Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Prepare for your exams
Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points to download
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
The concept of subsidiarity in the context of natural resources management and the challenges faced in implementing decentralization policies in Southeast Asia. The document examines case studies from Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and China, highlighting common themes such as incomplete subsidiarity, limited downward accountability, lack of capacity of democratically elected local governments, donor-driven decentralization, and inadequate coordination between governmental and non-governmental actors. The document also proposes solutions to these challenges, including building capacity of local governments, fostering local ownership and control, and implementing conflict resolution mechanisms.
Typology: Slides
1 / 32
This page cannot be seen from the preview
Don't miss anything!
Synthesis of Decentralization Case Studies under the Resources Policy Support Initiative (REPSI)
Yuko Kurauchi Antonio La Vina Nathan Badenoch Lindsey Fransen
This paper was produced as part of the World Resources Institute’s Resources Policy Support Initiative (REPSI). The analysis in this paper is based on case studies conducted by colleagues at the Fisheries Action Coalition Team (FACT) in Cambodia, the Centre for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge (CBIK) in China, Yayasan Kemala in Indonesia, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Thailand, and Hanoi Agricultural University (HAU) in Vietnam. CARE-Thailand, the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, and the Program in Sustainable Land Use and Natural Resources at Chiang Mai University also provided support for the case study in Thailand. First and foremost, the authors would like to express deep gratitude to all of the REPSI researchers for their contributions to these case studies. The authors take sole responsibility for the interpretation of the source material in this synthesis.
We would particularly like to acknowledge the role of Anne Marie DeRose, former REPSI Associate, for taking the lead in the regional analysis and managing the partnerships and processes that constitute REPSI activities. This report has also benefited from feedback from many other individuals. The authors are grateful to Mak Sithirith, Pornchai Prechapanya, and Tran Duc Vien for sharing their knowledge and expertise to improve the scope and accuracy of this report. We also wish to thank colleagues Frances Seymour, Jen Lesar, and Jesse Ribot for their invaluable comments and suggestions on the earlier versions of the manuscript, and Mairi Dupar and Fritz Kahrl for their contributions to the early stages of this project.
WRI acknowledges the United States Agency for International Development, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and the Ford Foundation- Beijing for their generous financial support of REPSI.
most affected by their use. Moreover, costs are often borne by those who do not share in the benefits. It is therefore essential that both upward and downward accountability exist to create a level playing field for each of the stakeholders involved in the management and utilization of natural resources. Accountability can also lead to the promotion of social justice and social cohesion, which has implications beyond the bounds of natural resources management.
Beyond subsidiarity and accountability, an adequate supply of human, financial, social, and political resources is necessary to achieve successful decentralization. Local officials, institutions, and individuals must have the capacity to implement the decisions they make in order to capitalize on the powers and authority they are given and to truly be held accountable for their role in natural resources management. They must have the capacity necessary to fulfil their responsibilities at each stage of the policy process, including public consultation, information gathering, decision-making, policy implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and conflict resolution. This capacity extends beyond financial resources to include the ability to gather information and assess trade-offs, the technical expertise required for implementation of policies, a staff skilled in outreach to engage communities, cultural sensitivity, and knowledge of the appropriate legal issues.
This paper assembles the information and knowledge gained from the five case studies carried out as part of REPSI in order to reflect on and contribute to the debate surrounding the relationship between decentralization of government structure and natural resources management.
The remainder of the paper is divided into three sections. Section II summarizes the five case studies with respect to the characteristics and extent of decentralization in the natural resources sector identified in the individual countries, focusing particularly on the principles of subsidiarity, accountability, and capacity.
In Section III of this paper, we examine a set of cross-cutting themes and lessons that constitute common points of investigation among the case studies. These include:
Section IV summarizes the key findings of the paper and provides policy recommendations on how to effectively design and implement decentralization so that both environmental and development needs are met.
Each of the case studies investigated the effects of shifting natural resources management powers to local governments and rural communities—especially indigenous and ethnic minority communities—that have traditionally relied on forest, land, and water resources for their subsistence and livelihoods. Although each country is at a different stage in the implementation of decentralization policies, they all must deal with pressure stemming
from competing uses for common natural resources, confusion over conflicting policies and/or laws, and socio-cultural diversity.
1. Cambodia Background In Cambodia, research was conducted in three communities in Pursat province. Situated in western Cambodia, Pursat is an area of varied topography that ranges from a large upland plateau and rain fed lowland to floodplain adjacent to Tonle Sap Lake. It shares many characteristics with other parts of rural Cambodia, including a rich diversity of ecosystems and ethnic cultures, a high degree of dependence on subsistence farming and fishing among the population, and traditional harvest exchange practices among farming and fishing communities. Ever-increasing external commercial forestry and fishing pressures have strained the traditional system of natural resources management and exchange between subsistence farmers and fishers, with important implications for human and ecosystem well-being (Kingdom of Cambodia, 2002). The Cambodian study addresses the results of SEILA, a pilot government decentralization program, focusing on the linkages between political decentralization and the state of natural resources and local livelihoods.
STATE
Province
District
Commune
Village
Figure 1: Administrative Divisions in Cambodia
Policy Setting Decentralization has taken on increasing importance in Cambodia in the last decade. In 1996, following the 1993 UN-sponsored democratic elections and the initiation of the UNDP Cambodia Area Rehabilitation and Regeneration Project, the government launched a decentralized rural development program called SEILA (a Khmer word for a stone used in the foundation in construction) in selected provinces, including Pursat. SEILA was introduced as an experiment spurred by the international donor community with the aim of better resolving local problems concerning poverty and economic development (Samath et al., 2001 ). To this end, the national government devolved functions and responsibilities for designing, financing, and delivering public services and development programs from the central level to provincial and lower levels. The success of the pilot initiative led to further decentralization, including the expansion of SEILA’s second phase (2001-05) into a nationwide program that, among other activities, supported the first democratic election of commune councils in 2002 (SEILA Task Force, 2000).
Study Findings^1 Cambodia’s traditional state-centered governance system is often cited as an underlying cause of accelerated natural resources degradation (Fichtenau et al., 2002). Internal and external pressures set the stage for the development of Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) in Pursat province. Initial community forestry and fisheries projects in Kampong Pou and Anlong Raing communes were undertaken with
(^1) Based on Sithirith, Honey, and Raingsey (2005).
responsibilities for preserving natural resources. For example, environmental concerns have been explicitly integrated into commune development plans. The formulation of community by-laws, community maps, and joint resources management committees has contributed to the promotion of intra- and inter-village dialogue and cooperation, and has strengthened social cohesion. Furthermore, local indigenous people have acquired many of the skills necessary for effective CBNRM implementation through a series of technical trainings and workshops facilitated by the SEILA task force and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
However, the case studies show that the process for establishing CBNRM still needs to be streamlined in terms of coordination between the local and central governments, and criteria for granting community forestry rights—e.g., in degraded vs. resource-rich land—need to be clarified and communicated to communities. An overarching obstacle is that all natural resources, including land, forest, and water resources are by law state property. Despite the issuance of sub-decrees in 2003 and 2005 to provide legal protection for the rights of communities to manage local forest and fishery resources, the central government’s understanding and commitment to decentralization for natural resources management has not substantially improved.
The principles of subsidiarity, accountability, and capacity have yet to penetrate the heart of the mainstream governance reform agenda. Democratically elected commune councils, though mandated to protect local natural resources by the Law on the Administration of Communes, are not fully granted resource access rights even within their jurisdiction. Decision-making and administrative responsibilities are instead transferred to less downwardly accountable and less representative regional or local branches of the central government and line ministries. Overlapping responsibilities of multiple agencies involved in community project operation and limited interagency coordination have been roadblocks to the effective implementation of CBNRM. Local people are still not given appreciable say over how to allocate access to and use of natural resources in their community, and there is a concern that the absence of effective legal, administrative, and financial frameworks to complement the community forestry/fisheries initiatives will dismiss the bottom-up, grassroots efforts documented in these studies as an incidental and peripheral activity in environmentally degraded areas.
2. Indonesia Background In Indonesia, Papua and West Sumatra, the most advanced provinces in the nation’s decentralization process, were selected as case studies to ascertain the extent to which new regional governance and special autonomy laws enhance or hinder CBNRM and poverty reduction. In both Papua and West Sumatra, forests and land have long been at the center of conflicts between concessionaires and locals over the management, use, and protection of natural resources. The Papua study assesses the significance of a special autonomy law to the way Papuan land and forests are exploited and their benefits shared, while the West Sumatra study focuses on the area’s legal framework for the rights of traditional customary communities. How authority is devolved to a sub-national level of government and how the role of customary community rights can be incorporated to ensure better accountability are some of the common questions addressed in both Indonesian studies.
Figure 2: Administrative Divisions in Indonesia
Province
District
Nagari
Village
STATE
Policy Setting The fall of the authoritarian New Order regime of Suharto in 1998 was followed by the advent of democratic decentralization in Indonesia. In 1999, the national Government enacted Law No. 22/1999 on Regional Autonomy and Law No. 25/1999 on Fiscal Decentralization as part of a broader effort to curb the prevailing corruption, collusion, and nepotism of the Suharto era. Consequently, powers and responsibilities over a large number of government functions were devolved to district and municipal authorities. These include the sectors of health, education, public works, agriculture, communications, industry and trade, labor, capital investment, environment, and land affairs (Silver, 2003). In line with the central government’s decision to uphold and strengthen local autonomy, governments at the sub-national level have undertaken policy and administrative reforms in the natural resources sector.
In West Sumatra, the 1999 decentralization laws were accompanied by the formulation of the Regional Government Regulation No. 9/2000. The aim of the regulation is to reintroduce nagari , traditional indigenous political units, as the lowest level of government, and to place decision-making authority in their hands. Nagari had suffered a severe setback for more than two decades under the uniform village administration system during the New Order regime, which did not recognize customary laws, boundaries, and institutions, and eroded the unity of nagari populations (Thorburn, 2000). Since the issuance of the regional regulation, thousands of artificially created villages have been re-merged into hundreds of nagari. This “back to the nagari ” policy is hailed by West Sumatrans as a crucial step toward the resurgence of customary norms and the restoration of property rights over communal lands (McCarthy, 2002; Bebbington et al., 2004). Currently, governments at provincial and lower levels are preparing drafts of new ordinances to define and defend communal land rights. The underlying assumption is that with the legal recognition of a customary tenure system and traditional
with the high cost of concession licenses, has remained an obstacle to forest management and exploitation by the kopermas. Since their inception, most kopermas have relied on external logging companies or other investment bodies to meet project-related needs. A strong resentment has formed among nagari community members in areas where outsiders and elites have taken control over local natural resource management, excluding the community from information, decision-making, and benefit flows.
A similar phenomenon is seen in West Sumatra, where new decentralization laws and policies at the provincial and district levels have also given discretionary powers to nagari governments. Despite power lying at a local level, the study found that downward accountability was lacking, as decisions issued by the local government and nagari representatives were often not in line with the needs and aspirations of the communities. The interpretation of provincial laws at lower levels of government is also a challenge— in Solok District, for example, land governance laws drawn up by different agencies were found to conflict with each other, delaying their passage. In some cases, district-level ordinances have been passed, but nagari have protested the policies because of a lack of participation in their formulation. Thus, even where decision-making power has been passed from the provincial level to more local government bodies, communities themselves do not appear to have a strong voice in decision-making.
The Indonesian case studies show that while the country has made some progress in decentralization, more work is needed to strengthen subsidiarity, accountability, and capacity. The lack of subsidiarity is demonstrated by conflicting policies that place the same powers at both local and higher levels. It appears that in the face of this confusion, very little local decision-making over natural resources management is effectively carried out. Capacity—in terms of financial resources, information, technological skills, and the ability to enforce regulations—is also limited. While nagari in Papua have legal control over their forests through the kopermas , the studies showed that kopermas board members had insufficient training in forestry and other relevant skills to manage the forests themselves, so control was passed on to private companies, which created resentment in the broader community. Finally, accountability needs to improve for the decentralization begun in Sumatra and Papua to successfully safeguard the environment and community livelihoods. In the absence of clear policies dictating responsibility, it is unclear who is accountable to whom—and thus far, it appears that local populations are not in a position to demand accountability to their interests.
3. Thailand Background In Thailand, research was conducted in the Mae Chaem watershed of Chiang Mai province, which is well-known for its ecological and ethnic diversity. Although much of the biologically rich, forested landscape in the Mae Chaem watershed has protected area status, the people who live in the area do not sufficiently benefit from the ecosystem services the watershed provides. The penetration of market forces into the region in conjunction with rather weak institutional structures has contributed to negative outcomes, such as the loss of local knowledge of agro-ecology and traditional farming practices, unsustainable agricultural expansion, and frequent conflicts between upstream and downstream ethnic communities over access to land, forest, and water resources. Deep-rooted suspicion and mistrust among ethnic communities is one of the most formidable problems facing Mae Chaem. The Thai study examines the roles and practices of local stakeholders in watershed governance. These stakeholders include Tambon Administrative Organizations (TAOs)—partly locally-elected
Figure 3: Administrative Divisions in Thailand
Province
District
Sub-district ( Tambon )
Village
STATE
and partly state-appointed government bodies at the sub-district ( tambon ) and township levels—and community-led natural resources management networks.
Policy Setting Thailand has undertaken an ambitious experiment of democratic decentralization, strongly supported by the New Constitution of 1997, which mandates popular participation in decision-making and the devolution of powers to localities. Major outcomes of this reform process include the establishment and empowerment of more than 8,000 TAOs. Evidence of TAOs’ empowerment is seen in their freedom to raise local revenues, issue local regulations, formulate and carry out development planning, and to implement these plans. In upland areas such as Mae Chaem where the majority of the population relies directly on land, forest and water resources for their livelihoods, TAOs nominally assume responsibility, alongside national and regional authorities, for natural resources management in their territories (Buch-Hansen, 2003; Pragtong, 2000).
Equally significant in the Mae Chaem decentralization process is the enhanced involvement of civil society in the form of people’s organizations—called prachakom — in natural resources planning and management. A wide variety of prachakom , ranging from government-led agricultural cooperatives to informal clan-based ethnic groups, are being created to meet locally perceived needs and priorities that TAOs and other governmental agencies cannot fully address due to jurisdictional limitations and resource constraints (Wittayapak and Dearden, 1999). Of particular note among the numerous prachakom are the watershed management networks—inter-village conflict resolution and prevention mechanisms extending beyond ethnic and tambon boundaries— formulated in Mae Suk and Mae Khong Kha sub-watersheds.
4. Vietnam Background The upland forests of Vietnam have long served as a life- sustaining source for a wide range of ethnic groups, providing them with essential resources of income, fuel, food, medicines, and construction materials. However, forest cover has declined dramatically over the past few decades due to a variety of immediate and underlying causes, such as wars, steep population growth, unplanned agricultural clearance, and development of a market economy. The research team in Vietnam focused their studies on three upland indigenous communities, including a Thai ethnic minority community located in Chieng Hac commune in Son La province, northwestern Vietnam; and two communities, one populated by the Thai ethnic group and the other by the Khomu ethnic group, in Xa Luong commune in the north central province of Nghe An. The study compares the implementation of forestland allocation laws and related policies in areas with different ecological settings and ethnicities. In particular, it assesses the role of local institutions, community participation, and benefit sharing in forest management.
Figure 4: Administrative Divisions in Vietnam
Province
District
Commune
Village/Hamlet
STATE
Policy Setting Among a number of landmark policy reforms undertaken to address deforestation and forest degradation, of critical importance in terms of decentralization are Decree 02/CP and Decree 163/ND-CP. Decree 02/CP was enacted in 1994 to allot land with standing forest and barren land to organizations and individuals for fifty years or longer for forestry purposes. The forest recipients were granted land use certificates indicating their land use rights. Decree 163/ND-CP was issued in 1999 to complement Decree 02/CP by adding provisions that allow forest recipients to lease their allocated land. As the decrees delegate full authority for implementing and enforcing the forestland allocation program to the provincial government, local authorities’ administrative and financial autonomy is restricted.
However, a number of provincial decisions and instructions were signed to facilitate the participation and contribution of lower tiers of government in forest management (Sikor, 2001). For example, forestland allocation boards were established at different administrative levels. The boards bring together representatives from broad segments of society, including government officials, community leaders, and technical experts, with the aim of fostering horizontal collaboration and enhancing systematic implementation of forest management plans. There are also efforts to foster vertical coordination and transparency. District boards assume responsibility for overall implementation of forest allocation policies, with guidance from the provincial government. Commune boards disseminate information from higher levels of government on project sites—size, location, geographic characteristics, land cover, and forest patterns—and allocation processes to forest recipients through multiple channels, including radio, newspaper, television, internet, and face-to-face communications. Commune boards also help
higher-level government authorities and local resource users reach consensus regarding land allocation and operational plans. Consultation meetings organized by the commune boards provide local people with the opportunity to ask questions and give direct feedback and ideas on the plans to provincial and district government officials.
Study Findings^4 The current wave of decentralization reforms in Vietnam holds considerable promise for natural resources conservation and upland community development. Most importantly, the introduction of transparent and participatory decision-making mechanisms can help prevent confusion and turmoil. Villagers have witnessed a reduction in problems such as unequal access to resources and discrepancy in land size between maps and reality, which had arisen frequently in the past as a result of miscommunication and mismanagement. In order to compensate for the economic losses attributable to forest conservation policies, the forestland allocation boards allow local farmers to practice rotational shifting cultivation in certain parts of the allocations and have encouraged them to adopt new and advanced agroforestry technologies. It is expected that greater tenure security and livelihood support will strengthen communities’ capacity for land management and improvements.
However, the tide of the central government’s intervention in local implementation of the forest policies has not yet receded enough to allow for the effective application of the subsidiarity principle. The central government dictates detailed uniform guidelines regarding which portion of communal plots is to be used for reforestation, what land-use methods can be adopted, and which tree species are planted, with little regard for specific local conditions such as geographic features or traditional local knowledge and practices of resource management. This incomplete decentralization holds true for budget issues as well. Funds for forestland allocation activities are controlled at the provincial level, while actual implementation is carried out at the district and commune level. This has resulted in delays of allocation and issuance of land-use certificates, as well as budget shortfalls.
As part of the forestland allocation process, meetings were held to inform villagers of their rights and opportunities related to the program, as well as to give feedback, raise problems, and work with authorities to adjust policies to better suit their needs. These meetings are a positive first step toward participatory government, but the case studies found that villagers still had incomplete information about forest policies and in some cases continued unsustainable forest resource exploitation.
The policy reforms have had varying results in the three case study communities. For example, geographical proximity to the market, better understanding of the market economy, and fluency in the Kinh (Vietnamese) language have enabled the Thai ethnic group in Huoi Tai hamlet to shift quickly to, and gain profits from, the new forest management system. There has been a marked increase in the number and variety of forest resources and in economic well-being in Huoi Tai since the introduction of cash
(^4) Based on Vien, Quang, and Thanh (2005).
5. China Background In the Yunnan province of China, researchers conducted a study in the Nan-e sub-watershed in Menglong township of Xishuangbanna prefecture. The Nan-e River is the third largest river in the prefecture in terms of water discharge. The Nan-e sub-watershed, where the elevation varies from 800 to 2, meters, covers a total area of 2500 square kilometers, and is endowed with rich and diverse forest ecosystems. The sub- watershed includes five administrative villages, where three ethnic minority groups—the Hani, the Blang, and the Dai— reside. Xishuangbanna provides an interesting setting for studying the impacts of decentralization on natural resources management because of its dramatic policy and institutional reforms and subsequent rapid changes in land use and cover over the past several decades. The Yunnan study examines the decentralization process in the forest sector by addressing how decisions are made at different levels regarding forest-to- agricultural land conversion and vice versa; how local institutions respond to higher-level policy decisions; and how decisions at all levels, and subsequent actions, affect local livelihoods and ecosystems.
Figure 5: Administrative Divisions in China
Province
Prefecture
County
Township
Administrative Village
STATE
Policy Settings An experiment in decentralization took place in China with the landmark introduction of the Household Responsibility System in the early 1980s. As a part of economic liberalization reforms, the system leased communal agricultural lands, such as paddy fields, to individual households, later broadening the policy to include forestlands (Dupar and Badenoch, 2002). Responsibilities for land use decision-making, such as where forestlands were allocated, how long the contract was to last, and who would benefit from the sharing scheme, were devolved from central and provincial to county, township and administrative village governments (Xu and Ribot, 2004). More recently, in 1998, the central government enacted the Village Organic Law, enabling villagers to elect their own leaders and village committees, the lowest level of government responsible for natural resources management and other local affairs.
Notwithstanding the general policy move toward greater local control over natural resources, the central government has continued to resist decentralization, as evidenced by the introduction of two policies during the past decade: a logging ban and the Sloping Land Conservation Program. The logging ban was imposed on a large scale on the mountain watersheds in Southwest China in the wake of extensive flooding of the Yangtze River in 1998. The Yunnan provincial government, in compliance with the state’s ban, launched the Natural Forest Protection Programme (NFPP), which prohibited or restricted commercial logging in natural forests. The Sloped Farmland Conversion Programme was publicly announced in 1999, mandating the conversion of farmland to forest or grassland on slopes of greater than 25 degrees.
These centrally designed policies, which fail to address the complexity of mountain environments and the heterogeneous interests of ethnic communities, have put many indigenous people living and farming in upland areas in a dilemma between conservation and subsistence needs. Uncertainty caused by frequently changing state forestry policies has prompted many farmers to opt for the short-term benefits of cutting forest allocated to them. The intersection of two opposing policy trends—one gradually shifting decision- making authority away from the center toward institutions that are closer to the everyday needs of local people, and one calling for the implementation of the state’s blanket policy—creates a situation of tension, characterized by both serious constraints and promising opportunities.
Study Findings^5 As elsewhere in the province, a series of forest policy reforms had significant impact on the livelihoods of the indigenous communities in the Nan-e sub-watershed, which have traditionally practiced swidden agriculture as a major source of employment and income. The shift from collective land ownership to the individual household responsibility system has permitted an increase in small-scale production, but has also delivered a blow to the forests and biodiversity. In order to solve the problem of forest degradation on a larger scale, the county government decided to expand the scope of the NFPP to include secondary fallow forests with high environmental values. However, there is often a stark conflict of interests between the NFPP and lower-level agricultural extension and development initiatives. Because of the lack of vertical coordination, for example, the county government’s effort to convert agricultural land that has long lain fallow to protected forestland is increasingly at odds with the Menglong township-initiated agricultural support project, which aims to expand agricultural productivity by supplying tea seedlings to local farmers.
With regard to the principles of subsidiarity, accountability, and capacity, village committees, though democratically elected, face difficulties in functioning as downwardly-accountable actors due to insufficient transfer of powers and limited capacity. They serve largely as implementing agents of central mandates under the direction and supervision of local branches of the central government. The research team could not find a single case in the study site in which the village committee had negotiated the implementation of the NFPP to protect local interests—for example, to secure local farmers’ property rights to agricultural land. Moreover, the mechanism of compensation for farmers’ loss of livelihoods as their agricultural lands are taken out of production is far from clear and practicable. The result of these constraints is that swidden farmers grow crops repeatedly without leaving the land fallow to prevent forests from regenerating and being designated as protected areas. Continuous cropping without a fallow period has rapidly depleted soil fertility.
A recent logging agreement between the downstream Dai village and the upstream Hani village is another example that casts doubt upon local authorities’ leadership and natural resources management capacity. In this case, the customary village leaders struck a deal
(^5) Based on Jun (forthcoming).
The gap between decentralization discourse and practice is prominent especially in the natural resources sector, which is one of the largest sources of income and an important contributor to national economic growth in many countries of the region (Larson, 2002). Despite growing evidence that the traditional top-down approach has failed to respond to local needs and achieve sustainable development, many powers remain with the central government. In Cambodia, for instance, the central government promulgated a set of decentralization policies and programs, but seemed to perceive local governments and communities as lacking the capacity and ability to make appropriate decisions about resource protection and utilization. Community forestry/fisheries projects without legal support from central government, as is the case in Komgpong Pou commune in Krakor District, are mostly limited to some of the least accessible and productive areas and can be easily thwarted by outside concessionaires.
Problems in the central-local power balance in the natural resources management arena are less prominent, but still present, in other countries. Decentralization laws and policies in Thailand, Vietnam, and China acknowledge that local government authorities shall assume, or share with the central government, the responsibility for natural resource use and protection. In reality, however, central intervention in the implementation of national strategies on the ground is strong and the domain of local discretionary power in this sector is restricted. In Vietnam, for example, the result of tight central government oversight is that some upland communities are reluctant to enforce the new forestland policies, because these guidelines are not suited to local realities and could jeopardize the traditional livelihoods of indigenous people.
Overlapping and conflicting laws and regulations are also a common impediment to the success of decentralization policies. In Indonesia, for example, although the Regional Autonomy Law devolves a wide range of public service delivery functions to local authorities, it does not specify where legal responsibility exists with regard to natural resources management. Furthermore, a number of new laws and regulations have been passed in the last few years that contradict the guidelines of regional autonomy articulated in the Regional Autonomy Law. The ambiguity and co-existence of contradictory laws has led to growing confusion, competition, and duplication among different tiers of government, taking away the very rights over natural resources granted to local authorities in the Regional Autonomy Law. The studies in Tonle Sap region in Cambodia and Yunnan province in China also cited the failure to adopt consistent regulations and rules in the natural resources sector at every administrative level as a formidable barrier to real change on the ground.
Limited downward accountability Accountability depends on whether decentralization occurs as deconcentration or devolution. Deconcentration occurs when powers and resources are conferred on lower administrative units of the state apparatus that remain upwardly accountable, while devolution occurs when authorities are representative of and accountable to local populations (Dupar and Badenoch, 2002; Ribot, 2001; Ribot, 2004). Our comparative
analysis demonstrates that to date, decentralization in Southeast Asia has been structured in large part as deconcentration.
An illustration of this is the case of Yunnan province in China, where the ongoing administrative reform process leaves wide room for intervention by lower levels of central administration (Miller et al., 1996). Village committees are unable to serve the farmers’ needs and concerns and resist deconcentrated agencies’ intrusion into local control of forest and agricultural lands. Likewise, in Cambodia, locally-elected commune authorities have little political influence to stand up to centrally-appointed, upwardly- accountable entities. Although they have better access to information about the local context, commune councils are not given the right to determine how to manage and protect local land, forest and water resources nor are they allowed to initiate their own policies within their administrative jurisdictions. In this context, decentralization creates a new issue instead of solving the original problem, by transforming the conflict between the central and local government to one between local units of the central ministries and local government (Romeo and Spyckerelle, 2003; Xu and Ribot, 2004).
Lack of capacity of democratically elected local governments A striking trend identified across all five studied countries is the limited capacity of local governments. The ability of local authorities to deliver good service to their constituencies depends on whether adequate human, financial, technical and institutional resources are transferred and developed (Miller et al., 1996; Eaton, 2001). However, typically, the smaller and more rural an area is, the less likely it is that the local government has sufficient working capital, expertise, and taxable resources to perform their assigned duties in natural resources management properly, such as detection of harmful agricultural practices and monitoring of illegal resource-grabbing. Even if administrative and fiscal powers are devolved to authorities who are accountable to their local constituents, these authorities will achieve little in the way of conservation and sustainable development unless they have the corresponding capacity to exercise their responsibilities effectively (Badola, 2000; Lai et al., 2000; Lutz and Caldecott, 1996). The gap between decentralization and local governments’ leadership is still substantial.
A shortage of resources has often led local governments to simply become the eyes and ears of the central government and commercial investors, and unsustainably convert natural resources capital into cash. In Thailand, for example, the majority of rural TAOs have limited leadership, vision, and ability to procure their own revenue and remain heavily dependent on subsidies from central government. As a consequence, despite being locally elected, TAO officials tend to be more upwardly accountable and place a higher priority on economic and infrastructure development than on environmental functions and watershed services. Some local authorities even view decentralization as a threat because it might result in a withdrawal of central government support and the loss of care and guidance that was once perceived under the centralized regime (Hunter 2004).
Donor-driven decentralization Of fundamental importance in terms of ensuring the sustainability of decentralization is the question of motivations for these reforms. On the one hand, increasing internal
