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AbstractComplex social and environmental problems—such as climate change, rural poverty, and over‐fishing—defy simple policy solutions. An increasing number of scholars, practitioners, and policy makers now agree that coming to grips with such problems requires more collaborative and adaptive forms of learning and decision‐making. Such approaches seek to involve a variety of stakeholders to learn about system‐level effects of past human decisions and adapt future management decisions to the lessons learned. While there are plenty of success stories at the local level, the collaborative learning approach has turned out to be difficult to implement at broader scales—in large public organizations and in society at large. This article provides an explanation for such shortcomings, arguing that the creation of collaborative learning systems is plagued by several motivational dilemmas. By systematically mapping out the institutional incentives of the potential participants in collaborative learning activities, it is argued that one can gain a better understanding of the likelihood that adaptive systems will actually work. These ideas are tested on the case of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). It is found that most Sida staff face conflicting incentives to engage in collaborative learning, but there are opportunities for management to strengthen such incentives. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Several international treaties point to the advantages of a decentralized government structure for addressing environmental problems. Yet, little is known about the effects of decentralization reform on the conditions for local governance of natural resources. Even less is known about decentralization's effect on the condition of natural resources. This article raises concerns about the decentralization panacea and how it obscures a realistic assessment of municipal governments' role in decentralized natural resource management. The empirical analysis, based on field research in Bolivia's forestry sector, tests and discusses some of the conditions that are believed to be conducive to good decentralized governance of forest resources in developing countries. Specifically, the article examines what factors motivate Bolivian municipal governments to engage in forestry sector problem solving. Three institutional incentives appear to explain why municipalities in the Bolivian Lowlands would decide to invest in forestry, but these incentives are either weak or missing in most municipalities.

Metadata only record ; Analyzes how local institutional arrangements affect the outcomes of decentralization policies in the non-industrialized world, particularly related to forest governance. Relies on the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to study the institutional conditions that lead to effective decentralized forest governance, and tests hypotheses using recent data from forestry-sector activities in 32 municipal governments in Bolivia. Preliminary findings are that information exchange is key to successful local governance. ; Available in SANREM office, FS