This Realist Synthesis Review (RSR) examines the scholarly literature on multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs) set up to support efforts towards more sustainable land use. In this review, we focus on subnational MSFs that include at least one grassroots and one government actor. MSFs have been presented, especially by practitioners, as a panacea to address land-use change and support climate mitigation, such as through “landscape” or jurisdictional approaches. However, it is not clear that these initiatives are learning from past experience, particularly from research analyzing the effect of context on the ability of such approaches to reach their objectives. To address this gap, the academic literature was assessed using the RSR method to elucidate the key contextual variables affecting outcomes. In addition to analyzing context, this review identifies four common lessons learned for MSFs: the importance of commitment (to the people, the process and its goals); engaging the implementers (key middle level brokers and government officials who determine what happens on the ground); openness to learn from and listen to stakeholders; and having a design that is adaptive to this context, with time and resources to do so. Findings suggest that the most successful MSFs are those that are recognized as part of a wider process that seeks to transform practices at multiple levels; entail a period of research and meetings at upper levels to identify potential roadblocks and existing capacities with those who would implement the project locally; build consensus and commitment from higher levels, and thus political will; and are designed as adaptive learning processes. The central lesson, then, is not one of how to design initiatives, given such different and distinct contexts. Rather, it is about how to design for engagement to address context, whatever its distinct features, in order to develop and implement initiatives with greater chance of success.
Tag: governance
Models of participation in multi-stakeholder forums: Results of a realist synthesis review
Key messages
- Multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs) are receiving widespread attention due to the growing urgency to address climate change and transform development trajectories.
- Systematic reviews oversimplify complex social settings by ignoring context and process, both key to the success of MSFs. The Realist Synthesis Review (RSR) method addresses this oversight and explains why initiatives succeed or fail.
- The RSR method led to the extraction of four main models used to foster sustainable land use through MSFs: sustainability, livelihoods, participation and multilevel processes.
- Results reveal the need to shift from seeing context as an obstacle that must be surpassed for more successful initiatives, to thinking of how to design initiatives that respond to context.
Designing for engagement: Insights for more equitable and resilient multi-stakeholder forums
Key messages
- Multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs) are increasingly seen as essential for collaboration — across different levels of government and among multiple constituencies– due to the growing urgency to address climate change and transform development trajectories.
- A review of the scholarly literature reveals that more equitable and resilient MSFs require a shift in emphasis away from how to design projects toward designing engagement in a way that addresses a specific situation or context.
- Designing for engagement combines top-down with bottom-up approaches, starting with a period of research and meetings at upper levels to understand the potential challenges that local project implementers face within the broader context they are encountering.
- This process is engaged, committed and adaptive, supporting a spirit of co-learning among all actors, building mutual respect and trust over time.
- This approach has the best chance of resilience in the face of change or challenge, and of leading to equitable outcomes — and is not fostered by the increasingly short-term nature of donor funding and the emphasis on simple quantitative impact indicators.
Independent monitoring of social clauses in the Democratic Republic of Congo
This analysis has been undertaken as part of independent forest monitoring in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a particular focus on the social clauses agreed to under forest concession holders’ Development Plans. The analysis forms part of work being carried out with the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) to provide assistance to Congolese civil society in implementing the 2002 Forest Code.
Forestry decentralization in the context of global carbon priorities: New challenges for subnational governments
The recent emphasis on the role of tropical forests in facing climate change has made forest decentralization debates more relevant than ever. Discussions on multilevel governance, polycentricity, and nested approaches to governance surround the central question, ever more pertinent considering global environmental change, of who holds the mandate over forests. Different levels of government, as well as private and civil society actors (companies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), indigenous peoples, and local communities), compete over the rights of ownership, administration, and management of forest landscapes–decisions with a crucial impact on land use, land use change and the future of forests. Understanding the relations among different levels of governance, and government specifically, is essential to understand how carbon forestry has engaged with decentralization and the role of subnational governments (SNGs) in developing practical land use solutions. We draw on current trends in the forestry decentralization literature to ask: (i) has carbon forestry opened new opportunities for SNGs to support the sustainable governance of forest landscapes? (ii) have meaningful powers been assigned to SNGs in support of democratic processes of decision-making over forest landscapes? and (iii) is carbon forestry influencing the relationships between levels of government in a way that challenges unequal power relations? By examining carbon forestry projects and forestry decentralization processes across five countries (Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Tanzania and Vietnam) with carbon forestry initiatives, we demonstrate how the role of SNGs is circumscribed by existing forestry decentralization trends. Decentralization initiatives in recent decades have provided SNGs with new mandates to manage forests, but new attributions do not always imply meaningful powers. The implementation of carbon forestry projects is molded by pre-existing power relations that shape the impacts of forestry decentralization on livelihoods and forest ecosystems. We find that carbon forestry, with both centralizing and decentralizing tendencies, operates within the spaces left by existing power dynamics that mold the way transfers of power are put into practice. Jurisdictional approaches will need to negotiate with this context to be able to push forward sustainable pathways.
Operationalizing a Framework for Assessing the Enabling Environment for Community Forest Enterprises: A Case Study from Nepal
We demonstrate how Baynes et al.’s (Glob Environ Change 35:226–238, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.09.011) framework can be operationalized as a tool for identifying potential intervention points for supporting the tenure and governance-enabling environment for CFEs. We do so by applying the framework to a sample of CFUG-managed CFEs in Nepal to see how they measure up as a group with respect to the five success factors. Our study suggests that for CFEs to thrive, they will require policy and legal frameworks that devolve commercial harvesting rights to economically valuable products, and provision of processing locations and licensing practices that are not overly restrictive. The findings will be useful not only for Nepal, but for many other countries dependent on forests for their economic development and whose inhabitants rely on forests for their livelihoods.
The performance of global forest governance: Three contrasting perspectives
The scope and complexity of international forest-related governance have expanded tremendously over the last decades. As many as 41 ‘institutional elements’ were counted by scholars (from UNFF to UNFCCC to SDGs). The questions of how these governance arrangements ‘perform’, for what purpose and for whom are widely contested between scholars and practitioners. This paper compares three different analytical frames, which have been employed by some of the authors. These are 1) the consequences of a fragmented regime complex, 2) the global-local nexus and 3) the critical global political economy. The frames map out their contributions and key differences in analytical perspective and help focus and advance debates. Each perspective is based on different theories, epistemologies and methodological approaches and hence yields different key results. The first frame emphasises institutional and policy fragmentation, the symbolic nature of the agreements and the ineffectiveness of the policy measures; the second shows progress in discourses, institutional design, and on-the-ground performance, while the third finds global governance has reinforced inequalities in power and access to land and natural resources. All authors agree, however, that a shift in the balance of power and novel actor coalitions are necessary to change the current global forest governance trajectory significantly. They also acknowledge the need for much greater diversity in voice and representation in both the research and practice of global forest governance.
REDD+ Social safeguards in Indonesia: Lessons from Jambi
Key messages
- As REDD+ countries move towards results-based payments, there is a need to examine the operationalization of safeguards and their roles in the recognition and respect of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs).
- This Infobrief presents lessons from research into the perceptions of different REDD+ stakeholders regarding the implementation of safeguards under the BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes in Jambi Province, Indonesia.
- The multilateral financial organization’s involvement in REDD+ results-based agreements may provide a pathway for more rights-responsive safeguards than Indonesia’s interpretation of the Cancun safeguards for REDD+.
- The operationalization of safeguards could be improved through more inclusive implementation of activities; promoting gender justice throughout the process, including strengthening communities’ access to information; and engaging with NGOs and CSOs to facilitate relevant processes with communities.
- Project proponents should also incorporate independent monitoring of rights-related issues to ensure community access to rights and to REDD+ benefits; and strengthen grievance mechanisms, especially those that already exist at the local level.
- Fostering the establishment of a provincial government regulation on recognizing customary (adat) communities is essential for addressing tenure issues in the region, and simplifying subnational processes through which such communities are recognized as ‘legal entities’.
The forest-related finance landscape and potential for just investments
Over the past decade, the forest1-related finance landscape has further grown in complexity. While public and private sources provide financial incentives in support of forested lands and forest-reliant people, financial interests simultaneously drive forest conversion and its attendant negative impacts on society and nature. In this Chapter, we examine the implications of current forest-related finance landscape on social and environmental justice and pathways that could fundamentally transform this financial landscape. Based on a careful review of studies, we find an orchestra of forest-related finance – to halt deforestation and degradation, as well as to grow trees and forests. Part of this finance is led by states (e.g., through taxes, loans, grants), while others are based on markets (e.g., equities), philanthropy (e.g., grants), or community-led finance. The related finance instruments range from those that adjust or augment markets (e.g., carbon tax and land tax) to those that create new markets (e.g., emissions trading schemes). Finance related to markets and a growing financialisation of the forest sector (and forest lands) that prioritises short-term financial gains have been criticised for either neglecting, or perpetuating inequalities, and have been shown to be a major driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss. Alternative finance that includes global mechanisms, state-based tax mechanisms, philanthropy, and community-led mechanisms that aim explicitly for social and environmental justice may be more effective to directly redress inequalities and tackle the driving forces behind the triple problem of deforestation, biodiversity loss, and unsustainability. The review of the literature indicates that market-adjusting and -augmenting measures persist, alongside a rapid rise of market-creating sources of finance. Alternative, just finance and the financing of market-resisting activities to halt forest loss and enable reforestation are, at present, still marginal.
Understanding tree-cover transitions, drivers and stakeholders’ perspectives for effective landscape governance: a case study of Chieng Yen Commune, Son La Province, Viet Nam
Integrated landscape management for sustainable livelihoods and positive environmental outcomes has been desired by many developing countries, especially for mountainous areas where agricultural activities, if not well managed, will likely degrade vulnerable landscapes. This research was an attempt to characterize the landscape in Chieng Yen Commune, Son La Province in Northwest Viet Nam to generate knowledge and understanding of local conditions and to propose a workable governance mechanism to sustainably manage the landscape. ICRAF, together with national partners — Vietnamese Academy of Forest Sciences, Soil and Fertilizer Research Institute — and local partners — Son La Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Son La Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Chieng Yen Commune People’s Committee — conducted rapid assessments in the landscape, including land-use mapping, land-use characterization, a household survey and participatory landscape assessment using an ecosystem services framework. We found that the landscape and peoples’ livelihoods are at risk from the continuous degradation of forest and agricultural land, and declining productivity, ecosystem conditions and services. Half of households live below the poverty line with insufficient agricultural production for subsistence. Unsustainable agricultural practices and other livelihood activities are causing more damage to the forest. Meanwhile, existing forest and landscape governance mechanisms are generally not inclusive of local community engagement. Initial recommendations are provided, including further assessment to address current knowledge gaps.