FLEGT in Ghana

The Ghana-EU VPA was signed in September 2008 with the agreement of all stakeholders in country. The multi-stakeholder consultation process worked well and outlined a process for forest law reform which needs to be finalised within five years. It was clear to those involved that the lack of clear concrete proposals for the reform process meant that the success of the VPA would depend to a great extent on civil society’s involvement during implementation. Unfortunately, delays by the EU meant the agreement was not ratified until December 2009, providing an excuse to the Ghanaian Government to not kick start implementation. This situation is further complicated by the fact that elections brought in a new government which, along with the new head of the Ghana Forestry Commission does not show the same interest in the VPA. With the World Bank planning to throw ‘REDD money’ at Ghana without the required painful restructuring of the forestry industry and a proper consultation process to determine what should be funded, there is a serious risk that implementation of the VPA will remain a low priority. This raises fears that frontrunner Ghana may not deliver just and equitable forest management any time soon.

Overview of the process so far

From a CSO perspective, Ghana’s VPA process has gone through two distinct phases.

In the first phase (2005 - June 2007), the process remained relatively closed. GOG officials were willing to engage civil society and Industry in the VPA process and indeed had assigned IUCN the role of tri-partite facilitator. However, there were no precedents for such engagement in state-civil society relations in Ghana. State officials were apprehensive about civil society’s agenda, the perceived CS "naivety" about the functioning of the government system and the potential disruption to GOG's carefully controlled sector reform programme. Civil society for its part considered that with out a shake up, the official reform programme was unlikely to address the sector's fundamental problems. Further CSOs had not developed a concrete programme outlining processes and structures requisite for a participatory process. Beyond arguments about the composition of Ghana’s VPA Steering Committee, CSOs had not developed substantive proposals for participation and consultation. CSOs worried that despite lip service to principle of participation, GOG and the EU were in practice narrowing the space for such participation by setting agendas and road maps without any substantive consultation with stakeholder representatives. The agenda and the road map agreed, in CSO's opinion, would make effective consultation impossible. In February 2007, at its General Meeting, Forest Watch Ghana outlined minimum standards for a participatory process. In April 2007, Ghana CSOs made formal representations to GOG and the EU about the exclusive character of the process and proposed a scheme for a more effective participatory process. This involved a rescheduling of the February 2007 “road map”. Both GOG and EU negotiators responded positively to these proposals.

The second phase thus started in June 2007 when GOG, EU and FWG met and agreed on substantive expansion of the VPA consultation to involve not only NGOs but also forest-dependant communities and other stakeholders that might not be organised nationally. The meeting also agreed that public resources would be available to support CSOs to engage these stakeholders and to enable their increasing direct participation in the VPA process. Most significantly, GOG (MLFM) committed to maintaining and expanding this VPA consultation system as a permanent feature of sector policymaking. This phase, though not without its difficulties, has been much more inclusive, vibrant and constructive. CSOs commitment to the VPA process has strengthened as concrete progress is realised including the participatory decision-making process discussed above, a negotiated statement of “governance objectives and that the VPA Legal Standard must be a statement of aspiration (rather than a description of the status quo) leading to new legislation

Key Lessons Learned

The second phase has also seen a greater discussion and lesson learning that should be of use to others engaged in VPA processes.

Process Logic: The Ghana process would have been more effective (taken less time and consumed fewer resources) if it had adopted a more logical sequencing of activities e.g. moving from a. establishment of the participation / consultation system to stakeholder agreement on governance objectives to design and agreement on a legal standard to design and agreement on a legality assurance system etc

Imposing this logic on ongoing reform processes will always be a challenge. It would be useful for CSOs that still have the opportunity to do so to strategise more on the best ways to influence the sequencing of their national processes.

Establishing National Negotiations Processes: Another lesson that has become clear in the second phase has been the importance of clarifying the structures through which a VPA process is managed nationally. CSOs must be proactive in suggesting what these might be and not take for granted that governments have clear processes and procedures in place to manage these processes. It is not enough to address the composition of the VPA "Steering Committee" (or equivalent body. It is important to work out the full structure of national decision-making including processes of Parliamentary ratification and how these processes might affect overall outcomes.

For more information, contact Civic Response in Ghana. email: rhoda@civicresponse.org