Although governance innovations that involve moving powers closer to the citizens
are receiving increasing policy support, their implementation is not without
problems. This study uses review and case study approach to critically examine the
contradictions and ambiguities of "peasant empowerment" in a co- management
venture between Zimbabwean foresters and peasant communities. The institutional
infrastructure for co- management was derived from and superimposed upon a
complex web of local power bases, further fragmenting existing networks of
interest, affection and association, and thus limiting the scope for co- management.
The legislative environment, at least during the pre -2000 period, supported the
expropriation and control of the land and resources of peasant communities, thus
contradicting the underlying principle of co- management, which is that of co -equal
partnership. Powers over natural resources have remained centralized in the national
state; the little power that has been decentralised has been transferred to levels that
are not close enough to the citizens. Furthermore, there is no legislation that gives a
legal mandate and fiscal autonomy to units closer to the citizens than the district
level. The co- management venture is "supply -led" rather than "demand driven ",
implemented on the terms and conditions of their allies in the state bureaucracies
responsible for natural resource management. However, in spite of their
marginalisation, peasant communities continue to have a wide repertoire of tools,
which enable them to significantly penetrate local and broader political processes.
The study identifies the need for fundamental changes in the co- management
system, including the creation of downwardly accountable institutions and
experimentation with new co- management relations. It argues that such changes
require related reversals in the ways that researchers, policy -makers, civil society
organizations and other facilitators have traditionally conducted their business. The
central thesis is that the state and other external actors have sought to mould
seemingly local institutions and have tried to discipline these institutions towards the
achievement of top -down conservation objectives.
