Paper short abstract:

This paper explores whether Adaptive Collaborative Management (ACM) provides a suitable approach for designing and implementing REDD+ in Sierra Leone, and Africa in general.

Paper long abstract:

One of the most significant current discussions in governing and implementing REDD+ is the extent to which local initiatives integrate diverse experiences, preferences, interactions and uncertainties facing forest-dependent communities. For this reason, in current environmental governance literature, the relative importance of Adaptive Collaborative Management (ACM) has been subject to considerable discussion, owing to its focus on participation and learning. So far, however, there has been little discussion about its value (prospects and limits) as a model for designing and delivering REDD+ in an African context. Unanswered questions coalesce mainly around how ACM enables and constrains both institutional and contextual factors that influence forest governance efforts and community resilience, which are crucial sustainability outcomes for REDD+. This gap is addressed in this paper by developing and testing a hybrid governance-learning framework, which distils the requirements for its achievement into a 3-step process, including: 1) assessing institutional influences on local ACM initiatives; 2) finding keys to community resilience in an ACM context; and 3) identifying key conditions (lessons) for operationalising REDD+ at a local scale. Combined, the current evaluation is useful for underlining new knowledge that demonstrates a connection between ACM and REDD+. Its novelty lies in the breadth of perspectives covered to show how ACM tackles current governance challenges, and meets (or fails to meet) expectations for governance innovation in a REDD+ context.