NATURAL RESOURCES CONSULTATIVE FORUM OF ZAMBIA

Programme Funding Proposal

By I. P. A. Manning

PHASE 2

5 December 06

- SUBMITTED TO THE ROYAL DANISH EMBASSY, LUSAKA -

1. Introduction

The first meeting of the Natural Resources Consultative Forum (NRCF) on 24 March 2005 - a forum funded by DANIDA for a one-year pilot phase, and an intended second three-year phase up to 2008, was launched by its Co-Chairman, Mr. Mulele Russell Mulele, Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources (MTENR).

NRCF was envisaged as a neutral platform for stakeholder participation in the management of natural resources, particularly policy formulation. The NRCF is member driven, and promotes the transfer of technical information within the sector. The deliveries of the NRCF are advisory notes encapsulating stakeholder issues and concerns, addressed to the MTENR Permanent Secretary. Issues discussed by the NRCF, many of them of a cross-cutting nature, includes all the relevant agencies and sectors that have a bearing on the functioning of MTENR and its core responsibilities to both Government, the legislature and the nation as a whole. The development objective of NRCF was to provide national policy goals – within a supporting technical framework, on the sustainable use and conservation of Zambia’s natural resources, with the immediate objective being to provide an organization able to deliver such an objective. However the production of the National Policy on Environment, the final draft of which was produced in May 2005, has already provided the national policy goals – albeit, correctly, of a more holistic nature, including as it does environment and natural resources, and has confirmed the need for a formal institutional mechanism to structure natural resource and environmental issues, and to provide sustainability. Phase 3 would therefore be for the NRCF to become properly established and to lobby for the acceptance of the NPE, and then to assist in its implementation as the overarching environmental framework, as stated by the Minister (MTENR), “In administrative terms an Institutional Framework and Action Plan with sufficient funding will be required for inter-sectoral implementation under the auspices of the MTENR and in line with the National Decentralisation Policy, 2003.”

The NRCF was supported under the sub components of the GRZ/Danida Natural Resource Management (NRM) Component. With Phase 1 of the NRCF now completed – and the original second phase aborted; what is required is for a revised Phase 2 to commence i.e. the attainment of a fully operational state having the main development objective within the NRM Component (as stated in the revised logical framework matrix of the NRM Component project document), of reduced rural poverty through sustainable natural resources management, but being guided to some extent by the National Policy on Environment.

2. Implementing partners

Royal Danish Embassy

Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources (MTENR)

3. Proposed programme duration

One year of Phase 2

4. Partners involved in the project and their respective responsibilities

The ECZ - falling under the MTENR, is the organization having the mandate for the care of the environment and for the sustained use of natural resources. It is therefore the pivotal organization requiring legislative and policy support

5. Collaborators

• Center for International Forest Research (CIFOR) (see Annex 9 of NRCF

Progress Report: July-December 2005)

• Kafue Zambezi Conservation Development Association (KZCDA)

• Kavango-Zambezi TFCA Initiative InWEnt/NRCF

• National Movement Against Corruption (NAMAC)

6. Stakeholders involved in project

• All Government Ministries, Departments and statutory bodies with responsibility for the natural resources and environment

• Non-government organizations dedicated to natural resource and environmental sustainability

• Community based organizations and traditional leaders

• Donors within the natural resource and environmental sector

• The private sector with an interest and activity in the natural resource field

• Village communities

7. Programme rationale and objectives

To inform on matters of policy and legislation, and to provide a forum for their debate leading to a phase 3 situation where the National Policy on Environment is successfully developed, accepted and implemented nationwide, resulting in increasing economic development and conservation of the environment, with sustainable utilization of natural resources assured. This will help attain and ultimately secure the goal of development without destruction.

General objectives:

1. Meeting goals set out in national development strategies and in international conventions, most recently defined in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)

2. Avoidance of conflicts of interest, the harmonization of sectoral strategies and the rationalization of legislation that concern the use and management of land, water and natural resources and

3. The attainment of an integrated approach to development through a national cross-cutting consensus

4. Making a significant contribution to national principles of decentralization, community participation and privatization that underpin sustainable development

5. Making a major contribution to the eradication of poverty and wealth

6. Sustainable development embracing natural resource conservation as an equal partner

7. Achievement of a sense of ownership rooted in a firm community base built around effective local institutions.

8. The use of natural resources kept within sustainable levels

9. Society as a whole takes on responsibility

10. Disparate sector policies harmonized and suitable institutional, legal and funding measures obtained

11. Public support mobilized with a positive attitude towards current environmental problems and their solution

12. A holistic approach implemented that rationalises sector policies and decentralisation.

13. Provision of a funded Institutional Framework and Action Plan for inter-sectoral implementation under the auspices of the MTENR, and in line with the National Decentralisation Policy, 2003.

8. Projected outcomes

1. Establishment of the NRCF

2. Review state of environmental management in Zambia

3. Review, track and monitor appropriate legislation

4. Facilitate the production of appropriate policy and legislation

5. Enhance stakeholder participation through meetings, information dissemination and communications

9. Planned outputs and activities to achieve outcomes

OUTPUT 1:   NRCF ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATATION

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Activity  1.1Establish NRCF secretariat with TORs and workplans

Activity 1.2 Register the NRCF institution as a trust

Activity 1.3 Open bank account and institute financial controls

Activity 1.4 Provide management committee and reporting/operating procedures

Activity 1.5 Define NRCF membership criteria and provide their TOR

Activity 1.6 Define Steering Committee and its TOR

Activity 1.7 Provide budget and work plan

Activity 1.8 Provide funding and budgetary controls

OUTPUT 2: MANAGEMENT, COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT

Activity 2.1 Review current state of environmental management

Activity 2.2 Review current legislation: Acts, Bills, Regulations and SIs

Activity 2.3 Review short-term issues: the law and enforcement efficacy

Activity 2.4 Review law knowledge dissemination

Activity 2.5 Review international provisions and agreements

OUTPUT 3: ENHANCING STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATION IN THE POLICY AND LEGISLATIVE PROCEES

Activity 3.1 Provide strategies for enhancing stakeholder participation

Activity 3.2 Court the Parliamentary Subcommittee entrusted with natural resource sectors, monitoring the Executive through the Action Taken mechanism

Activity 3.5 Identify friends of NRCF able to provide financial and technical support

Activity 3.6 Form small specialized natural resource working groups to link with relevant authorities

Activity 3.7 Liase with the Legislative Drafting Department.

Activity 3.8 Work through district landuse planning officers and facilitate the establishment of natural resource empowered community resource boards or institutions

Activity 3.9 Liaise with the House of Chiefs and Local Government

OUTPUT 4: INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS AND AGREEMENTS:

Activity 4.1 Review environmental conventions

Activity 4.2 Facilitate their domestication across the sectors

OUTPUT 5: DONORS AND INVESTORS

Activity 5.1  Review donor contribution to the environmental sector

Activity 5.2  List all projects and current progress

Activity 5.3  Disseminate the necessary information

Activity 5.4  Establish donor co-ordination group

OUTPUT 6: AWARENESS AND COMMUNICATIONS

Activity 6.1  Establish and manage a website carrying all pertinent data and information

Activity 6.2  Establish a print newspaper for dissemination

Activity 6.3 Develop information for radio dissemination

1

2

3

4

5

6

OUTPUT 7: MONITORING AND EVALUATION

Activity 7.1 Monthly reports by coordinator

Activity 7.2 Bi-monthly reports to partners

Activity 7.3 Six month Inception report

Activity 7.4 Year end evaluation report

 10. Monitoring and evaluation of project progress

This will be carried out by the NRCF Steering Committee – specifically by a two man management committee appointed by the SC, who will evaluate the monthly progress on the basis of short monthly reports submitted by the project coordinator. These will be reported to the SC at bi-monthly SC meetings, and reported to the partners.

A mid-term project review in the form of a short Inception project document will be produced by a consultant appointed by the SC. At the end of the year a consultant will produce a short evaluation of the project as a condition of further funding.

11. Budget (see separate attachment)

$179,498