Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS) organized a workshop on “NEXUS Gains: Realizing Multiple Benefits Across Water, Energy, Food and Ecosystems (Forest and Biodiversity) with a focus on forest sector on 25 November 2022 at Indreni Foodland, Baneshwor.
The participants were government officials, representatives from different federations, development practitioners, academia and researchers. The workshop started with the welcome remarks by Dr. Anushiya Shrestha, Research Director of SIAS followed by brief introduction of the participants. Dr. Shrestha also briefly shared the research context and objective of the workshop. After that, Ms. Salu Basnet presented the preliminary findings obtained during the exploration and mapping of major actors and their roles in forest and biodiversity sector at all three levels of government. She also highlighted the multistakeholder/multisectoral platforms functional in the forest sector at different times. The preliminary findings were based on the secondary review, expert consultation and key informant interviews with different actors (government officials, representatives from federations and practitioners).
Followed by the presentation was the discussion session moderated by Dr. Dil Khatri, Executive Director of SIAS. The discussion was focused towards identifying the space for multisectoral platforms in the existing institutional setup of the government and their working modality. The participants shared that there are few multistakeholder platforms in forest sector like climate change forum at national and provincial level that provides space for different sectors. Participants also agreed that there are multiple benefits of working in an integrated approach through a common platform but the major problem of such platforms is that they turn out to be dysfunctional in the long run. One of the participants highlighted that the major reason behind it is that no one particular institution or sector is responsible to monitor the platforms and regulate the activities.
While some of the participants highlighted that that the policies have provided space for the practice of multistakeholder/multisectoral platforms but the space is constricted by the implementing instruments and institutional mechanisms. Others highlighted the inter-ministerial coordination has to be enhanced and open to provide space for the interlinked sectors.
