Who has rights to forests and forest resources? In recent years governments in the South have transferred at least 200 million hectares of forests to communities living in and around them . This book assesses the experience of what appears to be a new international trend that has substantially increased the share of the world's forests under community administration. Based on research in over 30 communities in selected countries in Asia (India, Nepal, Philippines, Laos, Indonesia), Africa (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana) and Latin America (Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, Nicaragua), it examines the process and outcomes of granting new rights, assessing a variety of governance issues in implementation, access to forest products and markets and outcomes for people and forests . Forest tenure reforms have been highly varied, ranging from the titling of indigenous territories to the granting of small land areas for forest regeneration or the right to a share in timber revenues. While in many cases these rights have been significant, new statutory rights do not automatically result in rights in practice, and a variety of institutional weaknesses and policy distortions have limited the impacts of change. Through the comparison of selected cases, the chapters explore the nature of forest reform, the extent and meaning of rights transferred or recognized, and the role of authority and citizens' networks in forest governance. They also assess opportunities and obstacles associated with government regulations and markets for forest products and the effects across the cases on livelihoods, forest condition and equity. Published with CIFOR

This book assembles experiences acquired with sustainable forest and tree resource management partnerships in various Latin American countries. It addresses the question of which conditions are necessary for partnerships to stimulate sustainable, socially just and pro-poor governance of forest resources.

This Review of Good Practices is published as a companion volume to the OECD Policy Framework for Investment and provides analytical background material on each of the ten chapters of the Framework.

This book provides an overview of international investment policy and policy-making, drawing upon perspectives from law, economics, international business, and political science. International investment is a complex phenomenon with significant effects worldwide. Developing effective policies and strategies to attract investment in sufficient quantities and marshal it to contribute to sustainable development is a critical challenge for governments at all levels. This book’s interdisciplinary approach provides fresh insights into the mix of policy options available to governments seeking investment to support their country’s (or region’s) development. As well as identifying ways to effectively design, implement, and assess policies to attract foreign investment, it explores how to manage foreign investment’s effects. Various dimensions of international investment policy are discussed, including benefits and costs (economic, environmental, social, and political) of foreign investment, the significance of global value chains, state-owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds, and the role of tax policy, investment promotion, and policy advocacy, location branding, investment treaties, and national security considerations. Through its contributions to a new interdisciplinary understanding of international investment policy-making, this book will benefit students and scholars working in areas such as international business, international economic law, international economics, development economics, international development, and international political economy as well as being a valuable resource for policy-makers.

Provides a pan-African synthesis of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), drawing on multiple authors and a wide range of documented experiences from Southern, Eastern, Western and Central Africa. This title discusses the degree to which CBNRM has met poverty alleviation, economic development and nature conservation objectives.

Many countries around the world are engaged in decentralization processes, and most African countries face serious problems with forest governance, from benefits sharing to illegality and sustainable forest management. This book summarizes experiences to date on the extent and nature of decentralization and its outcomes - most of which suggest an underperformance of governance reforms - and explores the viability of different governance instruments in the context of weak governance and expanding commercial pressures over forests. Findings are grouped into two thematic areas: decentralization, livelihoods and sustainable forest management; and international trade, finance and forest sector governance reforms. The authors examine diverse forces shaping the forest sector, including the theory and practice of decentralization, usurpation of authority, corruption and illegality, inequitable patterns of benefits capture and expansion of international trade in timber and carbon credits, and discuss related outcomes on livelihoods, forest condition and equity. The book builds on earlier volumes exploring different dimensions of decentralization and perspectives from other world regions, and distills dimensions of forest governance that are both unique to Africa and representative of broader global patterns. The authors ground their analysis in relevant theory while drawing out implications of their findings for policy and practice.