This report is accompanied by a Toolkit, which guides partnerships that are context‑specific, genuinely inclusive, and capable of expanding their impact over time. The toolkit provides a comprehensive framework for designing, implementing, and evaluating effective partnerships in land governance.
Tag: governance
REDD+ safeguards in Indonesia: Lessons from East Kalimantan
Summary
- In 2015, East Kalimantan was selected as the pilot Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) province in Indonesia. This required government agencies to comply with the World Bank’s safeguards standards, which go beyond most reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) countries’ legal and policy frameworks for community rights.
- In the context of the FCPF initiative, East Kalimantan has issued regulations, published formal documents (Indigenous Peoples framework and benefit sharing plan), and implemented a regional regulation for a feedback and grievance redress mechanism integrated with the National Public Service Complaint Management System (SP4N LAPOR!).
- Customary rules and sanctions are used to regulate resource management and tenure arrangements at the community level, but the resolution of tenurial conflicts falls under government authority. A history of conflicts between communities and private companies has led to wide acceptance of the Social Forestry programme.
- Research participants perceived free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to be the least challenging aspect of safeguards to comply with. This was due to the familiarity many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working with communities have with FPIC. Challenges remain regarding the clarity of FPIC processes, and ensuring the participation of all communities that will be impacted by FCPF activities, and women in those communities.
- Research participants perceived the benefit sharing mechanism to be the most challenging aspect related to community engagement in the FCPF initiative. Incentives derived from results-based payments will be managed by the Environmental Fund Management Agency, and an intermediary organization has been developed to disburse incentives.
Reconciling conservation and development requires enhanced integration and broader aims: A cross-continental assessment of landscape approaches
Expectations for agricultural landscapes in subtropical and tropical regions are high, aiming for conservation and development amid climate change, unfair trade, poverty, and environmental degradation. Landscape approaches (LAs) are gaining momentum as means to reconcile expectations, although they face multiple challenges, including unclear distinctions among LAs and stakeholder involvement. We studied 380 LAs from three continents via questionnaires with landscape managers (2012–2015 and 2021) and identified three LA types through cluster analysis: an “integrated” type with longer-term, multisectoral goals involving various stakeholders early in the design and two shorter-term types focused on sectoral priorities of preservation or production. Better-performing LAs are associated with longevity, inclusivity, and diversified investments across goals, notably those enabling social justice. International stakeholder analysis shows broad support for LAs but identifies gaps between support and LAs’ needs. The growing interest in LAs is promising. Yet, underpinning effective and lasting LAs that reconcile multiple expectations requires better support.
Terminal evaluation of the East and Southern Africa forest observatory (OFESA) project
OFESA’s purpose was to establish a sustainable governance framework for the long-term functioning of the Observatory and to enhance human capacities in the areas of management and utilization of environmental information. The program was executed in five countries—Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Mozambique—with RCMRD serving as the implementing partner and host institution for the observatory.
When Policies Problematize the Local: Social-Environmental Justice and Forest Policies in Burkina Faso and Vietnam
We examine social-environmental justice in forest governance by asking who is problematized as drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. We adapt Bacchi’s “What is the problem represented to be” approach to the community forest (CAF) model in Burkina Faso and the Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) in Vietnam and examine the implementation of these policies in specific sites through disaggregated focus group discussions (men, women, youth, ethnic minorities). We delve into the discursive, lived and subjectification effects of the policies’ problematizations, highlighting tensions and contestations relating to forest access and benefits. For both countries, what is left unproblematized in the implicit policy focus on the local is a “communal fix” of indigeneity tied to idealized and collective governance of fixed areas of land and exclusionary processes for those that do not fit the ideal. We argue that market-oriented approach in policies such as CAF and PFES absent of the wider underpinnings of the political and historical forest will only exacerbate social-environmental injustices.
From conflict to collaboration through inclusive landscape governance: Evidence from a contested landscape in Ghana
The Western Wildlife Corridor (WWC) in Ghana’s Northern Savannah ecological zone is a contested landscape where efforts to reverse widespread environmental degradation often conflict with local livelihood concerns and broader development objectives. Despite policy measures to devolve natural resource decision-making authority, poor environmental management, persistent socioeconomic challenges, and increasingly limited livelihood opportunities for people living within the corridor prevail. This study investigates environmental degradation in the WWC and natural resource governance using information on stakeholder perceptions from stakeholder workshops, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. We also explore how natural resource management might be strengthened to better deliver social, economic, and environmental goals. We found that despite a history of contestation, stakeholders were able to agree upon specific issues of common concern and generate a collaborative vision for the WWC landscape. Transitioning toward such a vision requires significant investment in strengthening current governance structures and building natural resource management capacity within the corridor and beyond. Furthermore, persistent challenges of conflicting stakeholder objectives and issues related to coordination, corruption, and non-inclusion in decision-making about natural resources must be addressed to advance progress. Stakeholders were able to formulate specific recommendations and a participatory theory of change to inform the development of a sustainable landscape management plan and future evidence-based policy that could steer the WWC toward a more resilient and multifunctional system that equitably supports livelihoods, biodiversity, and wider economic development. The methods for inclusive engagement in environmental decision-making are extrapolatable to other contexts facing similar social-environmental challenges.
Panduan Survei Pelaksanaan Program Reformasi Tenurial Hutan di Indonesia
Kegiatan Global Comparative Study (GCS) Tenure didorong oleh perkembangan reformasi tenurial di Afrika, Asia, dan Amerika Latin yang telah memberikan ruang pengakuan hukum untuk masyarakat lokal sekitar hutan. Melalui pendekatan komparatif global dan metodologi yang terstandarisasi untuk semua negara lokasi penelitian, program ini menganalisis berbagai faktor yang mempengaruhi keberhasilan dan kegagalan program tenurial hutan di masing-masing negara. Panduan survei terhadap pelaksanaan reformasi tenurial hutan di Indonesia merupakan salah satu perangkat kegiatan kajian yang disusun untuk mendukung keberhasilan implementasi program. Kami mengucapkan terimakasih kepada GEF (Global Environment Facility) atas dukungan pendanaan program GCS Tenure dan program penelitian PIM (Policies, Institution, and Markets) atas dukungan untuk penyusunan perangkat survei khusus untuk konteks di Indonesia.
The politics of REDD+ MRV in Mexico: The interplay of the national and subnational levels
Since 2009, CIFOR has conducted a multi-donor funded Global Comparative Study on REDD+ (GCS-REDD+) in 10 countries (Indonesia, Brazil, Bolivia, Cameroon, Peru, Tanzania, Vietnam, DR Congo, Nepal and Mexico). The project began as a four-year global research study on first-generation REDD+ demonstration and readiness activities and has since expanded to address a number of related topics, including multilevel governance in REDD+ benefit sharing and land use decisions.
REDD+ is a multilevel process, and issues of scale, power and politics apply to both land use decisions and the institutions set up as part of REDD+ and other initiatives aimed at improving landscape governance. The nature and extent of multilevel communication and coordination influence the legitimacy of the institutions and processes established. It is thus necessary to analyze the political and economic challenges and opportunities behind technical processes such as Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) systems.
This occasional paper focuses on Mexico’s approach to REDD+ MRV and the interplay between national and state levels. It aims to increase understanding about the interests and levels of understanding of the different actors involved in REDD+ MRV, why their visions vary, how coordination functions across actors and scales and the underlying factors that affect it. The paper identifies challenges and opportunities and provides insights on how the process can be improved to create a multilevel REDD+ MRV system that responds to the different needs and interests of national, state and local actors. The lessons from Mexico are also relevant for other countries engaged in this process.
Guidance for a Landscape Approach In Displacement Settings (GLADS): Guidance notes
GLADS offers general guidance for all stakeholders in displacement settings to work at a landscape scale through collaboration and cross-sectoral planning in order to contribute to ecosystem and livelihood resilience for refugees and host communities. This GLADS Guidance Notes documents presents five key guidance notes on how to apply the integrated landscape approach in displacement settings, along with sub-notes and examples from three refugee hosting landscapes. More practical experiences from site consultations are published in separate reports, and can be accessed at: CIFOR-ICRAF.org/GLADS
Co-producing theory of change to operationalize integrated landscape approaches
Integrated landscape approaches that engage diverse stakeholder groups in landscape governance are increasingly promoted to address linked social–ecological challenges in tropical landscapes. Recent research suggests that a transdisciplinary approach to landscape management can help identify common research needs, enhance knowledge co-production, guide evidence-based policy development, and harmonize cross-sectorial integration. Meanwhile, guiding principles for landscape approaches suggest that identifying common concerns and negotiating a process of change are fundamental to implementation and evaluation efforts. As such, the use of decision support tools such as theory of change models that build ordered sequences of actions towards a desired, and agreed, future state are increasingly advocated. However, the application of the theory of change concept to integrated landscape approaches is limited thus far, particularly within the scientific literature. Here, we address this gap by applying the principles of landscape approaches and knowledge co-production to co-produce a theory of change to address current unsustainable landscape management and associated conflicts in the Kalomo Hills Local Forest Reserve No. P.13 (KFR13) of Zambia. The participatory process engaged a diverse range of stakeholders including village head people, local and international researchers, district councillors, and civil society representatives amongst others. Several pathways, actions, and interventions were developed around the themes of deforestation, biodiversity and wildlife conservation, socio-economic development, access rights, and law enforcement. To make the theory of change actionable, participants identified a need for enhanced cross-sector and multi-level communication, capacity development, and improved governance, while a lack of commitment towards coordinated knowledge exchange and access to information along with poor policy formulation and weak enforcement of rules were among potential impediments to action. Use of theory of change can both inform evidence-based policy design (by revealing place-based challenges and proposing solutions) and support policy mechanisms that promote integration between state and non-state actors (by clarifying actor rights, roles and responsibilities). Co-developing a theory of change for integrated landscape management is inherently context specific, but the process and outcomes of this study should hold relevance across a range of contexts faced with sustainability challenges related to reconciling both conservation and development objectives.