Gold and diamond mining constitute more than half of all mineral exploitation worldwide and an estimated 6 to 9 million artisanal miners are active in the gold and diamond sector. Africa hosts a third of the world’s natural mineral wealth, among which 65 percent of global diamond deposits. While mineral exploitation contributes to the livelihoods of many, it also generally leaves a negative impact on the environment, which may ultimately be detrimental to livelihoods.

This research project was initiated in 1995 to address some concerns of many people, including scientists, who were questioning the prospects of tropical plantations established in short-rotation forestry as a sustainable natural resource. It is an international partnership of public and private organisations coordinated by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). It is based on the proposition that productivity is the foundation of successful plantation forestry managed for wood production and/or ecosystem services.

Nepal introduced various community based forest management (CBFM) programmesthat aim to improve forest management while improving the livelihoods of the forest dependent poor. One of these programmes is the Leasehold Forestry and Livestock Programme (LFLP). Various studies have demonstrated its positive impacts but severa studies also pointed out its unintentional negative impacts. This policy brief presents implementation and related design constraints facing the LFLP and suggests ways to resolve them and improve programme outcomes.

In the past decades, both upstream and downstream countries ofthe Blue Nile Basin (BNB) had developed and adopted several policies and strategies related to land and water management. Yet there are important policy and institutional gaps that irnpeded adoption of improved land and water management strategies. An example of these gaps is the lack of upstream-downstream linkage and incentive-based policy enforcement mechanisms. In spite of long-standing efforts in improving land and water management in the BNB, achievements have been negligible to date.

This paper draws lessons from two years of work with ‘innovation platforms’ that were established by the Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC) program in an attempt to strengthen landscape-level rainwater management in Ethiopia. The NDBC’s work included the use of an innovation fund to support pilot interventions.