Upscaling of the model
AFC scaled up a model for communities to participate in protected area management developed with GIZ between 2013-2016 in the Hin Nam No NPA. AFC supported three civil society organizations to implement the model elsewhere, including through co-management training modules, national-level awareness raising, exchange visits to Hin Nam No, local capacity building and policy advocacy. There are now 21 officially approved village co-management agreements, covering 204,747 ha of village forests.
Previous experience of AFC in governance of protected areas enabled the development of the Hin Nam No model and the upscaling elsewhere. AFC is local based and works widespread in Laos which enabled the upscaling beyond the often short life span of a project.
Shared governance models take a long time to be developed and need continous support that often goes beyond the lifespan of a project. Therefore it is important for short-term projects to work from the start with local-based organisations to jointly develop models, implement them, and document the lessons learned. In this way the upscaling of so-called pilot projects of international organisations can be secured which is otherwise not possible within the lifespan of the project.
Upscaling