European Tropical Forest Research Network

Dear readers,

This special edition of the European Tropical Forest Research Network News focuses on global experience with national forest programmes (nfp) to date. National forest programmes are dynamic processes, which provide strategic orientation to the forest sector and facilitate the coordinated implementation of sustainable forest management. Nfps are considered so important today as they offer the most promising mechanism through which the forest sector can address national and international priorities in an inclusive and holistic manner. We hope that this edition provides a useful overview of current issues and experiences in nfp theory and implementation.

This edition has two sponsors, the National Forest Programme Facility, hosted at the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Program on Forests (PROFOR), housed in the World Bank. The Facility and PROFOR welcomed this excellent opportunity to collaborate, to gather articles from diverse actors in the forest sector and to share these with the members of ETFRN’s well established network

In response to our call for contributions we received a lot of interest and many informative articles. We allowed the themes for this edition to evolve on the basis of the articles received instead of identifying them in advance. What emerged is a rounded cross section of experiences with nfps to date, with some articles grounded in country level experiences and others more focussed on the potential contributions of nfps to broader national development, macroeconomic policy and planning.

The nine articles that touch on the question of “nfps – what have we learned?” address general approaches to nfps as well as specific aspects such as improving forest sector governance. Under the theme “linking nfps to national development and international processes,” nine articles cover topics ranging from using nfps to assess cross-sectoral linkages in the forest sector to how to demonstrate forests’ contribution to poverty reduction to forest landscape restoration. There are three articles on nfps’ contribution to regional forest management and nine highlighting country experiences with nfps. Finally, there are nine articles and information notes on ongoing projects and initiatives related to nfps.

We would like to thank the contributing authors for their time and effort in ensuring the quality of these articles. We would like to specifically thank Tapani Oksanen for his useful comments and suggestions, and for his overview article. We would also like to express our deep gratitude to the donor agencies that fund the National Forest Programme Facility and PROFOR for making this special edition possible.

We hope you enjoy the read!

ETFRN News is a publication of the European Tropical Forest Research Network and has a ciruculation of 4,000 copies. Texts may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes citing the source.