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Linking Field Level Findings to Policy and Decision-Making in Nepal |
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This DFID funded piece of research is premised on the twin assumptions that (a) there are land management strategies developed and verified through field level research, that are appropriate for uptake on a wide scale beyond the area where the research was conducted; and (b) that there are constraints to their uptake, at both farm and landscape levels, which can be eased through policy decisions in the political and administrative arenas.
Effective management of land resources is vital to the sustainability of local farming systems in the hills of Nepal and to wider poverty alleviation. In the past many management strategies have been developed and implemented with great success but then do not spread beyond the locality of the initial project. This points to a need for library or database of agricultural information that is easily accessible. Of equal importance however is the policy environment. Constraints to the wider uptake of these strategies can exist in the policy frameworks of central and local government and in international and national development organisations. Clearly farmers need incentives in order to change their behaviour and government policies and the way in which they are implemented are key to this process.
This research project, funded by the UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) Natural Resources Systems Programme (NRSP) and managed by the University of Reading School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, had the following planned outputs:
- Information and knowledge from recent and current land management research which can be applied on a wide scale identified
- Constraints to uptake and adaptation of land management strategies, which are amenable to policy intervention, identified and promoted
- Sustainable processes for informing policy discussions at national level, within government policy making structures and within organisations that provide support services to rural land users, identified, validated and promoted
knowledge derived from the project is being used by research partners in their own research and promotion activities; and, with further promotion of outputs, policy makers may use at least some elements of the knowledge gained, for example in initiating and responding to more interactions with scientists involved in land management research and interventions. Both contributions will benefit both male and female members of households that rely on the NR base in the hills for a substantial part of their livelihoods, and particularly tenants who would benefit from a clearer and more robustly implemented land tenure policy.
The final report is available to view on DFID's R4D portal http://www.research4development.info/projectsAndProgrammes.asp?OutputID=170953
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Influencing Policy 
