Civic Response holds closeout workshop

Civic Response held a closeout workshop for the collection of data to contribute to implementation of Ghana’s VPA Impact Monitoring Framework project.

The event which took place in Accra in June this year, officially brought the project to a close.

The overall objective of the project is to collect baseline data on the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) stakeholder deliberative process, livelihoods and forest conditions to feed Ghana’s VPA Impact Monitoring framework.

Ghana signed the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union (EU) in 2009 to trade in legal timber in both the domestic and export markets with the ultimate aim of issuing FLEGT licenses as prove of the legality of the timber. Article 17 of the VPA enjoins the parties (Ghana and EU) to develop better understanding of the impact of implementing VPA on the livelihoods of potentially affected stakeholders.

Consequently, a Joint Team on Impact Monitoring (JTIM) developed a VPA Impact Monitoring (IM) framework for monitoring VPA implementation impact in 7 key areas, namely livelihoods, forest conditions, forest governance, market performance, forest management, revenue generation and VPA stakeholder deliberative processes.

Data gaps were identified by the JTIM which could not be filled with data from the Forestry Commission or other sources.

In order to fill the data gaps in livelihoods, VPA stakeholder deliberative processes and indicator FC 10, Civic Response in conjunction with ResourceTrust Network developed the project titled “Collecting Data to Contribute to Implementation of Ghana’s VPA Impact Monitoring Framework” which collected VPA impact monitoring baseline information in livelihoods, VPA stakeholder deliberative processes, and FC 10.

This project was developed under the auspices of the FAO-EU FLEGT Programme with funding from the European Union, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and UKAid.

Speaking at the closeout workshop, Mr. Musah Abu-Juam the Technical Director in Charge of Forestry at the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources disclosed that the sector minister has directed the Forestry Commission(FC) to stop the issuance of special permits which hopefully will lead to the end of the request for such permits.

He said Ghana signed the VPA agreement to first of all sanitise its system and that there are many programmes ongoing to eliminate illegal logging. He noted that even though the country is yet to commence the issuance of FLEGT licenses, there has been some successes, one of which is the dialogue process that now exists among stakeholders. He, however, admitted that there are still a few measures that needed to be implemented such as the conversion of extant leases to TUCs.

On his part, the EU representative, Mr. Roberto Schiliro- Team Leader, Infrastructure and Sustainable Development- recognised the need for Ghana and the EU to join forces and find solutions in spite of the differences in cultures and ways of doing things due to the mutual dependence on forests.

He welcomed the collaboration between the Ghanaian government, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and the indigenous communities in the VPA process which is not the case in other sectors. He described the FLEGT-VPA dialogue as a marathon whose last mile must be accomplished. He also acknowledged the need for scientific evidence to enable us establish baselines, indicators and solid scientific data collections to benchmark "where we are coming from, going and whether or not we are doing enough."

The Assistant FAO Representative to Ghana, Mr. Benjamin M. Adjei welcomed the exercise undertaken by Civic Response and noted that the findings call for concerted action. He advised that going forward, there is the need to find a way to craft messages in a way that politicians can buy into.

Mr. Chris Beeko, Director of the Timber Validation Department of the FC who was the chairman for the occasion noted that Ghana has been attempting to put in place systems that assure markets that the country is able to fulfil all legal requirements to lift timber consignments to trade and the FLEGT-VPA initiative helps to effectively communicate the country’s compliance with its own laws. He advised that Ghana should aim at ensuring that citizens obey the laws and that no one is disadvantage in the process.

The Head of Programmes at Civic Response, Mr. Albert Katako identified Covid-19 as a major challenge in implementing the project. According to him, the outbreak of the disease delayed the fieldwork particularly, the data collection. With regards to FC 10 which has to do with the ratio of volume of illegal timber in the formal and informal sectors, he disclosed that after deliberations with the JTIM, a decision was taken to collect data on a national scale instead of the initial plan to do so in only 4 Forest Window Districts(FWDs) so as to get a true national reflection of this indicator.

Unfortunately, the project could not support that. However, a small task team put together has developed the building blocks for data collection on a national scale on FC 10.

Civic Response is a leading natural resource and environmental (NRE) governance policy advocacy organisation working to entrench resource rights. It was founded in 2003 in Accra.