A group of people sit and stand in a semi-circle surrounded by forest

 

Problem Statement 

Forest landscapes are vital for livelihoods, climate mitigation and resilience. Poor governance and inadequate consideration of the value of ecosystem services in the agriculture and forest sectors, however, have led to forest loss and landscape degradation. This distorts timber markets and threatens the livelihoods of forest-dependent populations. Moreover, illegal and unsustainable logging undermine ongoing efforts to curb deforestation and enhance carbon stocks to mitigate climate change.  

 

Solution Pathways 

Addressing governance issues requires a whole-of-government approach that includes institutions beyond the typical forest and environmental agencies. The Improving Governance Flagship builds on work completed by PROGREEN’s predecessor, the Program on Forests (PROFOR), which made forest governance a priority issue by providing technical assistance to improve the monitoring of forest activities and helping to create consensus and political will around priority reforms.  

 

Approach  

  • Develop an assessment approach and Governance Index for measuring the quality of landscape governance to help identify problems and needed reforms  
  • Construct a decision support tool that describes desirable pathways and needed actions  
  • Produce tools, case studies, and success stories at country-level to ensure relevance and validity 

 

Outputs 

  • Finalize governance index and develop a decision support system that uses the index results guide decisions and investments, thus improving impacts for landscape governance and sustainability. 
  • Pilot the index and the system in three or four countries. 

The final tool supported by this Flagship will improve knowledge and capacity among clients, World Bank staff, partners and private sector, leading to greater understanding of the concepts and benefits of landscape governance. It will also influence the way that reforms to address landscape issues are formulated through a structured approach to overcome challenges. Additionally, private sector investments and that of other donors could be influenced by this approach thus creating a wide space of actions and decisions catalyzed. 

 

Improving Governance of Forest Landscape