Overview

For 10 million of the poorest 36 million people in Indonesia, forest land and resources are central to their livelihoods. Without established rights and responsibilities, these poor people are vulnerable, disenfranchised and suffer conflicts with government, business and other citizens.

The MFP is partnered with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, and is addressing this situation by focussing on improving forest policy as an entry point for improving governance and some of the underlying causes of poverty in rural Indonesia. The MFP explicitly links governance reforms to poverty outcomes - changing policies that lead to the poor becoming less excluded and vulnerable and the government more responsive and accountable.

The MFP supports NGOs, forest farmer groups, community-based organisations, unions and adat (customary) groups, research facilities, media groups and local governments. These partners (grantees) have undertaken social mobilisation, mediated conflicts in forest communities, supported multi-stakeholder dialogues, conducted policy research and advocacy, networking and shared learning, organisational and business development, as well as media and communications work. Through these activities, the programme’s partners have significantly improved relationships between citizens and the state.

Most significantly, the programme has provided strategic facilitation to add value to the work of these many organisations. Six national facilitators, and one facilitator in each of six regions, have provided technical and organisational support, facilitated shared learning amongst programme partners, built up strategic policy evidence and analysis, and provided a platform for local and national policy advocacy. In the latter years, four Ministry of Forestry staff were seconded to the programme, which has been instrumental in re-building trust and relationships between civil society organisations and the Ministry.

PROGRAMME IMPACTS
Changing minds, changing policies, changing practices
Many stakeholders are showing signs of changes in attitudes towards forest land and resources, the rights of rural communities, and the changing roles of government, big business and civil society. There have been numerous changes in local forest policies relating to forest access rights, resulting from the work of MFP’s partners. Forest policy-making is becoming more consultative, transparent and pro-poor, local governments and parliaments are better informed about forest policy issues, and companies are becoming more aware of the importance of engaging with local development processes. The roles of civil society in partnering or challenging government, in mobilizing citizens’ voices and improving forest governance, are more widely recognised and appreciated. And local governments, NGOs, and community organisations have all developed new skills in democratic nation building.

Reducing exclusion and vulnerability, increasing incomes
The vulnerability of poor people is being reduced. They are developing new social and political networks, and the persistent conflicts that have undermined their lives are diminishing. Their livelihoods are becoming more diversified, given the wider options with new access to productive
land. Poor people’s incomes are increasing; they are starting to accumulate and sustain assets that allow them to increase cash income, to send their children to school, to secure better health and housing. The policy changes that secure access to degraded forestland alone have the potential to contribute an additional $1.4bn each year to the national economy, and create 1.6 million jobs.

New ways of working
Central to MFP’s success has been identifying and working with positive “drivers of change”. With an understanding of key individuals and organisations, the regulations and norms that govern key institutions, and the power relations that sustain special interests, the programme has had strategic engagement and more effective influence on government and has built better bridges between stakeholders (notably communities, civil society organisations, local and national governments, businesses).

In a contested policy environment, ownership needs to be built up by a broadly based constituency. Strong ownership has been achieved by supporting locally rooted multi-stakeholder dialogue and mutually reinforcing partnerships between civil society, local and central government. Pilot sites and community-led initiatives have been presented as evidence to influence policy-making. This kind of local advocacy has proved more effective than national level ‘confrontational’ advocacy. During the early reformasi era, reform-oriented central government policies were developed to strengthen decentralization and community empowerment, but there was limited guidance on implementation, and limited capacity. Resistant central government responses to these new laws and policies have now shifted to willingness, influenced by the local voice and local evidence that partners have developed. Local multi-stakeholder forums are providing space for local governments to work with civil society groups and citizens to build more democratic governance. The resulting sense of ownership is now stronger at all levels, making consensus on policy reform easier.

And improving management of natural resources
The MFP has shown that focusing on poor people’s rights and access to natural resources, and on mediation between powerful vested interests and poor people’s livelihood assets (as opposed to technical approaches to environmental management), underlying governance problems are resolved in the interests of both poor people and better resource management. With appropriate rights and incentives, rural people are putting degraded forest lands to productive use, and safeguarding their own futures.

MFP is not a sectoral project about trees, but a governance reforms programme.