7.4. Community Profile
7.4.7. Legal and institutional assessment
These techniques are used to gather and present large amounts of complex information in a clear and concise, graphic and easily understood format. They also encourage interaction between the team and the informants; however, they rarely produce data that can be statistically analysed.
management plans. National administrative and economic development laws and policies are also examined since they may impact upon resource management and community development efforts.
There is a wide range of parameters which can be included in a LIA. These include:
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Box 7.18. Institutional Analysis.
Institutional analysis is a participatory method which is used to identify existing legislation, policies and regulations for fisheries and coastal resource management at different levels of government and both formal and non-formal. It is used to identify existing property rights and tenure arrangements in order to determine who defines rights to exploit the resource, who has access to the resource, and the rules that must be followed. It is also used to evaluate the existing level of participation of resource users in managing the resource.
The approach to conducting an institutional analysis involves:
1. Collect secondary data on:
● Stakeholders;
● Organizations at the community level (mandate, functions, membership, structure, resources);
● Institutional arrangements at the community level (property rights/tenure, rules, regulations, boundaries, decision-making mechanism, monitoring and enforcement);
● Organizations/agencies above the community level (provincial/state, national, NGOs) (mandate, functions, structure, resources); and
● Institutional arrangements above the community level (provincial/state, national laws) (policy, legislation, regulation, programmes).
2. Complement and validate the secondary data collection by collecting primary data. A variety of participatory techniques and methods can be used. These include structured and semi-structured interviews, focus groups, resource mapping, historical timelines, flow patterns, case studies and Venn diagrams.
3. Collect and sort the data, focus on relationships between and among the various institutional arrangements and organizations for management.
4. Identify complementarities, conflicts, overlaps and gaps in the institutional arrangements and organizations which support or hinder effective management at various levels of government and within the community.
5. Identify what is needed to support management, such as new regulations, laws, organizations and enforcement mechanisms.
6. Recommend strategies for implementing patterns of relationships in space, time, flow and decision-making using various tools such as transects, maps, timelines, Venn diagrams and matrices.
7. Analyse the rules at operational, management and legislative levels.
8. Validate findings with the community to ensure accuracy and to fill in any data gaps.
A final report is produced containing descriptions, maps and figures that analyse the formal and informal fisheries and coastal resource management systems that operate in and around the community. The output can be used by fishers and government for dialogue and debate about resource management.
Source: IIRR (1998, pp. 118–130).
● Political context: the political structure of the nation; the extent to and way in which stakeholders are represented; democratic processes and levels of representation.
● External to the community institutional and organizational arrangements (international, national, regional, provincial, municipal, village): government administrative agencies (mandate, functions, structure, resources); policies, legislation, regulations and programmes for resource management and environment, government administration, agriculture, and economic and community development; resource management strategies and programmes;
non-governmental organizations (mandate, functions, structure, funding);
surveillance, monitoring and enforcement; nested relationships between organizations and spheres of influence (complementarities, conflicts, overlaps, gaps which support or hinder effective management).
● Community institutional and organizational arrangements: identification of stakeholders; community organizations (mandate, functions, membership, structure, period of existence, resources, funding); boundaries (political, physical/natural, gear, customary, fishing area); property and tenure rights;
rules and regulations (formal/informal, operational, collective choice, constitutional); decision-making and conflict management mechanisms;
surveillance, monitoring and enforcement; compliance levels; nested relationships between organizations and rights (complementarities, conflicts, overlaps, gaps which support or hinder effective management).
● Incentives for collective action and cooperation among resource users.
● Extent of stakeholder participation.
● Extent of community-based management and co-management arrangements.
● Macroeconomic/political/sociocultural exogenous factors (natural calamities, political stability, peace and order, technological innovation, inflation, economic development, international agreements).
The level of detail of a LIA can range from a simple description of the existing coastal resource management system to a very detailed legal, economic and political analysis of the management system in terms of its impact on equity, efficiency and sustainability. Secondary data on organizations and resource governance can be obtained from official publications, including court records, official statutes and government reports.
In general the main methods of collecting primary data are semi-structured interviews and focus groups with key informants, such as government officials, organization officers, and other knowledgeable individuals involved in the organizations and governance. Some useful visualization techniques include:
● Timelines– to understand the history of organizations;
● Organizational charts – to represent aspects of the structure of the political hierarchy and the structure of organizations, as well as links between organizations and agencies;
● Maps– to illustrate areas covered by specific use rights;
● Venn diagrams– to illustrate organizational relationships.
Observations, surveys and oral histories can also be useful, particularly for assessing levels of stakeholder participation, surveillance, enforcement and compliance.