Meeting on Capacity Development of Social Forestry Facilitator

The Center together with the Asean Working Group on Social Forestry (AWG-SF) held a Capacity Building Meeting on Capacity Development of Social Forestry Facilitator on Wednesday, January 16th, 2019. Located at the Santika Hotel, Jakarta,  this meeting was attended by invitees consisting of experts, practitioners and academics who are involved in the field of social forestry in Indonesia the government officials, NGOs, and universities. 

The key to the successful implementation and achievement of social forestry targets is in its facilitating activities. The current condition that is considered weak in terms of policies, institutions, skills and knowledge. This makes the SF facilitation importand to be improved and strengthened. This meeting is an iniatiation to discuss and formulate things that need to be done to develop capacity of the SF facilitators. 

This meeting was a follow-up to the previous meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam and The Center together with AWG-SF has committed to support and to help improving the capacity of facilitators and extension agents of social forestry programs in Indonesia, as well as formulating inputs for the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, especially the Extension and Human Resource Development Agency (EHRDA) and the Directorate General of Social Forestry and Environmental Partnerships (PSKL).

The meeting was opened by the Director General of PSKL Dr. Ir. Bambang Supriyanto, M.Sc., and Head of EHRDA represented by the Head of the CEFET Novia Widyaningtyas, S.Hut, M.Sc. Bambang said about the development of the Social Forestry program in Indonesia and its facilitation after the permit is granted (post-permit facilitation). Furthermore, Novia conveyed the readiness of EHRDA to support  post-permit facilitation of social forestry program. 

There were four main speakers from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, namely the Director of Business Development for Social Forestry and Customary Forests (BUPSHA) Ir. Herudojo Tjiptono MP, Director of Environmental Partnership represented by Desi Florita Syahril, M.Sc, Head of Forestry Extension Center Ir. Mariana Lubis MM., And Head of the CEFET Novia widyaningtyas, S.Hut, M.Sc. In addition, two analysts were also presented namely R. Yando Zakaria from the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform and Social Forestry (RAPS), and Lissa Gabriella from RECOFTC.

The objectives of this meeting were to map the "knowledge package" that was built as well as the gap in the knowledge capacity and skills of social forestry facilitators and extension agents; to identify programs, materials, facilitation methods, and modules available for social forestry facilitators and extensions; to map the gap of program requirements, materials, facilitation methods, and available modules; and to identify and design institutional systems for human resources and social forestry extension agents in the future.