The pandemic recovery in the East Africa sub region: Economic, environment and social learnings in the forestry sector

 Economic terms: Over a year after the global pandemic, there is not much of the specific strategy that has been put forward in the forest sector within the East Africa sub region and its Member States. The forest sector which is largely not given priority in the national resource allocation and budgetary systems were thinly included in the macro plans/strategies at country levels. The forest sector, especially commercial forestry, where timeframes for return on investment are much longer, many investors have the ability to hold the forest assets and wait for relatively longer time for economic recuperation. Attracting private investment in the forest sector should be the driver of sustainable future growth, as the previous year has shown economic downfall in all sectors including the forest sector.

Environment terms: The initial assessment identified several environmental impacts that happened in due course of the pandemic. Many of the environmental impacts happened even before the pandemic, but they have been very much compounded with Covid 19. Member States had put forward commitments on forest restorations with more than 16 million hectares of forests. These commitments will need to be pursued through aggressive tree planting campaigns and massive land management to sustain ecological systems and their functionality that supports agriculture and tourisms in all Member States.     

Social terms: Forestry sector and its importance to the nearly 70% of the population in the East Africa sub region is still a major sector and all Member States recognize forestry as a key development sector.  Many of the communities, depend on the sector for uplifting them from resource poverty especially energy (i.e. charcoal, fuel wood), food, wood (i.e. timber, building poles, withies, carvings etc.), and non-wood (indigenous wild fruits, wild vegetables, herbal medicine). The functioning of the forests and their ecosystem services will continue to support agriculture and tourism post pandemic and also building back for countries’ economies will rely on significant environmental, social and cultural values of forests.