| About Forest Connect: |
 Small forest enterprises start-ups in developing countries are high. But keeping them going, sustainability is a major challenge. They face problems such as excessive bureaucracy, unstable policies and regulations, insecure tenure, inaccessible credit, poor market information, inadequate technology, poor infrastructure, lack of bargaining power and insufficient business know-how. Many spontaneously work together in associations to reduce transaction costs, adapt to new market opportunities and shape the policy environment in their favour. But in developing countries, support structures for such forest associations either do not exist or fail to reach those who need help most. It is this lack of ¡°connectedness¡± that the project named ¡°Forest Connect¡±(coordinated jointly by FAO and IIED) intends to address ¨C based on substantial evidence of demand from partners. For details, please see FAO webpage on Forest Connect:
http://www.fao.org/forestry/42297/en/ |
| Project name, duration and geographic region: |
¡®Forest Connect¡¯ - Reducing poverty by linking small and medium forest enterprises with national forest programmes, markets and service providers
Forest Connect is a four-year programme (2007 - 2010) financed by the FAO, IIED and PROFOR.
The Forest Connect programme is being implemented in ten countries ¨C Burkina Faso, China, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Lao PDR, Mali, Mozambique, Uganda, and Nepal.
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| Objectives: |
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The overall objective of this project is to substantially reduce poverty for forest-dependent people in key NFP facility countries by increasing the number of successful and sustainable small forest enterprise associations. The direct objective is to develop guidance on models of flexible information services / support networks that enhance the economic, social and environmental sustainability of pro-poor small forest enterprise associations ¨C and spread uptake of those models. |
| Main alliance outputs: |
1. The development of functional and stable information services and support networks for SMFEs in ten countries ¨C testing and adapting models for connecting SMFEs to national forest programmes, markets and service providers.
2. The development of an information ¡®toolkit¡¯ based on practical experience that guides national forest programmes on how to set up an SMFE information service / support network to support the economic, social and environmental sustainability of SMFEs.
3. Testing, applying and revising the toolkit in partner countries and national forest programme facility countries to maximise the worldwide potential of such information services and support networks for SMFEs.
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For questions concerning Forest Connect China please contact:
Institute of Forestry Policy and Information
Chinese Academy of Forestry.
Ms. Xinjian luoLuoxj@caf.ac.cn
Tel:+861062889732
Forestry Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
http://www.fao.org/
Ms. Qiang Ma
Qiang.Ma@fao.org |
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