could enable issues impacting on local forest use to be dealt with by a much broader target base than a sectoral programme. It may be that it was the narrow sectoral focus of forestry in the past that lead to its marginalization: it needs to make itself relevant to other sectors it influences or is influenced by. Driving a participatory process that is not [Sector] Ministry-led that can draw in perspectives from a wider range of stakeholders, that can consider options off-budget as well as on-budget processes may be most appropriate. This may require a representative stakeholder body to take the lead. Donors should ensure forestry is mainstreamed into their assessment processes whilst the forestry sector – state, private and civil society – needs to generate the evidence that demonstrates the importance of miombo to relevant policy priorities. This is explored further in 3.1.4 below. 3.1.4Monitoring and information generationAs has been mentioned above, researchers are now generating information on the relations between miombo and poverty. One of the problems has been that the quantification of household values is context specific, irregularly collected and difficult to aggregate nationally (Campbell et al 2007). Forestry has to improve its evidence generation and the systems it uses to effectively feed information back up to policy makers in a way that is digestible to them. The World Bank (2005c) suggest that countries establish a national index (forest governance, contributions of forestry to the economy, forest conservation linkage, forest-poverty linkage) that can provide a useful monitoring tool in the context of General Budget Support (GBS). The GBS process does provide the opportunity to establish indicators and milestones to monitor progress and provide benchmarks that can raise the profile of forestry and its relationship to broader institutional reforms in a country, bringing it to the attention of Ministries of Finance, even if no direct support is provided to forestry through the instrument (World Bank 2007d). The effectiveness of these conditionalities has been found to be variable however; Seymour & Dubash (2001) found they were most effective when linked to other programmes – such as civil society development programmes – that helped build a string momentum for change in a particular country. That said, sectoral planning processes of the GBS-PRS-MTEF framework seem less able to cope with the cross-cutting issues faced by forestry (Cabral 2006). Table 3 summarises the references made to forestry in the most recent PRSs of three miombo countries (Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique) and the findings imply that forestry is often poorly (or simplistically) understood in terms of its contribution to the country’s growth and poverty alleviation. Findings from the review shown in Table 3 suggests that the PRSs closely associate local (community) exploitation, particularly for energy, with deforestation, although no data is presented to confirm this. Some other observations are:
3.1.5Policy harmonisationLocal evidence from the field suggests that overlapping or unclear mandates, incongruent or ill-matching policies and a lack of information on legal roles and responsibilities create inefficiencies and disincentives for sustainable use. Policies should be mutually supporting, by generating evidence through monitoring, the relevant agencies should work to resolve policy conflicts. Even if the problem is structural (for example where legislation requires amendment) there is sometimes sufficient flexibility to allow locally-relevant responses to be piloted. Donors can often support the testing of new policy approaches and the feed back of evidence in to the planning process. At the national level, cross sectoral or cross-ministry engagement for policy harmonisation may be facilitated through MDBS-PRSP process where donors are working with central ministries. Donors can support these central agencies to manage the dialogue leading to a level of cross-sectoral complementarity in terms of policies and programmes programmes (for example the role of donors in facilitating emerging national processes in the case of Tanzania (Lawson et al 2005)). This can then be fed through to integrated implementation. The most important areas of policy conflict in the miombo appear to be:
3.1.6Institutional reformAs has been mentioned, most forestry departments in eth region are in the process of reforming, to better enable forestry as a sector to both account for itself nationally whilst enhancing value of miombo at the household level. We look here at two aspects, that of institutional and policy reform. Clear policy frameworks, if they have been developed through participative stakeholder engagement and have sufficient scope, often have the legitimacy to initiate and guide the changes required. Two aspects of change are identified: Aligning functions
Policy Harmonisation
Even with these frameworks in place, there has been considerable resistance from Forestry Departments in countries of the miombo regions. Whilst this is compounded by the slow pace of decentralisation (discussed in the next section), the resistance to external (international) pressure for change and the inherent clientism of the neopatrimonial system means the drive for and ownership of reform has rarely come from within (Hobley 1996, Blaikie 2003). Forestry Departments in the miombo are traditionally growers of plantation (large or small) and protectors of state forest reserves. Capacity for revenue collection is often weak, rent seeking is a problem. In Malawi for example, as charcoal is moved from point of production to the markets, traders incur costs that amount to private taxation by public officials. These officials include people on duty at roadblocks, Traffic Police and the Police 997 Emergency Service. Kambewa et al (2007) has found that such bribes account for 12-20% of the final price of charcoal. In other countries (such as Ghana and Cameroon where forestry represents a significant economic contribution) GBS has been effectively used with benchmarks that trigger payments to influence the way the state forestry institutions reform themselves. Because the influence can be made through the central budget ministries, the potential for facilitating change is enhanced (World Bank 2007d). 3.1.7Intervention optionsThe proposed options are based on the need to mainstream forestry into development planning at both local and national levels and the need to safeguard the safety net value of the miombo for the poorest. A lesson from the literature is that getting forestry into PRSPs isn’t necessarily about getting forest policies/strategies into macro-planning but making sure that the policies/processes that are in there work together to eliminate the barriers for forestry to work for the poor. The options for intervention include to:
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