Institutional Settings, Stakeholder Engagement and Decision-Making Processes in Invasive Species Management

Effective management of invasive species, which is part of natural resource management, requires a coordinated approach by all stakeholders in the invaded landscape. This chapter describes attempts to engage stakeholders across sectors and at different scales and to develop novel governance and institutional approaches to address the challenges caused by the invasive alien tree Prosopis juliflora in eastern Africa. The chapter focuses on the work carried out in Kenya, as it is the only country in which research projects were conducted to test novel institutional approaches at different scales in selected counties. The chapter first explores the shortcomings of existing governance and institutional structures in Kenya regarding natural resource management and then describes the creation of Local Implementation Groups and County Implementation Groups. These multi-stakeholder institutions were engaged in deliberative decision processes to codesign Prosopis juliflora management at local and county scales and to promote its implementation. The initial efforts have led to social learning among the stakeholders involved and have helped to mainstream invasive species management into planning and budgetary processes at county and national scales but it is still too early to assess the impacts of the novel institutional arrangements and of the stakeholders’ commitment to the management of Prosopis juliflora in the long term.