1. Reforming Forest Governance in
Uganda: Utilizing Diagnostics and
Indicators
Nalin Kishor
Forests Team, The World Bank
(For WRI meeting May 26-27, Washington DC 2011)

2. Governance Diagnostics Tool
• Why a Governance Diagnostics Tool?
▫ The need to move away from ad hoc efforts at
improving governance towards a systematic approach.
• Desirable Characteristics of a Good Tool
▫ It would focus on reforms with a high chance of
success
▫ It would to involve stakeholders from the beginning
(because stakeholder knowledge and support are
essential to the success of reforms)
▫ It would to point to actionable, practical interventions
▫ It would lend itself to repeated application, to allow
tracking of the progress of reform efforts

3. WHAT, HOW and for WHOM: Three
Questions to Guide Tool Development
• WHAT governance aspects should be assessed?
WHAT, recognizes the complexities of the scope
of forest governance and attempts an
unbundling of its components and the existing
inter-linkages therein.

4. 3 Key Questions to Guide Tool
Development
• HOW to assess forest governance?
• HOW refers to the challenges associated with
measuring aspects of the WHAT. These are often
highly perception-based concepts. Carefully
crafted approaches are necessary to get reliable
and useful measures. Typically theses
approaches rely on multi-stakeholder processes
to gather information.

5. 3 Key Questions to Guide Tool
Development
• FOR WHOM to assess?
The WHOM of forest governance requires an
understanding of the balance of power and of
political equilibrium in the context of effecting
change. Forest governance reforms create “losers”
and “gainers”. Would-be reformers must offset the
resistance of losers. How to strengthen demand for
good governance and get the support of potential
gainers behind the reforms, also needs to be better
understood.

6. Bank’s Approach to Developing a Governance
Diagnostics Tool
• WHAT?: “Roots for Good Forest Outcomes
– An Analytical Framework for
Governance Reforms”
• HOW?: Building on this framework, generate a
set of questions to guide stakeholder
consultations. Evaluation of these questions will:
▫ identify areas of forest governance needing reform
▫ help draft a forest governance reform strategy
• For WHOM?: Disseminate and publicly discuss
the draft strategy. Build ownership and
consensus. Evolve to an “action plan”.

7. The Five Pillars of Forest Governance
• Transparency, Accountability and Public
Participation
• Reliability of Forest Institutions and Conflict
Management
• Quality of Forest Administration
• Coherence of Forest Legislation and Rule of Law
• Economic Efficiency, Equity and Incentives

8. Questionnaire Development and Sample Questions
PILLAR 1: Transparency, Accountability, and Public Participation
Question:
[1]A.1.1 Are inventory data, management plans, laws, and budgets for
government-owned forests easily accessible to the public in a user-friendly
format?
Rationale:
This is primarily a measure of how accessible information is to the stakeholders.
Access and the free flow of information are prerequisites for ensuring the voice
and participation that is necessary for a democratic society. Access to
information lies at the core of some of the main principles of democratic
governance: participation, transparency and accountability.
Possible Responses:
• All of the above are accessible in a user-friendly format (language, statistics,
maps).
• Most of the above are accessible in a user-friendly format.
• Only some of the above data are accessible, or they are in a format that is
difficult to use.
• None of the above are available.

9. Uganda Pilot
• Relevance in terms of the important role of forests
in its National Development Plan and (most
recently) in terms of developing the R-PP.
• How was it done?
▫ Customization of generic questionnaire and
preparation of background governance assessment.
Circulated to participants ahead of the workshop.
▫ Two day, facilitated, national workshop of multi-
stakeholder representatives (June 15 and 16th 2010).
▫ Five breakout groups worked thru the 97 questions.
Reported back in plenary and consolidated the full
baseline assessment.
▫ Prepared report identifying areas requiring highest
priority attention and a draft reform strategy.

10. Sample Tabulation of Results

11. Where are we now?
• Government has not acted upon the draft
strategy emerging from the June 2010
workshop.
• National Forestry Authority continues to be
plagued by problems and poor credibility.
• Parts of the findings have been picked up, e.g., in
the country’s R-PP.
• Discussions on the need for an independent
monitor, but in very early stages.

12. Next Steps
• Additional pilots--Burkina Faso (FIP), Lao PDR
(FIP and FCPF) and Russia (Arkhangelsk
oblast).
• Use the internationally developed 3 pillar
governance framework (“Framework for
Assessing and Monitoring Forest
Governance”), instead of the WB framework.
• Compile a field-manual on the basis of
experiences gained.