How Incentives Matter: A Conceptual Framework for Natural Resource Governance in German Development Cooperation

Abstract

"Many problems of unsustainable management of natural resources worldwide are due to a limited number of basic governance shortcomings such as open access, lack of property rights definitions or insufficient enforcement of existing rules. Often however, researchers and to an even greater extent practitioners in development cooperation focus on one single natural resource and ignore the analogy of problems in related fields. As a consequence, many insights gained in one field, e.g., with regard to irrigation, are not shared with experts from related areas or discussed within a wider scope. In this paper, a conceptual framework for analysing the governance problems behind unsustainable management of natural resources is proposed. The core of our approach draws on the Institutional Analysis and Development framework. Consequently, it focuses on an identification of incentives that motivate the way environmental goods and services are used. In addition, it provides an elaborated instrument to analyse and categorise related cooperation measures. Overarching objectives of development cooperation such as poverty alleviation are also included. The framework serves as a common theoretical background on which to analyse management problems, their causes, and possible interventions. Thus, a basis is provided to compare actual case studies and to draw conclusions on explicit and implicit goals of development policy and its shortcomings."