Antecedentes de la mediación en Argentina

This research followed the MUHEC’s Code of Ethical Conduct for Research. This research project is considered to be a low risk project, since the nature of the harm is no more than is normally encountered in daily life and the research follows the MUHEC low risk notification guidelines. The following major ethical processes have been followed during this research, the detailed documents of which are presented in Annex 4.

The participants in this research were provided with an information sheet which outlined the researcher’s introduction; project description and invitation to participate; participant identification and selection criteria; project procedures, including time involved; data management; and a statement of participant’s rights to decline to participate. The information sheet also includes the contact details of the researcher and supervisors for the participants to make contact, if they had any questions about the project. Finally, it includes compulsory statements, such as a committee approval statement.

130

Participants were invited to participate in the research and their informed consent was obtained. The informed consent form includes the title of the research and the time period for retaining the signed form (a minimum of five years from the research completion date). It also includes the participant’s statement agreeing to participate in the research and the participant’s full name, signature and date.

Privacy and confidentiality considerations: A signed confidentiality agreement was obtained from the research assistants, who collected and processed any data which contained personal information. This confidentiality agreement covers an agreement to not disclose, retain or copy any information.

4.10 Summary

This chapter has given an overview of the methodological approaches and procedures adopted for this research. In this study, a mixed methodological approach (both quantitative and qualitative approaches of data analysis) was employed to analyse the incentives to becoming involved in community forest management in Nepal. Quantitative data was required to construct and analyse statistical models, in order to estimate the conditions under which a household participates in the governance of common property resources. The primary survey provided necessary quantitative information for estimating people’s level of participation, in addition to the role incentives play, in order to change the users’ behaviour. This study considers a user group member household as being the lowest unit of sampling and hence, the unit of data sources for the analysis.

A two-stage model was constructed, in order to estimate the conditions under which a household participates in the governance of common property resources. Firstly, an index of participation was constructed as a proxy for participation, using a factor analysis of indicators of participation, in order to identify different choice situations. Secondly, an ordered probit model was used to identify the relationship between different incentives and the level of participation. As an alternative (and for comparative purposes) a partial least squares approach was also undertaken to link the participation indicators to the various incentives.

Considering that quantitative analysis may not solely be sufficient for a successful analysis of the problem, qualitative data were also collected from the field, in order to

131

gain an understanding of the institutional settings and overall governance and management practices and performances of the selected user groups. Focus group discussions, key informants interviews and informal discussions/observations were carried out, to collect the qualitative information. The qualitative data was analysed by the use of a manual method, which focussed not only on what the respondents said:

but also the way in which they said it.

This study was undertaken in two districts located the Middle Hills of Nepal. Given the limited availability of resources (both finances and time) this research can be considered as being a large pilot project that covers only two districts of Nepal, as the study area. The results from the descriptive statistics are reported in Chapter 5 and the quantitative data analysis results are presented in Chapter 6.

133

CHAPTER FIVE

USERS’ PARTICIPATION IN THE GOVERNANCE AND

MANAGEMENT OF COMMUNITY FOREST

5.1 Introduction

In this chapter, the findings of the descriptive statistics are reported. Firstly, a description of the characteristics of the surveyed households is provided. This description comprises socio-economic characteristics, such as the age and gender of the household head; its wealth-ranking category; caste group composition; family size; major source of income; length of membership in the CFUG; and affiliations with other organisations. Subsequently, the users’ existing level of participation in the governance structure of the group and in various group activities, such as meetings, decision- making processes and activity implementation, are reported. The users’ existing level of access to the forest resources and the major benefits derived by them (from being a member of the group) is also described in the following section. The incentives provided by the community forestry regimes in Nepal are also discussed. The users’ attitudes towards changes in the incentives for their participation decision in the governance and management of common property resources are reported. Finally, this chapter concludes with a description of factors that constrain the users’ participation in the governance of a community forestry programme in Nepal — and how these constraints could be alleviated.