Development of Forestry Strategy of the Republic of Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Mission Report

12 to 21 July, 2008

Franc Ferlin,

Forestry consultant

Ljubljana, 31 August 2008

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AFWMC Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management Committee

CTA Chief Technical Advisor

FA Forest Agency

FC Forestry Council

FP Forestry policy

FL Forest law

FSDS Forestry Development Strategy

FSDP Forestry Development Programme

FDS WG Forestry Development Strategy Working Group

MAFWM Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management

NFP National forest programme

PFC Public Forestry Company

RS The Republic of Srpska

ToR Terms of Reference

WS Workshop

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Background

This mission was arranged between SNV Bosnia and Herzegovina – Portfolio

Office Banja Luka (PO BL) and the Consultant for his advisory support to

Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management (MAFWM) of Republic

of Srpska (RS) and its Working Group (WG), appointed by the Minister on 24

April 2008. The WG consists of nine members from whom one was nominated

as Coordinator.

Main objective of the WG is creation of the RS Forestry Development Strategy

(FDS) document. The timeframe for its elaboration was set as very short by the

Minister, i.e. for 15 November 2008, regardless the new FL which defined now

longer, nine months timeframe for the FDS adoption.

The assignment of the Consultant consisted of the following more specific tasks

and deliverables:

1) Presentation of Serbian national forest programme / forest sector reform

experiences and providing his opinion and recommendations to

development of RS national forest programme / forest sector reform,

particularly the FDS as the second1 RS forestry reform element.

2) Contribution to preparation of a longer-term work plan (or project) for

forest sector reform development.

3) Contribution to preparation and finalization of the Terms of reference

(ToR) for development of FDS study to be financed by the World Bank

“Forest Conservation and Development in Bosnia and Herzegovina”

project extension.

Anticipated contribution of the Consultant has dynamically being adapted on

actual FDS WG’s facilitation policy (performed by its Coordinator in collaboration

with the Consultant) and current development of WG’s work and agreements

during his mission.

The WG’s working process has been divided into two parts accompanied by two

workshops, the first one (in Banja Luka) lasting for one day, and the second one

(in Drinić and Banja Luka) lasted for two days. The first WS was mainly devoted

to the above point one, the second to point three matters. The Consultant

participated in both the workshops (WSs).

1 In this context, the new Forest Law is considered as first RS forestry reform element.

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Results, conclusions and recommendations

Development of the Republic of Srpska forestry reform

Overview over current forest sector reform status, development and

plans

Launching of the RS forestry reform was initiated by the Agriculture, Forestry

and Water Management Committee (AFWMC) of the RS Parliament, on 13 April

2007, after the AFWMC was informed with, and discussed on "The condition in

Republic of Srpska forestry sector and forestry strategy development needs",

prepared by MAFWM. As a result, the following conclusions were made: (a)

MAFWM is obliged to prepare new FL by the end of 2007; (b) MAFWM is

obliged to start with preparation of the "RS Forestry Development Strategy"

document by the end of 2007; and (c) MAFWM is obliged to resolve the forest

administration issues, through general public administration reform, by

establishing the Forest Agency (FA) and other means.

Based on the above, the new FL was prepared2 with certain delays and adopted

by the Parliament (in July 2008) right during the mission. For that reason, start of

the FDS preparations has also delayed. For a formal start of the FDS

preparation process, the appointment of the FDS WG could be taken into

account (i.e. end April 2008). Regarding the forest administration issue and it’s

resolving through establishing of new FA within general public administration

legislation, this has not been done yet. One of main problems for its establishing

lied in non-clearly defined (by FL) competencies of FA with regard to forest

administration or service function, in relation to Public Forestry Company (PFC)

which already performs the function to certain extent. Now, the FA is part of new

FL and shall be established based on it.

The FL foresees, among others, development of FDS, and subsequent the

Forestry Development Program (FDP) as its action-wise document, within

defined timeframe. For adoption of the FDS, the FL anticipates 9 months, and

for the FDP additional 12 months after that. Both documents shall be adopted in

the RS Parliament. By this, the FL defines also a clear time framework for

preparation of further forestry sector reform development plans.

2 As main platform for the new RS FL, the Draft FL of Serbia (which was developed under an FAO

Forest Sector Development Project, 2005 – 2008, leaded by the Consultant as its former CTA) was taken.

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Based on this, the deadline for elaboration of the FDS (required by the Minister)

could be extended in order to assure sufficient time for preparation of its

professional bases (background analyses and studies), as well as of its very

draft FDS versions, its public discussions, harmonization and finalization for

Governmental and Parliamentary adoption procedures.

Since the adoption of the Law preceded the development of the Forestry Policy

(FP) and the FL already defined key elements of the policy (e.g. forestry

planning, administration, management, organization and financing), the

anticipated FDS and FDP will also serve as instruments for the FL and its policy

implementation.

Foreign experiences in the national forest programmes or forest

sectors reforms

In order to contribute to the most appropriate further planning of RS national

forest programme / forest sector reform concept and process, the Consultant

presented his experiences to the WG members, particularly based on results of

Forest sector development project in Serbia of which he was the Chief Technical

Advisor (CTA). The summary presentation used for that is available at

http://www.forestryprojectserbia.org/PDF/engleski/project-dokuments/.

The Consultant shared also his Slovenian experiences in national forest

programme developments (available on

http://www.forestryprojectserbia.org/PDF/engleski/nfp-documents/nfp-

conferencedokuments/slovenija-ferlin.pdf) as well as from other EU countries.

The experiences solved as a background for clarification of the RS forest sector

reform concept and process.

General recommendations for RS forest sector reform development

The Consultant provided the following two general recommendations for further

RS forest sector development to the WG (at its first meeting):

1) Taking the RS situation with already adopted FL, in which also key FP

issues were defined, into account, the FDS should also be an instrument

for implementation of the FL and its appurtenant policy.

2) A body of a high-level advising on FDS (and FDP), i.e. Forestry Council

must be established as soon as possible in order to provide political

guidance for the FDS WG.

As result of the WG discussions and the Consultant’s contribution, the following

joint conclusions and recommendations of the WG on further forest sector

reform development process have been adopted (at the first WG meeting) and

sent to the Minister:

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1) The WG accepts the obligation for elaboration of FDS and considers that

could realize it in qualitative way.

2) It is indispensable to assure full cadre and logistic support of MAFWM to

realization of activities on FDS elaboration.

3) The WG members consider as necessary and supported by MAFWM, to

prepare a general plan of RS forest sector reform (for the period of next

three years), which would serve as framework for planning the

development of individual elements of the reform, e.g. FDS, as well as

for searching of wider international technical and financial support to that

reform (e.g. through FAO). From that aspect, it would be useful to orient

further activities also into preparation of a NFP project proposal (at

Bosnia and Herzegovina level) for FAO support.

4) It is indispensable to assure financial means for elaboration of Terms of

reference for the FSD study (by MAFWM) and for the study itself (which

will be performed by the WG)

5) It would be appreciated to incorporate new members into the WG or to

form more FDS development teams, i.e. policy/strategic team, technical

core team and wider technical team).

6) Coordination of further activities on FDS preparation should be taken

over by MAFWM in collaboration with FDS Project / Study Coordinator.

The Consultant contributed particularly to the above recommendations No. 3, 4

and 5.

Development of a longer-term work plan for forest sector reform

Although the WG has adopted the above recommendation No. 3 (necessity for

preparation of longer-term forestry reform work plan) on its first meeting, further

WG activities were not concentrated on that issue. One of the reasons lies in the

fact that new FL was already adopted in the meantime, defining also general

elements (i.e. the FDS and the FDP) and timeframes for such a plan. Another

reason was in the fact that for the support to FDS study, financial means from

the World Bank’s “Forest Conservation and Development Project” have become

available. And the third reason lied in the most recent agreement between the

Consultant (as future SNV Senior Forestry Advisor), the SNV and the FDS’ WG

by which the SNV could provide its additional support to the MAFWM including

the mentioned advisory support.

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Elaboration of the Republic of Srpska Forestry Development Strategy

General recommendations for elaboration of the FDS

Based on his experiences, including Serbian ones, the Consultant provided the

following general recommendations for the RS FDS development:

1) Development of the FDS, and particularly the FDP, must be based on

previous analyses and studies, e.g. on forest and forest management

conditions, forest functions and their evaluation, forest biological and

technical reproduction needs, forest economics and financing, public

forest administration and service development needs, private forest

support needs etc.. These studies could/should be prepared before very

elaboration of the FDS.

2) Development of the new FDP should start already before the FDS is

elaborated.

3) The FDS should be developed in a way which would already take the

anticipated FDP contents into account. For that reason, the Consultant

suggested to the WG, to preliminary consider also that possible FDP

contents, based on draft Serbian National Forest Action Programme

(which could serve as a general example for such contemporary

programme). However, this attempt showed that it was a premature

exercise for the WG, in order to harmonize the FDS and FDP contents in

so short time. Consequently, the WG started to concentrate itself on the

FDS contents and structure only, based on corresponding Serbian

example.

Development of draft Terms of reference for RS FDS

The WG Coordinator prepared in advance, in collaboration with a few WG

members, a preliminary proposal for development of the RS FDS. That proposal

as already quite complex one was prepared by using the Serbian FDS example,

and served as a background for the WG’s work (on its second WS).

After two days of discussions and reconciliations of that FDS proposal within the

WG, the final draft ToR was generally agreed.

The Consultant took over an obligation from the WG to finalize and complement

it, with all necessary (standard) contents and matters, after the field mission.

Based on this, he finalized the ToR (Appendix 1) and sent it to the WG Leader

and the WB Project Implementation Unit Director.

The ToR for FDS “project” anticipated the preparation of certain preliminary

analyses and studies (to be used for description of forest and forestry situation

and problems as well as the elaboration of necessary strategic guidelines with

corresponding generic measures) development as well. Part of the ToR is

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devoted also to coordination and facilitation of the FDS preparation process,

including its public discussion.

As partly mentioned above, the realization of the FDS “project” is mainly

anticipated to be financed by the WB (covering national consultants) with

additional support of the SNV to be assured by both, PO BL national forestry

advisors (Nenad Buzanin and Aleksandar Mrkobrada) and international forestry

advisor (Franc Ferlin). Both institutions could provide also certain financial and

other support for covering the costs of participation process.

The deadline for execution of the FDS “project” segments has been set as

follows:

- Elaboration and presentation of forest and forestry condition including

problems (by end November, 2008);

- Elaboration of principles, objectives, guidelines including instruments for

their implementation (by end February, 2009);

- Public discussion on, and harmonization of the FDS proposal (by end of

March)

- Submission of final FDS draft (by end of April).

With regard to available future Consultants’ capacities (as international SNV

advisor) for development of the RS FDS, it could be counted for a maximum of

up to 15 working days of his services until the draft FDS is submitted.

The Consultant provided also corresponding elements for preparation of

Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with MAFWM, on that mutual

cooperation. The draft MoU was prepared for signing.

By the time of finalizing of this report, the ToR has already been adopted by WB

and individual contracts for local consultants are about to be prepared for

signing.

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LIST OF APPENDIXES

APPENDIX 1: Terms of Reference for preparation of the Republic of Srpska

Forestry Development Strategy study (in English) to be financed by World Bank

Forest Conservation and Development Project in Bosnia and Herzegovina –

Extension phase (prepared by Milan Mataruga, Franc Ferlin and other WG

members). Not for public use!