Strengthening natural resource institutions in Africa: Applying social learning to reconciling poverty reduction and environmental management

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorBuck, Louise E.en
dc.contributor.authorAnderson, Jonen
dc.contributor.authorBehr, Diji Chandrasekharanen
dc.contributor.departmentSustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (SANREM) Knowledgebaseen
dc.coverage.spatialAfricaen
dc.date.accessioned2016-04-19T18:55:48Zen
dc.date.available2016-04-19T18:55:48Zen
dc.date.issued2003en
dc.descriptionMetadata only recorden
dc.description.abstractIn the past two decades social and political changes in Africa have unmasked the underlying complexity and pluralism of natural resource management landscapes and exposed the untenable nature of linear, centralized technocratic approaches. Institutional pluralism as both reality and approach has arisen to address complexity in natural resource management by attempting to negotiate and accommodate contradictory interests and knowledge. Management increases in complexity as the geographic scale and the scope of problem situations expand and competing and conflicting stakeholder interests intensify in response to threats of appropriation, scarcity or deterioration. New institutional arrangements face a critical challenge in balancing poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and equity decision criteria in the face of uncertain and changing relationships within complex adaptive social and ecological systems. An initiative to assess lessons learned from more than 20 years of development in rural Africa reveals that social learning is vital in pluralistic settings, enabling joint institutional capacity to adapt and innovate. Drawing from the cases and from literature on social learning a practical typology is proposed for tailoring the choice and design of social learning methods to situations that are framed by varying levels of complexity and different governance regimes. The paper describes characteristics and applications of social learning in institutional strengthening, and examines implications for reconciling poverty reduction and environmental management in Africa.en
dc.description.notesAvailable in SANREM office, FSen
dc.format.mimetypetext/plainen
dc.identifier1176en
dc.identifier.citationDepartment of Natural Resources, Cornell Universityen
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/65978en
dc.language.isoen_USen
dc.subjectInstitutional capacity buildingen
dc.subjectNatural resource managementen
dc.subjectPovertyen
dc.subjectSocial learningen
dc.subjectPluralismen
dc.subjectComplex systemsen
dc.subjectAdaptive managementen
dc.subjectAfricaen
dc.subjectNatural resource institutionsen
dc.subjectGovernanceen
dc.titleStrengthening natural resource institutions in Africa: Applying social learning to reconciling poverty reduction and environmental managementen
dc.typeAbstracten
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten

Files

Collections

Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (SANREM) Knowledgebase