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 Forest Governance Program
One of the key themes emerging from the World Bank’s Forest Policy Implementation Review and Strategy process is the critical need to address governance issues in the forest sector, and in particular illegal forestry activities. A number of studies on these issues (analytical work within the Bank’s forest policy review process, the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests, World Commission on Forestry and Sustainable Development, Global Witness, World Resources Institute, IIASA, Worldwide Fund for Nature and many others) have documented the extent and economic, social and ecological costs of these problems. Forests are central to growth in many developing countries through trade and industrial development. However, mismanagement of these resources has cost governments revenues that exceed World Bank lending to these countries. Illegal logging results in additional losses of at least US$10 billion to $15 billion per year of forest resources from public lands alone. If captured by governments, these losses could support expenditures in education and health that will exceed current development assistance to these sectors.
The World Bank's ESSD Forest Governance Program is designed to promote a change in current practices in production forestry -- to contain the negative social, ecological and economic impacts of poor governance and illegal forestry activities, and improve the process by which concessions are allocated and managed.
There are three main components of the World Bank's Forest Governance Program:
1. Research on Best Practice, Lessons Learned and Country-Level Diagnostic Work
Over the past few years, the World Bank ESSD Forest Governance Program has commissioned of papers or meeting which further the knowledge of policy and technical options to improve forest governance and curb illegal activities in the forest sector.
2. Ministerial Processes for Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG)
The World Bank Group's Forest Governance Program, launched in 2000, gives strong emphasis to working in partnership with governments, civil society, the private sector and donor organizations.
In May, 1998, the G-8 launched an action program on forests, which gives high priority to eliminating illegal logging and illegal timber trade. The action programme seeks to complement actions undertaken at regional and international levels, and states the G-8's commitment to identifying actions in both producer and consumer countries.
The World Bank's Forest Governance Program and the G-8 program motivated a partnership on forest law enforcement for East Asia between East Asian governments, the World Bank, United Kingdom and United States, which led to the FLEG East Asia Ministerial Conference in September 2001. More recently, Ministers from several countries in Africa have expressed interest in focusing specifically on forest law enforcement and governance, and have asked assistance from the World Bank (with sponsorship from the United States, UK and France) to convene an African FLEG Ministerial process in 2002-2003. Both the East Asia FLEG and Africa FLEG are continuing processes with dedicated websites.
3. Partnerships
Several national and international forest-related agreements and organizations address issues that are relevant to forest governance programs.
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