Growing the Wealth of the Poor - World Resources Institute

1. BUILDING OWNERSHIPOwnership: A Local Stake inDevelopment and EnterpriseOWNERSHIPCAPACITYCONNECTIONEnforceable resource rightsCommunity demand for naturalresource managementCommunity investment of time, money,or other key inputsParticipation in and influence overdecision-making processesSee page 6 for full diagram.Managing ecosystems productively and sustainably generallyrequires a significant investment of time and resources. What cancatalyze the willingness to make this personal investment, or, evenmore challenging, the willingness to work and invest collaborativelywith others in the community? Ownership is theinducement—having a stake in the benefits that will accrue fromecosystem management. Ownership here involves both resourcerights—the rights over land and resources known as tenure—aswell as a sense of control over the larger process of resource developmentin a community. Local ownership of resource rights anddecision-making processes governing resource use provides themotive force for community-driven development of ecosystementerprises. Without this local stake in ownership, ecosystemmanagement schemes are not likely to be sustainable or effectiveat poverty reduction.As mentioned in Chapter 1, our use of the term ownershipdoes not necessarily imply possessing the full bundle of rightsattributed to private property. Many different tenure arrangements—fromfull private ownership to communal tenure toco-management arrangements over state-owned resources likeforests or fisheries—can support local nature-based enterprises.The critical factor for ownership is that local people—individuallyor collectively—have secure rights to use and control the ecosystemresources in question and perceive that their access is secure.While we do not explicitly take up the topic of decentralizationof natural resource governance in this chapter, it provides anecessary backdrop to our discussion of ownership. Decentralization—theshifting of decision-making powers from central to locallevels of government—is part of the larger process of devolvingresource rights to local-level institutions, which is an important firststep on the path to viable ecosystem enterprises. The currentreality is that resource rights are often not vested in local governments,communities, or individuals, and the poor are particularlylikely to suffer from a lack of control over the ecosystem resourcesthey rely on for their livelihoods. Centralized state control overforest, fishery, mineral, and wildlife resources is still the norm inTHIS SECTION: OWNERSHIPIn this section, we present the idea that “ownership,” broadly conceived,is the bedrock of nature-based enterprise. The incentive for soundresource management grows when individuals and communities possessenforceable resource rights and process rights—that is, when they havesecure access to natural resources of value as well as to the decisionmakingprocesses around natural resource management. This section:■ Examines the two components of ownership: secure rights in land oraquatic resources and the ability to participate in decision-makingaround the management of local ecosystem resources. Both areimportant to create a real stake in improved resource management.■ Links the success of community-based natural resources management(CBNRM) to the security of land and resource tenure and looksat recent innovations in tenure reform.■ Proposes that community demand for better resource management isa crucial element in catalyzing successful ecosystem enterprises andanalyzes how this demand arises.■ Traces how community demand is expressed as collective action—acommitment of resources and time for joint ecosystem management.■ Explains the importance of participation of community members inthe design of local resource management institutions and in theresource management process itself.■ Probes the weaknesses of current participatory methods with respectto the poor and suggests some strategies for making participationmore poor-friendly.49