Women’s participation in decision making at the user-group level and in forest committees has been demonstrated to have a positive impact on forest sustainability. For example, women’s participation enhances forest regeneration and reduces illegal harvesting through improved monitoring. Their presence in forest user groups increases the groups’ capacity to manage and resolve conflicts, which in turn increases the likelihood that resource users will comply with and respect harvesting and use rules.

De nombreux pays dans le monde sont engagés dans des processus de décentralisation et la plupart des États africains sont confrontés à de graves problèmes de gouvernance forestière, depuis la répartition des avantages à l’illégalité et à la gestion durable des forêts. Ce livre résume les expériences à ce jour concernant l’ampleur et la nature de la décentralisation ainsi que les conséquences de celle-ci, dont la plupart suggèrent une sous-performance des réformes de gouvernance.

This manual provides methods for the development and evaluation of criteria and indicators (C&I) which can then be used to assess the sustainability of forest management. The manual is written primarily for researchers, people or groups interested in evaluating C&I for assessments of forests in new areas, or as a reference for readers wanting to know how CIFOR’s Generic Template was produced. The methods presented are aimed at the development of sets of C&I for natural forest at the forest management unit (FMU) level, especially in the tropics.

Governments in many countries are decentralising to give more control over decision making and budgets to local administrations. One expectation of this change is that local governments will more effectively and efficiently respond to the poorest citizens in their jurisdictions. Decentralisation is especially significant to forest communities, which have historically benefited little from government services and poverty reduction programmes because of their physical isolation and social marginalisation.

This is designed to supplement 'the BAG' and 'the Grab Bag'. It provides a scoring method that can be used with the two manuals, to come to a decision about particular criteria and indicators in particular forest and human settings. Following the section on scoring is a section on analysis. It begins very simply, leading the user through the steps of making a spreadsheet, and concluding with more complex statistical analyses that may be desirable in some circumstances. Different teams have different requirements for quantitative and statistical sophistication in their analyses.

This is designed to supplement 'the BAG' and 'the Grab Bag'. It provides a scoring method that can be used with the two manuals, to come to a decision about particular criteria and indicators in particular forest and human settings. Following the section on scoring is a section on analysis. It begins very simply, leading the user through the steps of making a spreadsheet, and concluding with more complex statistical analyses that may be desirable in some circumstances. Different teams have different requirements for quantitative and statistical sophistication in their analyses.

The Center for International Forestry Research has developed and adapted various participatory tools for use with forest communities and other natural resource dependent groups. The tools have diverse applications: stakeholder identification, decision making, planning, conflict management, information collection, landscape assessment and other uses. The Guide to Participatory Tools for Forest Communities is intended for environment and development practitioners, researchers and local government officials.