Liberian NGO present first ever forest sector report card
The Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) on March 24, 2010 held a National Workshop to present the annual report card of the Liberian forest sector under the project Making the Forest Sector Transparent. The report card is a citizen assessment of transparency and accountability in the forest sector.
The report can be downloaded here.
The Liberia Forest Sector Transparency Report Card is a component of a global forest sector report card that is being developed by SDI (Liberia), Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (Ghana), Centre pour l'Environnement et le Développement (Cameroon) and Derecho Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Perú). Global Witness (UK) is the coordinating partner for this project, and civil society organisations in other countries are invited to adopt the tool. The full results of the 2009 report card in all four countries can be found at www.foresttransparency.info, including the Liberia specific section at www.foresttransparency.info/liberia/. The report cards will be reviewed and updated annually.
“This assessment of the forest sector is an effort to make the sector more transparent and accountable to civil society as stated in the Forestry Law of 2006 (18.14)” said Jonathan Yiah, the Project Leader of Making the Forest Sector Transparent. “We, civil society, can assist the Forestry Development Authority to be more transparent and accountable if we utilize the existing legal provisions and other supporting legal framework to ensure the entity’s activities contribute to sustainability and equity in benefit sharing” he concluded.
The Report Card assesses three critical questions related to forest governance: Do you believe the information [related to the forest sector] exists? Have you requested it? and Did you get it? The Report Card presents an analysis based on responses from respondents and contrasts those responses with the actual or existing situation.
The Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), a member of the international campaign group Friends of the Earth, is one of Liberia’s leading environmental and social justice campaign groups. SDI works with other members of the NGO Coalition for Liberia to expose violations of the forestry law and to advocate for increase benefits from forests for local people.
