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A Service delivery mechanism for Operational Plan Revision

The community forest operational plan is a document containing management and utilization schemes for a community forest which is agreed upon between the users and the DFO. Operational Plan is an amendable document and it has to respond to changes regarding community needs, forest conditions and legal provisions.
Active participation by all CFUG members in the preparation of the operational plan is somehow lacking. The users think that the OP is a requirement of the DFO and the responsibility of OP revision should be taken by DFO rather than CFUG themselves. The present process of preparation and revision of operational plan could not give the ownership to CFUGs. While developing the operational plan by outsiders and technician rangers, document seems never ending process for community forestry planning. As a result, most of the CFUGs are not implementing the activities mentioned in the operational plan.
Most of the CFUGs are not ready to bear the cost of OP revision and not allocating fund for operational plan revision. In some cases, forest technicians are charging high cost for OP revision and CFUG are unable to pay for the services. Moreover, CFUGs have no trained man power in their CFUG to revise the operational plan. Even if they hired the local resource person, still DFO rangers have recommend for approval of operational plan revision.
The contents of the operational plan mostly focus on forest management and it does not address NTFP, forage and other resource management. Similarly, the provision of business planning, enterprise development, gender and social equity, livelihood improvements plan, good governance should be incorporated into operational plan.

The intervention is focused to develop a mechanism for operational plan revision process with integrating LIP, BP and SFM plan into OP with the mechanism of CFUG-owned and cost-effective.

Current activities

The main thrust of the project strategy on operational plan revision is that the CFUG members should take the responsibilities and ownership of the OP for their community forest. In addition, good governance, business planning and sustainable forest management aspects should be integrated in Ops. The following key strategies in operational plan revision. • Awareness to FUG on Operational Plan Revision to give the ownership of the document • Support to FUG on operational plan revision from DFO red-book target: • Empowerment of local resource persons/ local facilitators • Empowerment of FUGs who have low productivity of resources and could not buy the services from other to revise the operational plan • Support to FUG who have initiated OP revision process • Formation of task team at range post and district level to assist FUGs in operational plan.

In both districts, the local facilitators from CFUG members were trained in operational plan preparation and revision. In Sindhu Palchok, 29 facilitators were trained in previous phase of the project and the refresher training conducted for those facilitators. In Kabhre Palanchok, 34 local facilitators were trained in operational plan preparation and revision in modular courses on Operational plan preparation and revision. They were also exposed to different parts of country to share the experience of the CFUGs, DFO staffs, other community forestry projects and other stakeholders.
In Sindhu Palchok, more than 30 OPs has been already revised by local facilitators through CFUG contribution. In Kabhre Palanchok, a total of 36 OPs has been prepared by local facilitators and submitted to DFO for approval with the contribution of CFUG. Back up support was provided through DFO and project field staff to these local facilitators to analyze the inventory data and prescribe yield in operational plans. Moreover, other FUGs are making agreement with the facilitators to revise operational plan in presence of DFO.
DFO and project facilitated to give the skills of operational plan revision to the representatives of FUGs who have low productivity of resources and could not bear the cost of operational plan revision from other service providers. The representatives from FUGs were, at least one from FUG committee and other from female, disadvantaged and poorer households. In Kabhre Palanchok, a total of 44 FUGs involved in the training and all operational plan revised with 2 days follow up from DFO staff. The process of empowering FUGs started in Sindhu Palchok with the involvement of FECOFUN, Sindhu Palchok and DFO staff in training resource persons. Further follow up support needed to these FUGs to get OP revised.
A one day interaction meeting was held with DFO staff ( DFOs, AFO, rangers and forest guards) of Sindhu Palchok and Kabhre Palanchok to review the OP revision process. A task team of DFO staff from both districts and project staff formed to work on the user friendly, cost effective and integrated OP revision procedures incorporating LIP, BDS and SFM aspects.

Lessons Learnt The intervention realized the coordination among different stakeholders including DFO, project and FUG network (FECOFUN, NTFP network) is necessary to make aware FUG to give the ownership of operational plan revision by themselves. The focus on income generation and equity should be given priority while revising operational plan. While preparing Operational plan, the contents should include LIP gender and social equity, business planning, and good governance provisions. If needed FUG should prepare separate detailed LIP, BP and GSE plans. The use of local facilitators is more important and the focus of recognition of such facilitators is more important and the initiation of local facilitators should be done. The further simplicity of op revision process should be explored at FUG level and DFO level. A network of local resource persons network will be appropriate for mobilizing these resources at FUG level coordinating by FUG network and DFO.