International Conference on Sustainable Energy for Mitigation & Adaptation of Climate Change and Global Warming, May 2021 Utilization of Community Forest and Knowledge for Sustainable Energy Development in Nepal Prem Bahadur Giri 1 1 Faculty of Environmental Management, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Thailand Abstract The community forestry (CF) in Nepal is a prime example of the decentralization of forest management. Which has been commenced with the failure of the centralized forest protection system in late 1970s. Local institutions, called community forest user groups (CFUGs), have a full authority to manage the community forests in the interest of each member of the groups. The CF program in Nepal has been regarded as a learning ground for governance reform in terms of participatory decision-making, bottom-up planning process, gender and equity sensitivity, partnership among government, nongovernment and private sector agencies, participatory monitoring, and evaluation mechanism. CF program also contributed to five goals out of eight millennium development goals. Nepalese government’s strategies, tenth five-year plan (2002– 2007) and poverty reduction strategy paper, have envisioned improved governance as one of the strategic pillars of the economic development in Nepal. Good governance helps to improve the condition of CFs and the feeling of ownership among local communities. Keywords: Community Forest, Sustainable Energy, Participatory Monitoring, Strategic Pillars