A Research-based Regional Policy Forum
Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Alexandria, Egypt
 3-4 July 2006

Organized by the

International Food Policy Research Institute
and the
International Fund for Agricultural Development

Background

An important characteristic of the rural poor is that their livelihoods depend heavily on access to and use of natural resources. Policymakers have traditionally framed this access/use issue as an environmental planning and management problem. Failure to achieve the desired policy outcomes has been attributed to flaws in the policy options implemented. Such explanations fail to take into account the actors of change themselves, their capabilities and how institutions shape actors’ interactions in decision-making processes.

Research over the past two decades on property rights, collective action and policy processes has shown that for policy changes to be successful and effective, changes are also needed in the way policy options are developed, selected and implemented. Because policies emerge from policy processes that are themselves embedded in political processes, policy changes depend on the political feasibility of required institutional changes.

Policymakers and researchers are accordingly shifting their focus from the choice of policy options and solutions to the choice of the rules governing decision-making processes. At the same time, policy research is becoming less prescriptive and more oriented towards providing analytical tools that will enable policymakers to assess the comparative merits of alternative policy options depending on the institutional context and local conditions.

Improving the governance of natural resources therefore requires institutional changes. These in turn depend on the possibility of crafting agreements among mutually recognized parties. This apparently simple requirement raises a whole range of issues, in particular regarding relationships between the state and civil society organizations. In the Near East and North Africa region, the existence of representative, autonomous grass-roots organizations in rural areas cannot be taken for granted. State-sponsored efforts to create such organizations have been inconclusive. How can representative organizations reduce their dependency on state subsidies, and how can they minimize state interference with the designation of local leaders?

To reach and enforce new agreements among legitimate parties, it is necessary to identify ways of achieving a more even playing field among resource users on the one hand and between the state and grass-roots organizations on the other. How can the rural poor be empowered to manage natural resources and to overcome poverty? How should capabilities for decentralized natural resource management be measured? What conditions are required to make decentralized natural resource management effective? How can the risk of elite capture be reduced when management of natural resources is decentralized? Analytical tools to respond to these questions are inadequately developed.

The Regional Policy Forum on Natural Resource Policies in the Near East and North Africa is hosted by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and jointly organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). It has been planned for a maximum of 90 participants including high-level national policymakers, researchers, civil society organizations and major donors operating in the region. Based on a joint study by IFPRI and IFAD,¹ the forum will have a strong policy orientation, with researchers playing a facilitating role by providing a knowledge base for dialogue between policymakers and donors

Key Issues and Themes

• What is empowerment and how can it be measured?
• What are the determinants of natural resource management capability?
• What policies can empower rural poor communities to access and manage the natural resources on which their livelihoods depend?
• What institutional changes are required to implement these policies?
• What are the pathways to empowerment?

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1/ This is the research project “Empowering the Rural Poor under Volatile Policy Environments in the Near East and North Africa Region”.In 2005, national case studies for Morocco, the Sudan and Tunisia were presented at national workshops.