Using Monitoring as Leverage for Equal Opportunity in Nepal

In march 2002, “ms. b,” a low-caste and impoverished member of the Bamdibhir Community Forest User Group in Nepal, secured a position in a promising local bamboo enterprise. Previously, this kind of opportunity would likely have been inaccessible to her. However, a shift in the group’s decision-making process toward adaptive and collaborative management (ACM) had created an opportunity that Ms. B was able to seize. Part of the shift had entailed active monitoring to hold the group accountable to its own equity-related goals.