Author Vermeulen, S.

Year of publication 2005

This handbook is a guide to tools and further information to tackle people’s marginalisation from decision-making in natural resource management. The tools are policy tools, aimed at influencing what organisations do in natural resource politics, markets and daily affairs. Since the tools have been developed to increase the influence of less powerful groups and individuals, we call them power tools. There are four sections in the handbook: Introduction: suggests how to use the handbook and provides background information on the development of the main set of tools; A box of tool ideas: presents a set of 26 varied tools developed in the power tools work, and provides advice on adaptation and development of tools; Discussion of key concepts: introduces a range of frameworks for thinking about power, and considers features of marginalisation and empowerment; Further tools resources: recommends 56 websites and 12 books that contain useful policy tools and discussion. Power tools usually mean tools with motors, that anyone can use without too much training. Here we mean tools for working on policies and institutions. But the implication that these tools are "do-it-yourself" is intentional. Our hope is that some of the suggested tools ideas, or simply the concept of a "tools focus", inspire you to discover and develop new ways of dealing with policy problems.