Towards pro-poor institutions: exclusive rights to the poor groups in community forest management.
This paper illustrates that through continuous sharing, deliberation and negotiation among the poor and non-poor members of Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) management of community forests can be made equitable. It is demonstrated by drawing from the experience of Livelihood and Forestry Programme (LFP) particularly from bringing cases of few districts and some community forest user groups. We provide empirical evidences on the process and outcome of how facilitation support enabled the poor to have more equitable access to community forests. We discuss a particular form of institutional innovation that entails assigning exclusive use right to the identified groups of poor within the CFUGs, pro-poor silvicultural practices and equitable rules for forest products distribution and benefit sharing. Methods used for data collection include: literature review, informal discussions, field visits and case study….
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