During the last 20 years, many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have diversified from service provision into policy advocacy. They are credited with considerable impact on global processes, but is happening and how can we assess success?

Today's climate of supranational interests, decentralisation, privatisation, environmental concern and uncertainty are creating much pressure on public sector forestry institutions. Such institutions need to be more sophisticated to operate in this climate, and a current priority is to reform the State's role in an increasingly complex environment. This review presents brief case studies of institutional change in public sector forestry, from India, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Bolivia and Mali. It assesses the roles and impacts of development assistance agencies, in particular DFID and the World Bank, as they have significant experience in the area of supporting institutional change in forestry. Based on these preliminary assessments, and a review of the literature, it suggests some principles for the processes of institutional change, prepared from the angle of development assistance. An annotated bibliography is included.

Examines the existing pattern of forest management and policy at the local level in the tropical high forest zone of Ghana. It looks at institutions of local government and traditional authority which are linked to forest use; district Forestry Department activities; concession-holders and other timber harvesters; and the nature of relationships between rural people, forest resources and the representatives of these institutions. The paper draws on a study which used a combination of approaches including direct assessment of forest condition, Participatory Rural Appraisal, in-depth interview and literature review. It includes six examples of adaptive forest management at the local level, and draws out lessons for developing viable and adaptive forest management.