Structure project management in order to capitalize on synergies between related interventions. The CBRLM evaluation asserted that insecure communal land rights (along with an underdeveloped formal livestock market) in the Northern Communal Areas (NCAs) of Namibia made it unlikely for the program to produce positive outcomes. The connection between land rights and land use were considered during the development of the Namibia Compact. In fact, CBRLM and the Communal Land Support (CLS) Sub-Activity fall within a common Land Access and Management Activity and were conceived as complementary investments with certain shared outcomes. CBRLM attempted to address community decisions around shared resources (i.e., internal tragedy of the commons dynamics) but did not (and probably could not) do much about neighboring communities poaching land (i.e., external tragedy of the commons dynamics), which likely contributed to the negative CBRLM impacts detected on the rangeland. Although much of CLS focused on policy reform and individual land rights, CLS also attempted to introduce group land rights intended to protect common grazing areas and the external tragedy of the commons referenced above. Unfortunately, however, the two interventions were managed by different staff within MCA-Namibia and MCC, and implemented by different contractors—CBRLM and CLS were both overseen by the MCA-Namibia Agriculture Director but MCC lacked a single project lead with sufficient authority and accountability for both investments and their targeted results; this may have contributed to a loss of natural and planned synergies, and undermined results. In addition, hiring separate contractors to be responsible for complementary components of a common objective may have created a dynamic whereby contractual requirements and incentives were not only misaligned but may have also inadvertently undermined each other. Going forward, when results are interdependent, MCC should better align its strategic oversight, contracting, management, and external accountability, in a way that capitalizes on synergies and increases the likelihood of achieving results through a unified vision for the design and implementation of the activities. One example that comes closer to this recommended approach is the land project structure MCC is using with the Morocco II Compact in which cross-cutting functional roles report to a single project lead, who is accountable for whether the project achieves its objectives. This contrasts with MCC’s traditional matrix structure where cross-cutting roles sit outside of the project and report to a functional manager instead of a project lead.
Lesson Learned