Partnerships and Power Games

Part of the Defragmenting African Resource Management (DARMA) project book series, this book is about partnerships and power games in natural resources management as stakeholders compete over environmental goods and services in the Okavango Delta. The Okavango Delta Management Plan development process - the main arena for negotiating stakes in and access to the Okavango Delta land and water resources - is a battlefield for partnerships and power games. In other natural resource management side events, mini platforms have been created and partnerships formed to negotiate stakes and claim authority and rights over resources. Those with political, economic and knowledge power stand a better chance to win power games, resulting in the 'survival of the most resourced'. In the book it is suggested that defragmentation of natural resource management through integration at all scales will spread resources and facilitate equity and benefit sharing.

Lapologang Magole (PhD Development Studies, University of East Anglia) is a Senior Research Scholar at the University of Botswana's Okavango Research Institute, Botswana, working in the area of natural resources governance. Alyne Delaney (PhD anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, USA) is Head of Research and an Associate Professor in Innovative Fisheries Management (IFM) in Aalborg University's Department of Development and Planning.