Community Forestry, Mountain Economies & Decentralized Development

Nepal’s Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) represent one of the world’s largest decentralized forest governance experiments. This program explores how decentralized resource management reshapes rural livelihoods, gender inclusion, enterprise diversification, and environmental stewardship.

The program balances national policy framing in Kathmandu, tourism-linked diversification in Pokhara, and participatory field immersion within CFUG regions.

Students analyze benefit-sharing mechanisms, cooperative governance, and livelihood diversification pathways.

Students will:

Analyze decentralized forest governance and CFUG institutional structures.
Conduct benefit-sharing and inclusion audits.
Map tourism-linked livelihood diversification.
Evaluate elite capture and gender participation dynamics.
Assess sustainability trade-offs between conservation and income generation.
Produce a decentralized livelihoods proposal with implementation pathways.

Environmental Governance

Political Economy

Sociology

Sustainability

Anthropology

Public Policy

Climate & Resilience Studies

Kathmandu

Pokhara

Rural CFUG Regions

Day	Location	Activities	Learning Emphasis
1	Kathmandu	Seminar: Community Forestry & Decentralization	Conceptual grounding
2	Kathmandu	Workshop: Benefit-sharing & elite capture analysis	Institutional equity
3	Kathmandu	Guest lecture: National CFUG scale & policy	Macro framing
4	Pokhara	Tourism & migration livelihoods seminar	Diversification
5	Pokhara	Dialogue with women entrepreneurs	Agency
6	CFUG Field	Participatory forest mapping	Resource governance
7	CFUG Field	Cooperative governance observation	Institutional practice
8	CFUG Field	Livelihood diversification case studies	Adaptation
9	CFUG Field	Inclusion and equity analysis session	Justice lens
10	Kathmandu	Systems synthesis workshop	Integration
11	Kathmandu	Policy clinic: Decentralization feasibility	Institutional realism
12	Kathmandu	Proposal drafting & peer critique	Translation
13	Kathmandu	Final presentations & departure	Closure