Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Governance
Governance
GOVERNANCE
Definitions of Governance
Transparency
Participation
Natural Resource Governance
Why is it important?
Land law
Agriculture law
Protected areas law
Biodiversity law, including access to
genetic resources
Administrative law
Civil law
Criminal law.
Statutory law generally focuses on the
individual. It may grant and restrict
rights to access and use natural
resources. It may but it does not
alwaysprovide for access to
information about natural resources,
public participation in decision-making
about natural resources, and
accountability of government officials
responsible for natural resources.
Statutory law usually includes provisions
governing revenues for natural resources.
It sometimes, but not always, also
provides for sharing benefits from
natural resources.
Customary law
Customary law is usually collective, but it
also frequently recognizes individual rights.
For the purposes of this training, customary
law is understood as the laws that a society
develops over time, that are usually passed
from generation to generation by word of
mouth. Analysis of current practice of
customary law has shown that is consistent
with the definition of governanceit
establishes who has decision-making power,
who has the power and responsibility to
implement them, and who is held
accountable and how.
Customary laws govern the use of
forests, wildlife, pastures, water, and
other natural resources. Customary law
governing natural resources is actually
far more widely applied than is often
assumed or accepted. There is strong
evidence that customary law currently
governs large areas of forest around
the world.
But there is no data to prove the
degree to which local communities
and indigenous peoples apply their
customary law. It is often the case
that customary and statutory law are
different and conflicting.
And it is also often the case that
communities are most likely to apply
their customary law governing
natural resources when there is no
Governance components: Institutions
What is an institution?
Page 157
Accountability
Accountability is the requirement to accept
responsibility and answer for actions.
Objectives
Product A Product B
Feature 1 Feature 1
Feature 2 Feature 2
Feature 3 Feature 3