Publication: Benefits to Local Communities from Community Conservancies in Namibia: An Assessment
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Date
2009
ISSN
0376835X
Published
2009
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Abstract
This article evaluates the benefits of community-based activities in wildlife conservancies in Namibia by asking three questions. Do community conservancies contribute to an increase in household welfare? Are such programmes pro-poor; that is, do they improve welfare more for poorer households than for the less poor? Does participation in conservancy increase household welfare more for participants than non-participants? This study bases the analyses on a 2002 survey covering seven conservancies and 1192 households. The results suggest that community conservancies have a positive impact on household welfare. The authors also conclude that this impact is poverty-neutral in some regions and pro-poor in others. Further, welfare benefits from conservancies appear to be fairly evenly distributed between participant and non-participant households.
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Publication Do Households Gain from Community-Based Natural Resource Management? An Evaluation of Community Conservancies in Namibia(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2004-06)Community-based natural resource management is an important strategy to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity and wildlife in Namibia. The authors examine the extent to which conservancies have been successful in meeting their primary goal of improving the lives of rural households. They evaluate the benefits of community conservancies in Namibia by asking three questions: Do conservancies increase household welfare? Are conservancies pro-poor? And, do participants in conservancies gain more relative to those who choose not to participate? The authors base their analyses on a 2002 survey covering seven conservancies and 1,192 households. The results suggest that community conservancies have a positive impact on household welfare. This impact is poverty-neutral in some regions and pro-poor in others. 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Using data from 1,200 households in 66 communities participating in a CDD project in the Philippines, we analyze how communities select their proposals and how resources are allocated across villages. Resources flow to the poorest and more politically active villages. Controlling for poverty, more unequal villages are more likely to receive funding. This surprising result is because in more unequal villages, the elected village leader is more likely to override community preferences, and to influence inter-village competition such that project resources flow to their villages.Publication Yield Impact of Irrigation Management Transfer : Story from the Philippines(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-08)Irrigation management transfer is an important strategy among donors and governments to strengthen farmer control over water and irrigation infrastructure. This study seeks to understand whether irrigation management transfer is meeting the promise of its commitments. 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Household participation is strongly correlated with scarcity, a result that has implications for a recent policy to expand community forestry from degraded to less degraded forests. The authors' most important findings are that fuelwood consumption and participation are linked, and household participation has a significant positive impact on consumption. However, the presence of a village level forestry institution does not have a direct effect.
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