THE IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGE

If a community decides to create a community forest, what comes next? Even arriving at the community forestry decision can be contentious and difficult, but making it a reality poses a range of challenges. At one time there was an assumption that once a policy decision was made, its execution became a simple and mundane affair that did not merit significant attention (Hyder 1984). When it came to program or policy efficacy, it was the quality of the idea, or the correctness of the ideology which gave birth to ideas, that mattered. Policy implementation followed naturally; it was an ordinary process that would have little impact on the success of the policy concept. It is fair to say that some institutions still approach the policy process under this assumption.

The understanding of governance and modern government has become more experienced, and a substantial body of research on evaluation has emerged and slowly matured. Audit techniques have also progressed away from an obsession with numbers, and now incorporate qualitative tools that seek to assess efficacy and policy impacts and to understand the social–cultural, contextual and institutional factors that affect policy success. While ideas certainly matter, when it comes to putting them into practice even the best can go awry. In the policy process the implementation stage is without doubt integral to the successful application, and in some respects to the very practicability, of ideas.