Collaborative Governance in Africa’s National Parks: A Systematic Literature Review of Models and Practices

Collaborative governance has emerged as a response to the weaknesses of centralized state-driven protectionist approaches in the governance of national parks. This paper explores in detail how collaborative governance is modelled in Africa’s national parks; the factors that enable or hinder the successful implementation of collaborative governance models in Africa’s national parks; and the effects that the implementation of collaborative governance models induces for fringe communities of those parks. The paper draws upon selected case studies in Africa and adopts Ansell and Gash’s (2008) model of collaborative governance as a frame to analyze the cases. By sourcing data from various databases that publish work on protected areas, this analysis relied on only parks that have a form of collaborative governance in place, thus avoiding paper parks which lack such institutionalized and operationalized governance mechanisms. The results show that collaborative governance is modelled in three main ways depending on the level of power and responsibilities shared and the number of stakeholders involved in the collaboration process. These models include devolution, partnership and de-concentration. This analysis shows that the fringe communities with greater participation in decision-making processes observe more positive outcomes from collaboration, reflecting improved biodiversity, healthy human-wildlife interaction, and peaceful coexistence between park managers and local people. Furthermore, this paper observed that Non-Governmental Organizations’ participation as negotiators for improved access to resources, and the provision of alternative livelihoods incentivize actors’ adherence to the terms of collaboration. Further research on the limits of power each collaborator wields, and the legal frameworks on collaborative governance will be useful for sustaining the model of collaboration deployed within a particular park area. In summary, this paper contributes to the literature on the collaborative governance of protected areas in Africa.