Implementing Agency:
Department For International Development (LACAD)

Project Code: 098-502-007	Start Date: 01-Apr-96	End Date: 31-Dec-96
Commitment: £10,000	Status: Completed	Type of Funding: Bilateral - TC

Project Background:
INEFAN has expressed interest in becoming the first country to have a Forest Partnership Agreement. INEFAN's interest reflects partly its aspiration to see forestry become a key sector in the Ecuadorian economy, especially once the country's oil reserves start to run out. It sees a Forest Partnership Agreement as a possible vehicle by which to attract increased external assistance to the private investment in forestry. Forestry accounts at present for up t 2 per cent of gross domestic product, a share which INEFAN believes could in future be increased fourfold.

The idea of Forest Partnership Agreements originated with UNDP and is currently being promoted by it and by GTZ. A Forest Partnership Agreement would be like a club having worthy national objectives relating to forestry. Its members would be the host country itself and it forestry aid donors. Non-member donor organisations would in theory be debarred from providing assistance. Membership would be on the basis of accepting specified principles and conditions - a code of conduct - which would be legally binding. Member donor organisations would be able to opt to join up in total or to subscribe only to specified protocols.

The host country should benefit from a better formulated forestry strategy and a more coherent set of projects in support of it. It would put an end, for example, to different agencies repeating each others' work by each carrying out or supporting their own sector review, master plan, NFAP, etc.

Project Objectives:
To adopt a new national forestry strategy, that eliminates various traditional conditions, in order to assign domestic capital and loans, to support the technological development and the national capacity, providing openings for Ecuador's competition in the provision of forestry goods and services, through the establishment of a Forest Partnership Agreement.

Intended Outputs:
Adopt the recommendations and studies made on the forestry sector in Ecuador, to demonstrate the benefits of adopting them as the new strategy of the national economy. Identifying their problems and opportunities, proposing concrete goals, and proposing a programme of development.

Implement the policies of the NFAP, with programmes articulated around the principal strategies and forest objectives. An important part of the strategy will be the design of an Investment Plan for the forestry sector, that involves all the activities and all possible participants, locally and internationally.

Analyse the current institutional structure and suggest the necessary changes, to make it capable of leading the new Ecuadorian forestry strategy.

Consolidate the process, already initiated, of adopting viable forest policies and for the protection of the natural areas and of the wildlife.

Involve in the new strategy: the communities of the forested areas, the national Government, the entrepreneurs and the beneficiaries of the potential investments.

Procure the aid of the international community and investors.

Establish transparent and universal regulations for all those intervening as investors in the new forest strategy.

Design and implement a programme of strengthening of the local technical capacity, in the public sector and other institutions.

Continue to develop and divulge the data and information systems that will make it possible to know clearly the conditions and the potential of the national forestry sector.

Design and execute a wide programme of training and awareness for society as a whole, on environmental protection in the use of forest resources, and of the social and economic benefits that could be derived from them.