New Partnerships for Sustainability (NEPSUS)

Abstract:

"New and more complex partnerships are emerging to address the sustainability of natural resource use in developing countries. These partnerships variously link donors, governments, community-based organisations, NGOs, business, certification agencies and other intermediaries. High expectations and many resources have been invested in these initiatives. Yet, we still do not know whether more complexity, including more sophisticated organisational structures and inclusive processes, has delivered better sustainability outcomes, and if so, in what sectors and under which circumstances. In particular, we need a greater understanding of: the role played by facilitators in forging these initiatives; how partnerships obtain and manage legitimacy in different arenas; and how these factors may result in different outcomes. To fill this knowledge gap and build capacity in this area, NEPSUS is assembling a multidisciplinary team to analyse partnerships with different degrees of complexity through structured comparisons in three key natural resource sectors, with specific focus on Tanzania: wildlife, coastal resources and forestry. These sectors have established traditions for co-management and partnerships, but have also experienced recent innovations, and constitute important elements of rural livelihood strategies. Tanzania provides an ideal case for researching the impact of new partnerships on sustainability outcomes because policy and programme implementation in these three sectors are heavily dependent on their success."