UN Division for Sustainable Development

Case Study Detail Record

Organization type:	Government

Name of Ministry/Agency:	Department of State

Country:	United States of America

Name of Focal Point:	Hiram Larew

Initiative Title:	Transformational Change in Senegal: Natural Forest Management

Internet links:	http://www.frameweb.org/ev_en.php?ID=27041_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC -- Evaluation of the Wula Nafaa project, which is set to end in 2008, was commissioned in part to determine whether and how the project paradigm could be continued and expanded at greater scale elsewhere in Senegal. The report identifies key challenges for the remainder of the program and beyond. http://senegal.usaid.gov/news/releases/2008/08_01_31_AG_NRM_forest_plans.html

Scope:	Regional: - Africa

Status:	Ongoing

Timeframe:	Start: End:

Lead Institution:	U.S. Agency for International Development

Stakeholders/Partners:	Rural communities in Senegal

Relevent issues:	- Strategies for effective resource management - Improving natural resource revenue investment and sharing

Objectives/Challenges:

In Senegal, USAID’s Wula Nafaa (Benefits of the Bush) Program has helped rural populations better manage local natural forest resources, strengthen and diversify their economies and reduce and even reverse degradation rates. These measures have increased the resiliency of both the population and the land, and left both less vulnerable to shocks such as climatic change. Wula Nafaa has achieved this in three ways – first, by helping the Government of Senegal to devolve resource rights and responsibilities to rural populations and to strengthen the professional skills of the government forestry cadre; secondly, by assisting the Senegalese private sector to strengthen natural product value chains; and, finally, by strengthening the skills and capacities of rural communities to manage both the natural resources base and producer organizations.

Lessons Learned:

Lessons Learned: The revenues from properly managed natural products and natural forests were much greater than occurred prior to the Wula Nafaa (Benefits of the Bush) Program.

• Rural producers, when they had secure rights and responsibility, demonstrated themselves to be effective managers of local forests and forest products.

• Senegal decision-makers found community-based Natural Forest Management to be an effective vehicle for poverty reduction and rural economic growth. Prior to this project, little attention was paid to open savanna forests as a promising means for these critical national objectives.

• Community-based Natural Forest Management also demonstrated itself to be an effective vehicle for decentralization, democratization and improved governance, because it provided compelling reasons for rural people to come together, negotiate issues, and make and implement decisions that had previously been the prerogative of the State.

Summary:

Key Results: Impressive improvements have occurred in the economy, society and environment.

• Increased the export value of targeted crops by $2.3 million.

• Revenues of enterprises directly supported by the project increased by nearly $1.1 million.

• Over 4,000 households and other enterprise groups assisted.

• Helped 24 community-based organizations develop legally-recognized agreements that provide for local rights over the resources and sustained-yield harvests.

• Over 2.5 million hectares covered by legally-recognized local conventions and over 59,000 hectares under approved forest management plans.

• Thirty-three legal, regulatory, and administrative barriers to local sustainable management removed.

• The Minister of Environment mandated that all charcoal come from lands with approved management plans (effectively transferring authority from the powerful Charcoal Cartel to legally-recognized Community Forestry Committees).

Next Steps: A new five-year program is planned that will build on the results of Wula Nafaa (Benefits of the Bush) Program, This new effort, Wula Nafaa II, will expand into other areas and other sectors (e.g., fisheries).