The Way Forward 1
Ways to move forward on these opportunities have been identified, but challenges remain.

1. Local extension support
Community-based extension workers with specific forestry skills are needed in the community on a regular basis (contracted by communities). These should be backed up by sub-county (or district) based consultants (or NGOs) who provide training and support.

Challenges:

• Limited capacity and reach of service providers - especially in remote areas
• Oversight of quality of services, inconsistency between service providers
• Insufficient mechanisms for ensuring that the poorest benefit. They need to be aware of opportunities and able to take them up and access services
• NGOs often have their own missions which are not demand-driven

2. Small business support
Business support services should be contracted at district level to assist with setting up a business and developing business plans, accessing market information, tendering, providing marketing advice, obtaining finance and providing aftercare. This could include “community business workers”.

Challenges:

• These services may be provided by existing programmes (e.g. PSDP, PRIDE), or may need to be developed
• Access to rural finance when micro-finance initiatives will not lend for forestry
• Development of quality certification systems, e.g. for tree seeds

3. Specialist advice and new technology
Specialist organisational and technical advice could be contracted from consultants in the district (or beyond, for rarely needed skills) e.g. advice on pathologies, land tenure issues, legal agreements on CFM, eco-tourism development. The same could apply to support for the develoment of technology e.g. adapting agro-forestry technologies to local conditions.

Challenges:

• How to get economies of scale, contracting services at the appropriate level. For example, local service providers for frequently required services, district or national providers for occasional inputs. How to build capacity and support these service providers at different levels, e.g. through training and networking.