CGIAR Systemwide Program on
Collective Action and Property Rights

International Workshop on Collective Action, Property Rights, and Conflict in Natural Resources Management
June 28th to July 1st, 2010, Siem Reap, Cambodia

CAPRi hosted an international research workshop on Collective Action, Property Rights, and Confclict in Natural Resources Management from June 28th to July 1st, 2010, in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The workshop focused on the positive ways in which collective action to resolve problems of allocation and access to natural resources can help manage or prevent social conflict more generally.  The purpose was to consolidate and synthesize experience on best practices for policy and institutional change, to communicate these internationally, and to initiate a network of researchers and practitioners to share experience and build capacity in this domain.

The longer term vision is an active network committed to strengthening capacity from local to regional scales in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to address the roots of environmental conflict and build social-ecological resilience.  Please read the concept note a for a description of this ongoing initiative.

The vast majority of victims in contemporary violent conflicts are civilians who depend directly on natural resources for their livelihoods. The post‐Cold War era is marked by such “subsistence wars,” mostly intra-state or cross-border conflicts occurring in the world’s poorer regions. Environmental destruction, wasteful resource use, and growing livelihood insecurity in these regions lead to greater competition over access to and ownership of natural resources, which acts as a driving or contributing factor to the conflict.  A number of recent studies of this trend have attempted to identify the links between competition over natural resources and violent conflict.

Clearly, the progression from resource competition to violence is not inevitable. While much existing research has focused on how poverty, food insecurity, and scarcity of natural resources lead to violent conflict, the ways in which collective action to address these challenges may help to reduce the threat of conflict has received less attention. Numerous cases from Africa, Asia, and Latin America offer examples of conflict resolution or mitigation through efforts to organize for sustainable resource management, ranging from local to regional scales, and encompassing civil society, private, and state actors. These experiences, however, have not been assessed in comparative perspective. The workshop aimed to begin a process of addressing these links systematically, drawing on empirical cases from forests, water, land, fisheries, and other multiple resource systems.

The international workshop focused on the positive ways in which collective action to resolve problems of allocation and access to renewable natural resources can help manage or prevent social conflict more generally.

Papers presented at the workshop addressed the following themes:

Answers to these questions can help improve the design of policies and strategies for development interventions in conflict-affected environments, and identify ways to encourage improvements in natural resources management that reinforce cooperation and avert deepening cycles of conflict. The purpose of this workshop was to consolidate and synthesize experience on best practices for policy and institutional change, to communicate these lessons internationally, and to initiate a network of researchers and practitioners with an ongoing commitment to share experience and build capacity in this domain.

Workshop Papers

Papers presented at the conference are currently undergoing revision to be released as CAPRi Working Papers. Where not clearly identified as published CAPRi Working Papers, the papers listed below should be considered as drafts not for citation, since revisions are expected.

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