Emerging Coalitions and Sustainable Development in the Commons: Developing Frameworks and Tools for Negotiating Development Space in the New Millenium

Abstract

"Negotiated development space currently is not a quid pro quo for stakeholders to the commons. Negotiation of priorities and actions in the commons is far more often then not, lacking. This is constraining to development planning and implementation, as that which is identified through either top-down or bottom-up planning processes often proves unfeasible for a variety of reasons. These reasons include lack of local buy-in, lack of technical or institutional capacity, incorrect assumptions about enabling conditions, or limitations in scale which preclude broad based impact. Often the issue in the commons has less in fact to do with sustainability than with appropriate and feasible development to begin with.

"I argue in this paper that sustainable development can only occur in the commons under the following conditions:

--By approaching development through a horizontal planning and implementation model leading to coalition formation, versus either a bottom-up or top-down model

--By developing consensus-based frameworks and mechanisms whose applicability are tested out on a case by case basis

--By engendering donor leverage over recipient national government partners to open up development processes in the commons to negotiated partnerships in potentially all programming phases.

"The paper presents work that has recently been initiated by Innovative Resources Management together with The Mediation Institute in developing a consensus framework methodology for coalition building in environment and development sector activities. The framework seeks to build, via a consensus based process among a broad representative array of stakeholders, a model that could if successful represent a first step to a new development paradigm premised on horizontal collaboration in the fullest, versus either bottom-up or top-down planning and implementation.

"The paper also introduces experiences we have with various tools that can be used for engendering participation in the commons. These include: U.S. based mediation and alternative dispute resolution techniques, along with participatory mapping and the community options and investment tool, the latter of which is just in early development phases."