As part of the deployment of ICT in forest-related applications, it is important to internalize operational considerations that have been informed by experience around the world and especially tempered by the local conditions. Although this will need to be examined in a customized manner for each investment depending on the source of financing, a few of the critical questions to normally be considered are indicated below:
Technical: Are the proposed ICT solutions based on proven technologies? Is the access to and reliability of internet or other connectivity appropriate? Is the solution proposed compatible with previous systems? Are there opportunities to leapfrog traditional systems appropriately with new technology? What is the risk of obsolescence and what is the strategy for future upgradation?
Institutional: Are the governance needs for improvement and the role ICT can play clear? Is the institutional infrastructure adequate on ICT aspects? Is there sufficient human capacity to absorb and maintain the proposed ICT solutions? What is the political economy of improving the governance through ICT – who will be the winners and losers? Are there appropriate staffing and other arrangements to fully deploy, manage, and update the systems? What are the training and capacity-building requirements? Is there a need to in-source or out-source specialists? Are there useful partnerships that can be established within the organization, with other government agencies, academia, CSOs, private sector, community groups, etc. to improve the utility and sustainability of the tools deployed?
Policy: Are there any policies that need to be streamlined for the proposed solutions to succeed? Is there sufficient policy support for relevant data access, especially in the public domain? Are there restrictions on the use of UAVs or cloud computing? Do regulations prescribe paper documentation and enshrine manual workflow processes?
Environmental and Social Aspects (including Safeguards): Are there any adverse environmental and social impacts on the deployment of the proposed technologies? Are communities convinced about the use of such technologies? What are the environmental and social services that could be enhanced through the use of such tools (e.g. relevant data, analysis of ecosystem services, effectively identifying and mitigating impacts and monitoring responses)? Can communities be empowered through the use of these tools? Is there an adequate grievance redressal mechanism? Is there effective citizen/stakeholder engagement during preparation and implementation?
Gender aspects are critical as globally, women play an important role in the use and management of forests, the collection of timber and non-timber forest products, and the generation of income from these products through market-based opportunities. Inclusion of the appropriate consideration of gender in the design, project actions, and monitoring and evaluation are all possible to be enhanced through the appropriate use of ICT. For example, training or community radio targeted for women, equipping women/women’s groups with ICT tools, monitoring impact on women through targeted stakeholder surveys, or other ways to improve participation of women.
Economic, Financial and Fiscal Aspects: Although the costs of ICT are dropping dramatically, the use of ICT involves both capital and operation costs that should be carefully evaluated in the consideration of alternative options. What are the capital and operating costs? Are the benefits quantifiable? What valuation techniques will be used? What kind of economic and financial analyses can be carried out? What are the fiscal implications (e.g. for O&M)?
Some of the benefits of ICT-enabled forest-related operations could include:
Procurement: How can the ICT procurement be packaged for bidding? Are there any sole-source or proprietary item procurements? Are the goods/equipment specifications open enough to attract appropriate competition while ensuring an appropriate product? Does proprietary satellite imagery need to be procured? Are the TORs for individual and firm consultants (e.g. to design and deploy a Forest Knowledge Management Information System) ready? Are there any non-consulting services (e.g. cloud services, possibly UAV or other monitoring services) that need to be specified? Who will be responsible for procurement at various levels (national to community)? Are the procurement systems efficient and transparent? Is there sufficient capacity to manage procurement effectively? Is a procurement plan for the project (with more detail for the first 12-18 months) available?
Financial Management: Are the fund flow systems (including documentation) well defined and effective? Is the Banking system adequate? Do the funds need to be ring-fenced or can existing institutional systems be utilized? Are the audit arrangements adequate? Is there sufficient capacity for financial management or is there a need to strengthen? Are the project incremental operating costs (including on ICT aspects) reasonable? Is a specialized software for financial management required?
Legal: Is there a need for special covenants related to ICT aspects? Are there any legal incompatibilities between the proposed solutions, the law of the land, and any financier regulations? Are the legal documents for the project prepared with adequate input from all specialists?
Risk Management: Is there appropriate data available? How to ensure institutional synergy across fragmented/overlapping mandates? How should technical, institutional, policy, financing, fiduciary, safeguards, and other risks be effectively managed? How can the ICT-related activities be sustainable after the project? How can political, governance, and stakeholder risks be managed? How can design be based on global good practice and local experiences? Are there appropriate mechanisms to come up effectively with “Plan Bs” for adaptive management in crises?
Monitoring and Evaluation: Are there appropriate indicators to help monitor the effectiveness of ICT aspects in forest-related projects? How will the data for these indicators be monitored, analyzed, visualized, communicated, and used in adaptive decision making? Is there appropriate use of ICT to modernize monitoring on forest change, analyze M&E data, collect stakeholder inputs, communicate M&E results effectively visually, and other aspects?
Lessons Learned: The experience with thousands of forest projects (including on ICT aspects) around the world have yielded many lessons that would need to be considered during conceptualization, design, and implementation of such projects and programs. Other than the aspects indicated above, these may include the need for having a well-defined project structure that allows for phasing, innovation, and flexibility during implementation. Solutions should balance technocratic opportunities with a nuanced understanding of the political economy to ensure early successes, good communication, and appropriate scaling-up of what is working well and quick correction of problems as they emerge. There is also a need to find mechanisms (invariably ICT-enabled!) to improve the sharing of detailed experiences on ICT use in forest-related projects, especially in an environment where these technologies are changing very rapidly.
The rapid growth in the use of ICT in all development spheres will also continue to infuse forest-related activities with more opportunities to modernize the way people collect, analyze, and interact with data, information, and knowledge products to make decisions at various levels. ICT-enabled tools and approaches have the potential to revolutionize the way forests are managed within a generation if they are appropriately strengthened based on global good practice and local experiences in a phased, systematic manner.
The following map shows an example of some of forest-related projects financed by the World Bank:
World Bank - All rights reserved.