This paper reviews and synthesizes the published literature on decentralization of renewable resources and development interventions to identify four key lessons for future adaptation planning at the national level. After presenting an analysis of why studies of decentralization reforms are relevant to adaptation planning, the paper examines priority adaptation projects identified by 47 Least Developed Countries in their National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs). Our research analyzes the range of institutional instruments and relationships visible in contemporary decentralization reforms. The four major lessons for adaptation planning concern the need for national adaptation planners to: (1) attend systematically to local institutions relevant to adaptation and increase local capacity through transfers of information, financial, and technical resources; (2) empower communities and local governments by increasing local autonomy so as to decentralize adaptation planning and implementation; (3) create mechanisms for information sharing among decision makers across sectors and levels of decision making; and (4) improve accountability of local decision makers to their constituents. 

SUMMARYDifferent strategies to govern resource commons generate outcomes that can be assessed along different dimensions, in terms of the ecological or social sustainability of the resource system, contributions to the livelihoods of those who rely on these resources, or equity in the allocation of benefits. This paper reviews the existing literature concerning three major renewable resource commons, namely pasture lands, fisheries and irrigation water. Most existing work on these commons has been inattentive to the multiple outcomes that management of all renewable resources generates. Studies of commons can provide better information about livelihoods, sustainability and equity dimensions of natural resource governance outcomes than previously. Attending to the distinctive determinants and drivers of these outcomes and the nature of trade-offs and synergies among them has the potential to advance common property theory substantially. Possible relationships among livelihoods, sustainability and equity are identified, and the major explanations of outcomes advanced by scholars of fisheries, pastoral and irrigation commons reviewed. An interdisciplinary approach is needed to improve existing efforts to determine the outcomes that resource commons generate.

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This article presents a case study from Madang, Papua New Guinea, to illustrate how the priorities of an international environmental nongovernmental organization (NGO) aligned with donor expectations and diverged from the expressed conservation preferences of local residents for management and enforcement. Analysis of data from semistructured interviews with local residents in three villages identified three local community expectations of a Madang NGO: serving as an alternative to the state; providing material resources; and sustaining long-term relationships. Using a political ecology lens, this study illustrates a mismatch between what the NGO does and the expectations and preferences of local residents. Examining this divergence is critical in understanding how NGOs prioritize certain activities over others and what such choices mean for biodiversity conservation. This article provides evidence that some international NGOs prioritize donor goals above local community expectations, implementing conservation activities that meet biodiversity objectives but not local communities' needs.

the name of the first author was inadvertently misspelled. The name should read Arun Agrawal.