Investing in collaboration to manage environmental resource conflict

Abstract

Conflict over environmental resources endangers rural people's livelihoods and can increase the risk of broader social conflict. Yet action to sustain shared resources can also be a potent source of community building. Investing in capacities for conflict management can help launch innovations that build resilient rural livelihoods and strengthen institutions for equitable environmental governance. Governments and development agencies should invest in such capacity and integrate collaborative dialogue about environmental resources into program and policy implementation. This brief examines the importance of multistakeholder dialogue in understanding and addressing the roots of environmental resource conflict.