Participatory and Negotiated Territorial Development (PNTD)

Participatory and Negotiated Territorial Development (PNTD) is an approach that aims to promote a systemic territorial development by improving trust among social actors and strengthening social cohesion. PNTD fits within the array of participatory, bottoms-up approaches that have emerged over the last 30 years in response to the failure of top-down approaches. PNTD aims to address imperfect decentralization (devolving responsibilities without devolving power and without equipping the lower administrative levels with the needed financial and human resources) and tools for handling the diversity of actors and interests causing inefficiencies and conflicts in local resource use and management.

PNTD can be operationalized in four main phases.

Phase 1 involves identifying and understanding the actors and the territorial system.This involves a stakeholder analysis of the actors visions, interests, power relations, and margins of flexibility. Driving forces, both external and internal, have to be identified , as well as key figures and leaders. An efficient technique in this phase is the use of key informants, to quickly collect information and different and in-depth viewpoints over current issues. A historical analysis is also required: to describe in a coherent framework the causes of the existing territorial issues, actors’ visions regarding access to and use of land and natural resources, functioning of the territorial system and current dynamics and possible trends within the territory. This is the basis for the formulation of alternative options of interventions to be discussed in the next phase.

Phase 2 involves outlining coherent and feasible proposals for territorial development. Central in this phase is the role and skills of a facilitator, an external support, in helping the actors to cope with systems as a whole, for taking into account their internal dynamics and external driving forces, and for stimulating understanding between the actors of the benefits of participation based on their interests.  Critical to success of the dialogue process is to counteract the tendency of the dominant group to maintain the status quo, but also to strengthen the bargaining power of marginalized and less powerful actors, who otherwise have more to lose in a negotiation process where the differences in power are too big for collaboration.

Phase 3 concerns the actual negotiation process: how to seek consensus for the development of the territory. The main challenge in this phase is the ability to create sufficient trust to articulate and maintain a multi-level multi-actor dialogue on territorial issues. This is best achieved through an ‘interest-based’ negotiation process, of which the main characteristics are: (1) focus on the interests at stake instead of the positions taken by the various actors; (2)  formulate a vast range of options and evaluate their feasibility based on objective criteria defined by the parties; (3)elaborate a comprehensive set of decisions that may materialize in the form of a Social Territorial Agreement (STA).  External support is critical in this phase in the form of an “honest broker”, a mediator between the parties, who can lead the multi-stakeholder process forward.

The STA is not a contract but a formal recognition of the fact that a common ground has been found for an agreement between the actors and that sufficient trust has been established to reactivate the process on new and broader issues. The STA can refer to many deliverables, such as income generation activities, a scheme for conflict resolution, a territorial development plan, a plan for natural resource use and management, formulation of a new law, recognition of customary tenure etc.