Assessing and strengthening community-based coastal governance

Abstract

Community-based coastal governance is essential for biodiversity conservation and sustainable livelihoods, yet many communities continue to face significant challenges in establishing and sustaining effective governance systems. We sought to improve understanding of the current status of community-based coastal governance across five countries in the Southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO) region of Africa. Using the Elinor tool and data system, we examined how specific governance attributes relate to perceived social and ecological outcomes and sought insights for community-managed areas (CMAs) in the SWIO region. Progress toward strong community-based governance of CMAs has been uneven across the region and across governance attributes. Although some CMAs have established clearly defined management boundaries and property rights, many other CMAs are still working to improve some attributes, such as congruent regulations, transparency, accountability, and operational capacity. Perceived ecological and social outcomes correlated with different governance attributes. Perceived ecological outcomes were positively correlated with measures of property rights and local governance, whereas perceived social outcomes were correlated with local governance and operational capacity. The strength of CMA governance tended to improve in the first 5–10 years after establishment, then governance attributes plateaued or declined thereafter. These findings coincide with typical funding cycles, thus reinforcing the value of continued investment in community-based coastal governance. Specifically, our findings point to the importance of providing long-term capacity development and securing durable conservation finance to ensure the success of CMAs. More broadly, these findings contribute to a growing body of evidence of the importance of paying attention to when and how to leverage different types of support and capacity building.