Resources

Pastoralism is an enduring economic and social system that has evolved over centuries and incorporates highly refined resource management, productivity, trade and social welfare mechanisms. Having received few tangible investments in the past - due partly to prevailing views of pastoralism as unproductive and unsustainable - strategies to aid Pastoralists in reaching their maximum economic, environmental and social potential are now being discussed. The notion of pastoralists participating in the forming and implementation of policies directly affecting them has also been called for. This report documents some of the strategies and actions proposed to address the social and economic marginalisation of pastoralists, following a workshop (a Shirka) between a group of people who come from or work with pastoralist communities in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. It explains why communication, participation and representation of marginalized communities is important when tackling poverty. It advises on how to develop reasonable and practical policies. It presents ideas for effective and implementable programmes and action plans of how participants at all levels intend to act towards the goals of stability, profit and sustainability among the pastoralist community.

This overview is about promoting people's participation in the management of natural resources, with a special focus on collaborative management systems. It starts by briefly describing the type and nature of participation used in the process of promoting and supporting collaborative management. The following chapter provides an overview of this process, describing the nature and scope of the participatory process for supporting the collaborative management of natural resources. A description of the actors involved and the environment in which the process occurs is presented, providing generalisations about stakeholder groups encountered, and a summary of circumstances of the physical and social environment that can have a major influence on collaborative management. The overview concludes with a discussion about some of the practical aspects of managing a support programme.

There is a growing recognition that citizens should play a role in informing and shaping environmental policy. But how should this be done? This paper explores one route, where opportunities 'from above' are created, often, but not exclusively so, by the state, often through local government policy and planning processes. A set of approaches - known collectively as Deliberative Inclusionary Processes (DIPs) - are explored in different settings through 35 case studies from both the north and south. These experiments in more inclusive, participatory forms of policy deliberation have been prompted by a number of factors. These include wider political shifts towards new forms of citizenship and democracy; concerns about policy effectiveness and implementation success; the emerging recognition of the complexity and uncertainty inherent in environmental problems; growing levels of distrust in policy processes and expert institutions; and the increasingly recognised importance of accepting that values, ethics and issues of justice are key to environmental policy problems. Through an examination of lessons emerging from the case studies, practical issues, such as time and resource constraints, are considered alongside methodological questions emerging from asking: who convenes the process, who defines the questions, and how are multiple forms of expertise accommodated? The paper shows how power relations and institutional contexts critically affect the outcomes of DIPs processes. Without linking such processes to broader processes of policy change - including connections to conventional forms of democratic representation - DIPs may simply be one-off events, and so their considerable potentials for transforming environmental policy processes will go unrealised.

Applying participatory approaches to natural resource management has become extremely popular with public and private agencies, which include government departments, development agencies, NGOs, international research agencies and Universities. This report is the result of a 4-day review workshop, which was held in order to address the issues faced by large bureaucracies in an attempt to ensure that they do not misapply or abuse participation. The key question raised during the workshop was how bureaucracies could learn and transform themselves to move away from top down approaches traditionally applied to development projects. Additionally, the notion of the appropriate roles for both bureaucracies and local groups and individuals was discussed in order to make certain that participation is institutionalized in a 'real' and people-centred manner.

This book describes how the Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) approach has been used at the local level in Bolangir, a district located in the State of Orissa, India, in which poverty manifests itself in many forms. PPAs are seen not as a panacea, but as a starting point to bring about understanding of the whole range of conditions affecting the lives of the poor. The aim of the study was to identify and recommend appropriate policy measures for the Western Orissa Rural Livelihood Project which is supported by DfID India. The scope and methodology of the study was evolved and administered in association with a large number of local stakeholders, with the hope that creating ownership amongst the various agencies would lead to prolonged and effective follow-up. Chapters focus on different issues which include gender dimensions, land and livestock, forest and common property resources, food security, droughts, migration, poverty in the eyes of the people and institutions and development initiatives. It ends with chapters on findings and recommendations for the project design process.

This article reports on a five-day workshop, which took place in Ethiopia on the use of participatory approaches in emergencies. The first section describes factors that can trigger an emergency situation. Examining history, politics, livelihoods, culture and climate all help us to understand the complexities of an emergency. The notion of including all stakeholders, but in particular people at the community level in responding to an emergency situation is also briefly described. The participatory methods and tools used are then briefly outlined, highlighted by a number of case studies. Finally, steps forward are suggested, including the arrangement of further workshops. Details of the participants are listed.

Amid the growing realisation that top-down, technocratic approaches to agricultural development largely fail, alternative approaches have begun to emerge, based on participatory methods, the use of local technologies and resources and the notion of 'farmers first'. In this context, a project began in the Chivi District in southern Zambia, which aimed to work, using alternative methods, with smallholder farmers to develop technological options in order to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods in marginal areas. The book describes the background of the farmers, and then details the community-based approach which involved needs-assessment surveys, institutional surveys, participatory planning, awareness-raising training, visits to view new technologies and local seed varieties. The ways in which the project sought to strengthen women's position in the local community is also described.