Day 1- afternoon session: Blake Ratner, WorldFish and Elias Madzudzo, WorldFish : “Participatory action research to influence land tenure policy and access to the commons in the Barotse floodplain, Zambia” Workshop on Approaches and Methods for Policy Process Research, co-sponsored by the CGIAR Research Programs on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) and Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) at IFPRI-Washington DC, November 18-20, 2013.

1. Participatory action research to influence
land tenure policy and access to the
commons in the Barotse floodplain, Zambia
PIM / A4NH Workshop on Methods and
Approaches for Policy Process Research
Elias Madzudzo and Blake Ratner, WorldFish

2. Institutional context
Barotse Royal
Barotse Royal
Establishment
Establishment
• Floodplain located within the
broader geographical and
political system of the Zambezi
River Basin
• Land belongs to the Litunga, the
traditional leader of the Barotse
Royal Establishment (BRE)
• Two parallel institutions influence
communities’ access to natural
resources: the BRE and the
Zambian state
(Madzudzo et al. 2013) – Supported by PIM

3. Issue 1: Land Tenure
• Discourages commercial economic investments in agriculture
and other land uses by favoring smaller scale, traditional
users
• Marginalizes outsiders from using land and other resources
• These constraints need to be considered in dialogue with
BRE to develop options for agriculture-based development in
the Barotse floodplain system

4. Issue 2: Access to the commons
• Access to fisheries and
pasturelands restricted
by:
– (a) traditional
governance
arrangements
– (b) competing efforts
at regulation and
enforcement by BRE
and state agencies
• Improving governance of
CPRs could reduce
household vulnerability to
shocks

5. Issue 3: Institutional relationships
• Contests between the
BRE and government
agencies affects quality of
community engagement
• Conflicting legislation,
inter-sectoral competition,
and competition within
and among civil society
organizations
• Institutional innovations
addressing these
shortcomings can
accelerate development
progress

6. AAS CRP approach
• Place-based
commitment
• Multistakeholder
coalition
• Participatory
action research
• Transformational
change
International
Partners

7. Governance innovation: Plans for
2014/2015
• Mainstream governance
analysis and action
planning in all components
• Pilot institutional
innovations using the
CORE (Collaborating for
Resilience) approach
• Develop and apply an
approach to monitor,
evaluate, and learn from
efforts to influence
institutions and policies

8. Evaluation & learning in the CORE
approach
What
succeeded
and what
failed?
What has
already been
tried
previously?
What do these
changes mean for
bringing the
collaboration to a
new level?
How has the
situation
changed?
1. Exploring
1. Exploring
the potential
the potential
for
for
collaboration
collaboration
3. Evaluating
3. Evaluating
outcomes and
outcomes and
sustaining
sustaining
collaboration
collaboration
What obstacles
are we facing,
and how can we
address these?
What
challenges
do we need
to face?
2. Facilitating
2. Facilitating
dialogue and
dialogue and
action
action
What are the
best ways to
bring about
this change?
Why did
some actions
succeed and
others fail?
Who needs
to change
behavior,
and how?

9. Collaborative Governance Assessment
(Ratner 2013) – Supported by PIM

10. Using research evidence to
influence/engage with policy processes
Policy process questions:
• How can participatory action
research, stakeholder
dialogue, and experimental
innovations generate
lessons for policy and
institutional reform?
• What channels are most
effective to communicate
these lessons and scale up
impact?
• What factors influence
policy and institutional
reform decisions?
Theories of change – to
consider (as categorized by
Stochowiak 2013):
•Policy windows
•Regime theory
•Community organizing theory
Methods & tools – to decide:
•Social network analysis
•Most significant change
•Stakeholder interviews
•Reflection workshops
•Others?