Strengthening Forest Governance Frameworks: Progress in Nine Major Tropical Forest Countries

The document evaluates forest governance in nine tropical countries, noting improvements in legal frameworks and multi-stakeholder engagement driven by Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) and REDD+. However, it highlights critical failures in cross-sectoral policy coherence, the rule of law, and the implementation of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC). While transparency has increased through digital tools, accountability remains limited by corruption and insufficient resources for law enforcement.

• Legal and institutional frameworks have improved in several countries, facilitated by international mechanisms like Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) and REDD+, which have encouraged multi-stakeholder participation. However, the effectiveness of these tools depends on political commitment; for instance, progress is limited in Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) despite their engagement in these processes.
• A critical barrier to meeting avoided deforestation commitments is the lack of cross-sectoral coherence in legal and institutional frameworks. While the forestry sector is often a priority in national climate strategies and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), coordination between competing agencies remains a major challenge.
• Tenure reform and land-use planning have seen some progress, such as Indonesia's 2018 launch of the One Map Policy Geoportal and Papua New Guinea's 2016 online forest monitoring tool. Despite this, local communities often lack secure rights, and the resolution of land disputes remains slow, as evidenced by Indonesia addressing only 15 percent of 555 cases by the end of 2018.
• The principle of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) for local communities is either absent or poorly implemented in most assessed countries, including Brazil and the DRC, although procedures have been strengthened in the DRC and the Malaysian state of Sarawak.
• Demand-side measures to reduce illegal timber imports are being developed in VPA countries (Cameroon, Ghana, Indonesia, and the Republic of Congo), but public procurement policies remain underutilized across all nine countries. For example, Malaysia's green public procurement target excludes most timber products except paper and furniture.
• Transparency has increased through timber tracking systems, such as Ghana's 2017 wood-tracking system and Indonesia's 2016 FLEGT licenses. However, this has not consistently led to improved accountability, and information on enforcement remains the least transparent area of governance.
• The rule of law is weak across all assessed countries, characterized by high corruption, limited enforcement resources, and poor financial management of forest revenues. Brazil's IBAMA faces budget cuts and political limitations, while Papua New Guinea lacks internal systems to monitor corruption.

APA

Hoare, A., & Conway, D. (2019). Strengthening Forest Governance Frameworks: Progress in Nine Major Tropical Forest Countries. Forest Declaration Assessment. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/NYDFStrengthening-Forest-Governance-Frameworks.pdf

Chicago

Hoare, Alison, and Darragh Conway. Strengthening Forest Governance Frameworks: Progress in Nine Major Tropical Forest Countries. Forest Declaration Assessment, 2019. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/NYDFStrengthening-Forest-Governance-Frameworks.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hoare |first1=Alison |last2=Conway |first2=Darragh |title=Strengthening Forest Governance Frameworks: Progress in Nine Major Tropical Forest Countries |publisher=Forest Declaration Assessment |date=June 2019 |url=https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/NYDFStrengthening-Forest-Governance-Frameworks.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hoare2019strengthening, author = {Hoare, Alison and Conway, Darragh}, title = {{Strengthening Forest Governance Frameworks: Progress in Nine Major Tropical Forest Countries}}, institution = {Forest Declaration Assessment}, year = {2019}, month = jun, url = {https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/NYDFStrengthening-Forest-Governance-Frameworks.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }