Journal articles
Multistakeholder platforms for natural resource governance: lessons from eight landscape-level cases
Multistakeholder platforms (MSPs) are the subject of increasing attention and investment in the domain of collaborative natural resource governance, yet evidence-based guidance remains slim on policy and investment priorities to leverage the MSP approach. We draw on a comparative analysis of eight landscape-level MSPs that span seven countries and represent a diversity of resource systems including forests, rangelands, and multiuse agricultural landscapes. Applying an adapted social-ecological systems framework, our synthesis distills lessons addressing: (1) how to design an MSP in relation to the governance context; (2) how to implement inclusive processes that address power inequities; and (3) how to support adaptive learning to expand the MSP’s influence over time.
Investing in multi-stakeholder dialogue to address natural resource competition and conflict
How can multi-stakeholder dialogue help assess and address the roots of environmental resource competition and conflict? This article summarises the outcomes and lessons from action research in large lake systems in Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia. Dialogues linking community groups, NGOs and government agencies have reduced local conflict, produced agreements with private investors, and influenced government priorities in ways that respond to the needs of marginalized fishing communities. The article details policy guidance in four areas: building stakeholder commitment, understanding the institutional and governance context, involving local groups in the policy reform process, and embracing adaptability in program implementation.
Increasing social-ecological resilience within small-scale agriculture in conflict-affected Guatemala
The challenge of increasing social-ecological resilience in small-scale agriculture is particularly acute in the socioeconomically and agroecologically marginalized Western Highlands of Guatemala. Not only is climate change a threat to agriculture in this region, but adaptation strategies are challenged by the context of a society torn apart by decades of violent conflict. We use the example of the Buena Milpa agricultural development project to demonstrate how grassroots approaches to collective action, conflict prevention, and social-ecological resilience, linking local stakeholder dynamics to the broader institutional and governance context, can bear fruit amidst postconflict development challenges. Examples of microwatershed management and conservation of local maize varieties illustrate opportunities to foster community-level climate adaptation strategies within small-scale farming systems even in deeply divided societies.
Facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue to manage natural resource competition: A synthesis of lessons from Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia
Rural development or natural resource management program planning and implementation frequently confront challenges of environmental resource competition and conflict, particularly where common pool resources are a major component of rural livelihoods. This paper reports on an approach to multistakeholder dialogue, supported by participatory action research, to address the roots of such competition and conflict. Working in partnership with government, community and civil society actors, the approach was developed and refined through applications in large lake systems in Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia. This paper presents a synthesis of lessons addressing practitioners in government, nongovernmental development organizations, and international development agencies. These lessons include guidance on the context of multistakeholder dialogue processes, addressing gender equity, building stakeholder relationships and accountability across scales, and encouraging learning and innovation over time.
Addressing conflict through collective action in natural resource management
The food security crisis and international “land grabs” have drawn renewed attention to the role of natural resource competition in the livelihoods of the rural poor. While significant empirical research has focused on diagnosing the links between natural resource competition and (violent) conflict, much less has focused on the dynamics of whether and how resource competition can be transformed to strengthen social-ecological resilience and mitigate conflict. Focusing on this latter theme, this review synthesizes evidence from cases in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Building on an analytical framework designed to enable such comparative analysis, we present several propositions about the dynamics of conflict and collective action in natural resource management, and a series of recommendations for action.
Collaborating for resilience: conflict, collective action, and transformation on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake
We report on outcomes and lessons learned from a 15-month initiative in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake. Employing the appreciation-influence-control (AIC) model of participatory stakeholder engagement, the initiative built shared understanding of the sources of vulnerability in fisheries livelihoods and catalyzed collective action to support resilience in this valuable and productive social-ecological system. The AIC approach, we argue, provides an effective route to enable collective action in ways that strengthen dialogue and collaboration across scales, fostering the conditions for local-level transformations that can contribute to improvement in governance. We conclude with a discussion of the broader implications for resilience practice.
Resource conflict, collective action, and resilience: an analytical framework
Where access to renewable natural resources essential to rural livelihoods is highly contested, improving cooperation in resource management is an important element in strategies for peacebuilding and conflict prevention. We present a framework on collective action, conflict prevention, and social-ecological resilience, linking local stakeholder dynamics to the broader institutional and governance context. Accounting for both formal and informal relationships of power and influence, as well as values and stakeholder perceptions alongside material interests, the framework aims to provide insight into the problem of (re)building legitimacy of common-pool resource management institutions in conflict-sensitive environments. We outline its application in stakeholder-based problem assessment and planning, participatory monitoring and evaluation, and multi-case comparative analysis.