Green Global Policy Assemblages: The Evolution of Community-Based Natural Resource Management in Response to Climate Change in Namibia

Abstract

Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) has emerged in southern Africa as a form of resource governance that is intended to devolve control of natural resources to local populations. CBNRM has produced demonstrable benefits in attaining its three goals of economic development, environmental conservation, and community empowerment, however, over time success has seemingly dwindled which has been documented in the literature. Many scholars argue that it is the third goal of community empowerment that most often fails to be realized. Beyond that, one of the major gaps that exists in the literature is an analysis of the impact of climate change on the CBNRM programs. This dissertation will analyze the challenges and opportunities of climate change while further analyzing to what degree local communities benefit as a result. It builds on existing global assemblage work to develop a composite theoretical approach that analyzes CBNRM as green global policy assemblage in order to account for the evolution of CBNRM in response to climate change. This approach is necessary as CBNRM is highly political and the resultant developing power relations are rearticulating global environmental governance and traditional levels of analysis. What emerges from the case study of Namibia is a policy assemblage that results in power being distributed and enacted in ways that traditional theories of International Relations cannot adequately account for within their state-centric ontology. This dissertation is based on fieldwork conducted in Namibia, a country that is generally recognized as a global leader in CBNRM. My conclusions suggest that CBNRM cannot be viewed as an empowering of Namibian communities and corresponding weakening of the state. Instead, the state maintains its sovereign power however at a distance and it is exercised in a less direct fashion than would have traditionally been the case. Furthermore, by devolving power the state enables NGOs to exert their influence on the ground in assisting communities. However, the actions of NGOs have important political effects based on the complex relations they have with other countries, multilateral institutions, as well as novel hybrid organizations that are increasingly empowered to engage in development actions throughout the Global South. While this proliferation of actors has resulted in continued funding streams for important development initiatives, it also continues the dependence of African communities on global actors. In some ways this is making communities less autonomous and more reliant on others, rather than self-sufficient as CBNRM entails.