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Improving Natural Resource Governance: A Key to Ensuring Peace and Stability in Mindanao, Philippines


Publisher: Asian Journal of Environment and Disaster Management

Author(s): Cynthia Brady, Oliver Agoncillo, Maria Zita Butardo-Toribio, Buenaventura Dolom

Date: 2010

Topics: Cooperation, Governance, Monitoring and Evaluation, Renewable Resources

Countries: Philippines

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Following decades of conflict, in 1996 the Moro National Liberation Front signed a peace agreement with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP); implementation of the Agreement was supported by international donors. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) invested in several sectors, including natural resources management, to support the newly created Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and to foster a lasting peace. This case study focuses on nearly ten years of USAID experience in supporting efforts of Local Government Units and communities in conflict-affected areas to improve governance of forest, coastal, and marine resources. Despite flaws in the Agreement and its implementation as well as the combined effects of continuing conflict between the GRP and the breakaway Moro Islamic Liberation Front and other armed groups present in Mindanao, much can be learned from the experience of using governance of natural resources as a critical post-conflict stabilization, peacebuilding, and development tool.