Institutional Challenges for Community-Based Management in the Caribbean

Abstract

"The purpose of this paper is to provide guidelines and directions for institutional arrangements and procedures that would facilitate and enhance community-based management in the Caribbean. It is informed by the relatively poor record of resource management initiatives in the region to date, and by the urgency of institutional reform to achieve the goals of sustainability and equity in the use of, and the benefits from, natural resources. The paper therefore deliberately adopts a practical perspective, to outline an action agenda and to define some of the priorities which the region should consider at this stage.

"The primary geographical focus of this paper is the English-speaking Caribbean, including countries which share a common history and political structure. The scope of the observations and recommendations below however extends to other parts of the insular Caribbean as well. Because of the general nature of the approach adopted here, it is indeed hoped that the paper can find relevance beyond the boundaries of the Caribbean region, to offer a framework for institutional reform which could be useful to other contexts and regions."