Local-Level Monitoring in Decentralized Forest Management: Exploring the Spaces for Community Participation

This paper explores a participatory monitoring process initiated in Kampong Thom province with 3 Community Forestry (CF) sites where CF development was facilitated by Forestry Administration (FA) staff and externally supported by German Technical Support-Rural Development Programme (GTZ-RDP).The paper details the methodology used and the key outputs produced during the process, it highlights the four main principles of the principle, criteria, and indicator Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) which are: (1) that forest health is maintained, (2) public well-being is improved, (3) community well-being is assured, and (4) external support is effective. The results show that in all three CF, the land integrity and the forest resource itself was improved between the baseline and follow-up surveys. Despite the positive results, many of the challenges and limitations were acknowledged including the difficulty in capturing all different points of view and opinions when there are such a large number of people involved and consulted as well as how this can lead to a slowdown within the whole process and is very expensive. The paper concludes suggesting that a local level monitoring system can help to build local capacity, improve decision-making, reduce conflict between local forest dependents and responsible authorities as well as empower local community members, especially marginalized groups