OPINION - Yulia Siagian and Heru Komarudin
Collective action plays an important role in many aspectsof human society. These include all manner of things: apublic election, a strike for higher wages, a meeting toform a sports club.
In the context of forests and development, probablythe most obvious application of collective action is seenin the efforts of people working together to reduce ruralpoverty.
Collective action can provide the rural poor with theopportunity to access services, request protection formutually-shared claims and community interests, andgenerally strengthen their overall bargaining power,especially when constrained by a lack of resources, powerand voice.
Despite its strengths, however, a number of researchershave shown that collective action at the local level oftenneeds external support to have any significant impact.
needs external support to have any significant impact.As one of 15 research centers within the ConsultativeGroup on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR),CIFOR has been involved in a CGIAR-wide project knownas CAPRi – the Programme on Collective Action andProperty Rights. Through this project, CIFOR has beenexploring the role of collective action in securing propertyrights for the poor in the Indonesian province of Jambi onthe island of Sumatra.
Working with government institutions andcommunities, we used a participatory action researchapproach to engage local communities and encouragemulti-stakeholder meetings. Our project also examinedgovernment policies and programs that might influencecollective action.
To evaluate our research we focused on two groupsof women and men farmers in two villages and examinedthe way they share roles, planned and acted in tacklingshared problems, as well as their level of success.
Our findings suggest the mechanism that groups usedto channel their aspirations and make plans had improved.Improvements were also seen in the opportunity peoplehave to act more freely and express their views, thusenhancing multi-stakeholder policymaking processes.
However, how the resulting policies have affected theway people act together and the security of property rightsfor local communities remains uncertain. For example, ourresearch suggests the central government’s cancellationof the local governments’ authority to issue small timberconcessions has both advantages and disadvantages. Thecancellation reduced forest degradation. It also allowedstakeholders to reflect on what worked and didn’t workwhen the local government had greater authority.
But it restricted our ability to learn how property rightsmay be secured and, if given clearly defined forest areas,whether local people would manage them any better.
Our research into multi-stakeholder meetingsclearly indicates people now have more opportunitiesto participate in regional development. Though stillin its infancy, the role of facilitated interaction amonggovernment officials, local politicians, villagers and otherparties is increasingly seen as leading to better policies.
Our participatory action research has increasedcommunity awareness of the importance of actingcollectively to resolve common issues. We visited severalcommuntities whose collective action had convincedofficials to certify communal land or agree to otherlandscape related requests. Now it is not unusual to hearpeople say “…it is easier to achieve our goal if we worktogether instead of individually.”
For more information about CIFOR’s collective actionresearch in Jambi, Indonesia, and about the differencesbetween male and female collective action, download theFPG News at:
http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/
research/governance/FPGNewsVol7No3.pdf