Abstract
Multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs) have received much attention from policymakers and development and conservation practitioners as a transformative solution for more equitable coordination and decision-making over environmental challenges. Studies on "invited spaces" have previously shown the importance of balancing power relations and attending to context. To what extent do the plans and expectations of MSF organizers reflect these previous lessons? This paper examines how and why the organizers of 13 subnational MSFs addressing sustainable land and resource management in Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Peru established these forums, and if and how their plans and expectations compare to previous lessons on invited spaces. Findings reveal that the organizers conceived of power inequalities as obstacles that could be overcome by including historically disempowered peoples in the MSFs, but generally failed to consider specific measures to address inequalities; nor did they develop clear strategies to engage with unsustainable local development and political priorities.
Highlights
Over the past decades, multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs) have been organized for all kinds of collaboration and coordination under different initiatives, such as community forest management (Mohanty 2014, Nayak and Bernes 2008), participatory budgeting (Shan 2007, Wampler 2010), and resource management (Chímère et al 2009, Søreide and Truex 2011)
This paper focuses on questions intended to understand if and how organizers took into account the power relations and political and development priorities in the context where they implemented their forums
This paper has inspected MSFs after their re-introduction as a ‘new’ method of practice in light of climate change, with hopes placed on broad participation and collaboration to design and implement new landscape-scale solutions
Summary
Multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs) have been organized for all kinds of collaboration and coordination under different initiatives, such as community forest management (Mohanty 2014, Nayak and Bernes 2008), participatory budgeting (Shan 2007, Wampler 2010), and resource management (Chímère et al 2009, Søreide and Truex 2011). MSFs have received renewed attention worldwide due to the urgency to transform development trajectories to address the climate crisis. Power inequalities are a central challenge to MSFs that address unsustainable land and resource use, as they are often set within contexts marked by histories of conflict and deep inequalities, and where trade-offs are inherent and the actors involved are significantly diverse (Robbins 2012, Barnes and Child 2014). This is important to consider, as recent experimental research on reciprocity and collaboration concluded that inequality undermines cooperation (Hauser et al 2019)
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