PPWNov13- Day 1 pm- Madzudzo and Ratner- Worldfish

Participatory action research to influence land tenure policy and access to the commons in the Barotse floodplain, Zambia

PIM / A4NH Workshop on Methods and Approaches for Policy Process ResearchElias Madzudzo and Blake Ratner, WorldFish

Institutional context

• Floodplain located within the broader geographical and political system of the Zambezi River Basin

• Land belongs to the Litunga, the traditional leader of the Barotse Royal Establishment (BRE)

• Two parallel institutions influence communities’ access to natural resources: the BRE and the Zambian state

Barotse Royal Establishment

Barotse Royal Establishment

(Madzudzo et al. 2013) – Supported by PIM

Issue 1: Land Tenure

• Discourages commercial economic investments in agriculture and other land uses by favoring smaller scale, traditional users

• Marginalizes outsiders from using land and other resources

• These constraints need to be considered in dialogue with BRE to develop options for agriculture-based development in the Barotse floodplain system

Issue 2: Access to the commons

• Access to fisheries and pasturelands restricted by: – (a) traditional

governance arrangements

– (b) competing efforts at regulation and enforcement by BRE and state agencies

• Improving governance of CPRs could reduce household vulnerability to shocks

Issue 3: Institutional relationships

• Contests between the BRE and government agencies affects quality of community engagement

• Conflicting legislation, inter-sectoral competition, and competition within and among civil society organizations

• Institutional innovations addressing these shortcomings can accelerate development progress

AAS CRP approach

International Partners

• Place-based commitment

• Multi-stakeholder coalition

• Participatory action research

• Transformational

change

Governance innovation: Plans for 2014/2015

• Mainstream governance analysis and action planning in all components

• Pilot institutional innovations using the CORE (Collaborating for Resilience) approach

• Develop and apply an approach to monitor, evaluate, and learn from efforts to influence institutions and policies

Evaluation & learning in the CORE approach

1. Exploring the potential

for collaboration

1. Exploring the potential

for collaboration

2. Facilitating dialogue and

action

2. Facilitating dialogue and

action

3. Evaluating

outcomes and sustaining

collaboration

3. Evaluating

outcomes and sustaining

collaboration

What has already been tried previously?

What succeeded and what failed?

What challenges do we need to face?

Why did some actions succeed and others fail?

Who needs to change behavior, and how?

What are the best ways to bring about this change?

What obstacles are we facing, and how can we address these?

What do these changes mean for bringing the collaboration to a new level?

How has the situation changed?

Collaborative Governance Assessment

(Ratner 2013) – Supported by PIM

Using research evidence to influence/engage with policy processes

Policy process questions: • How can participatory

action research, stakeholder dialogue, and experimental innovations generate lessons for policy and institutional reform?

• What channels are most effective to communicate these lessons and scale up impact?

• What factors influence policy and institutional reform decisions?

Theories of change – to consider (as categorized by Stochowiak 2013): •Policy windows•Regime theory•Community organizing theory

Methods & tools – to decide: •Social network analysis•Most significant change•Stakeholder interviews•Reflection workshops•Others?