Nepal Natural Resource User Groups/Population, Health, and Environment Assessment: Final Report
This report focuses on the results of a USAID/Nepal funded project, Strengthening Actions for Good Governance and Utilization of Natural Resources (SAGUN) in various forested regions of Nepal. An analysis was made of the lessons learned and best practices for applying user-group management to forest conservation. Despite the some political unrest in the country, the assessment group discovered many positive key findings that demonstrated how the Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) approach works well from all perspectives: improved grassroots-level governance capacity; improved livelihoods empowering and building the capacity of excluded groups and the poor; increased coverage and quality of forests covered, and the biodiversity and organisms protected; and low cost and effectiveness. User groups in forest or buffer zones proved to be a great entry point for integrating forest conservation with other social issues. This report discusses the future of the user group approach, and possibilities of integrating it with PHE, community-based development, or community forest conservation.
Year: 2006
Source: United States Agency for International Development
