Sustainable Development Policy Institute

Forestry

• Introduction
• Current Projects
• Earlier Projects

Introduction

SDPI entered the forestry controversy as a member of the NWFP, Forestry Working Group. It gave short shrift to the new provincial Forestry Act, and its institutional appendages, prepared at the behest of a group of bilateral donors. The key message it expounded at various fora–including a panel discussion at SDPI–was that despite its participatory content, the process lacked the benefit of consultation. It was no surprise that communities, the intended beneficiaries, were not even aware the policy existed. In short, there is a serious lack of ownership. This message was also driven home when the Environment Ministry requested SDPI to comment on the Federal Forestry Policy. Based on the first set of comments, the environment minister changed the membership of the ministerial group, entrusted with coordinating policy preparation. Unfortunately, the reconstituted act is even more defective and this has been conveyed to the ministry. At best, SDPI may succeed in making the policy formulation process more consultative; at a minimum it has highlighted the deficiencies of the forestry acts and policies to key stake-holders.

Current Projects

Our on-going projects are:

SDPI developed the country report for Pakistan. This assignment was part of a regional study being conducted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Philippines and Sri Lanka . The study aimed to assess the impact of ADB-financed forestry projects on poverty reduction. Download Report

Please see SDPI’s List of publications or contact Dr Shaheen Rafi Khan (shaheen@sdpi.org) and Dr Abid Suleri (suleri@sdpi.org) for more details regarding SDPI’s program on Forestry.