CAVEATS/ LIMITATATIONS /CHALLENGES FACED

The major challenge we faced was the time of the year when the study was carried out. The study took place between August and September 2012, which coincided with their major cocoa-harvesting season in the country. There are two main seasons when cocoa is harvested throughout the country, the main season runs from September to March, whiles the mid-crop season is from May- August. In most (if not all) of the communities, participants advised that in future studies, we come at a time when they are not so busy with the harvesting of cocoa on their farms. Although focus group discussions were conducted successfully, we feel that we could have asked more probing questions and hence derived more sincere and frank responses from FG participants had we chosen a different time. It is therefore recommended for future researchers to conduct studies ideally in April or during the mid-crop harvest season. In this way farmers will be more relaxed and more cooperative with the researcher.

6.8.2 Focus Group sizes

The size of FGs was quite challenging, given that the FG guide was also extensive (…pages).

The group sizes ranged from eight to fifteen. Since each FGD took between two to three hours, we observed that some respondents in some of the groups were getting easily agitated and bored and eventually the numbers kept reducing.

Some felt that the questions were being too repetitive and were surprised at this, with some even refusing to elaborate more on issues. Researchers recount an individual interview with a Cold Store Owner at Enchi, where the respondent after two or three questions suddenly became angry and asked us to leave. This happened even after he had agreed a day before to be interviewed. Reminiscing on this incident, we think it might have been due to the fact that the man was at work, where people were coming into the store to buy meat at the same time the interview was underway. The lesson learnt here is that even when a researcher or facilitator has pre-arranged a meeting, it is important to remind the potential interviewee two or three hours ahead of the interview.

6.8.3 Payment for participating

Payment for participation in the FGDs was one of the main issues we had to deal with. This is also reported as the major challenge faced by Dyngeland and Waized (2013) in the REDD+

compensation study in Tanzania. Facilitators arranged with some opinion leaders in the respective communities to have groups ready before our arrival. However, most opinion leaders resorted to writing down participants’ names, indirectly giving them the impression that they were going to be given “tokens of appreciation” for participating. This gave them a high expectation for monetary incentives. For instance in Sewum, participants practically refused to participate in the discussion until given “sitting allowances”. A woman remarked “ madam at least give us something for sitting here for all this long, you know you are distracting our farming activities”. Upon explaining to them that we were only students conducting research, they then demanded for ‘soft drinks’. However, unlike the Tanzanian case,⁴² they were not given any cash payment or in-kind ‘tokens’. Indeed it was a difficult task convincing them to finally participate and assuring them that depending on their responses, the REDD project could or not begin in their area. This could be attributed to the fact that previous researchers in the area had paid them for participation. In the course of the discussion, participants kept going in and out of the room to attend to personal business.

42 See Dygenland and Waized (2013).

Researchers can agree that it was the lack of monetary incentive more than boredom that kept participants gradually dropping out of the programme.

For future researchers, it is recommended that a provision be made for some sort of

‘participation payment’ when drawing up the project budget. This is likely to keep participants motivated to stay longer and give honest opinions on issues.

6.8.4 Explaining concepts in local language

Another challenge that confronted us was the task of explaining the concept of ‘sustainable development’ in a way that they will understand. Dyngeland and Waized (2013) as well as challenges encountered similar problems in their Tanzanian and Vietnamese cases respectively.

It was difficult to capture the word exactly as it is in their local parlance. Having explored several ways of asking the original questions which read: i)“What does sustainable development mean to the people? ii) In terms of measures to reduce deforestation and forest degradation?” we came up instead with the questions i) “What are some of the ways in which you think your future and that of your children’s generation can be assured? In terms of measures to reduce forest degradation?” we still did not think we succeeded in finding the best ways by which we could elicit answers on these questions. In the future it is therefore important for REDD+ policy makers to use as simple language and terminologies that can be easily translated into the local parlance.

7 LOCAL PERCEPTIONS ON REDD+ AND SUSTAINABILITY, EQUITY AND FAIRNESS AND EFFECTIVENESS OF LOCAL INSTITUTIONS

This chapter contains findings in relation to perceptions of local people on forestry management, and perceptions on REDD+ and compensation distribution. This chapter will look at results and findings from the field in relation to local peoples perceptions of sustainability and REDD. Also, we will look at EDD+, forestry management and their views on the distributional and equity aspect of compensations in the Aowin district of Ghana.

7.1 7.1 Perceptions on sustainability and sustainable forest practices

Among all the issues discussed in the focus groups, this section was the most difficult both for researchers to explain, and for participants to grasp and give independent responses on.

Across all the villages, there was no knowledge on the term.

With the help of Facilitators, researchers explained the term sustainability to the groups by using it in a sentence, and giving examples of sustainable forest practices. Resulting from this, In general, the idea of sustainability was therefore mostly tied to forestry and agriculture. The following are some specific definitions given by four focus groups:

• “Positive development that has no end”- Male FGD, Asantekrom

• “ Using forest resources prudently in a way that the future generation can benefit from it”- Men FGD, Adonikrom

• “Forest that is managed in a way which will benefit all people, increase their income and provide a permanent source of livelihood to households and families”- Jensue Men FGD

According to the women focus group in Asantekrom, sustainability is explained with a scenario thus:

“Sustainable development can be understood from this scenario: As a trader, if I make progress in my trade business and make profits after selling my goods, and do not incur any costs, then I am doing well and my livelihood is

sustained. On the other hand, if I incur costs, then my livelihood is in danger”

(Fieldwork 2012).

This perception of sustainability by the women in Asantekrom presents interesting findings.

While men think along the line of forestry when they are explaining sustainability, women tend to think more of sustainability in terms of economic and social development. What can be inferred from this, therefore, is that there is gendered thinking in terms of what sustainable development means.

From the above, four (three male, one female) out of eleven focus groups were able to explain the term sustainability. Some examples of sustainable forest practices were given across the groups as follows: not cutting trees indiscriminately, planting more trees, storing more carbon in the forests, not burning the forests for bush meat , protection of biodiversity and the ecosystem protection.

The difficulty experienced in explaining the term sustainability to respondents and in them grasping the concept is similarly captured in the works of Dyngeland and Waized (2013) in their Study of compensations formats on REDD+ in Tanzania. ⁴³