Poverty-Forests Linkages Toolkit

An estimated 1.2 billion people rely on forests for some part of their livelihoods. However, the importance of forests is often overlooked in national development processes such as poverty reduction strategies due to inadequate evidence documenting how forests sustain the poor. To build better knowledge on this critical relationship, PROFOR developed a “Poverty-Forests Linkages Toolkit” to facilitate relevant data collection and analysis. The Toolkit was created in partnership with CIFOR, IUCN, ODI, and Winrock International, on the basis of case studies in Guinea, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, Mexico and Tanzania.

The first draft of the Toolkit was completed in April 2007 and is now being piloted in four African countries - Cameroon, Ghana, Madagascar and Uganda. The pilots will refine the Toolkit while also providing useful data and indicators for policy decisions in the pilot countries. A consortium of national level organizations led by the International Institute for Economic Development and the Center for International Development and Training are carrying out the pilots which will be completed in mid-2008. In the interim, the Draft Toolkit is available along with a synthesis of literature on forests-poverty linkages, which highlights those linkages found in six case studies that were used to help develop the tool kit.

What the Poverty-Forest Linkages Toolkit Includes:

• A set of rapid appraisal methods to gather information on economic as well as other contributions from forests to households, especially the poor;
• Methods for analyzing field data for the potential role of forests in reducing poverty and vulnerability and policy options for improving the contribution of forests to rural livelihoods;
• Suggestions for how to frame the results so as to be relevant to the planners, government agencies and other institutions and organizations, at both local and national levels;
• An explanation of the PRSP process and identification of the strategies and skills needed for influencing the PRSP process (including potential entry points for forestry); and
• A Field Manual to support training and capacity building for local government forest officials, collection of information to understand forest dependence locally and hands-on application of participatory assessment tools

Field Tools and their Purpose
Tool 1: Wealth Ranking

Purpose: Understand how poor households use and depend on forest resources

Tool 2: Local Landscape Situation Analysis

Purpose: Understand how villagers use local resources

Tool 3: Timeline and Trends

Purpose: Record changes in forest resources, agriculture, local livelihood strategies and income.

Tool 4: Livelihoods analysis

Aim: Determine the cash and subsistence reliance on forests and the proportion of annual income from forests

Tool 5: Trees and Forest Products Importance

Purpose: Rank forest products by importance for cash or subsistence use

Tool 6: User Rights, User Responsibilities and Benefits

Purpose: 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: Identify and rank forest problems (related to policy, regulation or tenure/access) and suggest solutions