Chapter 3

Having described the purpose, actions and sequence of the participatory process in the preceding chapter, it is now necessary to provide a brief overview of the actors involved and the environment in which the process takes place. The first part of the chapter provides generalizations about stakeholder groups encountered in the management of natural resources. The second part briefly summarizes circumstances of the physical and social environment that can have a major influence on collaborative management.

AN OVERVIEW OF STAKEHOLDERS: WHO ARE THEY?

The following overview is intended to provide some general ideas about stakeholders¹ and their basic characteristics. The overview does not represent a stakeholder analysis for any particular location or for any specific development initiative. It provides a simple classification of stakeholders, their possible interests in participation, and some of the barriers to their participation that might exist. Our classification recognizes four major groups of stakeholders. Each group is broken down into various subgroups based on different interests (see Figure 3.1).

The classification shown in Figure 3.1 requires some explanation.

Users

Users are mentioned first because they represent the most complex group and the one that is most affected by resource management decisions. They rarely form a homogenous group because of the diverse range of interests that may exist among them. Indeed, the notion of an ‘interest group’ is a useful tool to assist identification of subgroups in a particular situation. Simply put, an interest group refers to a group of people who have similar sets of interests in respect to a particular situation (Gilmour and Fisher, 1991). The most obvious subgroups are those based on livelihoods. For example, livestock owners, loggers, blacksmiths and hunters could represent different interest groups as related to their use of a particular forest. Another set might include landless people, poor women, members of lower castes and other disadvantaged peoples.

In general, differentiation can be made on the basis of equity and power divisions, which may be defined by class or caste, education, wealth, gender, age and ethnicity. In addition, there may be important differences based on residential location. There are so-called transboundary users who might depend on the resource but have to put up with what other users do first. Examples include water users who are located downstream, or hunters who depend on the migration of wildlife populations across territorial boundaries. These users have the least chance to participate in resource management, and they represent some of the most vulnerable and the weakest stakeholders in natural resource management.

Governments

This group includes both the government with sovereignty over a specific natural resource and other external governments that have various regional or international interests in this resource and want to influence what happens to it. A classic example of a situation where external governments have a stake in natural resource management is where a major river crosses international frontiers.

The government is an important stakeholder because everybody else concerned with resource management has to work with it or through it to some degree. A number of other subgroups can be differentiated within government, based on their role and interests in resource management.

Policy-makers, including politicians, are likely to view natural resources in terms of how their management can contribute to the broader development goals of the country, to local political agendas, or towards fulfilling the obligations of international treaties. Senior government officials in different line agencies, local government and other government bodies direct efforts for implementing policy and have a substantial impact over what is, or can be done by the government in particular locations. These people can influence policy and the way it is interpreted and implemented. For these reasons, they represent powerful stakeholders in collaborative management.

The government’s field personnel represent another subgroup because they can provide the direct link between the government’s requirements from above, the needs and interests of stakeholders absent from the local scene, and the needs and priorities of local stakeholders. In general they have different interests, knowledge and power than the other government subgroups and have a different role in collaborative management and its support. Overall there is great diversity within governments due to structural and other institutional differences. For this reason it is difficult to be very specific about their interests and barriers to participation. Some generalizations are presented in Box 3.2.

Development agents

Development agents provide funds and other services to national development programmes. This group includes: international donor organizations that grant or lend money; the consultants hired to formulate, review, study and evaluate development programmes; and non-government personnel of projects funded by the international donors.

Donors are administrators of funds and may have to follow policies that are set elsewhere. As a source of scarce funds, they wield substantial power. The consultants also have a large influence on how development programmes and projects are shaped and judged because they are involved in advising donors and governments about what to do, or what has happened, and often design support programmes. International donor projects have to follow the policies of the counterpart government, the conditions of the donor, and the design of the project, and they have to try to match all of this with the local situation. As a result their interests and influence on collaborative management is again different from that of the others.

Private non-profit organizations include a multitude of international, national or local organizations that hold some interest in natural resource management. Such private organizations can be self-appointed providers of development support acting as a donor, a consultant, a ‘project’ or an organized interest group. Alternatively, they can be formal associations or unions that promote shared positions, provide services to members or coordinate certain types of common activities. They include many different types of organizations also referred to as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), from local farmer organizations and community service organizations to international conservation groups.

Other private stakeholders

This group is also large and complex, and includes many other types of stakeholders not otherwise covered by any of the characteristics provided above.

Private enterprises and entrepreneurs that do not use a natural resource directly but are otherwise dependent on the flow of products from it, form an important sub-group. They have both valid interests in, and commercial influence on, management decisions.

Sometimes there are influential individuals whose interests and acts need to be recognized separately from other organized groups. Examples include a wealthy patron who might act independently, like a donor, or a researcher who completes a study and takes up a particular cause armed with the findings.

The role of stakeholders

Borrini-Feyerabend (1996) observed that stakeholders usually are aware of their interests, possess specific capacities or comparative advantages for participating in resource management, and are willing to invest something in management. However, not all stakeholders are interested in conserving resources or social welfare, nor do they all deserve an equal role in decision-making. In addition, many may only want to participate at particular moments, rather than be burdened with involvement in day-to-day management decisions. Therefore, there are significant differences in the dependency, interests, knowledge, motivation and power of stakeholders to be involved in the collaborative management of natural resources. The major problems for anyone attempting to adopt a participatory process to work out are:

• who should participate;
• what role they should have;
• how they can be assisted to participate effectively; and
• how the influence over decisions should be distributed among them.

Many of these judgements will be made in a participatory way and will be reviewed over time, as more information is uncovered. It is important that issues be considered early in the participatory process to establish who the actors are, what their interests and roles in collaboration are, and how they can be engaged. Indeed, the participatory process starts by seeking answers to these questions in a stakeholder analysis (see Chapter 2).

THE ENABLING ENVIRONMENT: ARE CIRCUMSTANCES RIGHT?

Introduction

Many attempts to support collaborative management run into trouble because of problems originating in the social or physical environment in which they operate. The circumstances that influence collaborative management and related support programmes can be referred to as the ‘enabling environment’.2 An enabling environment is not designed, but it can be avoided, influenced or accepted by supporters if there is a conscious effort to understand it. Box 3.5 provides an example of the sort of problems that can arise if the enabling environment is not understood.

Certain circumstances make people feel more or less confident about what they can do and how they use natural resources, and this affects their inclination towards collaborative management. Circumstances vary according to location and they can change over time. For example, both resource availability and access to markets vary from village to village and can change rapidly.

Supporters and potential supporters find themselves putting considerable amounts of energy into trying to understand what circumstances work for and against collaborative management. They also consider what can be done about the negative ones and how much difference any support can make under the prevailing circumstances. Parts of a support programme can be dedicated to improving the enabling environment. For example, changes in laws or policies can be sought at the national level and credit schemes can be promoted to improve the environment for doing other things. If nothing can be done about severely negative conditions, supporters must seriously consider not starting at all, or withdrawing, if they have already started.

In summary, supporters are involved in:

• understanding the enabling environment and analyzing what it means for the support programme;
• deciding whether to influence or adapt to it, or go elsewhere; and
• if influencing or adapting to a less than perfect environment, working out what to do.

Because circumstances can change, this understanding - analyzing - deciding effort is ongoing.

The following section provides a broad overview of the enabling environment in the form of a checklist that illustrates the wide range of factors that can affect a support programme. We do not intend to be exhaustive because many social, physical and technological factors are highly specific to locations and natural resources.

Some of the issues are described as situations that are generally favourable to promoting and supporting collaborative management. Other issues are raised without indicating what situation is favourable or unfavourable because the outcome is linked to the type of initiative being promoted, so a definitive statement of their impact cannot be given here.

Some preconditions

People have basic preconditions for living, like food, shelter and health. If any of these are lacking or are under threat, people will focus their attention on them and have little interest or time to collaborate on anything else (see Box 3.6). Major disasters and other crisis situations create extremely difficult conditions in which to work on natural resource management, and many initiatives break down or are suspended until the crisis is over and basic preconditions of life are restored.

Conditions will be unfavourable when:

• people have major worries about the safety of life and property (arising from factors such as disease, violence and natural disasters);
• refugees arrive in a new area with heavy and unpredictable demands on local resources; and
• economic breakdown or political crisis within government causes institutions, law and order, and markets to disintegrate.

Natural resource management could form part of a response to a crisis. However, crisis management is a special subject and falls outside the scope of this overview. The participatory process described in Chapter 2 assumes the absence of such crises. Supporting natural resource management in times of crisis is a special subject that deserves attention. There is also a grey area between times of crisis and normality, often coinciding with relief efforts. During such relief operations, short-term coping strategies can be supported in anticipation of being able to engage in resource management initiatives later. Participation of local people in relief situations is positive because it helps to get people out of the role of victim and into one of decision-maker. This change is beneficial as a preparatory step towards engaging the same people in resource management (Wilde, 1997).

Is there political and legal backing from a competent government?

The government influences a large part of the enabling environment through its policies, laws and development plans, and through the actions of politicians and government agencies. The influence of government is increasing in some areas and declining in others. There are huge differences between countries and sectors, but some basic and common issues can be identified.

Collaborative management takes place within a national economic development strategy. The orientation for this strategy may be inspired by ideology about the role of the state, or it may be imposed by fiscal crisis and associated prescriptions for structural adjustment of the economy. Whatever the reason, economic development policies and plans of the state have a large bearing on what can and cannot be done at sub-national levels. Designers and implementers of support programmes will always need to know about state policy and plans, even if they wish to stay relatively clear of governments during implementation.

Some governments prefer development projects that operate in a top-down way. For example, they might prefer a project in which all the farmers in a particular village are forced to plant the same crop on a contiguous piece of land. Such a plantation mentality probably arises because it is easier for the government to control, regulate and supervise such projects compared to small, varied and scattered activities. Therefore, the operation of the participatory process will depend on how narrowly the government prescribes its development policy and how narrowly the policies are interpreted and implemented by government staff (Alice Carloni, pers. comm., 1997).

Clearly, flexible economic policies and open interpretation are favourable circumstances for collaboration. Narrow definitions and rigid implementation are not favourable. Having said this, it is still worth pursuing a participatory approach even if the government has made up its mind already and is only marginally willing to listen to the people. Development is better with participation than without. Information derived from a participatory planning approach can be used to identify conditions under which government proposals will not work or under which they need to be modified. Information gathered by using a participatory approach can still influence senior decision-makers and can help create space for more participatory implementation at village level (Alice Carloni, pers. comm., 1997).

The next thing to consider is whether natural resource management is or is not a priority area for the government. If it is, how far is the state ready to go in transferring or sharing control of natural resources with others? This question is related closely to whether the government is planning to become a bigger or smaller presence in the sector concerned. For some sectors, such as irrigation in developing countries, small government presence is a favourable circumstance (Juan Sagardoy, pers. comm., 1997). In other sectors, such as in marine fisheries, a strong government presence may be desirable.

Specific resource policies can be analyzed to determine whether or not they are conducive to collaboration by asking:

• what would be the roles of the government and users in implementing the policy;
• who would make decisions at various levels;
• who would pay the costs; and
• who would be affected (Uphoff and Cohen,1979; Small and Carruthers, 1991).

A situation in which stakeholders can influence policies is better than one in which they are excluded. In order to get and keep collaborative management on the policy agenda, it is instrumental to have a high-placed ‘champion’ in the government (Kevin Gallagher, pers. comm., 1997). A champion is a knowledgeable and influential person who passes on information, speeds up helpful processes and slows down harmful ones, ‘massages’ decision-makers, and is willing to use his or her formal and informal power to help.

Politics involves public decision-making, wielding authority and allocating public resources. It also involves exercising power to control resources that can be directed towards pursuing ideological causes, generating favour or securing political sup-port.

Supporting collaborative management has consequences for political processes and vice versa. Participation can work only if the political circumstances are right (John Rouse, pers. comm., 1997).

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Desirable political circumstances include the following:

• there is a high-level political support for collaborative management;
• collaborative management systems enjoy local legitimacy; and
• the leaders or membership of any organizations set up under collaborative management systems are acceptable to prominent politicians, and these politicians agree with what the organizations are doing.

At the local level, a number of different political factions may be evident and may be strong enough to be considered as representing separate interest groups. In this case, their interests and preferences will be dealt with much like any other interest group in a stakeholder analysis. The difference is that such groups can stand to lose from power changes, and their fears will influence their behaviour. There may well be conflict. The question is whether any political conflict is too disruptive for collaboration to work. This can only be answered by making a judgement on a case-by-case basis.

The legal basis of resource management

Collaborative management can work if stakeholders have confidence in receiving the anticipated benefits from resource use, both in the short and long term. The following are the basic legal criteria for gaining confidence:

• management is based on officially recognized rights;
• the rights are enforced; and
• stakeholders stand a reasonable chance of successful appeal if the rights are infringed or ignored.

Customary or locally accepted rights are of limited use. Holding legal rights as well as customary ones can increase confidence, which in turn stimulates interest in collaboration with the government and investment in resource management. However, the legal situation is often complex, and laws can be interpreted or applied differently by government officials. Another problem might be that people do not know about the law or their rights.

Therefore, there are some additional criteria for the enabling legal environment:

• use rights and privileges are secure and are recognized by the government;
• people know about their legal rights;
• if rights are not secure now, the government intends to help and recognize some of them in the future;
• there is sufficient access to authority and appeal procedures to protect these rights and settle disputes;
• laws and regulations are applied without arbitrariness or randomness;
• laws and regulations are applied without corruption or favouritism; and
• if government implementers do act in negative ways, there is an accessible independent body that can deal with complaints in a constructive way.

The enabling environment is complicated when there are current activities or uses that are seen as illegal, or when there are major differences among stakeholders regarding the interpretation and acceptability of various formal and informal rights.

Unhelpful laws can be changed, poor implementation of laws can be addressed, and disputed rights can be renegotiated, but it may take a long time. Such unfavourable circumstances may not stop a supporter if plenty of time is available and if the behaviour and views of stakeholders indicate that such improvements are achievable.

In addition to rights that deal directly with the use of natural resources, there are legal issues that affect how groups conduct business and other formal affairs. There is a legal basis to many economic transactions and activities in society. Local 3 organizations that wish to conduct their affairs on a sound legal footing require appropriate legal status and protection.

The following illustrate some of the favourable legal conditions for collaboration:

• a legal foundation is available to user groups that permits them to enter into contracts, open bank accounts, borrow money and go to court (see Box 3.8);
• contracts with private organizations and agreements with governments are enforced; and
• if there is no legal foundation, it is possible to achieve the aims of collaboration without a legally recognized organization.

Policy implementation by government bodies

Supporting collaborative management involves either working through or with one or more government bodies. There are circumstances where government bodies can definitely help the participatory process, such as when:

• there is clarity about which government bodies are responsible for executing certain policies;
• the allocation of power and responsibility is efficient, i.e. there are only a few rather than many bodies, and the concerned bodies have a mandate to work with others;
• it is clear who else in the government should be involved or consulted in initiatives;
• the main government body is flexible and has credibility with stakeholders;
• there is sufficient budget and personnel for them to do their job;
• government officials have the necessary attitudes and skills (see Box 3.9); and
• the support programme can work with the government and other stakeholders without having to provide many incentives (countless are the programmes where, in the name of the enabling environment, officials drive programme cars, field staff drive programme motorbikes, outside personnel take on regular agency tasks, everybody goes to nice courses and seminars, and consultants are present all over the place).

Do markets provide opportunities and confidence?

Markets influence resource management by providing (or not providing) economic and financial benefits to stakeholders. People will not participate in collaborative management unless they see some gain in doing so (Chambers, 1988). Among the numerous values and benefits of natural resources are the products or raw materials that can be used for subsistence, barter or sale. Financial gains are a major motivator and are determined largely by market opportunities and their associated risk. If people feel more certain about the gains and costs involved in resource management, they will be more inclined to invest in collaboration. Among other things, the interests of stakeholders in resource management are dependent on:

• the importance of natural resources for people’s livelihoods;
• the linkages between the resources and other productive systems;
• the orientation of the economy, whether primarily towards subsistence or cash;
• the market places and prices;
• the presence and nature of various actors in market chains;
• the costs of labour and other inputs;
• the availability and costs of financial services;
• the availability of reliable market information; and
• knowledge about rights and market regulations.

The opportunities for resource managers to benefit from production is an important circumstance to understand. In complex economies, raw products can be transformed many times over and pass through a large number of actors along a market chain, from the original collector of the raw resource to the end consumer of a finished product. Many of the issues listed above influence the benefits available to resource managers by determining how much of the economic activity based on the resource is controlled by them and how much value they get in return.

Powerful actors such as governments, factory owners or large logging companies may control important parts of the market chain, reducing returns to resource managers and creating substantial economic disincentives for collaborative management. Local users may be excluded from many stages of production, with only raw materials or semi-processed products being handled by them.

Marketable resources are often scarce, so conflicts arise over resource use because of their potential value. Similarly, economic values can change over time, provoking new conflicts over use or access rights. The term ‘collaborative management’ may imply harmony and working together happily, but economic and financial circumstances can create or encourage competition and reveal new or hidden conflict over resources.

Prices are fundamental to the concept of incentives. In many cases, producers of forest products do not have much information about realistic prices anyway, especially in rural areas. In addition to the manipulation of prices by the private sector, governments can also alter prices and create disincentives through such things as:

• government regulations that fix prices or constrain the quantity of products that can be produced or moved;
• government subsidies or levies;
• the presence of the government as both regulator and buyer or seller; and
• the way regulations and charges are enforced and applied.

In addition, development agents can adversely affect markets and prices indirectly through various forms of support. For example, donor projects that fund nurseries and give away free tree seedlings can depress seedling production in the private sector and lower seedling prices. Another example is provided in Box 3.10.

In many places there are black, or unofficial, markets, with their own set of players and prices. Black markets that trade in products from natural resources can cause problems when there is an attempt to facilitate open collaboration between the government and other stakeholders. In some cases, black markets can prevent collaboration between the government and users if the users are heavily engaged in the black market and neither party is interested in legitimizing it.

Infrastructure

The influence of infrastructure on collaborative management depends on the needs of stakeholders and what collaboration is trying to achieve. The protection of a core wilderness zone inside an important national park might best be served by the absence of infrastructure. On the other hand, the interests of the rural poor who are using natural resources outside of a protected area system might best be served by access to physical infrastructure such as roads, electricity and irrigation. Infrastructure development in a specific area may or may not be prescribed by government development policy and plans, and a support programme may or may not have the resources to create the required infrastructure if it is absent. Either way, infrastructure forms an important component of the enabling environment. A support programme might choose to:

• target or avoid sites that are remote and devoid of infrastructure;
• select sites that have specific infrastructure characteristics;
• encourage others to assist in the development of critical infrastructure at selected sites; or
• make infrastructure development a component of the support programme for collaborative action.

In simple terms, the decision depends on what infrastructure is required, what is already present, whether missing infrastructure forms a critical part of the development agenda of the support programme, and what the social and environmental impacts of establishing it are.

Does the philosophy and practice of collaborative management fit the culture?

People’s behaviour occurs in the context of shared beliefs, values and institutions. Societies establish rules and sanctions for rule-breaking, and assign various institutional roles to members. Collaborative management of natural resources must some-how fit into this cultural setting. According to the definition of collaborative management (see Chapter 1), the basic requirements are that multiple stakeholders can share decision-making about natural resource use and cooperate in implementing management arrangements. It might be difficult to identify easily the relevant cultural circumstances and whether collaboration can be promoted easily or not. To complicate matters, a number of different ethnic groups may be present in a given situation, each with different sets of shared norms and values.

A starting point for understanding the cultural environment is to explore whether:

• people’s participation has a place in the ideology of the state;⁴
• a tradition for collaborative management of natural resources exists in the locality concerned; and
• appropriate institutions for collaboration already exist.

The following aspects can be examined at a particular location to gain a better understanding of the conditions relevant to promoting collaborative management.

• What are the roles and rules for resource use?
• How are rights and privileges distributed and how are decisions made?
• How do disadvantaged groups perceive their rights and how are they perceived by others?
• What can and cannot be discussed in public?
• How do local users respond towards government?
• What are the institutional rules of representation?
• How are conflict, rule-breaking and mistakes handled?
• How do local people interact with outsiders?

Appropriate behaviour, roles, procedures and rules for collaborative management either pre-exist in a particular setting or need to be developed. Clearly, it will be easier to promote collaborative management if the cultural and institutional environment can accommodate it already. However, it is important to remember that cultural norms are not fixed. Cultures are dynamic and can be modified if people perceive a need for change. Therefore, resource users can modify and change norms for the purposes of collaboration if it is in their interests to do so (Bob Fisher, pers. comm., 1998). Cultural circumstances and the interests in collaboration can be explored early in the participatory process, and a determination can be made about whether an enabling environment is present or likely to emerge.

CONCLUSION

The preceding discussion has shown that there are many circumstances that can influence the enabling environment for collaborative management. There can be many stakeholders with different interests and preferences for management, and rarely is it possible to engage every single stakeholder in decision-making. There can be significant differences among people in their capacity to participate and influence out-comes. There can be conflict and numerous problems arising from the cultural, political, legal and economic circumstances.

As a result, a participatory approach to supporting collaborative management might be seriously constrained, or might fail, for a number of reasons. For example, one or more of the stakeholders may not be in favour of collaborative management, and if these stakeholders hold significant power they can make sure that collaboration does not work.

There is little to be gained by pushing an approach in an environment that is unsuited to it. This means that a support programme should always undertake a stake-holder analysis and check the enabling environment. It should reserve the right to walk away from an impossible set of circumstances in a specific location. Indeed, the act of walking away might stimulate stakeholders to rethink their position, or to work through a particular problem in the enabling environment, so that collaboration may have a better chance to succeed in future attempts.

This position is justified because often supporters are in the business of encouraging people to take risks and make investments that they might otherwise have avoided in the absence of the support programme. Mistakes by supporters and others during collaboration can be costly both for the rural poor and for the supporter. The rural poor can lose time and resources, and the supporter can lose credibility. Supporters carry this responsibility towards the people whom they are trying to help. This increases the importance of checking on stakeholders and the enabling environment at the start, and of reflecting and evaluating frequently so that problems and mistakes can be anticipated or revealed as early as possible.

Chapter 3 - Endnotes