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This book provides empirical evidence from Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique and from different production systems of the importance of livestock as an asset to women and their participation in livestock and livestock product markets. It explores the issues of intra-household income management and economic benefits of livestock markets to women, focusing on how types of markets, the types of products and women's participation in markets influence their access to livestock income. The book further analyses the role of livestock ownership, especially women's ownership of livestock, in inf

Increasingly, social capital, defined as shared norms, trust, and the horizontal and vertical social networks that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutually beneficial collective action, is seen as an important asset upon which people rely to manage natural resources and resolve conflicts. This paper uses empirical data from households and community surveys and case studies, to examine the role, strengths, and limits of social capital in managing conflicts over the use and management of natural resources. We inventoried over 700 cases ranging from conflicts between multiple resource users to supra-community conflicts between local communities concerns for better livelihoods and national/international concerns for environment conservation. Results show how different types of social capital are used in preventing and managing conflicts. Endowment in certain dimensions of social capital significantly decreased the occurrence of conflicts and played a significant role in managing them. However, social capital mechanisms have some limits, and are not always effective in resolving some types of conflicts. For such conflicts, people rely on formal mechanisms for arbitration and adjudication. In many cases, these have resulted in exclusion, coercion, and violence. Results show that policies or social capital alone do not possess the resources needed to promote broad-based and sustainable conflict resolution strategies. Rather, people use a range of conflict management strategies of different types and combinations of social capital and local polices. This synergy between social capital and local policy is based on complementarity and embededness: mutually supportive relations between local government and local communities, and the nature and extent of the ties connecting people and communities and public institutions. Better understanding of how this synergy between social capital and local policy can be strengthened is crucial to minimize natural resource management conflicts.

In the highland ecosystems where actions by some individuals or groups often generate off-site effects among a wide range of social actors and stakeholders, the use and management of natural resources are susceptible to multiple forms of conflicts. This paper examines the hypothesis that conflicts constrain the adoption of agroforestry technologies. Using empirical data from 243 households in Kabale-Uganda, the study identified over 780 different cases of conflicts, and found positive relationships between certain types of conflicts and adoption of agroforestry technologies. The results of this paper challenge the conventional wisdom that conflicts are pervasive, and that the prevalence of conflicts is a major barrier to the adoption of NRM technologies. On the contrary, they seem to suggest that conflicts may have some positive outcomes; they provide incentives for the adoption of NRM technologies, and can be a potential force for positive social change. Conflicts are an essential feature of NRM in the highland systems and cannot therefore be ignored. What matters is the ways such conflicts are managed and resolved, and transformed into a force for positive change. We found that three dimensions of social capital (collective action, byelaws implementation and linking with local government structures) have increased the ability of communities to manage and transform conflicts into opportunities for collective action. These findings suggest new areas for further investigation to improve understanding of adoption decisions and building local capacity for scaling up the impacts of agroforestry innovations. ; Peer Review

Increasingly, social capital, defined as shared norms, trust, and the horizontal and vertical social networks that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutually beneficial collective action, is seen as an important asset upon which people rely to manage natural resources and resolve conflicts. This paper uses empirical data from households and community surveys and case studies, to examine the role, strengths, and limits of social capital in managing conflicts over the use and management of natural resources. We inventoried over 700 cases ranging from conflicts between multiple resource users to supra-community conflicts between local communities concerns for better livelihoods and national/international concerns for environment conservation. Results show how different types of social capital are used in preventing and managing conflicts. Endowment in certain dimensions of social capital significantly decreased the occurrence of conflicts and played a significant role in managing them. However, social capital mechanisms have some limits, and are not always effective in resolving some types of conflicts. For such conflicts, people rely on formal mechanisms for arbitration and adjudication. In many cases, these have resulted in exclusion, coercion, and violence. Results show that policies or social capital alone do not possess the resources needed to promote broad-based and sustainable conflict resolution strategies. Rather, people use a range of conflict management strategies of different types and combinations of social capital and local polices. This synergy between social capital and local policy is based on complementarity and embededness: mutually supportive relations between local government and local communities, and the nature and extent of the ties connecting people and communities and public institutions. Better understanding of how this synergy between social capital and local policy can be strengthened is crucial to minimize natural resource management conflicts.

Agricultural research and development organizations are increasingly under pressure to shift from enhancing productivity of food crops to improving profitability and competitiveness of small-scale farming, and linking smallholder farmers to more profitable markets. What is not obvious however, is how to make small-scale farming more market orientated, and how to effectively integrate participatory research approaches to marketing and agroenterprise development. This paper outlines an integrated approach for demand-driven and market-orientated agricultural research and rural agro-enterprise development. This approach termed Enabling Rural Innovation (ERI) offers a practical framework to link farmer participatory research and market research in a way that empowers farmers to better manage their resources and offers them prospects of an upward spiral out of poverty. ERI uses participatory processes to build the capacities of farmers' groups and rural communities in marginal areas to identify and evaluate market opportunities, develop profitable agroenterprises, intensify production through experimentation, while sustaining the resources upon which their livelihoods depend. The approach emphasizes integrating scientific expertise with farmer knowledge, strengthening social organization and entrepreneurial organizations through effective partnership between research, development and rural communities. By strengthening human and social capital, ERI encompasses effective and proactive strategies for promoting gender and equity in the access to market opportunities and improved technologies, and in the distribution of benefits and additional incomes. Results of action research applying the ERI approach in pilot sites in Malawi, Uganda and Tanzania show that small-scale farmers are not always attracted by higher economic returns. Rather they use a range of economic and non-economic criteria for selecting their existing crops and livestock for new markets, as well as new crops for new markets. Evaluation of market opportunities stimulates farmers' experimentation to reduce risks, access new technologies, and improve the productivity and competitiveness of the selected enterprises. Lessons learned suggest that building and sustaining quality partnerships between research and development organizations, government, private agribusiness sector; and building necessary amount of human and social capital over a certain period of time are critical for achieving success in small- scale agroenterprise development. This however, requires that an explicit scaling up strategy be mapped out to link successful community processes to meso and macro level market institutions at the national and regional levels.