Natural resource management & land tenure

An approach that, instead of viewing poor and marginalized people as the target of poverty reduction efforts, gives control over planning decisions and investment resources to community groups and local governments. CDD programmes operate on the principles of local empowerment, participatory governance, demand-responsiveness, administrative autonomy, greater downward accountability, and enhanced local capacity. [Source: The World Bank, 2009]

Any act by which central government formally cedes powers (decision making, planning, implementing, financing) for public functions to actors and institutions at sub-national level.

(1) The traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised; this includes: (a) the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced, (b) the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies, and (c) the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them (http://go.worldbank.org/MKOGR258V0);
(2) Governance concerns the state’s ability to serve the citizens. It refers to the rules, processes, and behaviour by which interests are articulated, resources are managed, and power is exercised in society;
(3) Practices that promote the intervention of multiple actors in a joint decision making and action process, using strategies of participation, concertation and negotiation between these actors and interests.

(1) Local governance comprises a set of institutions, mechanisms and processes through which citizens and their groups can articulate their interests and needs, mediate their differences, and exercise their rights and obligations at the local level. The building blocks of good local governance are many: citizen participation, partnerships among key actors at the local level, capacity of local actors across all sectors, multiple flows of information, institutions of accountability, and a pro-poor orientation (UNDP 2004);
(2) Local governance emphasizes the need to look beyond the narrow perspective of legal frameworks and local government entities. It seeks to include the multiplicity of formal and informal relationships between different actors in development (e.g. local government, the private sector, associations, de-concentrated agencies, CSOs) that shape and influence the output and effectiveness of political and administrative systems at a sub-national level (DEZA, 2007).

The term livelihood attempts to capture not just what people do in order to make a living, but the resources that provide them with the capability to build a satisfactory living, the risk factors that they must consider in managing their resources, and the institutional and policy context that either helps or hinders them in their pursuit of a viable or improved living.

Land tenure is the right to the exclusive occupancy and use of a specified area of land (UN 2006).

Natural resources are natural assets occurring in nature that can be used for economic production or consumption. A destinction is made between renewable natural resources, i.e. resources that, after exploitation, can return to their previous stock levels by natural processes; conditionally renewable resources, i.e. those whose exploitation evantually reaches a level beyond which regeneration will become impossible; and non-renewable natural resources, i.e. exhaustible natural resources that can not be regenerates after exploitation (UN 2006).