WRI Publications Feed: Equity, Poverty, and the Environment

In Deep Water: Weak Governance and the Gulf Oil Spill, a 30-Year Timeline

Maggie Barron — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:19:28 -0500

Summary

The Deepwater Horizon Blowout last April in the Gulf of Mexico is the largest oil spill in U.S. history. It will be many years before we know the full extent of the disaster in terms of its impact on the environment and the economy.

Regardless of the final damage tally, the system put in place to avoid these types of disasters has proven inadequate. This is evident from the investigations and recommendations of the National Oil Spill Commission, established by President Obama, whose report was published on January 11, 2011. It was also implicit in the immediate response by the federal government to restructure and rename the agency responsible for regulating the oil and gas industry – formerly the Minerals Management Service, now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

How did we reach this point? As a new timeline of events from WRI shows, the governance problems that allowed the spill to happen began long before the blowout, and long before the Deepwater Horizon well was authorized.

A Thematic Timeline

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has conducted a wide-ranging review of the decisions, policies, participants and events that formed the backdrop to the April 2010 oil spill in the Gulf. This timeline is intended to serve as a resource and reference tool for policymakers, academics and journalists interested in a larger accounting of the oil drilling governance and regulatory system, going back to 1978. The research draws from, and references, a broad range of primary sources including congressional testimony, federal agency and commission reports, documents released through Freedom of Information Act requests, and secondary news sources.

Key recurring governance failures highlighted over the 30-year timeline include:

Efforts by government agencies to keep pace with the risks associated with new drilling technologies were undermined as new guidelines were not adopted or enforced.
Lack of transparency and accountability over the collection and expenditure of oil revenues led to mismanagement of royalty fees owed to the American people.
A revolving door culture between the public and private sector coincided with the failure of the U.S. Attorney’s Office to prosecute ethical breaches.

Key Policy Issues

The timeline is accompanied by thematic icons to highlight specific streams of influence and decision-making areas that contributed to the complex system failure.

Moving Forward

This timeline seeks to shed light on the circumstances, policies and decisions that helped enable America’s worst oil spill. It does not provide recommendations, but rather highlights key governance issues that need to be addressed if the U.S. is to avoid another such disaster. The National Oil Spill Commission Report, released early January 2011, clearly states the extent of governance reform required:

To assure human safety and environmental protection, regulatory oversight of leasing, energy exploration, and production require reforms even beyond those significant reforms already initiated since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Fundamental reform will be needed in both the structure of those in charge of regulatory oversight and their internal decision-making process to ensure their political autonomy, technical expertise, and their full consideration of environmental protection concerns.

The report goes on to make detailed recommendations ranging from technical standards to auditing and permitting requirements. These recommendations will take time and resources to integrate and, as the new 112th Congress settles into office, proposed budget cuts and calls for regulatory reform may pose a challenge. It is therefore critical that non-governmental organizations play an active role in ensuring that environmental resources are managed safely and fairly and that the lessons of the last 30 years regarding U.S. deepwater oil extraction are learned and acted upon.

Avoiding the Resource Curse: Spotlight on Oil in Uganda

Maggie Barron — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:49:34 -0500

Uganda has made significant progress in codifying the rights of access to information (ATI) and participation, and toward putting in place the institutional infrastructure, including a regulatory framework, for the oil sector. Political roll-backs that are re-concentrating power in the executive branch of government and the growing scale of known oil reserves, however, may jeopardize these advances.

In this context, the passage of a new law in the United States requiring companies that file annual reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to disclose the payments they make to host governments for the extraction of oil, natural gas and minerals, could help shore up transparency around investment in Uganda’s extractives industry and avoid the failures in governance that have exposed other countries to the “resource curse.”

Download WRI’s Comments on Uganda’s Access to Information Regulations

Update: On 21 April 2011, the government of Uganda signed into law new regulations for implementing Uganda’s Access to Information (ATI) Act of 2005. The ATI Regulations were long awaited and widely welcomed, since many local and international advocates believed their absence had hindered full implementation of the Act, and stymied efforts to increase transparency and accountability. The Regulations support implementation of the ATI Act in a number of important ways. For example, they establish procedures for citizens to request government-held information and for government to respond to citizen requests. But the Regulations also include a number of burdensome provisions that make access unnecessarily costly and difficult and, as such, they are not in the spirit of the strong right to information provision found in Uganda’s Constitution. Read WRI’s full comments on the Regulations (PDF, 211 Kb)

Mapping a Healthier Future: How Spatial Analysis Can Guide Pro-Poor Water and Sanitation Planning in Uganda

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:52:09 -0400

Improving water supply, sanitation, and hygiene is central to Uganda’s successful development. Such measures would affect all Ugandans and are important to every sector of the economy, but they are particularly relevant to the poor. The availability of safe drinking water, adequate sanitation, and basic hygiene can improve health, lower mortality rates, and increase work and educational achievements. In particular, better sanitation and handwashing are among the most effective means to reduce morbidity and mortality from diarrheal diseases, which disproportionately affect the poor.

The central role of safe water and sanitation in addressing poverty in Uganda is reflected in national policy. The national framework for poverty eradication highlights the links between water, sanitation, and poverty reduction efforts. To implement the plans and policies related to safe drinking water coverage, Uganda’s policy-makers have established ambitious targets for 2015. As a result, the government and development partners have made large investments in the water sector, and signifi cant pro-poor benefi ts have been achieved. However, much work still remains to be done in order to ensure safe drinking water access and basic sanitation across Uganda.

One of the premises of the current report is that assuring future pro-poor benefits from water and sanitation investments will require more detailed poverty information. This is where maps such as those introduced in this publication can be helpful to decision-makers. Detailed information on the location of poor communities can help decisionmakers target these vulnerable areas for investment, thereby improving health while keeping implementation costs reasonable.

One of the principal challenges in planning and implementing effective pro-poor interventions in water and sanitation is coordinating multiple actors across many sectors and using many different data sets. This report offers new tools to meet this challenge. Examining subcounties in Uganda that have fallen behind in reaching 2015 targets, the report illustrates how integrating various spatial and demographic data on poverty, water, and sanitation can strengthen efforts to promote health. Stand-alone water supply interventions have less impact on health outcomes than well-coordinated interventions that improve water supply, sanitation infrastructure, and hygiene behavior simultaneously.

The unique information presented in this report is critical to achieving greater results and identifying additional pro-poor interventions to reach Uganda’s 2015 national targets. To this end, the authors identify the types of analyses available to Ugandan stakeholders, in order to encourage readers to develop their own poverty, water, and sanitation maps.

Audience and Aims

This report is intended for technical and high-level officers working both on poverty issues and in health and water departments at national and local levels.

For decision-makers concerned with reducing poverty, the report demonstrates how comparing levels of poverty in a location with maps of access to safe drinking water, enhanced sanitation facilities, hygiene behavior, and other environmental health indicators can inform strategies to fight poverty.
For decision-makers in the water and health sector, the publication shows how information on the location and severity of poverty can assist in setting priorities for interventions and how to integrate data sets about water supply, sanitation infrastructure, and hygiene behavior to support coordinated interventions.

Report Overview

Mapping a Healthier Future: How Spatial Analysis Can Guide Pro-Poor Water and Sanitation Planning in Uganda presents maps and analyses designed to inform the policies surrounding poverty reduction efforts in Uganda and to help reach the 2015 national targets on safe drinking water and improved sanitation.
Introduction: gives an overview of the links between water issues and poverty and sets the Ugandan policy context for pro-poor water and sanitation interventions.
Safe Drinking Water Coverage and Poverty: provides an overview of the national pattern of safe drinking water coverage; introduces a series of maps linking this subject to poverty rates to illustrate how poverty maps can inform future investments in safe drinking water infrastructure in order to make them more pro-poor.
Improved Sanitation, Hygiene, and Poverty: takes an in-depth look at policies and concerns surrounding sanitation and hygiene. Maps are included showing location-specific indicators of sanitation and hygiene coverage and poverty to help guide the discussion on resource allocation. Conclusions and Recommendations: summarizes observations from the map analyses and proposes recommendations for decision-makers regarding poverty reduction and water supply, sanitation, and hygiene in Uganda and in other developing countries.

Key Findings and Recommendations

Findings

While the maps and analyses discussed in this report are primarily illustrative in nature, they support the following conclusions:

Poverty maps and maps of water and sanitation indicators can provide insight into the relationship between poverty, water, and sanitation;
Maps showing water and sanitation indicators at the subcounty level can be used by planners to identify disadvantaged areas and examine equity issues;
Combining map-based census data related to water, sanitation, and hygiene can guide more integrated campaigns to decrease the incidence of water-borne diseases; and
The type of analysis presented in this report is most useful for identifying subcounties with similar poverty, water, and sanitation characteristics in order to guide geographic targeting.

Recommendations

Strengthening the supply of high-quality data and analytical capacity can improve future planning and prioritization of water, sanitation, and poverty reduction efforts. Priority actions for policy-makers include:

Fill data gaps on sanitation and hygiene indicators; regularly update water, sanitation, and hygiene data; and continue supply of poverty data for small administrative areas; and
Strengthen data integration, mapping, and analysis. Promoting the demand for such indicators and spatial analyses will require leadership from several government agencies. The following actions will help link relevant maps and analyses with specific decision-making opportunities:
Incorporate poverty information into water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions and in regular performance reporting for the water and sanitation sector;
Incorporate water, sanitation, and hygiene behavior information into poverty reduction efforts;
Promote more integrated planning and implementation of water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions; and
Incorporate poverty maps and maps of water, sanitation, and hygiene indicators into local decision-making.

Mapping a Better Future: How Spatial Analysis Can Benefit Wetlands and Reduce Poverty in Uganda

Payson Schwin — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:28:28 -0400

Mapping a Better Future

Courtesy of NTV Uganda
Watch on YouTube

Uganda has abundant natural wealth. Its varied wetlands, including grass swamps, mountain bogs, seasonal floodplains, and swamp forests, provide services and products worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year, making them a vital contributor to the national economy. Ugandans use wetlands—often called the country’s “granaries for water”—to sustain their lives and livelihoods. They rely on them for water, construction material, and fuel, and use them for farming, fishing, and to graze livestock. Wetlands supply direct or subsistence employment for 2.7 million people, almost 10 percent of the population. In many parts of the country, wetland products and services are the sole source for livelihoods and the main safety net for the poorest households. Sustainable management of Uganda’s wetlands is thus not only sound economic policy, it is also a potent strategy for poverty reduction.

Recognizing this, Uganda’s Government was the first to create a national wetlands policy in Africa. Over the past decade, Uganda has also instituted the National Wetlands Information System, a rich database on the use and health of Uganda’s wetlands which in its coverage and detail is unique in Africa.

This publication builds on those initiatives by combining information from the wetlands database with pioneering poverty location maps developed by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics. The new maps and accompanying analyses will help policy-makers classify wetlands by their main uses, conditions, and poverty profile and identify areas with the greatest need of pro-poor wetland management interventions. The information generated can also be fed into national poverty reduction strategies and resource management plans.

This is an innovative, pragmatic approach to integrating efforts to reduce poverty while sustaining ecosystems which has implications for improving policy-making in Uganda and beyond.

The publication is aimed at high level decision-makers and has two key purposes:

To show decision-makers responsible for Uganda’s wetlands where sustainable wetland management can have the greatest impacts on reducing poverty, and how community profiles derived from poverty maps can facilitate wetland interventions which better serve the poor. Maps of poverty and wetland indicators can serve as a bridge between different government sectors as they consider opportunities for achieving multiple socioeconomic and environmental objectives.
To show decision-makers involved in poverty reduction how maps derived from Uganda’s National Wetlands Information System can help to identify wetlands with degradation risks or economic potential, and show how these areas coincide with different poverty levels. Such knowledge can improve efforts to integrate wetland issues into poverty reduction strategies.

Mapping a Better Future: How Spatial Analysis Can Benefit Wetlands and Reduce Poverty in Uganda uses an innovative approach to integrate spatial data on poverty and wetlands use. Drawing on Uganda’s rich baseline of wetland data and poverty mapping, the report provides a detailed examination of the links between ecosystem services and the location of poor communities and presents practical lessons for policy-makers across government.

Background: A Brief History of Wetlands Management in Uganda gives an overview of the Ugandan government’s efforts to date on wetlands management and its relation to poverty.
Managing Wetlands and Reducing Poverty: Issues and Challenges highlights the many benefits wetlands provide to Uganda’s people, and introduces the latest poverty maps. It then summarizes how wetlands and poverty issues are addressed in Uganda’s Poverty Eradication Action Plan and Wetlands Sector Strategic Plan.
Wetland Characteristics and Uses presents maps of permanent and seasonal wetlands and of wetland area per capita. It also examines main wetland uses as inventoried in the National Wetlands Information System.
Spatial Analysis of Wetland and Poverty Indicators demonstrates how combining spatial analyses of such indicators can improve the information and analytical basis for decision- making. These comparisons incorporate the diversity of wetland products and the impacts of wetland use.
Adding Value: Combining Wetland and Poverty Maps with Economic Analysis illustrates how the depth and benefi ts of these analyses can be further advanced by augmenting wetland and poverty maps with fi ndings from economic valuation studies. A case study of papyrus harvesting’s potential to reduce poverty is included.
Moving Forward: Lessons Learned and Recommendations looks ahead, describes lessons learned, and makes recommendations for stakeholders involved in poverty reduction and the sustainable use of wetlands in Uganda and around the world.

Key Findings & Recommendations

Findings

The maps and analyses in this publication are primarily illustrative, but do support the following conclusions:

Detailed mapping of previously unused data confirms that wetlands provide multiple benefi ts in every district, and to every citizen of Uganda.
The diversity of products obtained from wetlands in specific locations ranges widely, from a handful to up to 24 products; levels of harmful impacts on wetlands by people also vary greatly across the country.
Spatial analyses of selected poverty-wetland indicators reveal no clear pattern at the subcounty level–despite popular belief that the poorest areas are always the most degraded.
The overlay analyses of poverty and wetland maps are most useful for identifying subcounties that share similar poverty and wetland characteristics, and thus may lend themselves to similar wetland management approaches and intervention strategies. Economic studies that quantify the value of wetland products and services can be linked to poverty and wetland maps to gauge the economic potential of specific wetland uses in reducing poverty.

Recommendations

Further strengthening Uganda’s supply of data and analytical capacity will provide major returns for the country’s people and natural resource base by improving wetland management planning and prioritization efforts, especially in these two areas:

Complete data entry and collection for the National Wetlands Information System, improve data consistency, and update wetland and land cover information.
Strengthen analysis, mapping, and economic valuation efforts within the Wetlands Management Department.

Improvements in lives, livelihoods, and wetland health could result directly from this supply of new maps and analyses. Specifically, government agencies could use the information to act on decision-making opportunities in these four areas:

Incorporate poverty information into the existing system for selecting wetlands for priority management interventions.
Consider wetland management as part of local poverty reduction efforts, such as creating new livelihood strategies.
Promote “win-win” collaboration to support poverty, wetland health, and other goals between agencies responsible for health, water, sanitation, agriculture, energy, and environment.
Make poverty and wetland maps and their analyses a central component of local decision-making at district level.

Building Local Democracy through Natural Resource Interventions: An Environmentalist’s Responsibility

Payson Schwin — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:52:22 -0500

In practice, everything but democratic decentralization has taken place in the name of ‘democratic decentralization’ reforms: privatization, administrative deconcentration, NGOization, selective civil society inclusion, participatory processes, co-management, and committee-based project implementation.

The interventions being chosen by environmental policy makers or projects in the local arena are not empowering ‘democratic’ local partners. They do not support local democracy because they usually lack the two key elements of effective democratic decentralization: downward accountability and significant discretionary power.

While many interventions increase local participation in natural resource decisions, they may do so in non-sustainable ways or in ways that hinder the institutionalization of local democracy within local government. We still have a lot to learn about the best ways for governments, donors, and large NGOs to support local institutions to foster the emergence and consolidation of local democracy, and the research for this brief yields a number of important initial recommendations.

The brief includes detailed case studies of Benin, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malawi and Senegal.

On Whose Behalf: Legislative Representation and the Environment in Africa

Laura Lee Dooley — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:34:08 -0400

This report presents the findings of research on critical incentives and disincentives to legislative representation in Africa and provides a number of policy and program recommendations.

Four critical aspects of representation are discussed in detail:

accountability of legislators to their constituents,
autonomy from political bosses and politics,
authority and capacity to perform representation roles, and
personal attributes of legislators.

Legislative representation is examined from an environmental perspective. In rural Africa, the environment – land, natural resources, ecosystem services – is an important source of household livelihoods and a vital constituent interest. As such, the environment provides a useful optic for observation and understanding governance, and a potentially powerful lever for engaging citizens in government matters, promoting systemic governance reforms, and strengthening democracy.

Market Access & Institutional Choice: Working Papers

Arisha Ashraf — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:35:43 -0400

Index

WP 38: Steering Community Driven Development? A Desk Study of NRM Choices
WP 37: Analyse du filiere Charbon du Bois au Senegal: Recommandations
WP 36: Non-décentralisation démocratique au Sénégal: Le non-transfert de l’autorité sur les forêts
WP 36: Authority over Forests: Negotiating Democratic Decentralization in Senegal
WP 35: Institutional Choice and Recognition in the Formation and Consolidation of Local Democracy
WP 34: Institutional Choices in the Shadow of History: Decentralization in Indonesia
WP 33: State Building and Local Democracy in Benin: Two Cases of Decentralized Forest Management
WP 32: Party Politics, Social Movements and Local Democracy: Institutional Choices in the Brazilian Amazon
WP 31: Engendering Exclusion in Senegal’s Democratic Decentralization
WP 30: ‘Fragmented Belonging’ on Russia’s Western Frontier and Local Government Development in Karelia
WP 29: Undermining Grassland Management through Centralized Environmental Politics in Inner Mongolia
WP 28: Dilemmas of Democratic Decentralization in Mangochi District, Malawi: Interest and Mistrust in Fisheries Management
WP 27: Indigenous Peoples, Representation and Citizenship in Guatemalan Forestry
WP 26: Enclosing the Local for the Global Commons: Community Land Rights in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area
WP 25: Representation, Equity, and Environment
WP 24: Institutional Choice and Recognition
WP 23: Accountability in Decentralization and the Democratic Context: Theory and Evidence from India
WP 22: Green and Black Gold in Rural Cameroon: Natural Resources for Local Governance, Justice and Sustainability
WP 22: Or Vert et Or Noir dans le Cameroun Rural
WP 21: Décentralisation sans représentation: Le charbon de bois entre les collectivités locales et l’État
WP 20: Decentralisation, pluralisme institutionnel et democratie
WP 19: Le quota est mort, vive le quota! Ou les vicissitudes de la reglementation de l’exploitation de bois au Senegal
WP 18: Environmental Governance in Africa
WP 17: Legal Framework for Participatory Natural Resources Management: Privileges or Rights in Mozambique?
WP 16: Historical and Political Foundations for Participatory Management and Democratic Decentralization in Mali
WP 15: Institutional deficit, representation, and decentralized forest management in Cameroon
WP 14: Local Governance, Power and Natural Resources: Perspectives From Rural South Africa’s Former Bantustans
WP 13: Constructing Subsidiarity, Consolidating Hegemony: Political Economy and Agro-Ecological Processes in Ghanaian Forestry
WP 12: Decentralization Viewed from Inside: The Implementation of Community Forests in East Cameroon
WP 11: Allocation of Government Authority and Responsibility in Tiered Governance Systems: Environment-Related Laws in Zimbabwe
WP 10: The Decentralized Forestry Taxation System in Cameroon: Local Management and State Logic
WP 09: Devolving Rights or Shedding Responsibility? Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda
WP 08: Environmental Decentralization and the Management of Forest Resources in Masindi District, Uganda
WP 07: Decentralization, Politics, and Environment in Uganda
WP 06: Concessionary Politics in the Western Congo Basin: History and Culture in Forest Use
WP 05: Co-Management in the Mafungautsi State Forest Area of Zimbabwe – What Stake for Local Communities?
WP 04: Whose Elephants Are They? Decentralization of Control Over Wildlife Management in Binga District, Zimbabwe
WP 03: Partitioned Nature, Privileged Knowledge: Community Based Conservation in the Maasai Ecosystem, Tanzania
WP 02: Breathing Life Into Fundamental Principles: Implementing constitutional environmental protections in Africa
WP 01: Analyzing Decentralization: A framework with South Asian and West African environmental cases

WP 38: Steering Community Driven Development? A Desk Study of NRM Choices
Jesse Ribot, Robin Mearns
Full Text (PDF, 940 Kb)

Community Driven Development (CDD) is among the fastest-growing development assistance mechanisms of the World Bank. Under CDD programs, the World Bank lent over $5.6 billion during fiscal years 2000-2002, and this figure is expected to grow significantly. Estimates considered conservative by the CDD Anchor are that CDD investments will grow to $2 billion per year in 2003.

While the term CDD is very recent, first appearing in Narayan and Ebbe, CDD follows a long tradition of community-oriented and participatory approaches to development. CDD is described as representing a shift in World Bank approaches from an emphasis on consultation to a focus on empowerment. Given the importance of CDD in the rural development investment landscape, this review examines CDD practice to better understand its potential effects on local representation and participation in natural resource management.

This report examines how communities are “driving” or participating in development decisions in CDD projects and what factors shape their subproject3 choices. In particular, it explores how natural resource investments figure in community decisions and how the project approach structures or influences such decisions.

WP 37: Analyse du filiere Charbon du Bois au Senegal: Recommandations
Jesse Ribot
Full Text (PDF, 485 Kb)

WP 36: Non-décentralisation démocratique au Sénégal: Le non-transfert de l’autorité sur les forêts
Jesse Ribot
Full Text (PDF, 334 Kb)

WP 36: Authority over Forests: Negotiating Democratic Decentralization in Senegal
Jesse Ribot
Full Text (PDF, 319 Kb)

Senegal’s 1998 forestry code transfers powers over forests to elected Rural Councils, ostensibly giving the elected authorities material powers vis-à-vis which they can represent the rural population. But, like other line ministries, the Forest Service is unwilling to devolve powers in practice. Justifying themselves with arguments of national good and local incompetence, foresters use pressure, bribes and threats while taking advantage of the inability of rural populations to access and influence courts and actors higher up in government. The foresters stand next to forest merchants and are supported by the sub prefect, while continuing to allocate access to lucrative commercial forest resources to the merchants. Without powers the rural councilors remain marginal, rural populations remain destitute. The sectors remain a last frontier of decolonization.

WP 35: Institutional Choice and Recognition in the Formation and Consolidation of Local Democracy
Ashwini Chhatre, Tomila V. Lankina
Full Text (PDF, 267 Kb)

What are the democracy effects of ‘decentralization’ reforms and projects? Most developing countries have launched decentralization reforms for the purpose of improving service delivery, local development and management. In these reforms and projects, however, governments, international development agencies and large non-governmental organizations are transferring power to a wide range of local institutions, including private bodies, customary authorities and NGOs. Recognition of these other local institutions means that fledgling local governments are receiving few public powers and face competition for legitimacy. Under what conditions is the new plurality of approaches and local interlocutors fostering local democratic consolidation or resulting in fragmented forms of authority and belonging? Drawing on case studies in Benin, Brazil, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Russia, and South Africa, this working paper explores the effects of institutional choices and recognition by governments, international development agencies and large non-governmental organizations on three dimensions of democracy: 1) representation, 2) citizenship, and 3) the public domain. This Working Paper outlines an approach to the politics of choice and recognition while drawing out findings from Working Papers 23 and 26 through 34 in this working paper series.

WP 34: Institutional Choices in the Shadow of History: Decentralization in Indonesia
Takeshi Ito
Full Text (PDF, 341 Kb)

The Indonesian state historically established patrimonial ties with relatively homogenous local elites, using them to make rural life accessible and identifiable for the center. As rural life has been reorganized in functional and territorial terms, patrimonial ties have been preserved as the primary means of extracting communal resources for state formation. The political structure was characterized by a dualism that perpetuated ambiguous boundaries between state actors and social forces at the expense of the population. The same logic of state formation can be observed in the current neoliberal efforts at democratic decentralization in developing countries. For the sake of bureaucratic efficiency and political stability, donors, international aid agencies, and local governments transfer power and resources to local institutions—private bodies, customary authorities, and civil-society organizations. In so doing they reinforce the self-perpetuating structure of dualism put in place in during intensified state formation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing on history and ethnography in the Priangan highland of West Java, Indonesia, this article shows how the implementation of democratic decentralization articulates with the preexisting structure of institutions and ideas, undermining rather than promoting government accountability and popular participation.

WP 33: State Building and Local Democracy in Benin: Two Cases of Decentralized Forest Management
Roch Mongbo
Full Text (PDF, 366 Kb)

Beyond local development, the political agenda of decentralization in West Africa was the restoration of State legitimacy and power, and some enhancement of local democracy. The mix of local institutions created in preceding participatory development projects resulted in fragmented forms of authority. Elsewhere, local communities have developed their own institutions for managing local affairs. How, in such a context, do elected local governments wield power, recognize other authorities and contribute to restoration of national State legitimacy? The Lokoly forest in Benin was never subject to state intervention. The Toui-Kilibo forest, however, has been a protected State forest since 1940 and site of participatory forest management projects since early 1990s. In both cases, the public domain has been enclosed and local government legitimacy over forest resource management contested, hampering the formation of so-called democratic local government. The article compares these two cases, elaborating on social actors’ strategies in the symbolic construction and channelling of power, and on the challenges local governments face when attempting to wield legitimate authority over public spaces and articulate local politics to national State building.

WP 32: Party Politics, Social Movements and Local Democracy: Institutional Choices in the Brazilian Amazon
Fabiano Toni
Full Text (PDF, 337 Kb)

In the Brazilian Amazon, central government and international donors have chosen to empower civil society to carry out environment and development projects, while neglecting democratically elected municipal governments. This article explores the rationale behind these choices, as well as their impacts on democratic decentralization. The article shows that the central government distrusts local governments because they can be easily captured by opposition economic elites. Further, central bureaucrats can hold civil-society organizations accountable to them and by doing so they retain their prerogatives while extending their territorial coverage. In the development and conservation areas, central bureaucrats and NGO leaders share a common organizational/cultural identity that facilitates collaboration. Further, social movements, grass-roots organizations, and local NGOs are closely associated with the ruling party (PT). Financial support comes in exchange for political support. Although in the past this close relationship between civil society organizations and the PT helped strengthen democracy in Brazil, the current government-NGO alliance runs in the opposite direction by reinforcing centralization and fomenting neo-corporatist/clientelist practices.

WP 31: Engendering Exclusion in Senegal’s Democratic Decentralization
Solange Bandiaky
Full Text (PDF, 313 Kb)

Men and women have different relationships with institutions—international organizations, central and local governments, and traditional authorities—and differential access to resources. In environmental project design and implementation, these differences and power relations are overlooked, however. While the strategies of intervening agencies ostensibly use community participation in natural resource management, such approaches are insufficient for ensuring gender equity. A host of other entrenched locality-specific practices shape gender distribution of voice and material benefits that participatory approaches alone fail to change. This paper demonstrates how the use of village committees to manage natural resources in the Malidino reserve was inconsistent with democratic decentralization principles and its emancipatory objectives. Ostensibly participatory projects that create village committees bestow discretionary power on traditional leaders who are not popularly accountable and have a poor track record of serving women’s needs. This paper interrogates how participatory approaches used in the Malidino Reserve shaped the gender distribution of outcomes in decision processes, access to forest resources and land, incomes and economic activities, biodiversity conservation, and in rural community empowerment and social change. Committees constituted by appointment and co-optation of key decision makers are un-democratic. In them, Forest-Service selected leaders are endowed with discretionary power despite lacking popular accountability and having a poor record of serving women’s needs. Further, the Forest Service and World Bank’s participatory approaches, while formally not gender-neutral, fail in practice to advance gender equity and equality in activities related to the reserve.

WP 30: ‘Fragmented Belonging’ on Russia’s Western Frontier and Local Government Development in Karelia
Tomila Lankina
Full Text (PDF, 330 Kb)

Karelia is a forestry-rich region on Russia’s Northwestern frontier. This article shows how institutional arrangements for local government were a product of contending efforts of Western donors and other transnational actors, the federal and regional governments, as well as municipalities. Russia’s federal recentralizing reforms and broader authoritarian context notwithstanding, Karelia illustrates how the choice of local institutions, as well as ideas about representation and citizenship are increasingly shaped by actors beyond the central state. Borrowing insights from Joel Migdal and Jesse Ribot, it argues that the result is shifting cognitive boundaries and ‘fragmented belonging’ (Ribot 2007) or multiple reference points of local citizens in a dynamic process of contestation and re-contestation of citizenship.

WP 29: Undermining Grassland Management through Centralized Environmental Politics in Inner Mongolia
Wang Xiaoyi
Full Text (PDF, 309 Kb)

China’s government is trying to protect grasslands from desertification. The government first ‘contracted out’ pasture land to individual herding households because it believes private ownership provides incentives for households to protect their pasture holdings. Pasture contracting out, however, did not solve the problem. Faced with continuing serious desertification the government responded with new environment policies and more-direct intervention—with additional funding to strengthen centralized government’ policy implementation and enforcement capacity. These new policies have also failed to stop grassland degradation. This paper, based on a case study in an agro-herding area in Inner Mongolia, China, shows how and why the pasture contracting system and subsequent centralized environmental protection policies failed to enhance conservation. The policy of pasture contracting out damaged the existing local administrative practices of common grassland management, while grassland protection policies undermined local management capacity.

WP 28: Dilemmas of Democratic Decentralization in Mangochi District, Malawi: Interest and Mistrust in Fisheries Management
Mafaniso Hara
Full Text (PDF, 344 Kb)

This paper explores the politics of local representation and belonging during the devolution of authority for fisheries management decentralization in Mangochi District, Malawi. To establish ‘participatory’ fisheries management, in 1993 Malawi’s Fisheries Department established democratically elected Beach Village Committees (BVCs) with village headmen as ex officio members. But, the struggle between elected BVC members and traditional authorities over benefits from fisheries undermined the authority of elected members. Legal ambiguity as to whether the appointed or elected elements of the BVC should make decisions facilitated the takeover by some headmen. In addition, because the BVC was elected by universal suffrage, the members reflected the population as a whole—not just fisher interests whom these elected committees were designed to control. Being stacked against the fishing communities, these ‘vested’ interests resisted BVC activities—further hampering their effectiveness. Ironically, reflecting and being accountable to the population as a whole undermined the effectiveness of these elected BVCs. In 1998, a broader decentralization reform placed ‘community inclusion’ in fisheries management under Village Development Committees (VDCs), whose members would be appointed by elected District Assemblies. The proposed establishment of VDCs unleashed a struggle over how to arrange BVCs-VDCs relation. But, due to lack of a shared vision for decentralization and a shared mistrust of local democracy, higher-level battles for authority and relevance among government, politicians and traditional authorities have brought the decentralization process to a halt. In addition, donors supporting these reforms, who also mistrust the new democratic institutions created under decentralization, have an inadequate appreciation of the political complexities involved. The institutions chosen and recognized by government under donor pressure are the site of political struggles in which representation, belonging and downward accountability are losing ground.

WP 27: Indigenous Peoples, Representation and Citizenship in Guatemalan Forestry
Anne M. Larson
Full Text (PDF, 355 Kb)

Forestry decision-making is still largely centralized in Guatemala. Nevertheless, elected municipal* governments can now play a key role in local forest management. These local governments, with some exceptions, are the principal local institutions empowered to participate in natural resource authority. Some theorists argue that such elected local authorities are the most likely to be representative and downwardly accountable. But, do these political institutions have the ability to represent the interests of minority and historically excluded or oppressed groups? Latin American indigenous movements are fighting for new conceptions of democracy and practices of representation that recognize collective rights and respect for customary law and authority. How does this approach compare with elected local government? This paper compares how elected municipal governments versus traditional indigenous authorities represent the interests of indigenous communities in forest management. It traces the historical context of relations between indigenous people and the state in the region, and then presents the findings from case studies in two Guatemalan municipalities. The paper finds that both authorities have some strengths as well as important weaknesses, thus supporting arguments for the conscious reinvention of both liberal democracy and tradition in the interest of inclusive citizenship.

*In Latin America, municipal governments include the urban area as well as the surrounding rural area.

WP 26: Enclosing the Local for the Global Commons: Community Land Rights in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area
Marja Spierenburg, Conrad Steenkamp, Harry Wels
Full Text (PDF, 337 Kb)

The Great Limpopo is one of the largest TransFrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) in the world, encompassing vast areas in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. By arguing that residents living in or close to the TFCA will participate in its management and benefit economically, TFCA proponents claim social legitimacy for the project. The establishment of the Great Limpopo required negotiations among the three nation states, different government departments within these states, and various donors contributing funds. This paper explores how these negotiations and interactions affected the institutional choices made with regards to the management of the Great Limpopo and how these shaped the control and benefits of local residents. This paper examines the differences among the different actors in terms of power and capacities, which are often ignored in the promotion of TFCAs. By comparing the experiences of local residents in the South African part of the TFCA with those in Mozambique the cases show how international negotiations interact with national policies of decentralization to shape and sometimes even disable local government institutions.

WP 25: Representation, Equity, and Environment
El Hadji Dialigué Bâ
Full Text (PDF, 545 Kb)

WP 24: Institutional Choice and Recognition
Bradley L. Kinder, Nathaniel Gerhart and Anjali Bhat
Full Text (PDF, 900 Kb)

Institutional Choice and Recognition: Effects on the Formation and Consolidation of Local Democracy, Minutes of a Comparative Policy Research Workshop. Rapporteurs: Bradley L. Kinder, Nathaniel Gerhart, and Anjali Bhat. December 2006.

WP 23: Accountability in Decentralization and the Democratic Context: Theory and Evidence from India
Ashwini Chhatre
Full Text (PDF, 307 Kb)

New institutions created through decentralization policies around the world, notwithstanding the rhetoric, are often lacking in substantive democratic content. New policies for decentralized natural resource management have transferred powers to a range of local authorities, including private associations, customary authorities, and NGOs. Scholars see such transfers as detrimental to the legitimacy of local democratic institutions, leading to a fragmentation of local authority and dampening prospects for democratic consolidation. In much of this critique, however, there is limited attention to the wider democratic context (or lack thereof) and its effect on local governments. This article develops the concept of political articulation to characterize the relationship between citizens and elected representatives, and argues that accountability in decentralization cannot be conceptualized or analyzed separately from the accountability of higher institutions of representation and governance. The empirical analysis of the paper uses the experience of World Bank-funded Ecodevelopment Project in Himachal Pradesh, India, to generate insights into the role of political articulation in analyzing decentralization reforms.

WP 22: Green and Black Gold in Rural Cameroon: Natural Resources for Local Governance, Justice and Sustainability
Phil Rene Oyono, Anne M. Larson
Full Text (PDF, 2.4 Mb)

Cameroon has made bold forestry policy reforms over the last decade. Among the many aspects of these reforms, forest management decentralization is the most radical and promising. Cameroon’s forest decentralization policy is predicated on the expectation that the transfer of management responsibilities and benefits to local communities will lead to social justice, positive socioeconomic change, and environmental sustainability. This report presents the results of research on forest management decentralization and local governance conducted in southern Cameroon in 2003 and 2004. The forest sector provides insights into the decentralization process writ large, since, as a source of national wealth, “green gold,” and of local subsistence, it is of great interest to central and local actors—engaging both in the process of reform. The study also investigated the effects on local governance of oil compensation, or “black gold,” in forested rural areas affected by the Chad-Cameroon pipeline. The case studies explore two key questions. How is the decentralization of forest or financial management affecting local governance in forest-based communities? What are the outcomes in terms of local democracy, justice, social transformation, poverty reduction, and environmental sustainability?

WP 22: Or Vert et Or Noir dans le Cameroun Rural
Jesse Ribot, Phil René Oyono, Anne M. Larson
Full Text (PDF, 945 Kb)

WP 21: Décentralisation sans représentation: Le charbon de bois entre les collectivités locales et l’État
Ahmadou M. Kanté
Full Text (PDF, 274 Kb)

WP 20: Decentralisation, pluralisme institutionnel et democratie
Papa Faye
Full Text (PDF, 301 Kb)

WP 19: Le quota est mort, vive le quota! Ou les vicissitudes de la reglementation de l’exploitation de bois au Senegal
El Hadji Dialigué
Full Text (PDF, 249 Kb)

WP 18: Environmental Governance in Africa
Mehr Latif
Full Text (PDF, 570 Kb)

Conference on Decentralization and the Environment (Bellagio, Italy; 18-22 February 2002): Minutes. Rapporteur: Mehr Latif. June 2002.

WP 17: Legal Framework for Participatory Natural Resources Management: Privileges or Rights in Mozambique?
Alda I. A. Salomão
Full Text (PDF, 385 Kb)

Examines the legal, political, and economic context in which major institutional changes in post-colonial sub-Saharan African states were undertaken.

WP 16: Historical and Political Foundations for Participatory Management and Democratic Decentralization in Mali
Dr. Bréhima Kassibo
Full Text (PDF, 485 Kb)

This study examines the legal, political, and economic context in which major institutional changes in post-colonial sub-Saharan African states were undertaken. It also explores the relationship between political changes and changes in the philosophies of those in control of the State through various periods of Malian history. This work establishes direct links between the concepts of liberal democracy, the decentralization of environmental management, and democratic participation. It provides a definition of democratic decentralization as the institutional expression of the participatory approach, and takes measure of the powers transferred by the central State to local institutions and of accountability in the arena of natural resources management. The report analyzes the workings of the participatory approach as the basis for institutional arrangements. Specifically, it examines two sites in the Mopti region, one focusing on forestry and the other on herding; the analysis explores the allocation of power to key players in the natural resources domain and identifies the institutional arrangements that determine how those powers are used. It is clear from the study that the State retains the dominant role in environmental management in spite of the legislative innovations of Mali’s Third Republic, which are designed to encourage broad popular participation but remain inoperative due to implementation failures.

WP 15: Institutional deficit, representation, and decentralized forest management in Cameroon
Phil Rene Oyono
Full Text (PDF, 803 Kb)

Conducted in the East, South, and Northwest Provinces of Cameroon, this study aims to provide an explanation and understanding of the organizational and institutional infrastructure of decentralized management of Cameroon’s forest—also referred to as “local forest management”—and the mechanisms of the transfer of powers and responsibilities to decentralized entities. The study also questions the ecological and socio-economic results of these processes. It shows that in Cameroon’s forestry domain, the institutional arrangements necessary for local management of common pool resources are either nonexistent or insufficient, hence the notion of “deficit.” Under such conditions, the higher objectives of local management and forest governance are largely bastardized by a profusion of interests that determine the heterogeneous strategies of manipulation and appropriation of forestry income in Cameroon.

The study demonstrates that the Cameroonian model of decentralization of forest management is, in the end, an interrupted process, blocked mid-way to fruition by forces on the regional level (mid-level actors) and by a village elite. The findings give rise to a theory of deviation and of a pattern of regional “capture” of forestry localism and decentralized management. The central State, having failed to establish regulation mechanisms and an approach to monitor the process in all its length seems to have been caught short, leaving decentralization in the hands of networks and mid-level actors whose primary interest is financial gain. This shift permits the diversion of forest governance and the setup of legal “gangsterism” in a field where corruption and abuse of power was already deeply entrenched.

WP 14: Local Governance, Power and Natural Resources: Perspectives From Rural South Africa’s Former Bantustans
Lungisile Ntsebeza
Full Text (PDF, 1.7 Mb)

This paper focuses on the institutional arrangements that have been put in place to give effect to decentralization and its impact on natural resource management in the rural areas of Transkei region of the Eastern Cape, South Africa. In particular, the paper pays attention to the local actors who hold powers over natural resources, the kinds of powers they hold, the degree of community participation and accountability relations and mechanisms of accountability to which these actors are subject.

For purposes of this paper, the “natural resource” management issue is investigated primarily through a focus on land issues. Within this context, the role of traditional authorities (chiefs of various ranks) is assessed. The focus on land illuminates problems that are on the horizon for other natural resources, such as forests, wildlife and fisheries, because these latter resources are to be managed through similar structures to those being constructed and contested in the land policy area.

WP 13: Constructing Subsidiarity, Consolidating Hegemony: Political Economy and Agro-Ecological Processes in Ghanaian Forestry
Aaron deGrassi
Full Text (PDF, 694 Kb)

Despite proliferating claims that Ghanaian forestry is collaborative and community-based, most powers over forestry remain concentrated in an unrepresentative and unaccountable centralized forestry administration. In ways that presage current negotiations over the principle of subsidiarity, various regimes in Ghana throughout the twentieth century have, when challenged, misconstrued agro-ecological processes in order to justify centralized and violent control that, although conducted in the name of the public good, allowed forest resources to be appropriated by select state agents, traditional authorities, and domestic and international firms. Recommendations are given to help pry the concept of subsidiarity away from abuse by hegemonic elites: participatory empirical studies of forest agroecologies and management, and inclusive processes of formulating and interpreting policies and laws.

WP 12: Decentralization Viewed from Inside: The Implementation of Community Forests in East Cameroon
Patrice Etoungou
Full Text (PDF, 836 Kb)

Cameroon’s 1994 Forestry Law launched a new approach to natural resource management. The 1996 Constitution introduced decentralized authorities, whose role is to enable the economic, social and cultural development of its peoples. Though the implementing texts (the regulatory laws) for this decentralization reform are still forthcoming, the new legal framework for environmental policy and the overhaul of the Constitution demonstrate the Government’s will to decentralize and to improve forest resources management. At the same time, decentralized management might be inappropriate in Cameroon, as it may be too foreign a way of thinking for the forest dwellers. This study examines the community forests of East Cameroon (Upper Nyong region, Messamena and Lomié counties) to analyze factors that have not yet been fully taken into account in the current process of community forests establishment. These include exorbitant technical, financial and human costs; the ambiguous role of some international and local NGOs; the virtual, rather than substantial, Common Initiative Groups (CIGs) and Associations; and the disregard for traditional law, despite its legal primacy in African States. The interest in decentralization and forest management, also tied to the “development” of forest populations, has lead to a web of misunderstandings. These findings suggest the question: are community forests the best alternative for decentralized management in East Cameroon?

WP 11: Allocation of Government Authority and Responsibility in Tiered Governance Systems: Environment-Related Laws in Zimbabwe
Alois Mandondo and Everisto Mapedza
Full Text (PDF, 697 Kb)

Based on an analysis of relevant legislation, this study reviews the political economy of the allocation of powers over natural resource management between the Zimbabwean State, rural district councils and local communities. The allocations are critically examined in relation to citizen empowerment. An analytical toolkit, derived from a review of relevant literature, is provided for holistically scrutinizing the extent and operation of accountability between and within decentralized governance units and other units above and below them. These theoretical tools are then used to argue that, contrary to establishing the institutional infrastructure for decentralized natural resource management in Zimbabwe, most legislation re-centralizes power at the district level, doing so at the expense of meaningful citizen participation in natural resource governance. Only the “privilege” of initiating development plans appears to have trickled down to the grassroots level. The state and its closest actors still retain the complementary roles of approval, implementation, and fiscal control. The study concludes by considering ways of addressing the contradiction between the decentralization which the state claims to have achieved and the re-concentration of power at the district level which is actually taking place, assessing the scope for both incremental and radical approaches.

WP 10: The Decentralized Forestry Taxation System in Cameroon: Local Management and State Logic
Patrice Bigombe Logo
Full Text (PDF, 1,006 Kb)

The study examines the changes in the local management of forestry revenue in South and East Cameroon resulting from the decentralized forestry taxation system introduced in 1994 and their political, socio-economic and ecological impact at the local level. The 1994 forestry reforms introduced new procedures for the access and local management of forestry revenue. Unfortunately, the decentralization process implemented in this context is authoritarian decentralization. Imposed from above and ignoring the real needs and expectations of the local communities, it retains many of the powers of the central State directly and through the rural councils and forestry fees management committees. It represents predatory and neo-paternalistic alliances between the central State, the decentralized bodies and the forestry fees management committees, and between the authorities of the central State, the local administration and local political figures. Efficient and transparent management of forestry revenue can only be guaranteed in a dynamic of democratic decentralization, in which powers over the local management of forestry revenue are devolved to local institutions and actors who are accountable to the local populations for the exercise of those powers. The study demonstrates the need to see the decentralization of forest management in general, and the local management of forestry revenue in particular, as part of the overall framework of political and administrative decentralization in Cameroon.

WP 09: Devolving Rights or Shedding Responsibility? Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda
Agrippinah Namara and Xavier Nsabagasani
Full Text (PDF, 854 Kb)

In Uganda, community participation under community conservation and collaborative management does not adequately and effectively translate into community empowerment and control over resources, especially concerning decision making. First, the local community institutions formed to realize community participation cannot effectively serve community interests because they do not control resources and have no powers to decide on critical problems affecting their community. Most of the necessary powers and resources are still largely in the hands of the central authorities and supporting agencies. Second, community institutions are operating within an already defined legal and policy framework – a framework formulated with insufficient community and Local Government input. Third, the principles upon which collaborative management is based were not developed out of mutual agreement between the communities and the other partners. National and international conservation and tourism interests, as advanced here by Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) and the donor-funded agencies respectively, still override the interests of the local people who bear the biggest share of the costs associated with the park.

We conclude that two conditions must be met for local government and community participation in the management of nationally and internationally significant resources. One, the level of responsibilities that local populations are assigned should not surpass the fiscal and decisionmaking powers they acquire or the quality of benefits that they gain in the process. Two, the issue of readiness, willingness and capacity of local government to assume responsibility for conservation of environment has been over assumed by the central government. Local government interests lie mainly in activities that generate revenue and enhance human rights and benefits, not environmental conservation for ecological, aesthetic and other non-consumptive values.

WP 08: Environmental Decentralization and the Management of Forest Resources in Masindi District, Uganda
Frank Emmanuel Muhereza
Full Text (PDF, 799 Kb)

This study critically explores the decentralizing of forest management powers in Uganda in order to determine the extent to which significant discretionary powers have shifted to popularly elected and downwardly accountable local governments. Effective political or democratic decentralization depends on the transfer of local discretionary powers. However, in common with other states in Africa undergoing various types of “decentralization” reforms, state interests are of supreme importance in understanding forest-management reforms. The analysis centers on the transfer of powers to manage forests in Masindi District, an area rich in natural wealth located in western Uganda. The decentralization reforms in Masindi returns forests to unelected traditional authorities, as well as privatizes limited powers to manage forest resources to licensed user-groups.

The experience of decentralization in Uganda’s forestry sector is highly uneven. Ultimately, the state retained significant forest management powers, while selectively transferring limited powers to district and sub-county councils. Over time, powers shifted downwards and upwards, with the Forest Department regaining control of the coveted and larger central forest reserves in 1998. The unsteady progression of decentralization reforms in Uganda reflects the unwillingness of the central government to transfer significant discretionary powers over the management and use of forest reserves to the representative district and sub-county councils.

WP 07: Decentralization, Politics, and Environment in Uganda
Nyangabyaki Bazaara
Full Text (PDF, 942 Kb)

The devolution of decision-making powers over natural resources to publicly accountable local authorities is frequently advocated as a means of achieving social development and enhancing environmental management. The experience of Uganda’s current decentralization reforms, however, suggests that the extent to which such benefits occur depends on the character of the decentralization. Uganda’s decentralization is renowned internationally for its local origins, participatory character and political commitment. However, an analysis of the reforms from an environmental perspective indicates three major problem areas.

(1) There has not been an effective or consistent devolution of powers over natural resource management. In the case of forestry, for example, powers have been decentralized and re-centralized several times since the reforms began in 1993. The reason for this is that decentralization has been used primarily to resolve the government’s financial and legitimacy problems, rather than as a means of achieving either public participation per se or improved environmental management.

(2) Local governments have failed to exercise the limited powers they do have, since control over the necessary financial and human resources have remained centralized. Case studies of three districts – Mukono, Mbale and Masindi – reveal that they have only been able to exercise such powers when donor assistance has been available.

(3) When local governments have attempted to influence environmental matters, the social and environmental outcomes have not always been positive, due to conflicts of interest among the actors involved in natural resource utilization at the local level.

The study suggests that there is a need for the central government to devolve effective environmental powers to local governments, for local governments to increase their revenue raising capacity in order to achieve greater financial autonomy, and for the introduction of checks and balances to prevent the misuse of powers to achieve personal gain.

WP 06: Concessionary Politics in the Western Congo Basin: History and Culture in Forest Use
Rebecca Hardin
Full Text (PDF, 1.6 Mb)

Hardly new, the breaking of forests into mosaics of territorial control has been happening since the early days of European expansion. Protected areas were, in many cases, an extension of the concession system for the use and management of natural resources. This historical and ethnographic investigation of concessionary politics points to a gap in social science literature about environmental conservation; little has been written about the role of capital – not merely state and community – in power-suffused social relations of resource use within and around protected areas. Concessionary politics are not merely crafted through state policies, and imposed from the top down. Rather, forest residents, have, over time, developed abilities to defy and define the limits of state power. They thus participate, with a range of outsiders, in creating and re-creating concessionary politics. In so doing, they may unwittingly further their own alienation from formal control over the natural resources on which they depend, as concessionary politics also constrains their options for development and political process.

Specifically, concessionary politics precludes truly representative, or at least recognizably political, processes for maintaining ecological diversity based on, rather than despite, increasingly cosmopolitan forest communities. Today, concessionary politics relies increasingly on “participatory” mechanisms for dialogue between residents and their powerful “patrons,” whether businesspeople or conservationists. It produces mosaics of resource management in which competition by outsiders creates revenues for financially impoverished communities and nation states. But it also connects competition for control of species-rich areas with politically charged struggles over mineral wealth, timber, and other commodities. This exacerbates, rather than limiting, both tensions between concerned parties, and pressure on specific resource bases.

WP 05: Co-Management in the Mafungautsi State Forest Area of Zimbabwe – What Stake for Local Communities?
Everisto Mapedza and Alois Mandondo
Full Text

This study uses a review and case study approach to critically examine the contradictions and ambiguities of “peasant empowerment” in a co-management venture between Zimbabwean foresters and peasant communities. The institutional infrastructure for comanagement was derived from and superimposed upon a complex web of local power bases, further fragmenting existing networks of interest, affection and association, and thus limiting the scope for co-management. The legislative environment, at least during the pre-2000 period, supported the expropriation and control of the land and resources of peasant communities, thus contradicting the underlying principle of co-management, which is that of equal partnership. Powers over natural resources have remained centralized in the national state; the little power that has been decentralized has been transferred to levels that are not close enough to the citizens. Furthermore, there is no legislation that gives a legal mandate and fiscal autonomy to units closer to the citizens than the district level. The co-management venture is “supply-led” rather than “demand driven”, originating in international development assistance circles, and implemented on the terms and conditions of their allies in the state bureaucracies responsible for natural resource management.

In spite of their marginalization, peasant communities have a wide repertoire of tools, which enable them to significantly penetrate local and national political processes. The study identifies the need for fundamental changes in the co-management system, including the creation of downwardly accountable institutions and experimentation with new co-management relations. It argues that such changes require related reversals in the ways that researchers, policy-makers, civil society organizations and other facilitators have traditionally conducted their business.

WP 04: Whose Elephants Are They? Decentralization of Control Over Wildlife Management in Binga District, Zimbabwe
Diana Conyers
Full Text (PDF, 1.2 Mb)

This case study examines the impact of one of sub-Saharan Africa’s first attempts to decentralize control over wildlife management: Zimbabwe’s much publicized Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) program. The objective of the study is to determine the nature and extent of CAMPFIRE’s impact on local institutions and the welfare of local communities, and in particular to see whether it has succeeded in giving local people effective control over wildlife resources. The study focuses on Binga District, an area in which wildlife are abundant and CAMPFIRE plays a particularly important role. The findings are derived largely from the author’s own experience living and working in Binga.

WP 03: Partitioned Nature, Privileged Knowledge: Community Based Conservation in the Maasai Ecosystem, Tanzania
Mara Goldman
Full Text (PDF, 853 Kb)

Despite the rhetoric of devolution and community participation, conservation planning in Tanzania remains a top-down endeavor; communities and the knowledge claims of local people remain delegated to the margins. This is shown by analyzing the context of the new government policy document, planning papers, and subsequent policy, legal and academic debates regarding the building of a new community based conservation (CBC) in Tanzania. The author suggests that in addition to the difficulties associated with the transfer of power from state to community hands, there are also complex challenges that CBC pose to the culture or institution of conservation. The intended (and at times unintended) landscapes of conservation are crafted for legibility, manageability and foreign scientific expertise, leaving little room for the inclusion of “indigenous” or “local” knowledge claims. The second half of the paper addresses how the challenges posed by an inclusive and participatory CBC, as discussed in the first half, are particularly salient in the Maasai ecosystem, in Northern Tanzania. Here, many of the consequences or “constellations” of unsuccessful conservation projects further challenge the implementation of CBC initiatives. The author discusses the need to address these challenges and engage Maasai as active knowing agents in the conservation process, the result of which may better match the political rhetoric and social and ecological goals of CBC.

WP 02: Breathing Life Into Fundamental Principles: Implementing constitutional environmental protections in Africa
Carl Bruch, Wole Coker, Chris VanArsdale
Full Text (PDF, 1.0 Mb)

Constitutional provisions offer broad and powerful tools for ptoecting the environment, but to date these tools have gone largely unutilized in Africa. Practically all African constitutions include substantive provisions that ensure either a “right to a healthy environment” or a “right to life,” which often is held to iply a right to a healthy environent in which to live that life. Additionally, the process of opening courts to citizens to enforce their constitutional rights strengthens the judiciary, empowers civil society, and fosters and atmosphere of environmental accountability. This article explores how African constitutional provisions can be utilized to create real and enforceable environmental rights. African countries have common law, civil law, and Islamic legal traditions, as well as soe hybrid systems. Nevertheless, these legal systems share many comon underlying principles and values, particularly regarding the fundaental human rights embodied in their respective constitutions. This article highlights relevant provisions fro the constitutions of 53 African countries – provisions that may be used to protect the environment – as well as cases fro around the world that illustrate opportunities for implementing constitutional environmental rights. Additionally, given the constitutional reform processes currently underway in various African countires – such as Kenya, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC and formerly Zaire) – this article examines the opportunities that such provisions present for improving environmental governance.

WP 01: Analyzing Decentralization: A framework with South Asian and West African environmental cases
Jesse Ribot, Arun Agrawal
Full Text (PDF, 1.3 Mb)

Since the early 1980s, decentralization has reemerged as a valued political and economic goal in most developing countries. Institutional economics and public-choice literature indicate that decentralization has the potential to achieve greater efficiency and equity in public decision making by internalizing externalities, deploying all available information, and better matching service provision to needs. In this paper, the authors suggest that representation and accountability are critical if devolved powers are to serve local needs efficiently and equitably. The authors conclude, analyzing four case studies, that the presumed benefits of decentralization become available to local populations only when empowered local actors are downwardly accountable. Actors, powers, and accountability emerge as essential elements of a framework that can help evaluate the effectiveness of decentralization.

Protected Areas and Property Rights: Democratizing Eminent Domain in East Africa

Peter Veit — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:35:38 -0400

Protected areas are a traditional means for pursuing wildlife management and have become increasingly central to conservation strategies in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. In East Africa, the future of biodiversity rests largely on the security and sustainability of the protected estate. Government degazettement (the transfer of land out of the protected estate into other public uses or into the private domain) and private challenges to the public exercise of eminent domain are growing threats to protected areas in East Africa.

Considerable attention has focused on whether or not to degazette protected areas. Less attention has focused on the procedures by which land is acquired and protected areas are established. When governments acquire private property in a compulsory manner, transfer land from the private to the public domain, and place public land into protected areas they must balance the public good of park conservation with the public good of secure property rights. This report argues that protected areas will be secure when codified procedures for acquiring land and establishing parks are implemented and enforced. Further, the public will accept these designations as legitimate when they have been established through democratic (i.e., transparent, inclusive, accountable) processes.

The Poverty of Forestry Policy: Double Standards on an Uneven Playing Field

Jesse Ribot — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 18:15:02 -0400

Can policies designed to maximize exploitation by elites benefit the people who live in forests? Forestry policy throughout the developing world originates from European “scientific” forestry traditions exported during the colonial period. These policies were implemented by foreign and local elite whose interest was to maximize and extract profit. In spite of reforms since the end of the colonial period, policies on the environment usually remain biased against rural communities. Even when more recent policies are fair, the rural poor face severe biases in implementation. In addition, they must compete on an uneven playing field of ethnic and other social inequities and economic hurdles. This article examines how forestry policy and implementation maintain double standards on this uneven playing field in a manner that permanently excludes the rural poor from the natural wealth around them—producing poverty in the process. Change that would support poverty alleviation for forest-based communities requires a radical rethinking of forest policy so as to counterbalance widespread regressive policies and structural asymmetries.

Agricultural Subsidies, Poverty, and the Environment: Supporting a Domestic Reform Agenda in Developing Countries

admin — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0500

What policies are needed so that reforms in agricultural subsidies in developed countries can translate into real benefits for poor farmers and for the environment in developing countries?

This Policy Note analyzes the effects of U.S. and other developed-country agricultural subsidies on the environment and on poverty in developing countries. It makes a case for subsidy reduction and proposes a policy reform agenda to help developing countries capitalize on these reductions and turn their agriculture sectors into vehicles for sustainable development.

Further, this Policy Note highlights the types of policies, laws, and programs that can affect sustainable agricultural development with or without an agreement by the World Trade Organization’s Doha Trade Round, specifically those measures that:

Empower poor farmers.
Integrate poverty alleviation and environmental goals.
Promote sustainable agricultural practices that will protect ecosystems and their ability to provide for the farmers who depend on them.
Promote better governance of the agricultural sector.

This Policy Note is part of the World Resources Institute’s ongoing series that outlines issues and provides recommendations relating to environmental markets, energy, climate, and trade. These recommendations are based on WRI’s independent analysis of biofuel policies, experience with developing and testing environmental markets, and our expertise in climate and trade issues.

We hope that you find the Notes informative and useful in helping define policies that promote environmental sustainability, rural vitality, and a healthy farm sector. Additional Policy Notes can be downloaded from http://www.wri.org/publication/policy-notes.

WRI Publications Feed: Equity, Poverty, and the Environment

In Deep Water: Weak Governance and the Gulf Oil Spill, a 30-Year Timeline

Summary

A Thematic Timeline

Key Policy Issues

Moving Forward

Avoiding the Resource Curse: Spotlight on Oil in Uganda

Mapping a Healthier Future: How Spatial Analysis Can Guide Pro-Poor Water and Sanitation Planning in Uganda

Audience and Aims

Report Overview

Key Findings and Recommendations

Findings

Recommendations

Mapping a Better Future: How Spatial Analysis Can Benefit Wetlands and Reduce Poverty in Uganda

Mapping a Better Future

Contents

Key Findings & Recommendations

Findings

Recommendations

Building Local Democracy through Natural Resource Interventions: An Environmentalist’s Responsibility

On Whose Behalf: Legislative Representation and the Environment in Africa

Market Access & Institutional Choice: Working Papers

Index

Protected Areas and Property Rights: Democratizing Eminent Domain in East Africa

The Poverty of Forestry Policy: Double Standards on an Uneven Playing Field

Agricultural Subsidies, Poverty, and the Environment: Supporting a Domestic Reform Agenda in Developing Countries