Publication: Forests for Green Pakistan: Forest Policy Note
Loading...
Published
2018-06
ISSN
Date
2018-12-04
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The forest cover in Pakistan is low. The latest forest assessment from 2011 estimates 4.47 million ha of total forest area in the country, or 5.1 percent of the total land area (Bukhari, Laeeq, and Ali 2012). Distribution of forests varies by province and other administrative area; it is highest in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (32.7 percent), followed by Sindh (14.8 percent), Punjab (12.4 percent), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (11.9 percent), Balochistan (11.1 percent), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (9.6 percent), and Gilgit-Baltistan (7 percent). The World Bank supported Pakistan's forestry sector until 2000, and then remained disengaged until 2015. Few other donors, primarily the United Nations Development Program, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and international non-governmental organizations such as World Wildlife Fund, International Union for Conservation of Nature, and International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, maintained support on a small scale. Since 2015, the World Bank has been supporting Pakistan with $7.4 million to help the country prepare for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation through technical studies, consultations, and capacity-building activities. Long-term forest investments are required to harness the huge potential of forest contributions to resilient ecosystems, rural livelihoods, the national economy, and the global environment. In recent years the government has augmented its attention to forests, as demonstrated by the nationally determined contribution, the Green Pakistan Program, and the Billion Tree Tsunami Afforestation Program. Future support is needed to enhance and scale up these new and important initiatives in order to strengthen landscape management, reduce poverty and improve livelihoods, and foster private sector development.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2018. Forests for Green Pakistan: Forest Policy Note. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30936 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Lao PDR Forest Note(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-05)Natural capital in Lao PDR is a major source of wealth for the country and becomes even more strategic in times of economic stress. While forest products directly benefit vulnerable rural communities, ecosystem services from forests support key economic sectors such as energy, agriculture, industry, and tourism. Forests and downstream industries also offer important job and livelihood opportunities in rural areas in Lao PDR that can be expanded. This country forest note provides an upstream analysis of the status of forests as well as investments and policies relevant to the forest sector in the Lao People’s Demographic Republic. The analysis looks at forests in a programmatic and cross-sectoral manner to strategically position the World Bank Group to support the country in delivering on forest-relevant interventions.Publication A Legal and Institutional Framework for Sustainable Management of Forest Resources in Southern Sudan : Policy note(World Bank, 2010-02-01)This policy note was prepared in response to a request from the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) for World Bank assistance in developing legislative and institutional policies and strategies that will take advantage of the potential of the region's forest resources to contribute to poverty alleviation, food security, sustainable agriculture, economic growth, and to protection of forest-related environmental services such as climate, biodiversity, water, and wildlife resources. The note is intended to: (a) take stock of the current situation on the ground, including identifying the legislative, institutional, governance, and policy reforms needed to create an enabling environment for both public and private-sector investment. This should help in contributing to improved understanding of the currently underutilized potential of Southern Sudan's forest resources; (b) analyze what has worked and what has not worked prior to and since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA); and (c) suggest priority solutions and actions towards revitalizing the forestry sector. Key policy issues addressed in this note include: 1) strengthening forest resource information and knowledge base; 2) developing a coherent legislative and policy framework, organizational structure, and capacity for the sector; 3) promoting participatory forest and woodland management; 4) enabling forest-based industries to thrive; 5) creating an enabling environment for attracting private-sector investment; 6) protecting and enhancing forest-related environmental services; 7) using technical approaches to conservation and sustainable management of forest resources; and 8) introducing predictable and sustainable long-term financing mechanisms.Publication Migration, Remittances and Forests : Disentangling the Impact of Population and Economic Growth on Forests(2011-12-01)International migration has increased rapidly in recent decades and this has been accompanied by a remarkable increase in transfers made by migrants to their home countries. This paper investigates the effect of the rural economic growth brought about by migration and remittances on Nepal's Himalayan forests. The authors assemble a unique village-panel dataset combining remote sensing data on land use and forest cover change with data from the census and multiple rounds of living standards surveys to test various inter-relationships between population, economic growth and forests. The results suggest that rural economic growth spurred by remittances has had an overall positive impact on forests. The paper also finds that remittances caused an increase in rural wages and an increase in income, but a decrease in land prices. Considered together, however, the relationship between forests and remittances is driven largely through the income channel, indicating that the demand for amenities provided by forests in the rural Nepali setting may have been more important than factor prices in influencing land use changes for the period of the study.Publication Partnerships and Opportunities for a New Green Forest Economy in Lao PDR(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06-14)Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has a comparative advantage in natural capital, which has fueled economic growth averaging around 8 percent per annum since 2000. The natural resource endowment comprises half of the country's wealth. Although forest cover declined 3.6 percent between 2005 and 2015, Lao PDR still has among the highest forest cover percentage of countries in the region, and the value of timber and non-timber forest products is 10,740 US Dollars per capita. Inefficiencies, including overuse, under-budgeting, and unsustainable and unscientific management, have led to a reduction in forest cover, natural wealth, and public revenues. Lao PDR's recent policy reforms, institution-building and community engagement aim to build a new foundation to sustain the Lao forest estate and the people and sectors that depend on it, including for tourism, agriculture, energy, water, fisheries, and wood products. Lao PDR's ambitious forest sector reforms aim to achieve financially and environmentally sustainable, resilient, and inclusive economic growth, especially through credible private sector investors. This reform agenda accompanies the Government of Lao PDR's (GoL) plan to expand forest cover to 70 percent from the current 58 percent, which will help to reduce poverty, create green jobs and livelihoods, support local industry and expand participatory sustainable forest management (SFM) and forest restoration, as well as to meet Lao PDR's Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to climate action. Auspiciously, credible private sector commercial plantation investors are also starting to scale up investment in the country.Publication A Toolkit of Policy Options to Support Inclusive Green Growth(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012)In 2012, the Mexican Presidency of the G20 introduced inclusive green growth as a cross-cutting priority on the G20 development agenda. The second meeting of the G20 Development Working Group (DWG), hosted by the Government of the Republic of Korea, took place in Seoul the 19th and 20th of March 2012. As agreed during the first DWG meeting, this second meeting focused on the priorities for their presidency in the first half of 2012: infrastructure, food security and inclusive green growth (IGG). At its Seoul meeting, the DWG also agreed that IGG co-facilitators and relevant international organizations (IOs) should work together in 2012 to develop a nonprescriptive good practices guide/toolkit on enabling national policy frameworks for inclusive green growth to support countries who voluntarily wish to design and implement affordable and inclusive green growth policies, with the aim of achieving sustainable development and poverty alleviation. The toolkit is organized as follows. First, the necessity of applying the different tools in the context of a broad inclusive green growth strategy is stressed, and a harmonized framework combining approaches and tools identified by all four IOs is set forth. Second, the document offers an overview of key tools that can be mobilized to implement an inclusive green growth strategy. Quick technical descriptions of these tools are offered along with suggested sources for further details. Finally, capacity building and knowledge sharing initiatives are presented, with the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) highlighted as a powerful collaborative tool to advance policies for inclusive green economies.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Morocco Economic Update, Winter 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)Despite the drought causing a modest deceleration of overall GDP growth to 3.2 percent, the Moroccan economy has exhibited some encouraging trends in 2024. Non-agricultural growth has accelerated to an estimated 3.8 percent, driven by a revitalized industrial sector and a rebound in gross capital formation. Inflation has dropped below 1 percent, allowing Bank al-Maghrib to begin easing its monetary policy. While rural labor markets remain depressed, the economy has added close to 162,000 jobs in urban areas. Morocco’s external position remains strong overall, with a moderate current account deficit largely financed by growing foreign direct investment inflows, underpinned by solid investor confidence indicators. Despite significant spending pressures, the debt-to-GDP ratio is slowly declining.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.