| European
Tropical Forest Research Network |
VIETNAM’S NATIONAL FOREST PROGRAMME AND PARTNERSHIP
By Pham Minh Thoa, Bernd-Markus Liss and Wibke Thies
After 30 years of war, the shift from central planning to market economics in 1986 brought on a boom in Vietnam. With annual growth rates of 6% Vietnam’s economy is growing fast and moving towards global markets.
Today, the forest sector contributes only about 1.4% to gross domestic product. However, its economic importance is growing. Forests are key to the livelihoods of rural poor, including 12 million people of ethnic minorities.
Up to the 1940s Vietnam was forest-rich with a cover of 43%. Decades of warfare, over-exploitation for fuelwood and timber and conversion of forest into agricultural land reduced the cover to about 30%, causing serious wood supply problems for local people. Unsustainable exploitation in hilly areas together with slash and burn agriculture have destroyed the protective cover of forest for watersheds, causing soil erosion and frequent flooding. People’s lives and property are threatened and the lack of water endangers rice production.
Forest development and poverty
alleviation go hand in hand
In order to reverse the trend, the government
of Vietnam started a national programme
in the early 1990s to rehabilitate forests and
to regreen bare hills, commonly known as
Programme 327. Instruments to engage
farmers in sustainable forest management
were forestland allocation and support to
reforestation. More than 70% of the formerly
state-owned forest land (8 million ha) has
been allocated to state enterprises,
management units and private households.
Large areas were planted with trees, but
the result was often poor: Forest users
participated only little in the development of
management plans and their rights and
benefits were not clearly defined -
circumstances that did not motivate the
people to protect and develop forest. Also,
the programme lacked focus and quality
standards (e.g. participation, site selection,
technical aspects of reforestation) were
insufficient.
In 1997 the government launched the National Five Million Hectare Reforestation Programme (5MHRP) with the ambitious goal to re-establish the earlier forest cover of 43%. The programme aims to protect environment and biodiversity through sustainable forest management, reduce poverty of people in forest dependent areas and enhance the contribution of forestry to the national economy.
The 5MHRP is the most prominent instrument for implementation of the Forestry Development Strategy 2001-2010. The 5MHRP is consistent with the government’s overall Socio-Economic Development Strategy 2001-2010 and part of a wider effort towards poverty alleviation as defined in Vietnam’s Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy.
A partnership for the nfp...
In 1998 the donor community and the
Vietnamese government agreed to
establish a partnership in support of the
5MHRP. The partnership aims to include all
the major institutional stakeholders in
Vietnam’s forest sector.
After a joint sector review in 2000, the government and international partners elaborated the Forest Sector Support Programme (FSSP) for the 5MHRP. In November 2001, a Memorandum of Agreement was signed to increase the effectiveness of national and international resources used for forest development. The future work had to be focused on strengthening the policy, institutional and legal framework of the sector.
Instruments for the implementation of the FSSP are, among others, a common work plan, a forest sector manual outlining quality standards and a joint monitoring and evaluation system. Since 2004 the FSSP, the 5MHRP and the Forestry Development Strategy 2001-2010 are under review with the objective to merge these instruments into a consistent nfp-like National Forest Strategy.
... and a multi-donor trust fund for forests
Since 2003 donor agencies and the government have been working on establishing a multi-donor fund for forests to ‘pool’ future donor commitments to the sector. The trust fund aims to ensure that international money designated for development assistance (ODA) is delivered effectively. ODA will be used to address commonly agreed priorities in the forest sector and to ensure that progress made benefits the poor. The Memorandum of Agreement for the trust fund was signed in June 2004.
Lessons learnt
Vietnam is determined to counteract the
environmental consequences of decades
of forest degradation. It is aware that this
requires strong institutions and legal
instruments. However, changing
institutional and legal frameworks is a timeconsuming
process – in any society.
Without sustainable forest management know-how, the best policy instruments are useless. The German co-operation experience shows that integrating all levels from field to policy mobilises synergies: In Vietnam, Germany supports all these levels: institutional and policy reform, decentralisation and development of norms and standards; participatory forest management, rehabilitation of degraded areas and conservation of national parks and buffer zone management.
Through the FSSP mechanism, approved methods and good practice are increasingly disseminated to other donorsupported projects. They are used to implement the national forest programme by setting quality standards and supporting further policy development.
Conclusions and perspectives
Recent inventories show Vietnam’s forest
area growing. But natural forest is still being
degraded and the quality of existing as well
as planted forests is largely poor. A lot needs
to be done to make Vietnamese forestry
globally competitive. The challenge will be
to maintain and develop all forest functions
and to conserve natural forests and their
biodiversity while meeting the needs of an increasing population and a growing
economy.
Within the partnership, the special challenge will be to integrate the FSSP with the National Forestry Development Strategy, the 5MHRP and related government funding mechanisms.
Participatory forest management is the instrument to increase forest area and raise the well-being of the rural poor. Many projects supported by Germany use this instrument successfully on the local level. The national forest programme will have to focus on providing the necessary policy framework for effective participation and benefit sharing and on building the capacities for sound decision-making, programme management and implementation at all levels. Germany will continue to support the Vietnamese national forest programme to ensure that these principles are strengthened.
Contact:
Mrs Pham Minh Thoa
Vice Head, Planning Division,
Department of Forestry, Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development
2, Ngoc Ha Street,
Hanoi
Vietnam
E-mail: MThoa-DFD@netnam.vn
Dr Bernd-Markus Liss
German Association of Development
Consultants AGEG Coop.
E-mail: b.liss@ageg.de
Dr Wibke Thies
Gesellschaft fuer Technische
Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH
E-mail: wibke.thies@gtz.de