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- Knowledge Management
- Natural Resources Programs
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Nobel Winner Ostrom Began Work with USAID
FrontLines - December-January 2009-10
By Melissa Giaimo
The first woman to win the
Nobel Prize for economics—
Elinor Ostrom—credits USAID
with launching her interest in
development research.
Ostrom’s work challenges
popular convention that common,
or user-owned, resources, such as
grazing land, forests, fisheries,
and irrigation systems, are poorly
managed by communities.
In the late 1980s, a USAID
grant brought Ostrom to Nepal to
begin work studying development
assistance and farmer managed
irrigation. Her more recent
USAID-funded research at Virginia
Tech focused on how alternative
forest management policies
and governance in developing
countries affect the livelihoods of
local forest users while protecting
forests. This research builds upon
the work for which she received
the Nobel Prize.
A political science professor
at Indiana University in Bloomington,
Ostrom shares the $1.4
million prize with Oliver Williamson
of the University of California,
Berkeley.
Ostrom, 76, said her respect
for people drives her work in
development.
“I’ve seen ingenious work
done by poor people who don’t
read, who haven’t had a chance to
go to school, who earn $2 to $3 a
day, roughly, and yet, their ideas
are ingenious,” she said in an
interview with FrontLines. “The
problems they face are immense,
and if I can possibly help, ‘Yes!’”
Ostrom’s research shows that
community ownership or management
of common property,
such as forests, water resources,
and fisheries, is more effective
than commonly thought. She
cites as an example the Maine
lobster fishery, which is in better
condition than a decade or two
ago due to rules and monitoring
developed by lobster fishermen.
She does note, however, that
decentralized management of
common resources is not always
the answer and cautions against
“formulaic decentralization,”
which she has found can promote destruction of resources. Ostrom points to successful examples of centralized forest management, such as national forest reserves in Uganda that encourage local people to plant trees.
Ostrom’s four-year, $1.14 million grant for forestry research expired in December 2009. Nevertheless, Ostrom said she plans to continue her work, and is looking for long-term funding to sustain the project for 20 years or more.
Her forestry management research was funded through the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management program, which is one of eight active USAID-supported Collaborative Research Support Programs, each receiving just over $3 million per year. The programs are part of the Agency’s support of advanced scientific research to improve development efforts around the world.
★
FrontLines is published
by the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs
U.S. Agency for International Development
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Material should be submitted
by mail to Editor, FrontLines, USAID,
RRB, Suite 6.10, Washington, DC 20523-6100;
by FAX to 202-216-3035; or by e-mail to frontlines@usaid.gov
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