Community-based tourism (CBT) has become an important facet in the quest for sustainable tourism. CBT is a term that has been subjected to different interpretations in the academic literature. In the field, CBT continues to be supported as an approach to improve the livelihoods of local people in communities participating in tourism. With growing interest in the sustainable livelihoods approach to development, tourism researchers have begun to examine tourism as a livelihood strategy. However, there remain few case studies that have connected the sustainable livelihoods approach and tourism. More specifically, there is limited empirical evidence exploring community-based tourism as a livelihood strategy for rural communities. This research employed an exploratory mixed methods approach to investigate community-based tourism from a livelihoods perspective. The case of the Commonwealth of Dominica was examined to address the following objectives: i) to assess the approach to the development of community-based tourism on the island of Dominica; ii) to analyze residents’ perceptions of the impacts that tourism has on their community from a livelihoods perspective; and iii) to evaluate the degree of success (or failure) of community-based tourism development in Dominica. The research findings revealed that community-based tourism is a valued component of Dominica’s national tourism strategy. Since the early nineties, community involvement has been an implicit policy in the tourism development process. More recently, government-funded initiatives have provided assistance to communities across the island to develop, implement, and market community tourism products. Additionally, this research suggests that the livelihood asset pentagon presented in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework for Tourism (Shen, Hughey, and Simmons, 2008) is an effective organizational tool for assessing the impact of tourism on communities. Future research should be directed at applying the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework for Tourism in more diverse contexts to ensure its validity and applicability. Furthermore, there is a need to develop a comprehensive Community-based Tourism Framework to assist in the monitoring and evaluation of community-based tourism projects in the field. The main conclusion drawn from this study is that the island of Dominica is on a successful path for developing community-based tourism and it has the potential to yield a number of ‘best practice’ scenarios for the Caribbean region and the globe a like.

Environmental Education is becoming increasingly important as human populations expand into wildlife habitat, often resulting in human/wildlife conflicts. Meadow Creek British Columbia has experienced a long history of conflicts with grizzly bears resulting in significant bear mortalities. This qualitative research investigates human attitudes and behaviours relating to human/grizzly bear coexistence in this area. Twenty eight participants with diverse values contributed to in-depth interviews and a focus group that revealed perceived barriers and potential solutions to human/grizzly bear coexistence. Results show increased attitudes of tolerance since mid-2000s and that on-going support is needed to enable bears and humans to coexist. This research suggests coexisting with grizzly bears in Meadow Creek may serve to improve the linkage function of this area, making coexistence important to local grizzly populations. This work may be a useful study for communities in areas of high human/bear conflicts or in linkage areas between threatened populations of wildlife.

<p><font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3"> <p>The objective of the study was to find out whether the decentralisation of responsibulities for social economics development facilitated the management of disaster risk during the 2007 floods in Mozambique. the specific aims of the study were to : analyse <font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3">and discuss national policies for decentralisation and their significance for DRM.&nbsp / Investigate which responsibilities, human and financial resources were available to local governments&nbsp / for the planning, implemantations and monitoring of DRM activities. Identify&nbsp / mechanisms institutions and activities for DRM and&nbsp / find out whether they provided to be effective. Explore how concerned&nbsp / communities participated in DRM activitiesto reduce&nbsp / their vulnerability to disaster risk.&nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / </font></font><font face="SymbolMT" size="3"><font face="SymbolMT" size="3"> <p>&nbsp / </p> </font></font>&nbsp / </p> <p>&nbsp / </p> <p>&nbsp / </p> <p>&nbsp / </p> <p>&nbsp / </p> </font></font></font></font></font></font></p> <p>&nbsp / </p>

<p>Ethiopia is exercising decentralisation of the health system and thus this study assesses lessons learned about the experiences of the decentralization of institutions in heoretical terms. The problem investigated in this study concerns the lack of institutional capacity to effectively provide services, lack of transparency, responsibility and accountability. Decision making is also very remote from the people with regard to resource allocation and public health service delivery. The scope of this study covers the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People&rsquo / s Regional State of Ethiopia and its relationship with the Cheha District in the area of health service decentralization. The objective of this study was to identify fundamental elements of decentralization of health institutions and the impact on the performance of the health system at local government level in the Cheha District in Ethiopia.</p>

<p>The study introduces and puts forward Sector Policing as a model to expand Community Policing and to broaden the scope of crime prevention. It also demonstrates how Sector Policing can be utilised to decentralise policing and deepen community participation.</p>

<p>This research endeavours to identify existing participatory structures and explore the role of local government officials, community representatives and other role players in the housing delivery process in Joe Slovo / indicate opportunities for the participation of beneficiaries in the housing process as well as the extent and nature of community engagement / highlight existing barriers to effective community participation and other problems related to housing delivery in Joe Slovo / draw general conclusions within the framework of the government&rsquo / s housing policy / and provide recommendations to policy makers, urban planners and other stakeholders. Consequently, this research employs qualitative methodological tools as they are most appropriate in the collection of this type of data. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with local officials, and observations were used to gather critical information. In addition, secondary data, with a special focus on newspaper articles, were used.</p>

Since the reintroduction of South Africa into the international community, tourism has been emphasised, through policy and public speech, as a means to achieve socio-economic upliftment and job creation. Although tourism has potential to contribute to a country's wellbeing, its implementation may introduce many complexities and potentially undesirable consequences. One way of alleviating some of the negative consequences of tourism, is through sufficiently involving communities in the tourism development and execution process. Most often the emphasis on involving local communities in tourism development has been rural based. The move to include previously disadvantaged urban communities, has been less well articulated. Local government authorities have only recently been given responsibility for both community involved tourism development and local economic development, and are therefore still formulating their approach to address these issues. Within KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) there are relatively few government projects currently concentrating on community-based tourism in urban and peri-urban areas. This project looks at one of these initiatives to build a case for sustainable community-based urban tourism. The Freedom Experience is a predominantly urban-based heritage tourism initiative proposed by the Pietermaritzburg-Msunduzi Transitional Local Council for development within Pietermaritzburg and surrounding areas. Georgetown is a previously neglected area falling within this region and is used as a case study to explore the process of participation in urban tourism development. The key stakeholders involved in tourism development within KZN are ascertained and interviewed. Difficulties and opportunities are identified for community-based urban tourism development in general, and for the case study area in particular. Due to idiosyncratic characteristics of individual situations and communities, any specified procedure for community participation, and any organization involved with its implementation, needs to be flexible. A process is, suggested, which attempts to avoid the dualistic nature of either top-down or bottom-up approaches to tourism development. It introduces a less rigid approach, which breaks from the view that decision-making needs to be conceptualised within a hierarchical context. Communication and decision-making responsibility and accountability are shared between various levels. An approach is presented, which supports small scale community and tourism development projects linking into an overarching development framework. This approach should result in sustainable development, bringing community benefits which can be immediately effective. It advocates the establishment of self-supporting enterprises which function successfully, independent of tourist demand. In this way contributing to the fulfilment of socio-economic, job creation and related capacity building objectives, without relying on an influx of tourists from a historically disloyal and unpredictable consumer base. / Thesis (M.Env.Dev.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2000.

Background: Social participation has been recognized as an important public health policy since the declaration of Alma-Ata presented it as one of the pillars of primary health care in 1978. Since then, there have been many adaptations to the original policy recommendations, but participation in health is still seen as a means to make the health system more responsive to local health needs, and as a way to bring the health sector and the community closer together. Aim: To explore the role that social participation has in a municipal-level health system in Guatemala in order to inform future policies and programs. Methods: The fieldwork for this study was carried out over eight months and three field visits between early January of 2009 and late March of 2010. During this time, 38 indepth interviews with provincial and district-level health authorities, municipal authorities, community representatives and community health workers were conducted. Using an overall applied ethnographic approach, the main means of data collection were participant observation, in-depth interviews, group discussions and informal conversations. The data was analyzed in two different rounds. In the first one we used documentary analysis, role-ordered matrices and thematic analsis (see papers I-IV) and in the second round, thematic analysis was utilized. Results: We found four themes that frame what the role of social participation in the municipality of Palencia is. The first theme presents the historical, political and social context that has contributed to shaping the participation policies and practices in Guatemala as a whole. The second theme takes a deeper look at these policies and how they have been received in the municipality of Palencia. The third theme presents data regarding the three situated practices of participation, each occurring at a different level: municipal, community and the individual level. Finally, the last theme presents reflections on what it means to participate to the people that were involved in this study. Conclusion: In the process of social participation there are two different and complementary kinds of power that depend on the amount and the kind of resources available at each level of the participation structure. Stakeholders that have higher levels of power to formulate policies will have better access to financial, human and material resources while stakeholders that have higher levels of power to implement policies will have resources like community legitimacy, knowledge of local culture, values and mores, as well as a deep understanding of local social processes. The coordination of financial, human and material resources is just as important as the legitimacy that comes from having community leaders involved in more steps of the process. True collaboration can only be obtained through the promotion and creation of meaningful partnerships between institutional stakeholders and community leaders and other stakeholders that are working at the community level. For this to happen, more structured support for the participation process in the form of clear policies, funding and capacity building is needed.

<p><font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3"> <p>The objective of the study was to find out whether the decentralisation of responsibulities for social economics development facilitated the management of disaster risk during the 2007 floods in Mozambique. the specific aims of the study were to : analyse <font face="Cambria" size="3"><font face="Cambria" size="3">and discuss national policies for decentralisation and their significance for DRM.&nbsp / Investigate which responsibilities, human and financial resources were available to local governments&nbsp / for the planning, implemantations and monitoring of DRM activities. Identify&nbsp / mechanisms institutions and activities for DRM and&nbsp / find out whether they provided to be effective. Explore how concerned&nbsp / communities participated in DRM activitiesto reduce&nbsp / their vulnerability to disaster risk.&nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / </font></font><font face="SymbolMT" size="3"><font face="SymbolMT" size="3"> <p>&nbsp / </p> </font></font>&nbsp / </p> <p>&nbsp / </p> <p>&nbsp / </p> <p>&nbsp / </p> <p>&nbsp / </p> </font></font></font></font></font></font></p> <p>&nbsp / </p>

Abstract Sustainable community development is a current approach to development that has evolved from previous approaches. In Malaysia, the community-based homestay programme, which is a collective project undertaken by community members, is promoted to rural villages by the Malaysian government as a development strategy. In fact, the homestay programme has the potential to generate additional income for the villagers and provide an avenue for them to participate in tourism development. It also offers cultural exchange between the hosts and the guests, and incorporates the surrounding environment, including farms and the rural landscape, as the main attractions. Nevertheless, research on the Malaysian homestay programme as a development strategy is scarce and predominantly focuses on villages with programmes that are performing well in terms of generating tourist revenue. Although it may be economically viable, economic criterion alone does not guarantee that the programme and the community will be sustainable in the future, justifying the sustainable community development focus of this thesis. Sustainable community development is based on the principle that the community is able to utilise its resources while ensuring future generations have enough resources, reflecting the concepts of equity, a development by the people and for the people, and self-sufficiency. Consequently, three important issues are addressed in this thesis; 1) the distribution of costs and benefits among local people, 2) the nature of local participation, and 3) the self-reliance of the community. In framing the issues, the thesis is underpinned by several theories relating to earlier development theories, sustainable tourism development, sustainable community development, and pro-poor tourism. Unlike previous research which concentrated primarily on the host group with only minor representation from other village members, this thesis seeks to assess all groups in the village; the host, non-host and non-participant. A total of 90 interviews were undertaken in three different categories of homestay villages, in addition to another 10 interviews with representatives from the government and the Malaysian Homestay Association. Semi-structured interviews provided primary data for this study while secondary data was sourced from document analysis. Consequently, the multiple data collection method, including field notes, and various types of data heighten the credibility of this research through triangulation. To provide a framework for the discussion, the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (DFID, 1999) was applied to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of each homestay village. Overall, the results of this research reveal that the homestay programme is not able to contribute to sustainable community development when it is not accepted by all members of the community. Based on the results, this thesis proposes a framework towards an improvement in the organisation, the management and the community of homestay through an assessment and monitoring system. By implementing the concepts in the proposed Sustainable Livelihoods Framework for Homestay Programme (SLF-HP), it is hoped that such programmes will increase, sustain and expand the benefits to a larger number of community members.