Social Obligations in the Logging Sector in Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and Republic of Congo

HIGHLIGHTS Obligations of logging companies to share revenue and make contributions in kind to affected communities are a legal requirement in all four countries studied. They are commonly referred to as benefit sharing or social agreements, diminishing their legal basis, hence the preferred term – social obligations. Legal frameworks on social obligations are complex, incomplete and precarious, leading to communities and the State not reaping the benefits they are owed by law. Their complexity renders social obligation systems open to abuse at many levels. Their intent might be to decentralise power but this often allows local elites to stand in the way of community members and capture most benefits. While comparison between countries is difficult, best practices identified on specific aspects in all countries are evidence that improvements are possible. SUMMARY This paper offers a critical review of the social obligations (revenue redistribution, direct payments, payments in kind, and access to justice or compensation) of logging concessionaires to affected communities in Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and Republic of Congo. The research draws on a full desk-review of relevant legal texts, and consultation with leading non-governmental organisations working in the forest sector in the four countries. It appears that the legal foundation of social obligations is mainly shaped by national context, and therefore important differences can be observed across countries. However, they are complex, incomplete and precarious, providing opportunities for elite capture, and communities – and the State – not reaping the benefits they are owed by law. A key conclusion is that legality-licensing schemes such as under a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Union (EU) tend to downplay social obligations compared to other aspects of legal compliance. Cet article propose un examen critique des obligations sociales (redistribution des revenus, paiements directs, paiements en nature, et accès à la justice ou à la compensation) des concessionnaires forestiers vis-à-vis des communautés affectées au Cameroun, en République du Congo, au Ghana et au Liberia. La recherche s'appuie sur une revue complète des textes juridiques pertinents et sur la consultation des principales organisations non gouvernementales travaillant dans le secteur forestier dans les quatre pays. Il apparaît que le fondement juridique des obligations sociales est principalement façonné par le contexte national, et que des différences importantes peuvent donc être observées entre les pays. Cependant, les obligations sociales sont complexes, incomplètes et précaires, offrant des possibilités de captation par les élites, ainsi, les communautés – et l'État – ne récoltent pas les bénéfices qui leur sont dus par la loi. L'une des principales conclusions est que les systèmes de licence de légalité, comme dans le cadre d'un accord de partenariat volontaire (APV) avec l'Union européenne (UE), ont tendance à minimiser les obligations sociales par rapport à d'autres aspects de la conformité légale. Este artículo ofrece una revisión crítica de las obligaciones sociales (redistribución de ingresos, pagos directos, pagos en especie y acceso a la justicia o compensación) de las empresas concesionarias de explotaciones forestales con las comunidades afectadas en Camerún, República del Congo, Ghana y Liberia. La investigación se basa en una revisión completa de los textos legales pertinentes y en consultas con las principales organizaciones no gubernamentales que trabajan en el sector forestal en los cuatro países. Al parecer, el fundamento jurídico de las obligaciones sociales está moldeado principalmente por el contexto nacional, por lo que se observan importantes diferencias entre países. Sin embargo, las obligaciones sociales son complejas, incompletas y precarias, lo que ofrece oportunidades para la captura por la élite y para que las comunidades, y el Estado, no obtengan los beneficios que les corresponden por ley. Una conclusión clave es que los regímenes de concesión de licencias de legalidad, como los de los Acuerdos Voluntarios de Asociación (AVA) con la Unión Europea (UE), tienden a restar importancia a las obligaciones sociales, en comparación con otros aspectos del cumplimiento legal.

Social obligations in the logging sector in Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and Republic of Congo D. YOUNG a and T. NKUINTCHUA b a Independent researcher and freelance consultant in independent forest monitoring, London, UK b Country Manager, World Resources Institute, Republic of Congo Email: dw_young@yahoo.com, nkuintchua@yahoo.fr HIGHLIGHTS • Obligations of logging companies to share revenue and make contributions in kind to affected communities are a legal requirement in all four countries studied. • They are commonly referred to as benefit sharing or social agreements, diminishing their legal basis, hence the preferred term -social obligations. • Legal frameworks on social obligations are complex, incomplete and precarious, leading to communities and the State not reaping the benefits they are owed by law. • Their complexity renders social obligation systems open to abuse at many levels. Their intent might be to decentralise power but this often allows local elites to stand in the way of community members and capture most benefits. • While comparison between countries is difficult, best practices identified on specific aspects in all countries are evidence that improvements are possible.

INTRODUCTION
The literature on sustainable logging is predominantly oriented towards the environmental aspects of sustainability. Meanwhile, the social aspects of logging remain underresearched and poorly addressed (Cerutti et al. 2014). This is particularly true for the question of how much communities actually benefit from logging (Young 2017). The forest sectors in Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and Republic of Congo (RoC) (see Map 1) -as with many other forest-rich developing countries -are largely orientated towards large-scale logging concessions that are allocated to private companies by the State (Agrawal et al. 2008, Van Hensbergen 2016. At the same time these countries are characterised by a strong sense of customary community ownership of land and thus of forests, which is not fully recognised in law (Molnar et al. 2004, Rights andResources Initiative 2015). As a result, a tension over rights to the forest resource exists, and in an effort to ameliorate this, the legal frameworks for forest management in all four countries include a requirement for some form of benefit sharing mechanism to redirect money from a profitable industry towards social development. This paper seeks to critically review the legal texts governing this form of social contract, whereby the State allocates public forests to concessionaires on condition that the latter forge some sort of agreement with affected communities. Given the diverse legal language in each country, the paper uses the term 'social obligations' rather than benefit sharing, to emphasise that the relevant codes of conduct, payments and other contributions are a legal requirement for logging operations, not an optional corporate act of social responsibility by the companies involved. Social obligations are often poorly understood and weakly enforced, underlining the need to have a full understanding of their legal basis before improving their implementation (Defo 2020). The paper identifies and examines the legal frameworks around the following modes of social obligation: distribution of area-and volume-based taxes, fees or royalties, payments in kind, and legal recourse (compensation).
Whilst the focus is on affected communities as local recipients, the paper also covers redistribution to local government authorities and traditional authorities. It does not extend the concept of social obligations to issues such as labour rights, or health and safety in the workplace, although for some countries these issues are described in the same legal frameworks.
Work on social obligations has been seen in other parts of the world as a vehicle to push for more dialogue, participation, transparency and ultimately for sustainable solutions to forest management, people's rights and legal tenure reform (Liu and Innes 2015). Furthermore, the four countries studied have all signed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the European Commission, under the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative. A major strength of each VPA is that it "looks beyond trade to consider development and environmental issues, as well as how policies affect local populations" (EU FLEGT Facility 2016), although there are concerns that VPAs emphasise legality, rather than social accountability.
FLEGT has rightly been commended for enhancing procedural rights, such as increasing participation and transparency (Fern 2016). This reflects wider concerns that the existing frameworks and practices are inadequate, insufficiently transparent or not being implemented. Thus this paper primarily seeks to document and analyse how social obligations systems are meant to work in each of the four countries, and to inform current forest policy review processes. This is complemented by evidence provided by literature, and from a leading non-governmental organisation (NGO) working in the forest sector of each country, highlighting key issues regarding implementation of the legal frameworks.

METHODS
This study contributes to the scientific and policy debate on the social impacts of logging by documenting and analysing how the social obligations that logging companies have vis-àvis local communities are accounted for in legal texts. This approach is different from and complementary to field-based approaches, which investigate the actual impacts of logging on natural, human, and social capitals, such as those by Defo (2020) and Cerutti et al. (2014). While field-based studies take the empirical reality as basis for analysis, and then relate this back to legal and policy frameworks, here those frameworks themselves, and cross-country comparison between them are the focus of analysis. This allows for new insights into the merits and limitations of the current legal frameworks on social obligations while also offering a useful, and thus far missing, legal basis for those studying the social impacts of logging to contextualise their empirical findings.
The study was a detailed desk-based analysis of all the laws, regulations and other guidance in each country as it pertains to the identified social obligations, following an exhaustive search for them from government websites, international online libraries (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2021, ClientEarth 2021), local contacts and the authors' own experiences. This was cross-checked in two ways. First, a literature review to ascertain what similar studies already existed was undertaken. Second, the research closely involved a leading NGO working in the forest sector of each country, in particular to provide testimony on the effective implementation of each type of obligation.
The research was primarily conducted in 2016, and a detailed country-by-country presentation was published the following year (Young 2017). The information was updated in 2019 for this paper through the review of any new legal texts that had been produced in the intervening period. Thisshorter -paper also emphasises the differences between the four legislative jurisdictions in greater detail. In addition, the new Forest Code in the RoC, promulgated in July 2020 (GoRoC), was reviewed for consistency with the previous draft text (MEF 2018).
All financial data are shown in the original currency and converted to US$ at the exchange rates applicable at the time. This means that in some instances conversion of the same original figure at different periods produces slightly different US$ equivalents. All figures are rounded.

Social Obligations
The key social obligations identified in each country are summarised in Table 1. In all countries the obligations include direct arrangements between logging companies and the communities affected, via the redistribution of volume-based or area taxes, fees, and bid premiums that are initially collected by the State, or as a result of compensation or legal recourse where communities or individuals affected by logging operations have grievances.
The precise mechanism for the fulfilment of social o bligations depends on a number of factors. First, the type and size of forest management or logging permit in place. Liberia, for example, has four permit-types: a long-term concession sector following evidence that the logging was fuelling Liberia's conflict (GoL 2006a). Subsequently an entirely new forest sector legislative framework was devised. None of the other countries has experienced the same wholesale change, and reform is more often through secondary, incremental legislation. Liberia is also one of only a handful of African countries to have a Freedom of Information Act (UNESCO 2017) and the timber sector is included in Liberia's Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, requiring it to make concession contracts publicly available (GoL 2009b). These variants all have implications for the design of social obligations, in particular their complexity, the check-andbalances in place to control them, the risk of inefficiencies and the opportunities for misappropriation. The rest of this section discusses these.

Area-based payments
The mechanisms for collecting and redistributing area-based payments in each country are summarised in Table 2. In Cameroon, the distribution formula for RFA is set in the annual finance law, inferring that it can be adjusted regularly. A 10% share for communities was dropped in the 2015 finance law, and only after active lobbying from local NGOs was it reinstated in 2017, with 6.75% being allocated to development projects run by local communities (GoC 2016b).
In Ghana, Annual Rent is a fixed amount, quoted in cedis; GH¢ 0.10-0.12 (US$ 0.025-0.03) depending on location (MLF 1998), so it is difficult to update it to compensate for cedi depreciation or land value appreciation without revising an entire regulation.
In Liberia, the first introduction of a legal stipulation that a proportion of revenues was to be given back to affected communities was in 2006 (GoL 2006b). However, in the first eight years of logging, no money earmarked for communities was paid into the National Benefit Sharing Trust Fund, despite the obligation to make quarterly payments (FDA 2007b). After intensive advocacy by local NGOs and communities, on 17 July 2015 the first US$ 1 million was paid by the government into the Fund, and a further US$ 250,000 was deposited in 2016. Subsequently the modalities for communities to apply for funds, and the supervision of the Fund by a National Benefit Sharing Trust Board have been developed. By late 2016 some US$ 700,000 had been redistributed to communities for projects (NBSTB 2017).
In the RoC the 2000 Forest Code provided that 50% of the area tax in each FMU should be allocated to a Development Fund for Congo's départements (GoRoC 2000), but this has never happened because a later decree transferred the revenue stream to a Road Fund (Ministry of Public Works et al. 2004). Hence, there is a perception that this area tax is not a 'social obligation'. Furthermore, there has never been any provision for the redistribution of this tax to local communities. The new Forest Code States that the scope, rate, recovery mechanism and distribution arrangements of all taxes are to be set in the annual finance law (GoRoC 2020). In addition, all activities that lead to the destruction of natural forest were subject to a forest clearing tax (taxe de déboisement) (GoRoC 2000). agreement, a short-term timber sales contract, a permit for communities wishing to manage their own forest, and a permit for private forests. Ghana has six: a large-and small-scale contract, three types of salvage permit, and a permit for the non-commercial harvesting of timber for local purposes. Cameroon recognises 15 types of permit spread across five forest categories: State, municipal, communal, community and private forests. Of these the dominant long-term concession is a harvesting contract in a Forest Management Unit (FMU). The RoC provides four permit-types: two variants of concession in FMUs (one similar to a timber sales contract with a proviso committing the holder to also provide timber processing facilities, the other also requiring reforestation), a permit for cutting plantation-grown timber, and special permits for non-timber forest products. The new 2020 Forest Code also provides for community forest management permits (GoRoC 2020).
Second, in all four countries, many social obligations are expected to be negotiated and fulfilled through some form of social agreement, ostensibly between the logging company and affected communities. In Cameroon and the RoC, agreements are referred to as clauses sociales des cahiers de charges, or 'social clauses in the terms and conditions' of a logging permit. In Cameroon this is a single set of terms and conditions, comprising general and particular clauses, and in the RoC there are two sets of terms and conditions, general and particular, social ones. In Ghana they are called Social Responsibility Agreements (SRAs), while in Liberia they are Social Agreements. In each country the larger logging contracts are between a company and the State, and thus a social agreement is in recognition of local communities as a relevant stakeholder. In Liberia, however, community forestry has recently been seen as the main way forward for forest management and there are over 120 Community Forestry Management Agreement applications pending approval (EU and GoL 2016). Under these, the company-community agreement is the logging contract itself, to be negotiated only after the community has obtained its forest management permit (FDA 2017, GoL 2009a. Social agreement oversight might be by a multi-stakeholder committee, solely by elected community representatives, or have no community involvement at all.
Third, the channels of payment vary between countries and with permit-type. For example, the redistribution of taxes, fees etc. that are collected centrally and should in part be for the benefit of local recipients may depend on intermediaries such as local government authorities or require a community to apply for funds with a proposal as to their purpose. Similar types of payments may in one country be collected and redistributed by a central authority whilst in others depend on direct payment to the affected community. The scope of the social agreement may only cover contributions in kind or may also stipulate the rate for cash payments.
Fourth, the wider context of policy reform in the forest sector and beyond has a bearing on the complexity and detail in the rules governing social obligations. In Liberia, for example, all logging concessions were abolished in 2005, in response to the imposition of UN sanctions on the timber

RoC
How is the money raised? RFA is a combination of a flat-rate area tax and the price offered by the winning concessionaire in the bidding process (GoC 2016b).
The flat-rate is between 1,000 and 2,500 CFA Francs (US$ 1. In addition, the price offered by the winning concessionaire in the bidding process (GoRoC 2009).
A forest clearing tax applies to the conversion of forest to other land use (GoRoC 2000).
All are payable to the forest ministry (GoRoC 2000).
How is it redistributed? The redistribution formula for the RFA is stipulated in the annual finance law so may change each year. The law currently applicable indicates (GoC 2016b): • 55% is retained by the State, 5% for "assessment and collection costs for the administrations concerned" (MINFI 2015).
• 20.25% is redistributed to the municipality in which the logging takes place.
• 18% is redistributed between different municipalities to 'equalise' their resources.
• 6.75% is redistributed to the relevant municipality, to "be allocated exclusively to development projects run by local populations." As a royalty, annual rent is subject to a redistribution formula enshrined in Ghana's Constitution, which in effect is (FC and OASL 2007, FC and OASL 2010-11, GoG 1992): • 10% is retained by the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands (OASL, a government agency responsible for administering land revenue allocated to traditional leadership and land structures, or stools).
• 18% is redistributed to the relevant Traditional Authority (chieftaincy group).
• 49.5% is redistributed to the relevant District Assembly. Forest sector legislation governs the redistribution: • In concessions on public land, 30% is to be transferred to a national trust fund, for onward distribution to affected communities (FDA 2007b).
• 30% is to be divided equally between Liberia's 15 counties, paid into each County Forestry Development Fund (FDA 2007b).
• The remaining 40% (and the entire Bid Premium) is retained by the State (GoL 2006b).
• In community forests, 55% is payable to the affected community, and 45% retained by the State (FDA 2017).
A government decree lays out the redistribution (GoRoC 2002b): • 50% is redistributed to all Congo's départements, or local government authorities.
• The remaining 50% is retained by the State.
* Rates were originally in Ghana old cedis; GHS 1,200-1,000. The cedi was redenominated in 2007, such that GHS 10,000 became GH¢ 1 The tax rate depended on the expected end goal of the investment: mining operations paid the maximum, 200,000 CFA Francs (US$ 320) per ha, while traditional agricultural activities were expected to pay the least, 5,000 CFA Francs (US$ 8) per ha. Two forest activities -campsites and roadswere each to be taxed 50,000 CFA Francs (US$ 80) per ha. The new Forest Code introduces a related occupation tax (taxe d'occupation) paid to obtain authorisation to occupy the forest to be cleared (GoRoC 2020). Contrary to other area taxes in the RoC, the forest clearing tax is allocated to operating costs of the forest authority (MEF and MEFB 2002).

Rate Setting
Different legal bases for the tax rates have implications for their ability to keep in line with international prices. For example, Ghana has very low rates of area-based taxes because they are enshrined in a 1998 law. Since that time the cedi has depreciated by a factor of 200,000. In contrast, in Cameroon the forest taxes are reviewed annually in the national finance bill, providing an opportunity to maintain them in line with other values. This approach has the ability to influence on both the content and enforcement of social obligations, however the tendency in Cameroon has been to adjust the percentage share away from communities, causing much protest (Yamo 2015).

Competitive bidding
It is increasingly common for natural resource concessions to be awarded through a competitive process, and each of the four countries have -on paper -a process based on the price a company is prepared to offer to get the logging contract, in addition to the area-based tax. In Liberia and Ghana, however, these have recently been significantly discounted. It is important to recognise these not as taxes, but as an amount volunteered by the winning company in a bidding process. As such the rates are not imposed by the State, although subsequent collection of the bid amount is a legal obligation. In Liberia, in the 17 large and small concessions issued since 2008, the Bid Premium has averaged US$ 9.38 per hectare per year and should have generated almost US$ 10.5 million per year -more than four times that from area fees. However, the bids were generally considered to be unrealistically high compared to the value of the timber and frequently not paid leading to arrears of US$ 42 million by 2013 (CS-IFM and NGO Coalition 2014). The Bid Premium was in effect abolished in 2013, including the waiver of all future amounts due on the current contracts (GoL 2013), and without a promised equivalent basis for competitive bidding being in put place.
Ghana has in 2017 similarly replaced an annual Timber Rights Fee with a single payment at the time of permit allocation (MLNR 2017). These changes represent losses to the State of millions of dollars over the years (Forest Watch Ghana 2004), and therefore increase pressure on the State to retain, rather than redistribute, other logging revenues.
Competitive bidding is important to the issue of revenue redistribution because it can affect the total amount available for redistribution. For example, when the Bid Premium did exist in Liberia, there were intense disputes over whether or not it should be subject to redistribution. Similarly, the Forestry Commission in Ghana has been challenged on its retention of 50% of the revenue prior to redistribution, and the Government of Cameroon has been criticised for keeping 5% of the area-based tax to cover the administrative cost of the tax, when it is one of the cheapest taxes to collect. These have all reduced the proportion of revenues to be passed on to local recipients, including those whose livelihoods are most affected by large-scale logging concessions.

Volume-based payments
The mechanisms for collecting and redistributing volumebased payments in each country are summarised in Table 3. In Cameroon stumpage has historically been a small element of revenue redistribution compared to RFA and applied to the larger concessions. The 2016 finance law extended this tax to all types of permit, including communal and community forests (GoC 2015). The 2019 finance law then raised it from 2.5% to 4% of the international timber price (GoC 2018). Currently local communities do not receive any share of stumpage although between 1996 and 2001, 1,000 CFA Francs per m 3 standing timber sales was paid to affected communities. On the contrary, stumpage from community forests, previously entirely available to communities, is now reduced by 4%. Municipalities should allocate 30% of their stumpage income to the development of infrastructure for local communities (MINFOF, MINATD, and MINFI 2012).
In Ghana, the redistribution of stumpage is the most significant mechanism for revenue-sharing with local recipients, although redistribution is to local institutions, not directly to communities. Redistribution is in line with the constitution (GoG 1992), so is much more difficult to revise compared to the other countries where it is stipulated in lower laws, regulations etc. Nonetheless, prior to redistribution the Forestry Commission retains 50% of stumpage (but not annual rent) as some form of management fee. Some argue that legally speaking the Commission should only retain one third of stumpage (ClientEarth 2013).
There is no redistribution of stumpage in Liberia, but an additional payment -the Cubic Metre Fee -is negotiated as part of each Social Agreement and should subsequently be made available by the logging company to the community on a quarterly basis. A 2015 study concluded that 65% of the Cubic Metre Fees due had not been received by the communities (CS-IFM and NGO Coalition 2015). There was also confusion over whether the fee was calculated on the basis of volume exported or on volume harvested, as is clearly stipulated in the regulations (FDA 2007a).
In the RoC, a new mechanism, Fonds de développement local (FDL) is being established. It originally came about in those concessions seeking forest certification (Schmitt and Baketiba 2015a), as a mechanism for local multi-stakeholder engagement in those parts of the concession with a community focus, and in particular as a scheme to finance community micro-projects. These logging companies have paid 200 CFA Francs (US$ 0.4) per m 3 into the respective FDL for each concession (Schmitt and Baketiba 2015a). Although there was no reference at all of FDL in the 2000 Forest Code, by 2015 it was increasingly regarded as mandatory (Schmitt and Baketiba 2015b), and the 2020 Code States that fees and taxes allocated to local communities and Indigenous populations will be deposited in their FDL. In addition to FDL, communities have been known to receive cash from companies through, for example, the sale of timber from those parts of the concession with a community focus. Such transactions are purely bilateral and vary from one company to another (Waouo et al. 2016).

Rate setting
Volume-based tax rates are typically based on international timber prices so should be regularly revised in line with these and with global currencies. If this does not happen, opportunities for rent-seeking open up, as the taxes that a logging company has to pay may drop dramatically in global trading terms. In Ghana, contrary to a requirement that stumpage fee rates are revised quarterly, they have been revised only once since 2003 (FC 2014). A study of the impact of the failure to keep stumpage rates up to date for more than a decade estimated the loss to be "approximately US$ 16 million, equivalent to four times the potential contribution of the timber industry to forest communities' welfare under SRAs" (Birikorang 2015). As in Ghana, stumpage tax rates in Liberia have not been revised as required by law (FDA 2007c). These are examples of State-capture corruption, whereby savings from underpaid tax are potentially used to influence policymakers to maintain this advantageous situation (Goncalves et al. 2012).
Failure to make such adjustments can be regarded as an implicit subsidy to the logging industry, as any increase in broader land values or timber scarcity is not reflected in the price that a logging company has to pay to extract the timber. For example, not adjusting the tax in Ghana provided a subsidy to the logging companies estimated to be US$ 8 per m 3 . During the same time, the total income by local government and traditional leaders was just US$ 2 per m 3 , suggesting that if companies were paying taxes in line with international timber prices then local recipients could be receiving up to five times their current income (EcoEcon 2015).

Volume-based versus area-based levies
Comparing countries, the choice of area-or volume-based taxes as the primary source of redistributed revenue is pertinent as the former is a relatively fixed, regular and known amount, whereas the latter varies with the production level of timber.
In Ghana, volume-based taxes are the primary source of funds to be redistributed, whereas area-based taxes are the primary source in Cameroon and the RoC. Liberia provides significant redistribution from both sources, although volumebased payments are made directly by the company to the community, not through the State tax system. The FDL in Congo is a similar system as in Liberia, as it channels an agreed volume-based payment from the company to a community fund.

Fund manageme nt
In Cameroon, while municipal oversight committees officially include elected village representatives, field research suggests that the mayor often has excessive influence in the designation of those village representatives. This, combined with poor transparency on the amount allocated to communities hampers any strong demand for accountability, and cases of fraud by municipal authorities have been investigated (Yamo 2015).
In Liberia revenues are redistributed to community groups elected to represent the wider community for this specific purpose. In Cameroon, Ghana and for area-based tax in the RoC it is to local government or traditional leader institutions, and not to communities directly. For volume-based revenues in the RoC, the FDL has a representative from each of the surrounding communities amongst the members on the committee controlling the fund. The other members represent various local government bodies, local NGOs, the logging company, and experts. However, the legal framework is still incomplete on FDL, and the only legal provision regarding its establishment is described in the guidelines for the development of forest management plans. Aside from those guidelines, each FDL is established by a ministerial order. Unfortunately, such an order only covers managed concessions, which is worrying as only about half the concessions have a management plan in Congo (EU and GoRoC 2015).

Contributions in kind
The social agreements and associated modalities for contributions in kind by the logging company to affected communities vary between countries, as summarised in Table 4. In all cases these agreements constitute a legal requirement. In Cameroon, Ghana and the RoC, they should be agreed prior to the finalisation of the logging contract. In concessions in Liberia, the legal framework is clear that they must be signed as part of the preparatory steps a company takes after being awarded the contract and before any logging takes place (FDA 2007a). In Liberia's community forests, they are contained in the Commercial Use Contract that a community and company can negotiate after the community has received its forest management permit.
Contributions in kind typically include roads, bridges, clinics, schools, mills for agricultural produce, water and electricity supply, sports or cultural facilities. They may also support activities such as reforestation projects, income-generation initiatives or innovation and technological improvements.
The parties to the social agreement differ between countries. In Cameroon they are negotiated between the State and the company, with communities' involvement granted through an information meeting, the minutes of which are an integral part of the contract terms and conditions (MINEF 1998a). A similar situation existed in the RoC where the legal framework did not provide for representation of local communities and Indigenous Peoples in the negotiation of social clauses, so drafting has been carried out by the logging company and the State (Barros 2014). The 2020 Forest Code, however, provides for the social clauses to be negotiated with representatives from local communities and Indigenous Peoples. In Ghana, SRAs are explicitly for the benefit of local communities, sitting alongside the redistribution of stumpage which is to traditional authorities and the local government. They must amount to 5% of the stumpage value, are negotiated between the logging company and affected communities, and witnessed by the Forestry Commission, traditional authorities, and local government representatives. In Liberia, Social Agreements are similarly negotiated between the company and community representatives. Unlike the other countries, these representatives are democratically elected and form a legally recognised committee with its own bylaws and bank account. As well as contributions in kind, the Cubic Metre Fee is agreed in the Social Agreement.

Negotiation and implementation of social agreements
No country cu rrently has sufficient guidance on social agreements that covers all aspects of community representation, negotiations, compliance monitoring and dispute resolution (Young 2017). Typically, in every country those involved in social agreements, from a community, logging company, or forest authority perspective, need to refer to multiple legal and procedural texts in order to fully appreciate the roles and responsibilities of the different parties. In Liberia, following concerns about the process of negotiating Social Agreements, and the content of the final document (CS-IFM 2015), a Social Agreement template was developed in 2014. Whilst the template and guidelines have no legal force in themselves, once each agreement has been negotiated and signed, it becomes binding on the logging company and community -and on the forest authority to the extent that the authority must formally attest to the agreement (FDA 2014).
In Cameroon, community members have a limited role in negotiating the social agreements, reducing the influence that they subsequently have in the implementation and compliance monitoring. In the RoC, guidance and a wider multi-stakeholder oversight group were piloted in the FDL system. The 2020 Forest Code built on this and States the social clauses should be "negotiated between the forest administration, the concessionaire, the representatives of the local communities, the Indigenous populations concerned and civil society organisations", are signed by each party, and then "made available to the public in each locality concerned… within 30 days" (GoRoC 2020). Although there is an expectation in Congo's current legal framework that the management plan must include the establishment of a Management Committee -comprising members of the local population and non-governmental organisations alongside the administration, operator and donors (MEF 2007) -the modalities for doing so are not yet specified.
In Ghana there is no consolidated guide on how the community should be represented in SRA negotiations. Civil society has long advocated for access to information about the species-volume total for timber being removed, so that independent assessments can be made of whether they amount to 5% of the value of stumpage.
Only in Liberia is the social agreement system prefaced by local elections for community representatives, with the specific inclusion of women, in a process that is clearly laid out in the legal framework (FDA 2007a). These representative committees are then responsible for managing the funds received by the community as well as for monitoring fulfilment of other aspects of the Social Agreements. In RoC there are also examples of women's inclusion being mentioned in ministerial orders to establish the committee that manages an FDL.
Even in Liberia, at present negotiations are unbalanced and badly recorded. Furthermore, the regular renegotiation of social clauses tends in reality to be optional, not a legal requirement, despite the fact that in the course of a decadeslong concession, which moves across a large geographical area, it would be appropriate to renew the agreements from time to time.
To date there is no system for monitoring the fulfilment of infrastructure or other contributions in kind, and there are no good data available on the delivery of community infrastructure. Lack of transparency is a major obstacle to the implementation of social agreements, as the agreements themselves are not easily accessible by those who would want to use them to assert their rights. Although the legal frameworks are clear that agreements must be in place, in practice they are not systematically attached to the logging contracts. In addition, contracts are not readily publicly available, making it difficult to know what commitments to social infrastructure may have been made, let alone fulfilled. A study in eight communities neighbouring forest concessions in Cameroon revealed none had ever received copies of their Social Clauses (CED 2013). In Ghana, no good data on how many SRAs exists, despite the fact that by law at least one SRA must be negotiated for each of the 327 long-term logging permits to be legal (FC 2013e).
As a conseque nce, there are wide variations in the fulfilment of contributions in kind between concessions, but overall, as observed in the RoC, there is "no governance structure to monitor performance" of social agreements, leading to low levels of achievement (Schmitt and Baketiba 2015a). The 2020 Forest Code in the RoC has made some attempt to improve compliance, stating the penalty for not meeting the social clauses "will be punished with a fine corresponding to 100% of the value of the obligation not performed" (GoRoC 2020). Offenders may also have their permit revoked and be banned from future logging permits, but detailed modalities for implementing any of this are yet to be drafted.

Legal recourse
A crucial element in ensuring social obligations are met is an effective mechanism to obtain recourse if any party feels aggrieved. The mechanisms for legal recourse for communities or individuals affected by logging operations in each country are summarised in Table 5. Recourse might be through direct compensation, dispute resolution, and/or civil enforcement.
Regarding the first of these, in Ghana, compensation for damage to crops -cocoa farms in particular -is recognised and one study reported payments of GH¢ 2-30 (US$ 0.5-8)

RoC
What mechanisms for legal recourse exist? The forest law warrants compensation to those who lose their forest to a concessionaire (GoC 1994).
The Penal Code provides a general clause for damages arising from any offence to be paid (GoC 2016a). Environment law recognises the right for local communities to sue for damages. (GoC 1996). Guidelines State "officials must, upon request, assist the holder of a logging title to reach an equitable settlement of its differences with neighbouring populations" (MINEF 1998b).
Citizens have a duty of civil action, to report infractions to the authorities (GoC 2005).
Compensation for damage to crops must be laid out in the terms and conditions of the logging contract (GoG 1998 There is no direct reference to compensation in the Forest Code but a decree predating this, and administered by the ministry of rural development, is referenced in the VPA, applicable to the main logging permits (EU andGoRoC 2011, GoRoC 1986). Compensation is payable for the destruction of fruit trees and damage caused to agricultural crops (GoRoC 1986).
How are channels for legal recourse fulfilled? The decree required to implement the commitment in the forest law to compensation has never been promulgated.
There is no discernible system for implementing these stipulations, nor any evidence available that they have been used.
The forest authority has a duty to conduct damage assessments and to ensure compensation is paid, and timber should not be removed from the forest until any compensation due has been paid (EU and GoG 2009 per cocoa tree destroyed (Sustainable Forest Management Partnership -Ghana 2016). The issue of compensation drives a debate around the ownership of timber trees on farms, as it does not make sense to farmers in important cocoa-growing areas to nurture young timber trees if they cannot be sure of receiving fair compensation if their cocoa farms are damaged when the State permits a logging company to fell these trees. In Liberia and the RoC compensation is also potentially available for damage to crops, but, as is the case for agricultural, land and environmental laws in Cameroon (GoC 1996) that also have provisions for compensation, either the rates are obsolete and unfair to communities, or the processes to access them are cumbersome. In the RoC for example, this is based on a decree (GoRoC 1986) that predates the forest law and has been rendered valueless by the sharp devaluation of the CFA Franc in 1994. In Liberia, landowners are eligible for compensation for damage to property (FDA 2007d) but the term 'landowner' is not defined so it is unclear if customary or collective owners, or farm tenants, are eligible.
With respect to dispute resolution, only Ghana and Liberia have any procedures in place. In Liberia these stem from the regulation governing Social Agreement negotiations and offer a progression from use of a neutral third party, then a local leader (District Commissioner, Paramount Chief, Clan Chief, or Town Chief), or, if this fails, commercial arbitration rules apply and the case may be taken to court (FDA 2007a, FDA 2014. In Ghana, the Forest Services Division -the front-line field offices of the forest authority -are the first point for dispute resolution, with a complaint mechanism to address disputes arising from compensation, SRAs and other community concerns. This mechanism is not well documented but is "not immediately concerned with the issuance of timber legality licences" (EU and GoG 2018). The RoC lacks any legal provisions on conflict resolution in the forest sector, but there is evidence of communities calling on companies to mediate and settle their internal conflicts (Schmitt and Baketiba 2015a).
Civil enforcement -the potential for citizens to take legal action for harm as a result of the misapplication of a law, or to compel the correct application of the law -is very clear in Liberia's forest law, covering five areas (GoL 2006b).
In Cameroon, the penal code encourages, and even demands, citizens to alert authorities to infringements of the law (GoC 2016a), but this appears to be more about protecting the State against rogue individuals or companies than asserting community rights or benefits. In Ghana and the RoC, beyond the expected right of the forest authority to sanction a logging company for non-payment of taxes, fees etc., including in the event of a citizen reporting non-compliance, forest sector legislation does not make provision for civil enforcement.
Access to justice Whilst all social agreements are legally binding, it is only where the social agreement is signed by community and company representatives that either of these parties have legal standing. Thus, in the case of Cameroon, where social agreements are not signed by community representatives, it may be more difficult for these citizens to seek redress for non-compliance by the (more powerful) companies.
In recognition that in practice there is little indication of who is responsible for compensation, and how claims should be handled, dispute resolution mechanisms are under development in all four countries, as part of the FLEGT initiative (see next section). They risk, however, being too narrowly framed, for example two mechanisms recently developed in Ghana "cannot accommodate… complaints such as concerns from affected communities, farmers or other stakeholders" (EU and GoG 2018). On the other hand, dispute resolution mechanisms that are specifically designed to support social agreements may not be sufficient to cover any redistribution of taxes and fees, or compensation claims, that fall outside the remit of the social agreement.
The issues of compensation for damage to crops in the process of accessing timber trees is of greatest importance to Ghana, then RoC, with little attention paid to this in Liberia or Cameroon. This may reflect individual national circumstances, where for example in Ghana but not in Liberia significant timber is sourced from farmland. However, the risk of damage to crops and other property may in future increase in all countries for two reasons. First, the increasing scale of agricultural concessions combined with these plantation investors' commitments to zero net deforestation will heighten the possibility of logging and land use conversion in degraded or mixed forest, and in farm areas. Second, any move to increase logging operations in community forests is more likely to involve logging machinery and farmers' fields in close proximity.

FLEGT and the delivery of social obligations
As indicated above, all four countries have signed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the EU, under the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative. These VPAs State that logging companies must comply with their social obligations if their timber is to be deemed legal. This has triggered new initiatives in Liberia, Ghana and the RoC to improve guidance and compliance. In the RoC for example, the existence of FDL is a criterion in the definition of legal timber, and the revised Forest Code, triggered by the VPA, has for the first time made mention of the FDL (GoRoC 2020). In Ghana, the VPA has precipitated progress in two long-overdue and contentious issues: new regulations to clarify the Timber Rights Fee (MLNR 2017) and a review of stumpage rates (FC 2014). Payment of compensation is included as a legality verifier in the Ghana and RoC VPAs, but not mentioned at all in those of Liberia or Cameroon. Land tenure and free prior informed consent mechanisms have also been strengthened, in Ghana for example definition of legal timber ensures that for logging in farmland (outside forest reserves), a prerequisite to any community consent to allow logging is that any land tenure disputes are resolved by arbitration, and that the process is documented (EU and GoC 2009). In each country there has been greater recognition of multi-stakeholder inclusion in decision-making, and of transparency in revenue collection and management, rendering the fulfilment of social obligations more likely. Given the enhanced legal recognition of the duty to fulfil social obligations, citizens now have a clearer potential to challenge either a logging company for breach of contract on the grounds of non-fulfilment of a social agreement, or the State for failure to enforce the law. This is not to say that formal legal avenues should be the first choice for recourse, and the VPAs are proving instrumental in improving a series of sector-specific dispute resolution mechanisms. For each VPA an Independent Auditor must set up a system for receiving and dealing with complaints. The Liberia VPA legality assurance system has explicitly replicated this system -and the criteria for assessing its effectiveness -to cover complaints about the verification and FLEGT licensing functions as well as the Independent Auditor (EU and GoL 2012). In Cameroon the verification body must "have a fully documented management system that… uses a publicly accessible complaints management system" (EU and GoC 2009). The four dispute resolution mechanisms being developed in Ghana suggest that this approach of multiple dispute resolution mechanisms for different VPA bodies and forest institutions is being replicated there too. Cameroon and Liberia have committed to making documentation on some complaints and their outcomes available to the public.
It remains to be seen how these dispute resolution mechanisms will be implemented in practice and is as yet unclear how they will provide recourse for citizens with grievances relating to their rights or benefits. To the extent that draft verification protocols for each VPA are available, however, many of these seem to stop at the establishment of dispute resolution mechanisms, and do not extend to whether they function, with transparency and accountability, or to how disputes have actually been resolved. Consequently, the onus will more than likely be on communities and civil society more broadly to improve documentation and presentation of complaints and keep written records of engagement with forestry or other officials.
Similarly, regarding contributions in kind there is emphasis in the VPA legality criteria on the existence of social agreements as distinct from their implementation. The VPA definitions of legal timber, whilst aligned with most laws, do not go further, and no clear provision exists on the monitoring and sanctions in case of non-delivery of contributions in kind. This is remarkable as NGOs, and even communities in Liberia, were part of the process to agree on what is legal timber.
Overall, the VPA legality grids fail to cover compliance with any code of conduct (laying out the rights and responsibilities of logging companies and affected communities), the outcome of disputes, where and when contributions in kind should be delivered, to what standard or size, or who is responsible for ensuring quality. This leaves the top-level commitment open to wide interpretation as to what 'compliance' means. Most of these mechanisms exist in draft form so to date there is no experience of their practical operation. Whilst the verification protocols for each VPA legality grid may go some way to rectify this, they are less public and more open to revision or compromise than the VPA texts themselves.

CONCLUSION
Social obligations in the forest sector -including the redistribution of area-and volume-based taxes and fees, and contributions in kind by a logging company, to communities who live closest to and are most affected by large-scale logging operations -are a legal requirement in Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and the RoC. The mechanisms for delivering these obligations vary with different contexts and structures in each country. Such variation may come from: the type and size of forest management or logging permit in place; the channels of payment (whether through national government agencies or direct from logger to community); the nature, content and signatories of a company-community social agreement; and wider political contexts such as how recently the forest sector legislative framework was revised. With each round of revisions to the legal framework, multi-stakeholder inclusion in decision-making, access to information, and communities' ability to realise their rights tend to improve.
There are also large variations between the countries in actual amounts redistributed, in control over the redistribution and use and in the balance between area-and volume-based revenues redistributed. These variations make it difficult to quantify the extent to which communities benefit from logging or to identify a best-case scenario. For example, in Liberia and RoC, none of the nationally-collected volume tax is redistributed, and in the case of Ghana, there is no redistribution of national revenues to communities.
Nonetheless, it is clear that legal frameworks on social obligations are incomplete and precarious, leading to communities -and sometimes the State -not reaping the benefits they are owed by law. This can contribute to a build-up of huge tax arrears, failure to keep tax rates aligned with land values or timber prices, successful lobbying by industry to reduce taxes, and above all, procedures that are too complex for communities to navigate in order to claim benefits that are rightly theirs.
Their complexity renders social obligation systems open to abuse at many levels, and 'local recipients' rarely means communities themselves. Their intent might be to decentralise power but this often allows local elites -council members, government officials, traditional authorities -to stand in the way of the community members most affected by logging operations and capture most benefits.
International frameworks such as the FLEGT initiative have not yet fully encapsulated social obligations as they were expected to. The VPAs have to date prioritised the construction of systems that deliver legal timber to EU markets. They must now do more to secure substantive community rights, including benefit sharing and other social obligations that lead to genuine development gains, and give communities management control over forests in customary ownership.
A key weakness of the FLEGT initiative is that most attention has been paid to procedural rights of citizens -participation, access to information -and relatively little to substantive rights, such as to benefit sharing and other social obligations that lead to genuine development gains, and to give communities management control over forests in customary ownership.
Improving the delivery of social obligations should increase the engagement of forest-fringe communities with the commercial forest sector, and encourage them to start ask fundamental questions such as about customary rights to land and resources.