Are policies for decentralised forest governance designed to achieve full devolution? Evidence from Eastern Africa
Decentralised forest management approaches are ostensibly designed to increase community involvement in forest management, yet have had mixed success in practice. We present a comparative study across multiple countries in Eastern Africa of how far decentralised forest policies are
designed to achieve devolution. We adopt the decentralisation framework developed by Agrawal and Ribot to explore whether, and how, devolution is specified in Tanzanian, Kenyan, Ugandan, Malawian and Ethiopian forest policies. We also compare them to the commitments of the Rio Declaration.
In all five countries, the policies lack at least some of the critical elements required to achieve meaningful devolution, such as democratically elected, downwardly accountable local actors and equitable benefit sharing. Calling an approach 'community' or 'participatory', does not mean that
it involves all residents: in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, policies allow a small group of people in the community to manage the forest reserve, potentially excluding marginalised groups, and hence limiting devolution. This may lead to elite capture, and effective privatisation of forests,
enclosing previously de facto common pool resources. Therefore, even without flaws in implementation, these decentralisation policies are unlikely to achieve true devolution in the study countries.
Keywords: ACCOUNTABILITY; ACTORS; DECENTRALIZATION POLICIES; DEVOLUTION; EMPOWERMENTS
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 March 2020
- The International Forestry Review is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes original research and review papers on all aspects of forest policy and science, with an emphasis on issues of transnational significance. It is published four times per year, in March, June, September and December. Theme editions are a regular feature and attract a wide audience.
The IFR is part of The Global Forest Information Service - GFIS
International Forestry Review has an Impact Factor of 1.705 - Editorial Board
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