Poverty is a persistent problem throughout Indonesia. Seven years after decentralisation began there is little improvement in the wellbeing of rural people. Local governments have received new opportunities and responsibilities for development, but few districts have the necessary capacity and experience to effectively reduce poverty. This report provides a portrait of household poverty and wellbeing in Kutai Barat, a district that was only established in 1999.

Poverty is a persistent problem throughout Indonesia. With decentralization, local governments had a new direct role in alleviating poverty and local wellbeing. At the same time they could do so in accordance with local realities and development needs. Yet, there is little improvement in the wellbeing of rural people. Local governments may lack the necessary capacity and experience to reduce poverty effectively. This report shows how a local specific monitoring system can be developed and applied.

The historical legacy in South Africa of apartheid and the resulting discriminatory policies and power imbalances are critical to understanding how water is managed and allocated, and how people participate in designated water governance structures. The progressive post-apartheid National Water Act (NWA) is the principal legal instrument related to water governance which has broadly embraced the principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).

Governments in many countries are decentralising to give more control over decision making and budgets to local administrations. One expectation of this change is that local governments will more effectively and efficiently respond to the poorest citizens in their jurisdictions. Decentralisation is especially significant to forest communities, which have historically benefited little from government services and poverty reduction programmes because of their physical isolation and social marginalisation.

Covers achievements and weaknesses of local land tenure management system; the local land tenure management system in the context of decentralization.

I683 new ‘communes’ have been created in Mali’s audacious decentralization policy. This has made central the issue of authority, responsibility and resource transfer from the central government. What are the privileges of the so-called traditional institutions created by the local people at the village level and between villages? What kind of cooperation should exist between these institutions and the government units? Highlights the achievements and constrains of the decentralization policy and outlines some possible solutions.

Why does the delimitation of local authorities’ area of influence cause so many problems in most West African countries? Does decentralization not usually result in the artificial and top-down creation of local administrative units whose entire legitimacy in the area of land management is yet to establish, while village or inter-village authorities have strong anchorage?

Land tenure reform policy has been affected by many different types of decentralization, but the literature has rarely explicitly addressed the implications of this. The paper provides a review of how the issues of decentralization are linked to land tenure reform in theory and practice. Begins with clarifying some key terms, then looks at contending perspectives on decentralization and how these relate to the UNDP’s pillars of democratic governance.

Recent UNRISD research finds that the new generation of land tenure reforms introduced in the 19990s is not necessarily more gender equitable than earlier efforts, even though women’s ability to gain independent access to land is increasingly on the statutes.

This paper summarises BASIS research on the current state of decentralisation processes in Malawi with a focus on water resources.The following specific points and recommendations emerge from the policy review and case study:much will need to be done to draw reforms in Malawi’s environmental sector to people’s attention.