Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

Chapter 4: Improving Forest Quality and Livelihoods in Indonesia • 105
Diagnosis Planning Implementation
Diagnosis
1. Identify problem situations
2. Identify other stakeholders with
stake in same problem situation
3. Develop mutual appreciation of
stakes that others have in problem
situation
Planning
4. Frame problem situation
5. Find strategies to improve problem
situation
Implementation
6. Observe
7. Plan
8. Act
9. Reflect
10. Plan
11. Act
12. Reflect
etc.
Figure 4-2. Three phases of ACM intervention
Diagnostic phase
The diagnosis of problems makes explicit people’s concern so that they
can communicate about them and take action. This phase was essential: it
laid down the basis for subsequent processes of learning and collaboration.
No strict prescription guided how long this phase should last. In Jambi the
diagnostic stage required about six months, but in Pasir it took less than
two months. It comprised three steps, all carried out by the local actors:
• identification of problem situations;
• identification of other stakeholders; and
• development of mutual appreciation about the stakes that others
had in a given problem.
In practice the three diagnostic steps were not discrete, in neither time
nor substance; rather, they overlapped with one another. Moreover, the
order of the three steps was not strictly consecutive; instead, they blended
flexibly into one coherent process.
The identification of problem situations aimed at finding and agreeing
on local priorities, which in both sites centred on livelihoods. Local
stakeholders expressed their specific priorities as ‘learning questions’ (Table
4-2) to guide them in their action research.