Research & MEL for
Sustainable Development

Ruwaza is committed to supporting ongoing learning for sustainable development. We both conduct research and build capacity for research and monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) within development and conservation efforts. This includes:

• Institutional and governance assessments
• Policy research
• Developing baselines
• Monitoring and evaluation
• Participatory research
• Spatial and cartographic analysis.

Environmental Governance and Protected Area Systems

Some of the topics our research has explored include:

Current trends in conservation efforts worldwide and impacts on the well-being and prosperity of indigenous and local communities: Just Conservation? Justice, conservation and the protected areas establishment frenzy.  2015.

 

The impacts of state-led conservation on community land tenure systems: A cartography of dispossession: assessing spatial reorganization in state-led conservation in Saadani, Tanzania. 2018.

 

The role of values in protected areas governance: “We Want Our Children to Grow Up to See These Animals”: Values and Protected Areas Governance in Canada, Ghana and Tanzania. 2012.

Land Rights for Vulnerable Communities, Land Tenure Systems and Public Land Management

Some of the topics our research has explored include:

Protecting public land from land grabbing:

• Case study research on the social, psychological, economic and institutional impacts of land-grabbing on school communities in Kenya. 2017.
• Policy brief: Schools at risk–The impact of public school land grabbing in Kenya. 2017.

Addressing community land rights: Uvinje, Tanzania – an indigenous community erased in the name of conservation. 2014.

 

Communal land tenure systems in pastoralist communities:

• Management and governance of pastoral rangelands: A review of recent CGIAR initiatives. 2020.
• Transcending Landscapes: Working Across Scales and Levels in Pastoralist Rangeland Governance. 2017.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) for Natural Resource Management and Conservation Initiatives

We have developed rigorous methodologies for qualitative assessment of landscape governance systems and for systematic characterization of community-based natural resource management in dryland pastoral settings.

In a recent project, we carried out a comparative assessment of alternative models of community-based rangeland management.

More of our research is showcased at Research for Change.