KEY RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. CAN DEVOLUTION WORK IN CENTRAL AFRICA? SOME EMERGING INSIGHTS FROM THE CAMEROONIAN MODEL OF FOREST MANAGEMENT DECENTRALIZATIONCommunication presented at the the World Resource Institute (Washington, D.C.), June 3, 2002 Phil René Oyono, Sociologist, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR, Central &West Africa Regional Office, Cameroon)Source: joint research program WRI-CIFOR on « Accountability and Environment in Decentralizations:Local Democracy-Environment links in Cameroon »

2. KEY RESEARCH QUESTIONS • Actors with powers over nature? • Institutional and organizational arrangements set up for accountability and local governance? • Relations between accountability mechanisms/infrastructure and ecological outcomes?

3. THE BROAD CONTEXT(Political, social and economic crisis) • Global wind of change, democratization and political reforms in the Third World • Donors persistent pressures for the implementation of liberalization policies (eg. The World Bank, UNDP, …) • Increasing domestic demands for more freedom and equity • Deep effects of economic recession, generating the exhaustion of the ‘urban model of well-being’ • Transfer of popular expectations to the ‘rural model’ • Counter-performances of the centralized system of forest management • Growing interests of various actors – including the state – in (more) access to forest benefits and in profits sharing • Multiplicity of conflicts and contradictions amongst actors on resources and inherent benefits – access, control, control of access,etc. CRISIS/NEED OF REFORMS

4. FOREST POLICY REFORM • The zoning plan of forest use in Southern Cameroon (1993) • The new forestry legislation (1994) • Many legal relating pieces and administrative provisions ( ministerial Orders) Goals: - improvement of the forest management system; - participation of local communities and local governments in the new ‘official’ forest management system; - transfer of powers to other actors, with the state as the supply side; - community-based forest benefits management; - efficiency ** DEVOLUTION and DECENTRALIZATION

5. KEY AXIS OF THE DECENTRALIZATION MODEL • Transfer of powers of management to local governements (communes, in french): indication: ‘communal’ forests • Transfer of powers of forest management to local communities: indications: community or village forests • ‘Fiscal decentralization in forestry’: allocation of 40% of annual forest taxes to local governments and 10% to local communities living near by forest concessions, with management powers • Payment of a tax, 1.5 USD/cu.meter of timber extracted, to each village community living in a forest concession

6. PRELIMINARY RESULTS ACTORS at the supply side - the parliament; - the ministry of Forest and its representatives; - the ministry of Territorial Administration and its representatives; - communal/municipal authorities and bodies ACTORS at the beneficiary side - local governments or communes; - local communities as a whole: ° village committes for community forests management; ° village committes for forestry compensations management; ° village representatives in the management of communal forests

7. POWERS Globally, At the ‘supply side’: * decision-making and decision management; * law support; * process monitoring; * conflict resolution At the ‘beneficiary side’: * forest management; * benefits management; * community representation; *group decision- making

8. Institutional and organizational arrangements *Principles governing the whole process (see the forestry legislation 1994) *Intermediary legal provisions *Administrative rules for interactions between the ‘supply side’ and the ‘beneficiary side’ *Various committes with internal regulations (rights and duties of members) *Signed contracts between timber Companies and local communities

9. (NON)ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS At the local level *elected/designated/self-designated management committees do not account to those they represent (in the circulation and the management of portions of forest taxes, in the arrangements with timber exploiters in existing community forests, in their interactions with the ‘supply side’) * committes do not involve the rest of the people in group decision-making processes (‘free riding’ behaviour) * ‘rent seeking’ practices at the level of these committees (capture of funds, embezzlement, alliance with logging Companies to the detriment of the rest of the people, self-interested attituds, etc.) * lack of downward accountability of municipal and administrative authorities in the management of the portions of compensations allocated to local communities through them At the top level * lack of public dialogue with beneficiaries * lack of information

10. ECOLOGICAL OUTCOMES • Individualization of community forests • Inflation of individual arrangements with loggers in tne community forets establishment process • Transformation of community forests to ‘open access’ forests • Rejection of community forests experiments (more profitable to self-interested groups, such as created committees) • Trends of more involvement of timber Companies themselves and political elites in the creation of community forests under the cover of local communities • Amplification, with the ineffectivity of local institutional arrangements and collective action, of competing strategies of access to resources (amongst lineages within a same village for example) • Acceleration of community forests exploitation and benefits sharing – at the request of concerned communities -, in order to put an end to committees collusion with loggers and administrative and communal authorities • More requests – from local communities - of more forest concessions to be exploited in the hope of having access to the 1.5 USD/ cu.m.

11. OTHER OUTCOMES AT THIS STAGE OF THE PROCESS • New social stratification, committees trasforming themselves into a ‘forestry elite’ • Marginalization of former local authorities with powers over nature (chiefs, elders, wizards,etc.) • Inequity in intra-generational access to forest benefits • Panarchy in forest governance (committees, young men, retired civil servants, chiefs firmely resolved to stay in the ‘game’…) • Lack of local democracy • Few impact on local development

12. SOME LESSONS AND RECOMMANDATIONS • The model is the first attempt in the Central africa region • Constraints in its social feasibility (eg.lack of local collective action) • High financial costs for the implementation of community forests • High social costs (impact on local structure of authority, internal conflicts, …) • Instead of reducing the level of conflicts, the experience has increased it • Capture and manipulation of decentralization by medium-level administrative authorities • Informalization of some aspects of the process (eg. forest fees management) • Trends for the re-centralization of decentralization • Ecological uncertainties ________________________ • Need public dialogue in forest management issues • Improvement of decision-management • Need of NGOs support in the setting up of efficient forms of local governance arrangements and a collaborative infrastructure in forest management • Need of more scientific knowledge in decentralization and in related issues IN SUM THE MODEL NEEDS SERIOUS IMPROVEMENTS: THEY CALL IT DECENTRALIZATION. BUT IN FACT IT LOOKS MORE LIKE A DELEGATION OF POWERS. EFFORTS SHOULD NOW BE GENERATED TO SET UP A DEMOCRATIC DECENTRALIZATION