Programme description

Title: Promotion of sustainable use of natural resources and local economic development in Honduras
Commissioned by: Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)
Country: Honduras
Lead executing agency: Secretaria de la Presidencia
Overall term: October 2004 to November 2010

Context

One reason for growing poverty and a deteriorating environmental situation in rural areas is that the rural Honduran population does not have regulated and secure access to land, water and forest resources. Faulty processing and lack of markets for rural products also play an important part. Hence the rural population tends toward short-term and non-sustainable management forms that contribute to the degradation of natural resources.
At the policy level, lagging implementation of legal and institutional reforms allows only slow progress. Selected instruments for more transparency and more intensive combating of illegal logging have still to prove their effectiveness. The delegation of responsibilities and the number of opportunities to participate at local levels have increased, but often the lack of skills and know-how in the communities and among the target groups prevent them from carrying out their new functions reliably. Women are heavily underrepresented in this process.

Objective

The rural communities in the programme region can ensure, together with local actors, the environmentally appropriate, sustainable management of natural resources.

Approach

The joint project of GTZ and KfW Entwicklungsbank (KfW development bank) has four components:

• Component 1 supplies policy advising for environmental and resource management at the national level.
• Component 2, “Departement Olancho”, supports sustainable management of natural resources and local economic promotion of the country’s strategically  most important forest regions.
• Component 3, “West Honduras”, pursues similar objectives in the poorest regions of the country.
• Component 4, “Biosphere reserve Río Plátano”, contributes to securing the largest and most important national protected areas.

Priority areas are the integration of sustainable resource management into the national poverty reduction strategy and support for the policy coordination processes of the different ministries. In cooperation with other donors, the project seeks to implement the national programme in the forestry and conservation sector. This makes it possible to provide support in coordination with the government. This is ensured by capacity development measures and process-supportive advisory services.

The decentralised focus is on supporting the communities in performing new tasks, such as environmental management, sustainable use of natural resources, and local economic development. Giving support to processes that lead to target group participation is particularly important here. The target groups also receive support in implementing the measures.

The programme supports selected partner institutions, such as the environmental, agricultural and interior ministries as well as the forestry and conservation department, in developing sustainable strategies and instruments.

Results achieved so far

Modified models for participatory and sustainable natural resource management are being implemented.

• The community forestry model, and the associated transferral of national forest areas to the population living in them, is implemented.
• Methods for identification and management of water protection areas have been tested and are used in an area of about 60,000 hectares.
• The core zones of the Río Plátano biosphere reserve and other protected areas are secured. Sustainable, economically productive measures have been introduced in the buffer zones.
• Production, supported by the programme, of goods such as coffee, cocoa and wood have positive impacts on the income situation of the population involved.

In order to promote good governance, several instruments were adopted.

• The forestry and conservation department has commissioned independent forest monitoring which has been carried out.
• Models of co-management of protected areas are put into effect.
• Planning processes for environmental protection and conservation of natural resources at community level are increasingly participatory and transparent.

Positive signs have begun to emerge regarding donor coordination and harmonisation.

• The active participation of the various donors in the coordination processes is clearly increasing.
• The partner institutions involved in implementing the national forestry programme receive joint support.