CCMCCCONFLICT AND COOPERATION IN THE MANAGEMENT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

October 2017

Socially and ecologically just and sustainable management of natural resources is critical in addressing the vulnerability of those most affected by climate change. However, the complex space of conflict dynamics is too often overlooked in the design of climate change interventions.

By contributing to more conflict-sensitive policies and financing mechanisms, the Conflict and Cooperation in the Management of Climate Change (CCMCC) programme has worked to minimise the risks of climate change-related violence for the poor with a particular focus on women and children. CCMCC has worked to strengthen the evidence on the impact of climate change and related policies on conflict or cooperation in developing countries.

In particular, the programme has focused on strengthening evidence in order to formulate recommendations for enhancing conflict-sensitiveness of interventions that aim to mitigate or strengthen adaptation to the effects of climate change. CCMCC is part of the Conflict and Cooperation over Natural Resources in Developing Countries (CoCooN) research programme.

The research projects, funded by the British Department For International Development (DFID) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO-WOTRO), have worked to reduce vulnerability of the poor in the face of climate change by providing a space for dialogue and collaboration between researchers and research-users to maximise impact. Central to the programme are the principles of knowledge, research and innovation, research uptake and capacity development.

This approach has contributed to: • Achieving robust evidence about how climate change and related policies impact the dynamics of

cooperation and/or conflict over natural resources.• The development of tools and perspectives for climate change policy and financing mechanisms to enhance

conflict- sensitiveness that effectively contribute to the resilience of poor communities in developingcountries.

• An increase in the capacity of institutions, groups and individuals, to investigate, provide advice on, andimplement tools for climate change policy and financing mechanisms which are sensitive to conflict.

12 countries

7research themes

39 partners

7research projects

5years

5million GBP investment

“Recognition of all sections of our diverse and socially differentiated communities is crucial.

- Prof Ram Chhetri, an anthropologist from Tribhuvan University, Nepal

CCMCC

Front cover photo: Daniel Murdiyarso for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Flickr CC

Water in the cityPeri-Urban Water Security in South Asia

Researches local impacts of urbanisation and climate change on peri-urban communities.

Contributes to enhanced water security in peri-urban areas and climate-smart water resource policies.

Land and waterClimate finance mechanisms: investing in Land and Water (Investing in Land and Water)

Researches delays and conflicts at the implementation of climate finance mechanisms.

Contributes to climate finance mechanisms and lessons for the next generation of finance mechanisms.

Water and ForestryCommunity based Adaptive Learning in management of Conflicts and Natural Resources (CALCNR)

Researches community management, local adaptation strategies and national policies on climate change.

Contributes to improved natural resource and climate adaptation policies that promote cooperation between local and national stakeholders.

ForestConflict and cooperation over REDD+ in Mexico, Nepal and Vietnam (CoCooR)

Researches the impacts of REDD+ on conflict and cooperation in developing countries.

Contributes to conflict-sensitive REDD+ policy and practice, such as a conflict prediction checklist and training tools

Land (farmers and pastoralists)Towards more Inclusive and Cooperative Climate change Interventions (TICCI)

Researches the dynamics of inclusiveness, participation and conflict-sensitivity of climate change interventions.

Contributes to interventions to strengthen adaptive capacity and to reduce the risk of conflict.

Hydropower (water)Hydropower development in the context of climate change (HYDROPOWER)

Researches the effects of hydropower development and the cultural and ecological impacts.

Contributes to better institutional, technological and financial modalities by dialogue, innovative knowledge and capacity building.

Land (forest and biofuels)Climate change mitigation policies, land grabbing and conflict in fragile states (MOSAIC)

Researches land-based climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies from a human rights perspective.

Contributes to developing interventions that promote socially just and inclusive and democratic land policies at the local level.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

CoCooR

CONFLICT AND COOPERATION OVER REDD+ IN MEXICO, NEPAL AND VIETNAM

CoCooR is an interdisciplinary cross-country project analysing conflict and cooporation around Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) in Nepal, Mexico and Vietnam. The project started from the prem-ise that REDD+ might aggravate the protracted conflicts characterising forestry in the Global South or cause new conflicts in the absence of a conflict-sensitive approach. However, the changes in cross-scale governance brought about by REDD+ might also provide unprecedented opportunities for transforming existing conflicts and promoting cooperation.

CoCooR has explored the impact of REDD+ in developing countries through national and local level case studies. These three countries, which are at advanced stages of REDD+, offer excellent opportunities for generating insights relevant to other countries. The project has drawn on ethnography, discourse analysis and participatory re-search and applied an environmental justice lens to the study of conflict and cooperation with the ultimate goal of contributing to conflict-sensitive REDD+ policy and practice.

The project, one of three CCMCC projects considering REDD+, has worked to strengthen the evidence of the impact of REDD+ on conflict and cooperation in developing countries through innovative research.

MULTI-LEVEL PARTICIPATION Divergent claims about REDD+ across the three studied countries at both policy and project levels have been identified. These have resulted in grievances around how much focus should the government put on carbon ac-counting and monitoring as a means to generate economic incentives for participant communities, and who should control such revenues.

The necessary level of participation and informed consent that is required for REDD+ to be legitimate has been uneven, with more related conflict observed in Vietnam and less so in Mexico and Nepal. Overall, the project has unearthed diverse instances of conflict related to either historical struggles over land and forest rights (Vietnam) or unsettled debates about procedural fairness in forest and rural development policies that REDD+ sought to resolve.

The team has developed analytical approaches to better understand such dynamics and to identify the most relevant research questions and required data, as well as detailed accounts from early implementers of how conflict or cooperation have been reinforced as a result of REDD+ early implementation.

Already, project research findings have been used to feed into the practical tools and approaches in conflict transformation developed by the project partner, RECOFTC. CoCooR has also developed conflict prediction checklist for REDD+ practitioners, producing recommendations on conflict-sensitive national safeguards pro-cesses for decision-makers and provided relevant training to local communities, grassroots organisat ions, NGOs, government and project developers.

The CoCooR project has contributed to significant capacity development at national level, working to develop the capacities of policy-makers,and local levels. CoCooR research has contributed to the development of RECOFTC/Winrock’s tools and training programmes, while conflict predictors checklist and the conflict and FPIC training manuals developed by these organisations have helped the project team to refine their research and analysis. At local level the project has contributed to communities’ technological and communication capability to denounce threats to their livelihoods and changing environmental conditions. The ability to effectively communi-cate issues affecting their daily subsistence practices, needs and struggles to the wider civil society through their own words and pictures has been critical.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE PROJECT

• Improve / reform forest policy and law to provide the security and stability of forest/carbontenure.

• Develop guidelines through stakeholder dialogues including the procedures for multiplescales.

• Neutralise discrepancies between existing policies, institutions and instruments.• Participation in consultations is not effective: changes in language and communication

flows must allow for multi-directional inputs.• Benefit distribution mechanisms need addressing - formula based not effective.• Develop monitoring systems for benefit distribution.

PROJECT COORDINATORSDr Esteve Corbera (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain) Dr Poshendra Satyal (University of East Anglia, UK)

CONSORTIUM PARTNERSRECOFTC – The Centre for People and Forests (Thailand); INAH – Ins t i tuto Nacional de Antropología eHistoria (Mexico); SIAS – Southasia Institute for Advanced Studies (Nepal); ICS – Institute of Cultural Studies (Vietnam); Winrock International (USA)

MORE INFORMATION: https://goo.gl/dMyicr

CoCOOR

TOWARDS MORE INCLUSIVE AND COOPERATIVE CLIMATE CHANGE INTERVENTIONS

Non-governmental organisations and state institutions are designing and implementing interventions and policies to increase the adaptive capacity of vulnerable groups confronted with climatic change and variability. By changing local natural resource use patterns, even “successful” interventions risk in-citing new local conflicts or deepening existing lines of conflict and contestation. As a result, marginalised populations often subjected to the adverse consequences of climate change, may not only have limited possibilities to benefit from climate change adaptation policies and interventions, but are also confronted with increasing competing claims.

This is especially clear in the case of relations between sedentary farmers and nomadic and semi-nomad-ic pastoralists. The TICCI project’s research shows these relationships become increasingly strained as a re-sult of adaptation interventions singularly targeting crop farmers. The project seeks to make sense of this dynamic, focusing on farmer and pastoralist livelihood systems in dryland areas of Ghana, Burkina Faso and Kenya. The TICCI project thus aims to improve climate change adaptation interventions and policies directed at small-scale farmers and pastoralists in terms of conflict- sensitivity. The project generates knowledge about the link between climate change adaptation interventions and livelihoods; conflict and cooperation; and sharing generated knowledge through the creation of learning platforms.

TICCI aims to enhance the capacity of policy-makers and development practitioners to design and implement climate change adaptation policies and interventions which are less conflictive and more inclusive. The project hopea to contribute to adaptation interventions which minimise conflict and/or the risk thereof, and instead, foster new forms of cooperation.

EXPECTED CONTRIBUTIONSSmart and effective adaptation policies and practices build on a thorough awareness of complex realities. This project brings together different scientific schools of thought to achieve a better understanding of the links between community participation in development, local power and conflict dynamics, climate change interventions and people’s adaptive capacity, especially in relation to farmer-herder dynamics.

As a second step, the project hopes to contribute to the formulation of community-smart, conflict-sensi-tive climate change adaptation policies, and develop applicable tools and outputs for both practitioners and policy-makers. All this will be achieved in close connection with the communities, policy-makers and practitioners that participate in the research. The ambition of the team is that, as a result of the project, adaptation interventions can be more sensitive to possible conflict and inequalities, for example based on gender.

TICCI

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE PROJECT

• Adaptation interventions in African drylands change the availability of natural resources,and in doing so, impact the distribution and access to those natural resources by multiplestakeholders. Adaptation regimes need to be more inclusive and considerate of theimportant and fragile relational dynamics governing natural resources, between competinggroups.

• Landscapes, with an emphasis on social dimensions, should replace ‘communities’ aspoints of departure for adaptation interventions. Interventions should start by assessinghow competing groups make use of natural resources, and for which purpose, within agiven landscape.

• Crop-based adaptations that succeed in raising income levels require relational systemsfor managing natural resources between multiple stakeholders. Without the implementation ofsuch interventions, the risk of conflict is increased.

TICCI

PROJECT COORDINATORProf. Annelies Zoomers (Utrecht University)

CONSORTIUM PARTNERSCCAFS-CGIAR (through Savanah Agricultural Development Institute – SARI and Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles – INERA); Indigenous Livelihoods Enhancement Partners(ILEP) and CARE Ghana.

MORE INFORMATION www.adaptationlandscapes.org

PERI-URBAN WATER SECURITY

PERI-URBAN WATER SECURITY IN SOUTH ASIA

Climate change and rapid urbanisation are creating growing problems of water insecurity in the peri-urban areas of the cities of Khulna (Bangladesh), Kathmandu (Nepal) and Hyderabad and Gurgaon (India).

Urbanisation creates an increasing demand for natural resources, especially land and water. Expanding cities often ex-tract these resources from peri-urban areas, for instance by pumping groundwater from outside the city and selling it to city residents. These and other developments, including climate change, threaten the livelihoods of peri-urban residents and also raise concerns about social differentiation and injustice. Earlier research shows an increasing incidence of conflicts over access to water, but evidence of new forms of cooperation devised to overcome water insecurity as well.

This project aims to improve the water security of communities in peri-urban areas in Bangladesh, India and Nepal by enhancing their resilience to the effects of urbanisation and climate change and by contributing to climate-smart water resource policies that take into account peri-urban areas.

DEVELOPMENTPeri-urban areas receive very little academic and policy attention. Contributing to knowledge, development and capacity building, this project addresses this shortfall.

Teams in the three countries have intensively studied the local impacts of urbanisation and climate change as ex-perienced by peri-urban communities, water and climate change policies at various levels, and water-related conflict and cooperation. Special attention is paid to the emergence and reproduction of forms of social differentiation along lines of caste, gender, class and other forms of social organisations.

Strategic engagement with bureaucrats, technocrats, academics, researchers and community representatives were made based on power and influence that each of them holds in the peri-urban spaces. Through dialougue and consultation meetings, the project has engaged widely.

The project has also conducted training programmes for community members, women’s groups, schoolteachers’ political representatives to help the researchers understand the current behavioural trends of the actors, their needs, and to devise tools of communication that will actually make research accessible to each of them.

PROJECT COORDINATORDr Dik Roth (Wageningen University & Research Centre)

CONSORTIUM PARTNERSBangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET); International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD); Jagrata Juba Shangha (JJS); Meta Meta; SaciWATERs; Wageningen University & Research Centre (WUR)

MORE INFORMATION http://saciwaters.org/cocoon

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE PROJECT

• Local government can take a proactive role in improving water securities for peri-urban communitiesby improving coordination between local communities and related government and non-governmentorganisations in the policy processes. Such initiatives are crucial to understand the peri-urban contexts and todeal with peri-urban socio-environmental dynamics. In these processes due attention is needed tothe historical practices of land and water uses, rights and related institution and the power differencesalong the existing and evolving social lines of differentiations.

• Multiple actors are involved in peri-urban socio-environmental dynamics. Recognising, understandingand addressing their diverse needs, interests and issues require effective coordination among the land,water, urban, industrial development, climate change policies and related organisations.

• Interests, needs and issues in peri-urban contexts are continuously changing. Thus regular researchis needed in understanding and disseminating information about these dynamics. Paying attentionto the peri-urban issues can help in recognising alternative planning and management pathways, orspecific entry points for realistic intervention strategies addressing claims, concerns and problems inpolicyprocesses.

PERI-URBAN WATER SECURITY

HYDROPOWER DEVELOPMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Often called the Water Towers of Asia, the Himalayan region represents the collision of two processes em-blematic for the early 21st century. The first is the recognition of the region as highly vulnerable to the effects of global climate change. Second, is the recent surge in hydropower development. Policy discourses at nation-al and international levels position the development of hydropower as synergistically positive: it combines the production of clean energy to fuel economic growth at regional and national levels with initiatives to lift poor mountain communities out of poverty. This project looks into how the effects of hydropower development intersect with the impacts of climate change in the culturally and ecologically diverse region of the Eastern Himalayas in Nepal and India.

CLEAN, RENEWABLE AND JUST

Indeed, hydropower is relatively clean and renewable, but negative socio-environmental repercussions of large hydropower dams are difficult to minimise. The project examines the current enthusiasm for hy-dropower development, identifying the strong alliances that support it and compares these narratives to the experiences of project-affected communities with a view to identifying ways and means to a more just development of hydropower.

This project makes visible the tensions and contradictions between hydropower development and climate change in the region through a comparative transdisciplinary research approach. Through a large network of researchers, academics, journalists, activists, policy-makers and energy and water professionals, the proj-ect aims to enable dialogue across these communities generating innovative knowledge and promoting capacity building it contributes to better institutional, technological and financial modalities of hy-dropower development.

The Hydropower project strives for more just and climate-resilient hydropower development trajectories in the Eastern Himalayas in order to support the livelihoods of affected mountain communities.

PROJECT COORDINATORDr Deepa Joshi (Coventry University) Bert Bruins (Wageningen University & Research)

CONSORTIUM PARTNERSUniversity of East Anglia; International Rivers; Sikkim University; Nepal Engineering College; Nepal Water Conservation Foundation; IWMI, Nepal; Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India.

HYDROPOWER

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE PROJECT

• Environmental flow assessment methods need to be finalised.• Environmental flow assessment must be mandatory.• Upstream and downstream flows need be to be monitored on real-time basis using telemetry.• Local community must be trained and involved in flow monitoring.• Climate change effects on water availability must be a part of hydrological analysis process.• Integrating climage change effects into the design process of hydropower projects is essential.• Policy needs to be backed up by legal provisions.• Provisions for independent third party involvement in public hearing and environmental impact

assessment studies.• Part of the generated electricity should be allocated for local consumption; incorporation of clear

benefit sharing mechanisms needs to be included and made an integral part of the financialanalysis.

• Costs of hydropower impacts on socio-cultural parameters should be made part of feasibilityanalyses.

• Capacity building of local government is essential.

HYDROPOWER

INVESTING IN LAND & WATER

CLIMATE FINANCE MECHANISMS: INVESTING IN LAND AND WATER

Millions of people in developing countries are highly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, such as floods and droughts. Climate finance mechanisms that have been established from, in theory, an incentive to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, and at the same time contribute to poverty reduction by offering payments for restoration and protection of the environment. In practice, however, implementation of projects under climate finance mechanisms is not reaching these dual expectations. Reported problems include conflicting interests related to land tenure, benefit sharing of financial and natural resources, diverging information, and complicated procedures on carbon accounting and monitoring. Through a multilevel approach the project has noted differences in framing the objectives, benefits and priorities among stakeholders at local, national and international level. This project analyses the complications of these discrepancies for the implementation of programmes on the ground, in particular projects that aim to conserve or restore forests with support of community based approaches.

Unravelling these conflicting perceptions and understanding the challenges in implementing climate financing in the case study areas in Indonesia and Ethiopia look at why projects implemented under climate finance mechanisms are susceptible to delays and (deepening) conflicts over resources. These insights aim to provide evidence-based insights to inform local, national and international processes of policy-making and implementation.

The multi-disciplinary Land & Water team is conducting research in Ethiopia, Indonesia and The Netherlands, in order to address the strengths and flaws of climate finance mechanisms from a local, national and global perspec-tive. The research contributes to a better understanding of obstacles by assessing the objectives, design, implementation and evaluation of finance mechanisms, with emphasis on REDD+ and Climate Development Mechanism (CDM). This also includes an analysis of the perceptions, expectations and interests of local communities, civil society organisations, private sector and involved government actors in the case study areas. Social learning among consortium members and local stakeholders is central to all project activities, such as joint methodology development, participatory research and synthesis workshops.

The project team aims to help improve the track record of existing climate finance mechanisms and to provide important lessons for the next generation of finance mechanisms, notably the Green Climate Fund. Its ultimate ambition is to make climate finance mechanisms more effective and inclusive

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE PROJECT

• The significance of already existing participatory forest management systems cannot be ignored,including their effect on new climate finance projects. Many climate finance projects seem to build further on existing participatory forest management projects, which raises the question about the ad-ditionality of carbon emission reduction as well as the reproduction of inequities embedded in these existing projects. It is therefore needed to critically and independently review the performance and implications of existing projects, including the role of the implementing agencies, before decisions are taking on initiating new climate finance projects.

• An integrated approach to working with multiple natural resources is of crucial importance. Climatefinance projects often fail to deliver win-win solutions because they largely focus on disciplinary ap-proaches within forestry, while in daily life local communities often rely on diverse strategies involving multiple natural resources to secure livelihoods.

• It is crucial to develop a careful understanding of the phenomenon of land grabbing and thevast range of diverse context in which it unfolds. Land acquisition rarely takes place in illegal form, but rather it materialises in the context of contested ownership lands or in localities where the property rights have not been granted. The role of national actors needs to be scrutinised rather than associating land grabbing mainly with direct foreign investments. Beyond legality and rhetoric of ‘free will’ and ‘fair compensation’, it is crucial to look at the ethical dimension of reconfiguration of property rights and land transfers.

• Multi-stakeholder dialogues and multi-stakeholder decision-making needs to be respected not onlyin theory and spirit, but also in practice when considering results-based payments projects. This includes actively engaging marginalised groups, and being cautious with using terms such as ‘community’ as it often assumed a consensus of all local groups, while less prominent voices and interests easily can be overlooked, or even muted.

PROJECT COORDINATOR: Prof. Charlotte de Fraiture (IHE Delft)

CONSORTIUM PARTNERS: HoAREC; Wageningen University & ResearchCentre; Both ENDS; Aksi!

INVESTING IN LAND & WATER

Photo: Flickr / Rod Waddington

CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION POLICIES, LAND GRABBING AND CONFLICT IN FRAGILE STATES

Land-based climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies are meant to protect our global commons and to improve the livelihoods of people in developing countries. Examples include biofuel production, forest conservation, REDD+, hydropower, some types of irrigation projects and land use re-zoning. However, there is increasing evidence that such well-meant strategies create or exacerbate local conflicts over access to resources and land; or that preexisting resource conflicts may undermine climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives.

Fragile states where a land rush is occurring are particularly vulnerable to increased conflict and potentially problematical land-based climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives. The MOSAIC project investi-gates the interplay of land-based climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, land rush, and conflict or cooperation from a human rights perspective. Its analysis is focused at the landscape level. The research is conducted in two fragile states: Myanmar and Cambodia.

The impact of climate change is felt at the local and global level – and both need to be addressed. This project builds capacity for development interventions that promote socially just and inclusive mitigation and adaptation strategies and democratic land policies at the local level. To achieve this, grassroots social movements, NGOs and academic partners work together to gather data from the grassroots, while national and international governance instruments are identified for possible advocacy strategies. The project contributes to theories concerned with the conditions under which inclusive, landscape- level strategies for preventing resource conflicts can be achieved. It is the ambition of the project members to contribute to an emerging international network of both knowledge and practice.

Project findings validate some of our initial assumptions about the increased intertwining of climate and agrarian justice issues and mobilisations by local communities and grassroots organisations, but also complicate these with the textured dynamics of small-scale land grabbing and freelance logging among organisations and communities. Climate change, as part of the international policy agenda, intertwines with local objectives toward social and environmental justice through new environmental land grabs, but also through new avenues for redress and new institutional partners at the local, national, and international levels.

MOSAIC

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE PROJECT

• Profit-minded administration of interventions and projects need to be over shadowed when deal-ing with the threat of climate change.

• Direct support is favoured over market mechanisms.• Direct and regular payments from the project (government) to the community for monitoring ac-

tivities should be avoided.• Discourage small bounded areas for community enforcement in favor of larger areas with more

benefit• Enhance ‘ecosystem thinking’ among government officials and project coordinators for more

effective protection and use of the forest• Enforce national laws regarding homesteading and timber extraction

PROJECT COORDINATOR: Prof. Jun Borras, International Institute of Social Studies

CONSORTIUM PARTNERS:Chiang Mai University; Autonomous University of Barcelona; Transnational Institute; Paung Ku; Metta, ICCO-South East Asia; CDPS/CPN; Equitable Cambodia, FIAN

MORE IMFORMATION: https://Mosaic/iss.nl

MOSAIC

Photo: Flickr / Chhor Sokunthea / World Bank

CALCNR

COMMUNITY BASED ADAPTIVE LEARNING IN MANAGEMENT OF CONFLICTS AND NATURAL RESOURCES

Bangladesh and Nepal, located in the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin, both have high levels of poverty and the effects of climate change further threaten people’s livelihoods on a daily basis. As a result, conflicts over access to and use of floodplain wetlands (Bangladesh) and forests and water (Nepal) are increasing. Both countries have considerable experience with community-based co-management of natural resources; however, this experience has hardly informed policy-making at the national level. Government policies for climate change adaptation remain blind to local conflicts over scarce natural resources and are inconsistent with local adaptation initiatives.

CALCNR generates evidence-based knowledge on the gaps and conflicts that exist between community management of natural resources, local adaptation strategies and national policies on climate change in Nepal and Bangladesh in order to improve policy and promote cooperation between local and national stakeholders. The project specifically seeks to address the question: How can collective action be enabled to reduce natural resource conflicts associated with climate change stresses and related responses?

BUILDING CAPACITIESThe research team builds on its long-term collaboration with networks of community-based organisations (CBOs) in natural resource management in both countries. CALCNR has generated evidence through partic-ipatory action research with existing CBOs on 79 cases of conflict in Bangladesh and Nepal. The case studies show how climatic changes directly or indirectly intensify or help to trigger conflicts (within communities and with private enterprises and governments) and affect the resilience of local co-management institu-tions. Other factors such as access disputes, declining natural resources and local institutional failures also contribute.

The cases include in Bangladesh conflicts over water (affected by salinity, sea level rise, more unreliable rain-fall), and in Nepal pressures on community forestry (such as climate affected patterns of pastoralism) and water management innovations to reduce local water conflict. Action research was able to transform conflict into enhanced cooperation in 62 of the cases. Several factors were found to enable this, in ad-dition to dialogue and facilitation. These enablers include innovations in adaptation such as water man-agement or in governance, sharing knowledge, systematic learning between CBOs, and local incentives. The lessons and evidence are shared with other similar CBOs through adaptive learning networks, spread-ing understanding and adoption of good practices.

However, policy engagement for CBOs is limited. CALCNR is strengthening the capacities of the CBO net-works and facilitating regional and national platforms where they can share their knowledge with policy-makers in environmental governance and how supportive application of policies can en-able conflicts to be overcome.

And while donors are investing large amounts in national and local-level climate change adaptation plan-ning in Bangladesh and Nepal, not all adaptations are win-win responses; there can be winners and losers. Conflict-smart adaptation needs to ensure that losers are not disadvantaged by adaptation interventions; recognise local natural resource conflicts; build in flexibility to adopt those enabling practices appropriate to each location; and encourage coordination, negotiation and joint actions between existing institutions and CBOs.

PROJECT COORDINATOR: Dr Parvin Sultana (Middlesex University)

CONSORTIUM PARTNERS:Forest Action Nepal; International Development Enterprises; International Centre for Climate Change and Development; Nice Foundation; Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University.

“The knowledge generated by this project will help inform conflict sensitive use of adaptation funds to improve the livelihoods of millions of people who depend on the vulnerable ecosystems.

- Dr Parvin Sultana

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NEPAL

• Listen to the messages and voices coming from research and grassroots/civic organisations: thesemay offer better solutions to many existing natural resource conflicts.

• Expanded community forestry can substantially help address forest conflicts. Further piloting,handing over larger forest areas and for more productive management is needed.

• Rethink stereotyped approaches on forest-landless relation which can lead to win-win solutions forforest conservation and poverty reduction.

• Support more holistic management of land, water and forests. Strengthening local government’srole may lead to more integrated and resilient system of natural resource management.

• Adopt a more adaptive and flexible approach to development and environmental interventionsthat foster experimentation and innovations.

• Promote, strengthen and formalise multiple use water systems through regulatory support to protectand manage water from various sources and encourage system alliances and networking.

• Create an environment to allow for financing through public-private partnerships.• Intergration of multiple use water systems with agricultural interventions such as rural collection

centers, micro-irrigation technologies and their networks would be of great benefit.

CALCNR

CCMCCCONFLICT AND COOPERATION IN THE MANAGEMENT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

NWO-WOTRO Science for Global DevelopmentLaan van Nieuw Oost Indië 3002593 CE The Hague

PO Box 931202509 AC The Hague

The Netherlands

cocoon@nwo.nlwww.nwo.nl/ccmcc