Etudes Socio-Environnementales: Evaluation des Impacts des Investissements «Success Stories» dans la Gestion des Ressources Naturelles au Togo

Type Journal Article - Revista Universitara de Sociologie
Title Etudes Socio-Environnementales: Evaluation des Impacts des Investissements «Success Stories» dans la Gestion des Ressources Naturelles au Togo
Author(s)
Issue 2(20)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2013
Page numbers 21-43
URL http://www.sociologiecraiova.ro/pdf/rus-numere/RUS_2_2013.pdf#page=21
Abstract
The Republic of Togo is a small West African country large as 56,600 km2 with a very weak forest cover (5 to 7%). The annual rate of forest resources degradation is high, about 5% because of an unceasingly increasing population. To reverse the tendency of continuous degradation; several interventions were undertaken involving different actors. After more than 30 years of actions carried out in environment sector, the evaluation of the effects is not truly capitalized. Therefore, this study was achieved to document the mains drivers of the actions carried out as well by the Government as by the other actors in natural resources management (NRM). The overall objective is to build a solid argument in order to make a plea for more investment in NRM. The study is in keeping with a regional pattern of ex-post evaluation of the impacts of the investments in NRM in Togo. Thus, three hotspots were selected for socio-economic investigations. The results showed that the impacts of the investments were efficient in Natchabonga and Missahoe positive hotspots thanks to the interventions of local NGO, Government, village communities they regional or international organizations. Within test villages (villages having profited from interventions) of each positive hotspot, capacity buildings of the populations develop sudden awareness. Interesting practices of NRM were adopted in the test villages beyond mobilization and motivation of the local populations. These interventions contributed to local development and to face the global changes. Comparing to pilot villages (villages having insufficient interventions or where they are completely absent in the positive hotspot) results showed an increased degradation of the natural resources. But these pilot villages, which did not receive direct interventions, were developing behaviors which result from the proximity effect from the test villages.

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