Abstract
With the failure of centralized system of forest governance in the 1980’s, Participatory Forest Management (PFM) was presented as a panacea that could bring about proper management of forest resources while enhancing forest dwellers’ livelihood. Previous studies, however, have reported mixed results from PFM in Cameroun, and elite capture has been said to be a major contributor. Principal - Agent theory highlights the importance of the principal’s (community) capacity to keep the agents (leaders) accountable as the best approach for controlling elite capture and produce expected results. This study assesses level of leadership accountability in community forestry in Cameroon. Using cross sectional research design, data was collected through administration of semi structured questionnaire to 204 community forest (CF) members selected on basis of willingness and availability, 31 key informant interviews, and documents review. Results indicate a low level of downward accountability of CF leaders, due to inadequate capacity of community members to provide incentive to CF leaders for effective downward accountability. This poor downward accountability was further aggravated by the total exclusion of traditional authorities from CF legal arrangement. Hence, sustainable community forestry in Cameroon requires for forestry stakeholders and the government to make more effort in enhancing community capacity to demand for accountability by ensuring that all elements of accountability mechanism (answerability and enforcement) are effectively implemented. Government institutions have a key role to play in making sure community decisions against poor leadership is strengthened and enforced; therefore, the importance of synergy between community voice and public authority.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. Peter Minang for facilitating financial and logistic support by the World Agroforestry (ICRAF). We are grateful to all community forest members for their collaboration and provision of useful information for the study. The first author acknowledges the assistance of Emerent Metoul, Frank Dibletie and Salvador Tchimikpa for their enthusiasm and important contribution during field data collection.
Funding
This study was supported by the World Agroforestry (ICRAF) under the DRYAD project “Financing community forest enterprises in Cameroon” funded by the Department for International Development (DFID).
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Mbane, J.O., Foundjem-Tita, D., Mutune, J.M. et al. Are community forest leaders downwardly Accountable? Evidence from cameroon. Environ Dev Sustain (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-024-04873-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-024-04873-2