Consultation Workshop on 4 Province Baselines and Follow-up Plan

On September 26th 2015, in Hanoi, the Network of Vietnamese Non-Governmental Organizations on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (VNGO-FLEGT) held the workshop to share the baseline results of 4 Provinces and discuss Follow-up plan.
The workshop aimed to share the studies, conducted in July and August 2015, onthe initial state of household capacity to comply with the timber legality requirements on harvesting, trading, transportation, and processing in the Hoa Binh, Nghe An, Kon Tum and Binh Dinh provinces.

At the beginning, Mrs. Vu Thi Bich Hop – the Chair of the VNGO-FLEGT's Steering Committee and Executive Director of the Centre for Sustainable Rural Development (SRD) gave an overview of VPA/FLEGT policy advocacy. In particular, she presented outstanding activities in community research related to VPA such as conducting community consultations on legal timber (2012); the Livelihood Impact Assessment (LIA); some clauses of the Forest Protection and Development Law related to households and communities (2014); a LIA pilot study assessing the capacity to fulfil demands for Timber Legality Assurance Systems (TLAS) (2014); and the baseline studies for the independent monitoring (2015). Mrs. Hop also emphasized the role of civil society organizations in the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) negotiation process and in economic and social policy advocacy in general.

Mrs. Vu Thi Bich Hop presented in the workshop

Through this sharing, new members had an opportunity to understand the activities that the network has implemented.

In addition, Mr. Hoang Quoc Chinh, FLEGT program officer of SRD, shared an overview of independent monitoring and the baseline studies on household capacity to comply with the legality definition (LD). Household compliance capacity monitoring needed a model to evaluate and analyze the root causes of LD non-compliance in the study area. This model allowed them to draw conclusions and make suitable policy recommendations to support households involved in the wood supply chain.
In order to provide a baseline reference for monitoring changes over time in household compliance capacity, the initial state assessment was conducted. The studies of the VNGO-FLEGT Network in the period from 2013-2014 showed that timber harvesting households and timber processing households are the most vulnerable groups in the VPA/FLEGT negotiation and implementation process.

The network members focused on the study results

In the independent monitoring process, the network showed 4 implementation steps: (1) select area, (2) scoping study, (3) main study, (4) analysis and reports. After one or two years, step (3) and (4) will be repeated in order to promptly detect changes and make appropriate recommendations.
In the next section, the workshop focused on listening and intensive discussion on the study results in the Hoa Binh, Nghe An, Kon Tum and Binh Dinh provinces. For each area, the network members shared the target group, current status, analyzed the capacity to comply with timber legality requirements and then made recommendations.

More than 20 delegates including representatives of the study members, the network members, and forestry experts attended and gave critical and practical opinions about the share which included issues of forestry governance as well as policies and regulations regarding government and local authorities.

The participants of the workshop

After the four pilot provinces in 2015, it is expected that the network will expand the studies to 6 other provinces including Lao Cai, Bac Kan, Quang Binh, Thua Thien Hue, Binh Thuan and Lam Dong in 2016.
Through these studies, the network will have the ability to recognize more clearly the gaps between policy and practice and will therefore be able to make suitable recommendations and effective contributions to the VPA/FLEGT negotiation process.

Finally, the network discussed and agreed on the work plan in the 4th quarter of 2015. They planned to organize training on policy brief writing skills; REDD+ and FLEGT linkage in October 2015, and a pilot study on REDD+ and FLEGT linkage in November and December 2015.
Through this workshop, each member organization was able to share their on-going activities and projects in addition to exchanging and discussing cooperation opportunities in the future.

-SRD-

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