Community participation in forest and water management planning in Kenya: challenges and opportunities

Forest and water are linked resources that are important to community livelihoods in East Africa. Sectoral reforms in Kenya have decentralized forest and water management functions to local communities through forest and water Acts. It has been argued that problems are more likely to be understood as interconnected, and thus managed more holistically, at the local level. Through case studies on the processes of developing forest and water management plans in two Kenyan ecosystems, we explore the challenges and opportunities for resource management planning at the local level. The questions we addressed are: How is the content of the plans determined? How is gender integrated ? What are the barriers to implementation? How can content and implementation be improved to support joint forest and water management? Despite their close links, water and forest governance is separate, as sectoral approaches nationally trickle down locally. We argue that the process of developing the plans should take an integrated landscape approach. A practical way forward is to improve current processes, by ensuring local participation and generating local ownership through improved facilitation and engagement of community members, including women. This includes the integration of community participants from both spheres into both forest and water management planning

Bertindak dengan tepat, panduan untuk meningkatkan inklusi dalam forum multipihak

MSF telah dipromosikan untuk menyatukan beragam konstituen agar dapat berbagi gagasan dan pendapat dan untuk merumuskan keputusan dengan cara yang lebih terbuka dan berkesetaraan tentang berbagai isu dan skala, dari negosiasi perubahan iklim global sampai keputusan pemanfaatan lahan lokal, namun para praktiknya bukti menunjukkan bahwa perempuan dan masyarakat adat sering kali kurang terwakili atau kurang berpengaruh dalam inisiatif-inisiatif multipihak. Bertindak dengan tepat mengatasi tantangan ini dengan menyediakan beberapa perangkat yang dirancang untuk mengoperasionalkan inklusi pada titik-titik pemicu yang spesifik yang suatu aksi akan bekerja paling efektif

Cómo acertar, guía para mejorar la inclusión en los foros multiactor

Los FMA han sido promovidos como medios para reunir a diferentes actores con el fin de compartir ideas y opiniones y tomar decisiones de una forma más abierta y equitativa en una variedad de temas y niveles, desde negociaciones mundiales sobre el cambio climático hasta decisiones locales sobre el uso de los bosques. Sin embargo, en la práctica, la evidencia muestra que las mujeres y los pueblos indígenas con frecuencia están subrepresentados o carecen de influencia en las iniciativas multiactor

Getting it right, a guide to improve inclusion in multistakeholder forums

This guide explains how to operationalize inclusion of women, Indigenous Peoples and other under-represented groups in multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs). Around the world, MSFs have been promoted and adopted as decision making, consultation and dialogue platforms to bring together diverse constituencies to share ideas and formulate decisions in a more open and equitable. Research finds that MSFs organizers believed that their forums foster equity simply by inviting more under-represented actors to the table; however, they spend less effort in addressing the power inequalities among participants and the quality of the participation and representation of historically under-represented groups. Getting it right focuses on the inclusion of women and Indigenous Peoples in natural resource management and governance contexts. In particular, we analyzed how these actors participate and/or are represented in spaces such as forest user group committees, co-management groups or forest commodity roundtable meetings. Our hope is that presenting cases of women and Indigenous Peoples provides insights into how different dimensions of social differentiation intersect in practice, pushing us to look at these different scales and inform us about other under-represented groups. Getting it right provides several tools that are designed to operationalize inclusion at specific trigger points where we believe action is most effective. Our goal with this guide is to present ideas, not solutions; the challenges to inclusion are complex, and unique to every MSF

Prendre le bon chemin, un guide pour améliorer l’inclusion dans les forums multipartites

Ces forums ont été présentés comme des espaces permettant de réunir diverses parties prenantes pour partager idées et opinions, prendre des décisions de manière plus ouverte et équitable sur un certain nombre d’enjeux et à diverses échelles, allant des décisions locales sur l’utilisation des forêts aux négociations internationales sur le changement climatique. Néanmoins, dans la pratique, les faits révèlent que les femmes et les peuples autochtones sont souvent soit sous-représentées ou sans in uence dans les initiatives multipartites. Prendre le bon chemin répond à cet enjeu en proposant plusieurs outils pour réaliser l’inclusion en des points précis là où l’action est la plus e cace