What difference has thirty years made to forest governance in Ghana?

Mary Ama Kudom-Agyemang

Ghana’s forestry sector has contributed significantly to socio-economic development over the past thirty years by employing thousands of people and generating about six per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, forest governance – characterised by stakeholder participation, accountability and legality – remains weak and is consequently an obstacle to sustainable forest management efforts.

The forest sector has been plagued by issues such as lack of transparency in allocation of resources, noninvolvement of forest-fringe communities in decision-making processes and uncontrolled illegal logging.

In order to address these issues, a series of forest and natural resource governance initiatives are now
underway in Ghana. These include: the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Initiative, which is being implemented under the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA); the Natural Resources and Environmental Governance Program (NREG); and the Non-Legally Binding Instrument (NLBI).

So, is forest governance now on track in Ghana?

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The ‘Forest voices’ series aims, through the work of local journalists, to provide insight into the forestry context in each of these countries and illustrate how locally controlled forestry and partnerships are working in practice on the ground.