Seasonal changes and ambiguity in property rights over land and natural resources create conflicts in rural communities in eastern Zambia. This study describes how rural households have minimized such conflicts and protect the economic interests of the poor members of the community through...

Disputes over land, water, forests, rangelands, and other resources, both privately and commonly-held, are omnipresent across Africa and increasing in number due to the socioeconomic and environmental changes happening on micro- and macro-levels. Communities in Africa have a variety of...

Water governance reforms are underway in many parts of the developing world. They address the principles, institutions, and legal and administrative practices through which decisions are made on the development, allocation, and conditions of use of water resources at all levels of society. As...

In developing countries where access to and use of renewable natural resources essential to rural livelihoods are highly contested, improving cooperation in their management is increasingly seen as an important element in strategies for peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and longer-term...

The food security crisis, international “land grabs,†and new markets for environmental services have drawn renewed attention to the role of natural resource competition in the livelihoods of the rural poor. While significant empirical research has focused on diagnosing the links...

Forest conflict in Asia is on the rise as various stakeholders have different views about and interests in the management of increasingly scarce resources. Unfortunately, in many instances, local communities and indigenous peoples suffer the most when such conflicts play out. The biggest...

This paper reviews the central role of institutions for climate-smart agriculture (CSA), focusing on the role of institutions in promoting inclusivity, providing information, enabling local level innovation, encouraging investment, and offering insurance to enable smallholders, women, and poor...

This analysis assesses community based organization (CBO) performance including conflict management over three years among about 150 floodplain CBOs and reviews experience in the five forest protected areas with co-management.

This paper looks at the gendered impacts of a development project that provided improved dairy cattle and training as part of a broader effort to develop a smallholder-friendly, market-oriented dairy value chain in Manica province, Mozambique. The project targeted households, registered cows in...