This paper notes that under a sustainable, well-managed, logging regime, Papua – the most densely forested part of Indonesia – can potentially contribute substantial forest revenues for socio-economic development. Yet, it remains the poorest region in the country, in part due to widespread corruption involving public and private actors.The paper argues that, reforming the management of these resources – specifically, introducing accountability and transparency into the collection of forest revenues – is a key precondition for welfare improvements in the region.

This book examines the gender dimensions of natural resource exploitation and management, with a focus on Asia. It explores the uneasy negotiations between theory, policy, and practice that are often evident within the realm of gender, environment, and natural resource management. It offers a critical feminist perspective on gender relations and natural resource management in the context of contemporary policy concerns: decentralized governance, the elimination of poverty, and the mainstreaming of gender.The book is centred around three themes:

A publication from Engineers Against Poverty for the extractive industries - an eight-page briefing note to guide oil, gas and mining (OGM) companies on how they can maximise the contribution of local enterprises to the supply chain of their projects in low income countries. It provides practical guidance on three major opportunity areas to increase local enterprise participation in project supply chains:

modifying procurement policies and processes
modifying contract documentation
supporting the efficacy of supplier development programs

In 1992, a United Nations declaration proclaimed water as a human right. However, the water profession and the vast majority of governments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have not paid much attention.
This online book systematically analyses the legal development of the concept of water as a human right with particular reference to MENA countries. It considers:

This paper discusses how a participatory method to facilitate thinking about future scenarios can help change the way forest communities and local governments interact. It reviews a growing body of literature on future scenarios and shares first-hand experiences in forest communities in the northern Bolivian Amazon and the central provinces of Vietnam. This paper finds that under the right conditions, the use of future scenarios:

This sourcebook is intended as a ready reference for practitioners (including World Bank stakeholders and clients in borrowing countries as well as Bank project leaders) seeking information on the state of the art about good land management approaches and innovations for investments, and close monitoring for potential scaling up.

Originally Published In: World Bank, Agriculture and Rural Development Department (2008)

Although the historical focus on tenure reforms has resulted in some important improvements in the livelihoods of forest communities, it has not prevented them from suffering social exclusion and impoverishment.

In 2002, Forest Trends reported that in recent decades governments had begun to reduce their legal ownership and control of the world’s forests. This document evaluates whether this forest tenure transition continued in the 2002–2008 period, and assesses the implications of statutory forest tenure change for forest people, governments, and the global community. The report is based on the monitoring of governments’ data on formal and legal tenure by the Rights and Resources Initiative. The authors find that the transition did continue in the 2002–2008 period.

Water projects have, arguably, the greatest potential to create conflict in development programmes. Not only is water central to health, sanitation and agrarian livelihoods but it can contribute to other conflict dynamics such as land or grazing rights. Applying conflict-sensitive programming to water projects, therefore, seeks to minimise the potential for fuelling conflict whilst looking to maximise the potential positive impact of the development. This paper details the experience of applying conflict-sensitivity to two water projects in Uganda.

The violence which followed the contested December 2007 Kenyan election was, arguably, an opportunity for historical grievances to be settled. This paper focuses on the land issue in regards to Kenya, asserting that land is a primary cause of conflcit in the country as it has been the crux of economic, cultural and socio-economic change.

Sahelian rural populations’ needs are sourced from on-farm indigenous tree species. However, access, use and management of indigenous tree species within their territories are restricted by forestry laws. This has built suspicion and discontent between foresters and natural resource users. Natural resource users argue that they own the trees on their farms; in contrast, the state claims to own protected indigenous trees on farms as stipulated in the forestry laws. These mismatches have served to increase deforestation despite stringent penalties and use of permits and licenses.

This paper summarises a study undertaken by the Indonesian Forest Climate Alliance (IFCA) to support Indonesian stakeholders to participate in global negotiations. The authors note that the objective of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) payment distribution mechanisms is to support policies and measures that reduce deforestation and degradation through transfer of revenues from international REDD funds or carbon markets to national levels.