Browsing by Author "Fisher, Eleanor"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Artisanal Mining and Poverty Reduction in Tanzania
    (Elsevier, 2009) Fisher, Eleanor; Mwaipopo, Rosemarie; Mutagwaba, Wilson; Nyange, David; Yaron, Gil
    This article explores the contribution that artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) makes to poverty reduction in Tanzania, drawing on findings from research on gold and diamond mining in Mwanza Region. The evidence suggests that people working in mining or related services are less likely to be in poverty than those with other occupations. However, the picture is complex; while mining income can help reduce poverty and provide a buffer from livelihood shocks, people's inability, to obtain a formal mineral claim or to effectively exploit their claims, contributes to insecurity. This is reinforced by a context in which ASM is peripheral to large-scale mining interests, is only gradually being addressed within national poverty reduction policies, and is segregated from district-level planning.
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    The Creativity of Action: Property, Kin and the Social in African Artisanal Mining
    (2014) Fisher, Eleanor; Mwaipopo, Rosemarie
    Analyses of neo-liberal change in African mining tend to frame discussion through the lens of an overarching structural perspective. Far less attention has been paid to the way change is enacted within social relations in mining communities. To this end, our chapter considers how development in the Tanzanian mineral sector transforms people’s relationships and stimulates new iterations of power and agency within local trajectories of development, focusing on the case of artisanal gold mining in Mgusu village in Geita region, Tanzania. The aim is to trace how neo-liberal change configures market rationality and property relations in ways that can fundamentally alter social relationships within the local community, occupational groups and families, raising both opportunities for wealth accumulation and the potential to entrench poverty. The creative action involved in these processes generates new associational ties and repertoires of practice, as miners’ respond to change and the need to protect their livelihoods.
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    Fisheries Management Science Programme: An overview of developmental impact to 2005
    (2005) Arthur, Robert; Fisher, Eleanor; Mwaipopo, Rosemarie; Irz, Xavier; Thirtle, Colin
    As the Programmes run under the Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) are drawing to a close in 2006 the DFID Central Research Team (CRT) are interested in establishing the impact of the Programmes. This will allow the CRT to identify lessons for future natural resources research that they may wish to commission. The central objective for DFID is that the research commissioned under the RNRRS Programmes results in significant positive impacts on the livelihoods1 of the poor in developing countries. The goal of the Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) has been to reduce poverty, promote economic growth and mitigate environmental problems. This has been achieved by focussing on enhancing productive capacity in renewable natural resources by removing researchable constraints. While it is widely believed that the Programmes have had a positive impact, there is a need for quantitative and qualitative evidence to show that this has indeed been the case. Currently, the responsibility for establishing the impact of commissioned research lies with DFID, as the DFID RNRRS Guidance notes for Programme Managers (October 2000) state:
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    Increasing the contribution of artisanal and small-scale mining to poverty reduction in Tanzania: Based on an analysis of mining livelihoods in Misungwi and Geita Districts, Mwanza, region
    (2004) Mwaipopo, Rosemarie; Mutagwaba, Wilson; Nyange, David; Fisher, Eleanor
    This report outlines findings from a study examining the contribution of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) to poverty reduction in Tanzania based on an analysis of gold and diamond mining in Mwanza Region. It was funded by the British Department for International Development (DFID) as Phase 1 of a project to provide practical support to miners working in the ASM sector. The Tanzanian study is a component of a broader ‘Livelihoods Analysis of the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Sector’ led by the Centre for Development Studies, University of Wales Swansea, with support from Wardell Armstrong and the British Geological Survey. Alongside the Tanzanian component, parallel research in Ghana and a review of existing livelihoods literature with an assessment of key policy challenges facing the sector have taken place over a period of fifteen months (2003-4).
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    The Relationship Between Community - Based Organisations and the Effective Management of Coastal & Marine Resources in the WIO Region
    (2011) Mwaipopo, Rosemarie; Fisher, Eleanor; Wanyonyi, Innocent N.; Kimani, Patrick; Tunje, Joseph; Msuya, Flower E.; Bashemerewa, Vivian
    This study examines the relationship between Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and marine and coastal resource management in the Western Indian Ocean Region. It explores what roles CBOs play in relation to natural resource utilisation and whether they have an ability to act effectively as community managers of these resources. The research focuses on CBOs in the coastal zone of Kenya and Tanzania. The specific objectives of the study were to: • document the types of CBOs existing in coastal areas of Kenya and Tanzania and how they have developed; • capture the internal dynamics and capacity of different CBOs; • consider the connections between CBO activities and natural resources in coastal and marine areas; • examine whether CBOs can mediate community diversity and dynamics to act as a force for integration around coastal resource management; • highlight the relationships between different CBOs and external institutional structures and governance processes; and, • identify whether CBOs engage in activities that constitute ‘natural resource management’ and to consider whether these activities are ‘effective’. RESEARCH FINDINGS CBOs in coastal and marine resource management have for many years been part of the agenda for coastal and marine resource management in the WIO region, albeit in a range of capacities. Several achievements can be claimed in terms of putting in place grassroots or community structures to affect natural resource management processes, and to strengthen responsibility towards resource management. However, persistent capacity constraints and challenges raise substantial questions over the degree of effectiveness of these CBOs, especially with regard to coastal and marine resource management ideals. These processes feed into shifting allegiances of CBO commitments toward management. Although management strategies differ according to country, project and place, understanding CBO effectiveness in relation to natural resource management includes a need to gauge their ability to recognise and act upon a management issue. Once an issue requiring action is recognised, the capacity to act effectively is underpinned by a CBOs ability to access and effectively utilise appropriate resources (material and nonmaterial), and by its legitimacy as a valid and mandated component of wider management structures and processes coming from government and its relations to NGOs, donors, and in some cases the private sector. An important influence on these processes is the extent to which community members themselves give value to natural resource management, and recognise CBOs as a means to enhance livelihoods in different ways, through for example establishing mechanisms for local action on poverty issues and for recognised access to resources, but also as a way to realise collective aspirations for local control over natural resources. Simultaneously, the limited legal mandate many CBOs have for making decisions and carrying out actions with regard to coastal and marine resource management can severely constrain their influence, for this reason understanding the way a CBO has been established and by whom (community, government, donors, NGOs) is essential. Owing to these complexities, key findings include the following: • A diverse range of CBOs and community-based structures operate in the management of the coastal and marine resource environment in the study sites, with their diversity largely determined by mode of establishment, type of membership, and collective goals. • A legal mandate is critical for legitimacy and a CBOs capacity to pursue NRM objectives. • Even with a legal mandate, the ability of government designed structures (BMUs; CFAs, KyM) to address issues that involve multiple stakeholders, and stakeholders who command high political favour is minimal. • The mode of establishment of a CBO influences the nature of relationships between members, group cohesion, the values regarding NR management that a CBO upholds, and CBO sustainability over time. It also creates processes of inclusion and exclusion with respect to whether and how the CBO can act as a voice for the local community. This in turn is shaped by wider social divisions and power relations, which may be reinforced through the way government operates at the local level. • Leadership ability is important, and shapes the capacity of a CBO to illustrate successful resource management practices to the community. • Many CBO members possess good knowledge and experience in relation to ecological processes, and can apply this experience to affect certain management strategies, but most lack the necessary practical skills to make this experience realisable in terms of sustained and positive impact on NRM. Also the sophistication and scale of ecological dynamics and the complexity of multi-stakeholder interests diminish the ability of CBOs to handle many management demands. • CBO capacity to mediate resource use conflict at local level is shaped by community ownership and legitimacy, leadership dispositions, legal mandates, relations to government institutions, relations between community members, and also the character and history of interactions over time. There are positive examples of resource conflict mediation but also examples of intractable local level conflict that a CBO is unable to influence and indeed may contribute to. x • There are limitations in translating management incentives into practical usable terms, such as incorporating indigenous knowledge into management; or relating certain scientific messages with their primary concerns of livelihoods. All too often outside agencies create generic information on environmental issues and management actions that individuals can relate to in abstract but which do not connect to people’s resource use activities in specific local contexts. • Several CBOs have been able to demonstrate activities with positive resource management objectives, however much of it is short-lived and relates to the presence of external funding or of government interest in a particular issue at a specific time. • Support and capacity building sustained over time is important to enhance organisational capacity within CBOs. This includes information, sources of information, and mode of information delivery that CBO members can access, and use for effecting changes in the environment. Capacity building is also important to sustain these achievements