Democratic Decentralisation through a Natural Resource Lens: An Introduction

Abstract

Anne M. Larson is a Research Associate at the Center for International Forestry Research and Nitlapan Institute for Research and Development, Managua, Nicaragua. Jesse C. Ribot is a Senior Associate at the Institutions and Governance Program, World Resources Institute (WRI), Washington, DC. They are indebted to the Rockefeller Foundation for providing the funds and an inspiring venue for the conference at Bellagio, at which the papers in this volume were first presented. They wish to express their thanks to: the Africa Bureau of USAID for funding much of the background research for the Africa contributions to this project and for supporting many of the Bellagio participants; Jon Anderson at the Africa Bureau of USAID for encouraging critical thinking, policy research and outreach on governance issues at the frontier between environment and democracy; David Kaimowitz at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor, Indonesia, for contributing CIFOR’s experience and in-depth research to the Bellagio meeting by generously financing several CIFOR participants, and for supporting the research behind the Latin American cases in this volume; the South Africa office of the Ford Foundation for generously supporting the final stages of this publication; Judy Butler for diligent copy-editing; Catherine Benson for logistical support; and Peter G. Veit at WRI for being supportive of this project throughout. They also acknowledge the key role of the anonymous peer reviewers.