Abstract
This Framing Literature Review for In-depth Field Research draws on the knowledge produced from 30+ years of experience in participatory processes. It informs the Center for International Forestry Research’s (CIFOR) research of multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs) set up to address land use and land-use change at the subnational level in Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Peru. This literature review should be read in tandem with the project’s Methods Training Manual for In-depth Field Research.MSFs are set up as purposely organized interactive processes that bring together a range of stakeholders to participate in dialogue, decision making and/or implementation regarding actions to address a common problem or to achieve a goal for their common benefit. The growth of MSFs related to land use/land-use change reflects the awareness that environmental problems cannot be addressed without the effective engagement of the actors that determine land-use practices on the ground; nor can such problems be resolved within a conservation community when the drivers are located in other sectors. MSFs may produce more effective and sustainable outcomes by getting actors with contradictory development priorities to coordinate and align goals through discussion, negotiation and planning. In contrast, MSFs may also help to implement top-down approaches and create the illusion of participation. Scholars and activists note that ‘MSF’ may reify these approaches, and take the ‘participation’ of local stakeholders for granted in box-ticking exercises to please donors.This research is timely, because MSFs have received renewed attention from policy makers and development and conservation practitioners in light of the growing urgency to address climate change and transform development trajectories. The comparative project aims to contribute empirically to the study of MSFs and similar participatory processes.
Highlights
A radical alternative or the new ‘new tyranny’?“Any claims that participation can challenge the problems of ‘uneven development’ must be grounded in evidence and theoretically informed argument rather than in opposition to previously dominant models of development”. (Hickey and Mohan 2004: 4)“Communities serve less as decision makers than those consulted, less as regulators than rule-followers, less as licensing authorities than as licenses and less as enforcers than as reporters of offenses to still-dominant Government actors”. (Wily 2004: 3)“If you don’t sit at the table, you end up on the menu”. (Roberto Borrero, International Indian Treaty Council)“To learn, you must participate”. (Francisca Arara, Organization of Indigenous Teachers of Acre)Multi-stakeholder mechanisms have been hailed as “the collaboration paradigm of the 21st century” (Austin 2000:44)
Known in the scholarly and gray literature as multi-stakeholder forums, platforms, processes, partnerships, and networks, these initiatives are purposely organized interactive processes that bring together a range of stakeholders to participate in dialogue, decision making, and/or implementation to address a common problem or achieve a goal for their common benefit
The participation of stakeholders in different strategies for decision making around environmental issues, including multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs), is widely expected globally
Summary
“Any claims that participation can challenge the problems of ‘uneven development’ must be grounded in evidence and theoretically informed argument rather than in opposition to previously dominant models of development”. (Hickey and Mohan 2004: 4). Participatory processes are seen as a way to address power inequalities among stakeholders, to understand the perspectives of those most affected by land-use policy and decisions, and to try to bring on board those with the power to affect the implementation and sustainability of proposed initiatives (see Dougill et al 2006; Tippett 2007; Reed 2008; Reed et al 2008) In relation to this recognition of power inequalities, the renewed emphasis on local participation is a reflection of calls from academia and grassroots organizations for a rights-based approach to development and the concomitant recognition of the link between climate change and human rights that has taken place at the global scale, rooted in calls for greater community participation in both conservation and development since the 1980s (e.g. Chambers 1983; Chambers et al 1989). This scale will allow us to explore how strategies of global environmental governance are pursued and reshaped through the ‘friction’ of local encounters (Tsing 2005)
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