Landscape Governance: Collaborating Across Sectors and Scales

Increasing global complexities and interconnectedness offer both opportunities and challenges to our collective ability to deal with climate change, food insecurity, resource depletion and degradation and the many conflicts that arise due to scarcity. The solutions to many of these issues need both global attention, but also local action.

Join this MOOC, to kick-start your efforts to unite stakeholders and design governance structures, processes and partnerships embedded in place that capitalize on strengths and balance and mitigate threats.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and building healthy and productive landscapes can only happen with effective stakeholder engagement. Landscape governance is therefore key to balance and manage the many trade-offs and interdependencies that happen across sectors and scales in and around landscapes.

Taking this online course requires you to look at a landscape and its governance from a new perspective. With the landscape as the place, you will think spatially and explore transboundary governance that flows from the natural landscape and overcomes static, traditional administrative levels and barriers.

Once you sign up, you'll be whisked away to exciting real-world landscapes to learn from global experiences and see how even in the most challenging circumstances, effective governance leads to innovation and sustainable development in landscapes.

You'll also be challenged to assess the roles of formal and informal institutions in a highly interactive fashion. By the end of this course, you have analysed the multi-actor, multi-sector and multi-scale character of a landscape which is necessary to create sustainable and innovative landscape governance arrangements.

Professional Certificate Programme: Sustainable and Inclusive Landscapes

This course is also part of the Sustainable and Inclusive Landscapes Professional Certificate Programme. Following the complete programme lets you harness the power of place and advance your career as a landscape leader. The programme consists of the following courses, which can be taken in any given order:

• Landscape Leadership: Catalyse Sustainable Development in Landscapes
• Landscape Finance: Investing in Innovation for Sustainable Landscapes
• Climate Action in Biodiverse Landscapes
• Landscape Governance: Collaborating Across Sectors and Scales (this course)

Collaboration

This course has been designed by Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation, with contributions from the Horn of Africa Regional Centre (HOAREC) in Ethiopia, and South Rift Association of Land Owners (SORALO) in Kenya. It has been financed by the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.

1: Introduction to Landscape Governance

In this opening module, you will quickly get up-to-speed on landscape approaches and start to understand what landscape governance is all about. You will also start to look at your landscape in new ways and meet other professionals who are taking the course.

2: Getting to Know a Landscape

In this module you will explore landscape dynamics, looking at the internal and external stakeholders and processes that shape the landscape. You’ll learn cutting-edge analysis and process tools to help progress in your landscape.

3: Institutions and Change

Here, you’ll learn to identify, understand and use landscape institutions to help interventions and landscape stakeholders. You’ll also learn how to kick-off the institutional change that’s necessary for sustainable landscape development

4: Policies and Practice

In this module you’ll see how policies, whether ‘good’ or ‘ bad’ can shape landscapes and the livelihoods in them. You’ll also learn about designing suitable governance arrangements and how this fits in a landscape action plan.

5: Put Your Knowledge into Action

In this final module, you will apply your newly-acquired knowledge to your own landscape. Incorporating theory and tools from previous modules, you will deliver your ambition for change in your landscape.