MSC Thesis - CO2 Compensation in Practice - What Makes Actors Cooperate

CO2 Compensation in Practice:
What Makes Actors Cooperate??
Assessing Stability and Dynamics in the Actors’ Cooperation and

Policy Processes Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF):
A Case Study of the UWA-FACE Project at Mount Elgon in Uganda
Muhammad Sohail
CO2 Compensation in Practice:
What Makes Actors Cooperate??
Assessing Stability and Dynamics in the Actors’

Cooperation and Policy Processes Using the
Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF):
A Case Study of the UWA-FACE Project at

Mount Elgon in Uganda
August 2008
Thesis supervision
Marielle van der Zouwen
Muhammad Sohail
820312784070
Wageningen University and Research
M.Sc. Forest & Nature Conservation Policy
E-mail: muhammad.sohail@wur.nl
List of acronyms
ACF Advocacy Coalition Framework

BoD Board of Directors
CDM Clean Development Mechanism
CER Certified Emission Reduction
CNG Climate Neutral Group
EM Emission Trading
ERU Emission Reduction Unit
FACE Forest Absorbing Carbon dioxide Emissions
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FERN Forest and European Union Resource Network
FSC Forest Stewardship Council
JI Joint Implementation
KP Kyoto Protocol
MENP Mount Elgon National Park
MECDP Mount Elgon Conservation and Development Project
NGO Non Government Organization
PNA Policy Network Analysis
SEP Dutch Electricity Generation Board
SGS Société Générale de Surveillance
UN United Nations
UNCED United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
UWA Uganda Wildlife Authority
VER Verifiable Emission Reduction
WB World Bank
WRM World Rainforest Movement
i
Contents
Chapter 1
Introduction..............................................................................................................................1
1.1 The climate change and the Kyoto Protocol ............................................................1
1.2 Background ..............................................................................................................3
1.3 Problem Statement ...................................................................................................5
1.4 General objective and research questions ................................................................6
Chapter 2
Theoretical Framework............................................................................................................7
2.1 The choice of theoretical perspective ......................................................................7
2.2 The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) ...........................................................7
2.3 The ACF premises ...................................................................................................8
2.4 The key concepts of the ACF.................................................................................10
2.5 Theoretical expectations ........................................................................................13
Chapter 3
Research Methodology ..........................................................................................................17
3.1 Character of the thesis work ..................................................................................17
3.2 Data collection .......................................................................................................19
3.3 The arrangements prior to data collection .............................................................21
Chapter 4
The partnership in 1989-1999................................................................................................24
4.1 Events in 1989-1999 ..............................................................................................24
4.2 Interpretation..........................................................................................................29
Chapter 5
The partnership in 2000-2008................................................................................................36
5.1 Events in 2000 and beyond ....................................................................................36
5.2 Interpretation..........................................................................................................42
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Chapter 6
Conclusion and Discussion ....................................................................................................47
6.1 Conclusion .............................................................................................................47
6.2 Reflections on results.............................................................................................53
6.3 Theoretical reflections ...........................................................................................55
6.4 Discrepancies faced ...............................................................................................56
6.5 Reflection on research method used ......................................................................57
References..............................................................................................................................60
iii
List of tables
Table 4.1…………………………………………………………………………………… 32
Table 4.2…………………………………………………………………………………….33
Table 6.1…………………………………………………………………………………… 47
Table 6.2…………………………………………………………………………………… 48
Table 6.3…………………………………………………………………………………… 50
iv
Acknowledgement
Above all, thanks to Almighty Allah for His blessings and for providing me the strength to
undertake this study. Besides, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the following
persons whose support made possible the completion of my master’s thesis, a dream came
true!
First of all, countless thanks to Marielle van der Zouwen, my supervisor from the Forest and
Nature Conservation Policy Group for her endurance, guidance and the important
discussions in understanding of this specific case. Without her direction, I would probably
not be able to see the critical aspects of this study that interlinked the theory and the
empirical case. Thanks to Prof. Bas Arts for his warm welcoming in the Wageningen UR
and for his support and valuable discussion in choosing this interesting theme as a topic for
my thesis research.
I would also like to thank the European Commission, the University of Joensuu in Finland
and its staff whose beliefs in my capabilities enabled me to acquire this opportunity of
carrying out my masters in European Forestry.
My special thanks go to Haider, Tamara and Isabella whose facilitation in the lay out and
giving a final touch to this report was of enormous support. I wish to thank Martijn Snoep of
the Face foundation for his outstanding support and assistance in accessing valuable sources
of information without which this task would probably not be achievable.
My family and friends, who always wanted to see me touching the acme of success and
prosperity, also deserve exceptional appreciation. The company of Farrakh, Nadeem, Saad,
Nazir, Sabaz and all others made me feel at home. My colleagues from the European
Forestry, especially Albin, Efrian, Funso and Imole have shared with me the nicest moments
and have been a support in glum during the last two years.
v
Abstract
This case study deals with the core idea of interaction among two actors, the Face
foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). In light of the theoretical perspective
of the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), it attempts to describe how these two actors
form an advocacy coalition or partnership against the issue of climate change in order to
accomplish the goals and objectives of their respective organizations. Considerable attention
is paid to the policy processes of the actors involved, and to the factors that explain their
partnership. It further highlights the state of affairs where this partnership achieves the
heights of stability. Theoretically, the concept of the ‘belief system’ premise of the ACF has
been particularly focused, which tries to understand the empirical phenomenon of actors
cooperating with each other in a particular coalition.
This study also portrays the character of certain ‘external factors’ that play an imperative
role in bringing changes in the stable cooperation or partnership of the Face foundation and
the Uganda Wildlife Authority. One of such important factors, in this case, is the report from
the World Rainforest Movement (WRM) that brought the attention of the media, the
international critics, the general public and other important actors to the stable cooperation
of the Face foundation and UWA bringing significant alterations in the strategic policies of
the two actors. The WRM showed up as an organization that came up —with its supporters
and partners— as another advocacy coalition with entirely different ideas and perceptions
regarding the issue of the climate change. This study concludes that theses differences in
beliefs and the WRM report did not succeed in altering the partnership of UWA and the
Face foundation, it however, brought significant changes in the behavior of important actors,
and ultimately in the policies of UWA and the Face foundation.
vi
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 The climate change and the Kyoto Protocol

Environmental issues have increasingly become of global concern getting an extraordinary
focus during the recent past. The smouldering issue of climate change has forced many
global actors, including environmental NGOs, concerned about how to mitigate this change.
To tackle the issue, a wide range of international negotiations have taken place so far. The
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the
Earth Summit, was one of the major moves in this regard. Held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992
this conference, among others, resulted in an agreement called the Climate Change
Convention or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
This was an important achievement that led to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, an international
agreement among countries aiming to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions and presence of
the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (FAO, 2001). The countries that have signed the
convention are known as “Parties to the Convention”.
The Parties to the Climate Change Convention have acknowledged the global climate
change and called for the widest possible cooperation by all the countries and their
participation in an effective and appropriate international response (UNFCCC, 1992). On
the other hand, FAO (2005) recognized forests —apart from performing many other
functions— serving as carbon sink, hence improving the global climate. FAO (2006) has
also acknowledged the negative impact of deforestation and stated that 25-30 percent of the
greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere each year had caused by deforestation (FAO,
2006). Likewise the global forest figures show that about 13 million hectares of the world
forests are cut down every year (FAO, 2005), which further threatened the climate. These
facts have stimulated actors, especially those concerned with the climate change, to come
forward and play their role.
The Kyoto Protocol provides opportunity for actors (individuals, organizations, countries
etc) to take part in the carbon trade under the auspicious UNFCCC and to help mitigate the
climate change. The most important aspect of the Protocol, according to FAO (2001), is the
1
Chapter 1: Introduction
binding commitment by the industrialized and developed countries (referred to as Annex-I

countries) to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2% of 1990 levels
during the commitment period (2008-2012).
The Protocol has also approved the use of three ‘flexibility mechanisms’ (described in the
next paragraph) to facilitate the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. This has given
rise to the carbon market where numerous actors are allowed to buy and sell carbon credits
or emission allowances, which is called Emission Trading (Grubb et al., 1999, p-xxix). The
ultimate objective of all these efforts is to reduce greenhouse gas emission to the
atmosphere, mainly from the fossil fuels. However, many, for instance Noble and Scholes
(2001) believe that forests and soils also play an important role in the Kyoto’s mechanism
by capturing and storing significant amounts of carbon. This has encouraged and attracted
numerous actors, especially the environmental NGOs that aver to sustain a clean
environment and to maintain the atmospheric carbon balance through forestry activities and
projects.
Although the Protocol urges the developed countries to reduce their emissions within their
national boundaries, yet it facilitates them with the ‘flexibility mechanisms’, i.e. Joint
Implementation (JI), the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Emission Trading
(ET). The JI refers to the projects carried out within the developed (Annex-I) countries with
the prime objective to reduce emission of greenhouse gases or by taking up and storing
them, e.g. planting forests (Stuart and Costa, 1998; Face foundation, 2008). This —as stated
by the Kyoto Protocol— delivers Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) which could be
credited to the investing country against its emission reduction target. In other words JI
allows the creation, acquisition and transfer of the ERUs (FAO, 2001). A CDM project on
the other hand, entails the developed countries to undertake projects in developing countries
with the same aim as Joint Implementation. This however is different in terms that such
projects should contribute to the sustainable development of the host (non-Annex-I) country
and must be independently certified (Stuart and Costa, 1998; FAO 2001). The latter
requirement, according to FAO (2001), gave rise to the term ‘Certified Emission Reduction’
or CER describing the output of a CDM project, and which could be banked —under the
article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol— from the year 2000 onwards. The Emission Trading (ET),
as set out in article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol, allows countries with spare emission units to
CO2 compensation in practice: What makes actors cooperate?? 2

sell their excess capacity to countries (or actors) that are over their targets (UNFCCC,
2008). Thus a new commodity was created in the form of ‘removals’ or emission reductions.
Since the CO2 is the principal greenhouse gas, people speak simply of trading in carbon,
which is now tracked and traded like any other commodity, this is known as ‘carbon market’
(UNFCCC, 2008).
However, polemic prevails amongst various international conservation organizations

whether or not to include the forestry activities in these flexible mechanisms. For example
The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Winrock Foundation and Sierra Club
strongly favour to include forestry projects in the CDM while other NGOs like WWF
International, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are still quite uncertain and suspicious
(FAO, 2001). The grass-root organizations and local NGOs have some support for CDM as
they deem it as a potential source of funding; others see it as another threat to the rural poor
from the processes of globalization (FAO, 2001). Some organizations such as the World
Rainforest Movement (WRM), call it a ‘temporary solution’ to a long term problem on the
‘others’ backyard depriving some people from their rights. In Short, there exist
disagreements among actors (policy makers, politicians, scientists, NGOs etc) regarding
inclusion (or non-inclusion) of forestry projects in the clean development mechanism of the
Kyoto Protocol. In spite of all these differences, however, there are forestry projects carried
out worldwide by actors that believe in the positive role of forests in mitigating the climate
change. One of such projects is the UWA-Face project that is jointly carried out by the
Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Face foundation at the Mount Elgon National Park
(MENP) in Uganda.
1.2 Background
The Face foundation is a non-government and not-for-profit organization based in the
Netherlands, which in 1990, started operating under the NV SEP, the state-owned electricity
generation board. The prime objective of the Face foundation was to partly offset the
atmospheric CO2, hence putting its efforts in mitigating the climate change through
afforestation programs. The Face foundation, since 2000, operates as an independent
organization. The foundation assumes that large scale afforestation and forest conservation
would make a major contribution to abate the greenhouse effect in the coming 100 years
(Face Foundation, 2007). As per its assumption, until recently, it has carried out forestry
projects in countries like the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Malaysia, and Uganda (Mwima et
al., 2006). The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), on the other hand, is the government
institution responsible for managing the National Parks, Wildlife Reserves and Wildlife
Sanctuaries of the country. The mission of UWA is to conserve and sustainably manage the
wildlife and Protected areas of Uganda for the benefit of the people of Uganda and the
global community (UWA, 2008).
The Face foundation, in 1994, initiated a forest restoration project at Mount Elgon National
Park (MENP) in Uganda in partnership with the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), and is
therefore referred to as the UWA-FACE project. The main objective of the Face foundation,
in this project, was to plant trees on 25,000 hectares of the park storing the atmospheric CO2
and contributing to abate the enhanced greenhouse effect. Hence the foundation owns the
carbon stored in the trees, while UWA, on the other hand, aims at restoring the park’s
natural ecosystem that was heavily degraded in the past (Mwima et al., 2006). The forest
management operations at MENP, as the Face foundation claims, maintain the long term
social and economic well being of the local communities. Hence, the Face foundation
believes that the UWA-Face project, apart from providing environmental services, makes
available benefits to the local communities. The main goal of the foundation however
remains the same: abating CO2 from the atmosphere which is quite explicit from its logo
“More forest, less CO2”. The UWA-Face project is still under operation by the same two
partners, UWA and the Face foundation with the main objectives to rehabilitate the park’s
natural vegetation and to partly offset the atmospheric CO2. The joint partnership between
the two actors has been continued for more than a decade. Interestingly, during the recent
past, this partnership has got a lot of media and public attention when the World Rainforest
Movement (WRM) published a report indicting the Face foundation and UWA for violating
the rights of the local people living in and around the Mount Elgon National Park. The
WRM, in its report, indicated that the UWA-Face project had deprived the local people form
their lands and land use rights. It therefore demands the withdrawal of the FSC certificate
from the UWA-Face project as it blames that the project is not in line with the principals of
the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

1.3 Problem Statement

This is clear that the Face foundation and Uganda Wildlife Authority have been undertaking
the UWA-Face project and cooperating with each other for a long time. Notably, the nature
of both the actors is quite different from each other in terms of their work and the concerned
objectives. The Uganda Wildlife Authority is a government institution responsible for the
conservation of wildlife and protected areas in Uganda. Face foundation, on the other hand,
is a non-government and non-for profit organization that strives for a cleaner environment
by carrying out forestry projects and mitigating the climate change. Moreover, the Face
foundation is based in the Netherlands while most of its projects are carried out in other
countries. Despite of the fact that the two actors are quite different from each other, the
cooperation between them seems very stable and remarkable. It is therefore assumed that
UWA and the Face foundation must have some kind of shared ideas concerning their
specific project at Mount Elgon, otherwise they would not work in partnership for such a
long time. Interestingly, in 2006 there had been a lot of commotion which came when the
WRM published its report about the Mount Elgon National Park. This has caught attention
of the media and the international conservation organizations, some of which have been
criticizing their work. Thus, I was keen to know how the WRM report has affected this
stable cooperation, which has been going on for such a long time among the two actors.
The focus of this study is, therefore, to look into the depth and explore how has this
partnership evolved and how can the seemingly stable cooperation between UWA and the
Face foundation be explained. Furthermore, how the WRM report, and the media attention
thereafter, has affected this stable cooperation.

1.4 General objective and research questions

The general objective of the proposed case study is to understand and explain the
development of innovative partnership among the actors, the Face foundation and the
Uganda Wildlife Authority, and to discern the grounds that make their partnership stable.
The study further looks into this partnership of the two actors in terms of the CO2
sequestration as it remains a prominent aspect in their cooperation in the UWA-Face project.
Based on the said objective, the following research questions are proposed:
1. How has the cooperation between the Face foundation and UWA evolved since the
launch of the UWA-FACE project until now?
2. How can the stability in partnership between the Face Foundation and UWA be
explained?
3. How has the World Rainforest Movement report affected the stable cooperation
between the Face foundation and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA)?

Chapter 2
Theoretical Framework
2.1 The choice of theoretical perspective

In the field of policy, there exit a range of approaches; each of them might be used to
explain certain cases and/ or phenomena. Therefore, it was rather tricky to choose and apply
an appropriate approach that could explain properly the case of UWA-Face project in
Uganda. Actors and their relationships, rules of a specific system, networking among actors
and discourses etc. are such aspects of empirical cases that could be explained by theories
such as policy arrangement approach (PAA), policy discourse analysis (PDA) or policy net
work analysis (PNA) etc. Likewise, the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) developed by
Sabatier in 1988, has its notion of ‘sharing the policy core beliefs’ which coerce actors to
form coalition and cooperate with each other. This concept has seemingly been observed
among the actors in this specific case. The Face foundation and UWA have their joint
project, the UWA-Face, operating at the Mount Elgon National Park in Uganda for a long
time. For this reason, it is assumed that they cooperate because of sharing some ideas or
goals concerning their specific project, which is precisely the core of the advocacy coalition
framework (ACF). Therefore, among other theoretical perspectives, the ACF gave the
impression of being the best as its premises seem to precisely fit into the empirical case.
Based on this fact, the theoretical perspective of advocacy coalition framework (ACF) was
chosen as a ‘lens’ to describe this particular case of the UWA-Face project at Mount Elgon
National Park (MENP) in Uganda.
2.2 The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF)

As mentioned before, the theoretical framework for this case study is provided by the
Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) with particular emphasis on its ‘belief systems’.
This approach was developed as an alternative to the ‘stages model’ of the policy process
(Elliot and Rodolphe, 2001). Furthermore, the main idea behind developing the ACF was to
study the complex public policy processes involving multiple actors. In this case, it is
applied to study and understand the cooperation, the stability and the dynamism in this
cooperation and policies of the Face foundation and its partner, the Uganda Wildlife
7
Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework
Authority (UWA). The ACF describes policy changes as a result of processes within the
subsystem in question, which is influenced by relatively stable parameters and external
events (Elliot and Rodolphe, 2001). Sabatier (1988) and Jenkins-Smith (1999) described
five basic premises of ACF based largely on the policy implementation in public policy.
2.3 The ACF premises

The very first premise of ACF reflects on the importance of technical information regarding
the magnitude and aspects of the problem in policy change. It further advocates considering
the impact of various solutions regarding the problem in question. In this case, I relate the
importance of technical information in policy change to the top managements and decision
makers of both organizations as they, inter alia, are supposed to be the main actors that have
enormous influence on the policies of their organizations. Moreover, they are deemed to be
erudite enough to consider the impact of various solutions while taking decision regarding
any problem.
The second premise of the framework argues to consider a time perspective of ten years or
more in order to understand a policy process or policy change. This assertion is based on the
Weiss’s (1977) argument who states that short term decision making will underestimate the
influence of policy analysis. Sabatier (1988; 1998) argues that utilizing the time frame of a
decade or more is important to complete, at least, a cycle of formulation, implementation
and re-formulation of a policy process. In this case, I consider a time frame of almost two
decades to assess the distinct changes in the cooperation and the relevant policy processes of
the Face foundation and UWA. I, therefore, focus on a period of 19 years starting from 1989
—when the Dutch electricity generation board, the NV SEP, started setting up the Face
foundation— until 2008, a stage where the Face foundation and UWA are considered to
have undergone changes in their partnership and the relevant policies. As per ACF, this time
perspective of 19 years is enough to assess the policy processes of the two actors involved in
the case under study.
Similarly the third basic premise argues about the unit of analysis to understand a policy
process. Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1988, 1999) argue that this unit of analysis, in modern
industrial societies, is not any specific government or organization but the policy subsystem
(or domain). A subsystem consists of actors belonging to various public or private

organizations who are actively concerned about a policy problem or issue, e.g. air pollution
control, and they regularly seek to influence the public policy in that domain. Sabatier and
Jenkins-Smith (1999) further explain that policy making, in any subsystem, is enough
complicated process and the actors must specialize in their field if they have to influence. In
my study, I narrate the subsystem to a series of ‘debates’ such as the carbon sequestration,
biodiversity & wildlife conservation, and the afforestation debates that are directly or
indirectly related to the broader concept of the climate change. Furthermore, I consider that
actors from government and private organizations, including UWA and the Face foundation,
take part in such debates to influence the public policies, or to achieve their goals and
objectives.
The forth basic premise of ACF is regarding a common conception about the ‘bordering’ of
a subsystem. It argues that a policy subsystem should be broadened to include two important
categories of actors instead of considering only the ‘iron triangles’, i.e. traditional state
settings of administration, legislation and interest groups. The two categories proposed by
Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) include: (1) journalists, researchers and policy analysts
which according to Sabatier (1988) play an important role in disseminating and evaluating
the policy ideas, and (2) actors at all levels of government that involve in policy formulation
and implementation. The rationale for latter is that policy innovation, very often in most of
the countries, initiate at the sub-national level which engross the involvement of mentioned
actors. Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) argue about the influence of these actors in policy
making referring to two decades of empirical research. In this particular research, I take into
account the role of media and journalists; and included a TV documentary and reports from
the journalists concerning the UWA-Face project. Furthermore, the viewpoints of
professionals from various non-governmental organizations and free lance consultants —
some of which worked for the government in the past— are included in this research.
The fifth and important idea of ACF takes into account the conceptualization of belief
systems because most of the public policies implicitly incorporate theories to achieve their
objectives. This concept involves the value priorities, perceptions of important causal
relationships, perception of the world states and the assumptions regarding the effectiveness
of various policy instruments. In this particular case, I perceive different aspects of the
actors’ ideas (their goals and objectives etc), their value priorities and their preferences as

their beliefs. This conception of the belief system is discussed further in details in the next
section.
2.4 The key concepts of the ACF

Apart from the aforementioned five premises, there are various concepts rooted deep into
the notion of the advocacy coalition framework. This section describes the core of these
concepts and their relevance to the specific case of the UWA-Face project.
The stable and dynamic parameters
The structure of ACF describes two exogenous factors to a subsystem; one relatively stable
and the other more dynamic. The latter parameter is more liable to significant fluctuations
over the course of years; hence act as major stimuli to the process of policy change. These
factors affect the constraints and opportunities of the subsystem actors (Sabatier, 1988). The
stable parameters include basic constitutional structure, socio-cultural values, and natural
resources of a political system. Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) argue that these variables,
except in a very long term, are very resistant to change, hence seldom attacked by the
coalition strategies. The other exogenous parameters to the subsystem are more likely to
change over time. They include (1) major socio-economic changes such as the rise of social
movements; (2) changes in the systematic governing coalitions and (3) policy decisions and
impacts from other subsystems.
In this case, I consider the stable parameters in terms of the basic characteristics of the
UWA-Face project which being stable cannot be changed, e.g. location of the project, access
of each actor to this location, and the rules and regulations of both the organizations etc.
Furthermore, I focus on the European and African cultural values that are literally quite
resistant to change and play an important role in the partnership of actors from diverse
backgrounds. In the dynamic parameters, I consider the social and economic conditions of
the Face foundation and UWA as the major dynamic factors that might have influence on
their partnership. Likewise, changes in coalitions and certain events like the policy decisions
of other subsystems are taken into account and examined if they have any impact on the
mutual cooperation and policies of the two actors.

The advocacy coalition
Sabatier (1988) argues that actors, in a policy subsystem, can be aggregated into a number
of “advocacy coalitions” each composed of people from various governmental and private
organizations (Sabatier, 1988; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999). They further argue that
actors in each coalition share a set of normative and causal beliefs, and engage in
coordinated activities over time. In the case of UWA-Face project, I assume that both the
Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority share some ideas or beliefs concerning
their joint project, and therefore form an advocacy coalition to achieve their goals and
objectives. Thus, in this specific case, I deem the partnership or cooperation between the
Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority as the core of the advocacy coalition.
The beliefs system
The ACF explains the belief system of coalitions in a hierarchical structure that is composed
of three layers or levels. According to Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) the highest or
broadest level of the shared belief system is called deep core which includes the basic
ontological and normative beliefs. This type of belief describes the relative valuation of
thoughts, for instance the individual freedom versus social equality that operates across
virtually all policy domains. The defining characteristic of deep core beliefs, according to
the ACF, is that they are fundamentally normative in nature and are axioms, i.e. universally
recognized truths. Practically it is not possible to determine the deep core beliefs of actors or
organizations. Hence, it is not easy to determine and study the deep core beliefs of actors in
a subsystem. This aspect of the belief system, therefore, is not dealt with in this research,
however considerable attention is paid to the ‘policy core beliefs’ and the ‘secondary
aspects’ that are described by the ACF under the belief systems.
The next level of the belief system describes the basic normative commitments and causal
perceptions of a coalition across the entire subsystem, and is referred to as the policy core
beliefs. It includes –as Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) illustrate– the fundamental value
priorities and the basic policy instruments of a coalition. In this specific study, I consider the
organizational goals and objectives of UWA and the Face foundation as their policy core
beliefs since they serve as the guiding principles and determine their actions or behaviour
within the coalition. Another rationale for taking the goals and objectives of organizations as

policy core beliefs in this case is that they serve as the glue between the actors within the
same coalition, which is in particular inline with the ACF. Hence, I assume that the actors
having more or less the same organizational or institutional goals and objectives cooperate
with each other.
The third level of a coalition’s belief system, described by the ACF, is known as secondary
aspects comprising of larger set of narrower beliefs, which are assumed to easily adjust in
the new settings such as the emergence of new data, new concepts and experiences, and
changing strategic considerations (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999). In my study, I take
those actions, activities or beliefs of UWA and the Face foundation as secondary aspects,
which are noticeably important for the respective actors but are given less priority compared
to their main goals and objectives, i.e. their policy core beliefs. However, certain conditions
are also taken into account for these actions, activities or beliefs that might influence the
choice of priority on the agenda of these actors.
Policy oriented learning
The ACF has a particular interest in understanding the policy-oriented learning in the
general process of policy change (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999). Sabatier and Jenkins-
Smith (1999) have followed the Heclo’s (1974) approach in explaining the term ‘policy
oriented learning’. They defined it as the relatively lasting alterations of thoughts or
behavioural intentions that result from experiences or new information, and are concerned
with the attainment or revision of policy objectives (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999).
According to ACF, such learning is instrumental and is crucial for the members of various
coalitions to further their policy objectives. The ACF connects this approach of policy-
oriented learning with the socio-economic conditions and system-wide governing coalitions
which can dramatically alter the composition and resources of various coalitions within a
particular subsystem. Similarly, turnover in personnel of an organization or institution, as
ACF explains, can also substantially alter the political resources of various coalitions and
thus the policy decisions. The term policy-oriented learning and the mentioned factors are
essentially entrenched in this case study, as they are considered crucial to influence the
cooperation and policies of the actors involved. These, in fact, are the some of the major
features that constitute the basis for this case study as they determine the changes in

behaviour, alteration in policies and ultimately the cooperation among the actors within a
coalition. Therefore, in this study, I regard certain external events and other important
factors as the major driving forces in terms of policy oriented learning. These factors, among
others, include the emergence of new research/ information and the changes in the socio-
economic conditions and changes in personnel of both UWA and the Face foundation etc.
2.5 Theoretical expectations

In the first chapter, I explained the background of the UWA-Face project and proposed three
research questions, while in the first part of this chapter, I explained the theoretical
viewpoints of the ACF and linked them to the real case of the UWA-Face project. Now in
this part, I pin down the expectations based on the research questions and the explained
theoretical perspective that I anticipate from this study. These ‘theoretical expectations’ are
explained below according the proposed research questions and certain aspects of the
advocacy coalition framework described by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999).
Expectations from the 1st research question
The first research question stated that “how has the cooperation between the Face
foundation and UWA evolved since the launch of UWA-FACE project until now?” Sabatier
and Jenkins-Smith (1999) under the ACF hypothesize that the principle glue holding (the
actors within) coalition together is the agreement over policy core beliefs. Sabatier and
Jenkins-Smith (1999) further argue that since the policy core beliefs are very resistant to
change, the assemblage of co-operators and opponents in within a subsystem will remain
stable over periods of a decade or more. However, change can occur in the policy core
beliefs of coalitions if the experiences reveal serious anomalies. Based on this conception, I
expect from this case study research that the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife
Authority share the same policy core beliefs, i.e. they share (at least some of) their
organizational goals and objectives in terms of the UWA-Face project. The particular idea
both the actors share is the sequestration of the atmospheric CO2. Thus, the commonality in
their goals and objectives concerning the UWA-Face project induces the cooperation
between the two actors. Therefore, the following factors, according to my expectations, are
likely to contribute to the cooperation between the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife
Authority.

• The commonality in policy goals and objectives regarding the UWA-Face project
• The shared ideas about CO2 sequestration
Expectations from the 2nd research questions
The second research question stated that “how can the stability in partnership between the
Face Foundation and UWA be explained?” This question is more focused on exploring the
grounds that contributed to the stability of cooperation or partnership between UWA and the
Face foundation. Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999) in the ACF —apart from linking the
policy core beliefs to stable cooperation— define certain stable and dynamic parameters
external to the subsystem that determine the resources or constraints of the actors. This
means that these parameters can either contribute to the stable cooperation or could prove
risky to the actors’ partnership or cooperation. The stable parameters defined by Sabatier
and Jenkins-Smith (1999) include the basic constitutional structure, socio-cultural values,
and the natural resources of a political system. What I expect from this research is that the
seemingly long term partnership between the Face foundation and UWA stabilized due to
their same policy core beliefs (common goals and objectives) concerning the UWA-Face
project and the enduring relationship between the two actors based on their social and
economic conditions. Consequently, the following factors are expected to explain the stable
cooperation between the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority.
• The common goals and objectives regarding the UWA-Face project
• The social and economic conditions of UWA and the Face foundation
• The enduring relationship of UWA and Face foundation for longer periods
• Mutual trust of the two actors
Expectations from the 3rd research questions
Whereas the first two research questions were focused on evolving the cooperation and the
stability of this cooperation between the Face foundation and UWA, the third research
question pays more attention to the changes in stability of this cooperation. The proposed
third research question was, therefore, structured as “how has the World Rainforest
Movement report affected the stable cooperation between the Face foundation and the

Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA)?” The advocacy coalition framework, in its policy
change hypothesis states that the policy core beliefs of a coalition are unlikely to be changed
in the absence of significant perturbations or events external to the subsystem. The ACF
here refers to the external dynamic parameters of a subsystem, i.e. changes in the socio-
economic conditions, public opinions and system-wide governing coalitions etc. In this case,
I perceive the report published by the World Rainforest Movement in 2006 as an external
perturbation and expect that this report has negatively affected the stable cooperation
between the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority as it has brought the media
and other critiques’ attentions to the UWA-Face project. The WRM, in this report accuses
UWA and the Face foundation that they have violated the rights of the local people living in
and around the Mount Elgon National Park that were recently evicted. This situation
triggered the criticism on both the partners, and various actors were pressuring them to
discontinue the project activities at MENP, which has threatened their partnership to break.
The research in this case, takes into account the particulars that marked impact on the stable
cooperation of Face foundation and UWA, and the facts that how this cooperation has been
affected. Accordingly, the following factors are expected as driving forces that stimulate
changes in the stable cooperation and the policies of the Face foundation and the Uganda
Wildlife Authority.
• The report published by WRM in 2006 against the Face foundation and UWA
• Attention of media and other critiques towards the UWA-Face project
• The pressure from various international conservation organizations to halt the project
activities and provide the lands back to the local people at the MENP.

Chapter 3
Research Methodology
3.1 Character of the thesis work

The ‘case study’ approach was followed to analyze and interpret this research process. A
case study is the study of particularity and complexity of a single case coming to understand
its activity within important circumstances (Stake, 1995). In a case study, as Stake further
argues, we look for the details of interaction within its contexts. Erickson, according to
Stake (1995) puts emphasis on the interpretative characteristic (that focuses on the
interpretation aspect) of case study designs. This research however, is both interpretative as
well as descriptive in nature, and is based on single case study. De Vaus (2001) describes
another type of case study which is described as clinical in nature which means that it does
not deal with developing or testing new theory rather uses the existing one in order to
understand the case in terms of what has been going on and how?
De Vaus (2001) describes ‘case study’ as the research process that deals with the whole case
but cannot possibly consists of everything. The author further argues that describing
everything, in a descriptive case study, is simply impossible and that there is must be a
focus. Description of a case study cannot be without a theory; therefore, things that are
supposed to be described should be selected and organized at first (e.g. selection and
application of the ACF in the second chapter). The description highlights the case in the
form of interpretation rather than mirror image (De Vaus, 2001). This interpretation can be
done using theories that highlight the events, which are relevant and important. In other
words, the use of theory filters out some facts that are of particular importance to the
researcher. The use of theory describing importance of a particular aspect, however, depends
upon who is describing what and how certain categories are perceived as important. The
selection of fact, is supposed to be important as well as relevant to the theory applied. The
important aspects, for instance, relevant to the ACF, in this case study to be highlighted, are
the actors’ coalition formation, stability of these coalition and the external factors that affect
both the process of coalition formation and the stability therein.
16
Chapter 3: Research Methodology
The investigation process, in this research focused on developing a full picture of the events
that occurred during a time period of 19 years (1989-2008). This will emphasize to
comprehend alteration in coalition formation and strategies of Face foundation as a result of
the competing ideas of WRM that confronted those of the Face foundation regarding
sequestration of the atmospheric carbon. Particular attention will be paid to understand
specific phenomena as per each research question.
This research attempts to describe how certain actors in a subsystem perceive and frame
issues (e.g. climate change and CO2 sequestration etc), and how they tend to form advocacy
coalitions with others, what factors contribute to the stability in these coalitions and how
changes in polices and partnerships occur overtime. It further pays attention to actors that
are active to influence other strategies and coalitions in the context of their own beliefs and
ideas. This case study cannot necessarily be generalized to other projects; rather it would
attempt to represent a comprehensive picture of the UWA-FACE project at MENP Uganda
in terms of how the Face foundation tend to form coalition with UWA, how does this
coalition get stabilized and what factors attempt to bring changes in their partnership.
Furthermore, the position of the World Rainforest Movement, with its own beliefs and
ideas, is also described that endeavours to influence the coalition and strategies of the Face
foundation and UWA. This study can be used as a pattern describing how actors in a
specific advocacy coalition under certain international treaty, such as the Kyoto Protocol,
cooperate and how they make their partnership stable over time. Moreover, the scientific
relevance of this study is never denied, as it can contribute to the efforts in understanding
the complexity of policy processes and the actions of various actors that cooperate (or do not
cooperate) in the real world. It takes into account the application of a relevant scientific
theory, the advocacy coalition framework, to an empirical case, which has previously been
applied to many cases in the policy domains other than forest and nature conservation. The
study is obviously relevant to the policies and strategies of the actors involved, hence the
conclusion drawn at the end may also help them in formulating their organizational policies
in the future.

Internal Validity
An idiographic explanation approach has been followed rather than a nomothetic one in
order to ensure the internal validity in this case study. The latter explanation is slightly a
narrower approach that only explains a class of cases rather than developing ‘full picture’ of
a particular case study. It involves examination of fewer causal factors and a larger number
of cases identifying key factors that contribute to overall cases (De Vaus, 2001). The
idiographic explanation, on the other hand, focuses on particular events, or cases, and seeks
to develop a complete explanation of each case. The research in this case study adopts the
idiographic approach as a full and contextualized understanding of the case is required. To
further ensure the internal validity in this case, both the triangulation of methods and sources
are also taken into account so as to avoid errors in the data collection. The idiographic
uniqueness of this case is to assess the evolving stability among actors’ coalitions, e.g. the
Face foundation and UWA on the one hand, while the effects of the certain external events
on their coalition, e.g. challenges posed by WRM, on the other. De Vaus (2001) argues that
by developing a full, well rounded casual account, case studies can achieve high internal
validity, which would be looked for in this case by following the idiographic explanation
approach.
While case studies may achieve excellent internal validity by providing profound
understanding of a case, they have been widely criticized as lacking external validity (De
Vaus, 2001). A profound understanding of a case, argued by De Vaus (2001) provides no
basis for generalization to a wider population beyond that case. A case is just a case and
cannot be representative of a larger universe of cases, as further stated by De Vaus (2001).
This notion is used here to argue about the external validity of this case study, i.e. this
cannot provide statistically valid generalization beyond its own.
3.2 Data collection

Apart from its above explained nature, this case study has retrospective character, which
literally means looking back on, or directed at the past. The retrospective design involves
collecting information to an extended period of time. It basically requires reconstruction of
history of the case to be studied. Due to the reason, it mainly requires the use of archival
records and documents, interviewing people presently working or those who have been
involved in the past in organizations. This design has the obvious problems associated with

the loss of evidence that could help reconstruction of the past in the light of the present.
Furthermore, it may mistake the sequence in which the events occurred. In this case there is
a little choice to count on people’s ability to recall the past while interviewing. The multiple
sources of information (triangulation method), however, can reduce the problem. Therefore,
in this research process both primary data such as in-depth-interviews and sources of
secondary data (policy documents, brochures, websites etc) have been used and analyzed
thoroughly.
In accordance to the first research question —how the coalition between the Face foundation
and UWA developed— the in-depth interviews were conducted from the key personals such
as the present and former directors of the Face foundation and the others identified by them.
Moreover, the key personnel from UWA and IUCN-Uganda were also contacted and were
sent questionnaires/ interviewed as appropriate. The aim was to obtain information from
sources that were involved in the decision making processes of these organizations. The
term ‘key personnel’ in fact, describes those persons that are/ were involved in the decision
making and in choosing their partners to form their respective advocacy coalitions.
Furthermore, the policy documents of the Face foundation and some of those of UWA
provided good and reliable information regarding their strategies and policies.
The second research question deals with the underlying factors that led to the development
of stable cooperation between the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority.
Taking in-depth-interviews from the key personals of the Face foundation and some free
lance consultants that previously worked with the foundation were again the main sources of
information in this regard. Furthermore, analyzing the documentary evidences such as
policy documents, annual reports and project reports as well the questionnaires sent to some
personnel of UWA and the IUCN-Uganda also proved fruitful.
The third and last research question mainly focuses on the WRM report and other external
factors that influenced the stability and induced changes in the partnership and policies of
the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority that lasted for years. The main
viewpoint of this research question is to find out how these (or other) factors have
influenced the cooperation and policies of the Face foundation and UWA. The major
sources of information included the reports and press releases from WRM, news reports and
media documentary that caught the public attention. Interviewing the author of the report

“funny place to store carbon”, the present and former staff and directors of the Face
foundation and some of the policy documents of the Face foundation and UWA were crucial
and provided sufficient information.
3.3 The arrangements prior to data collection

Before the data collection was started, the foremost contact I made with the Face foundation
and the author of the report on behalf of the World Rainforest Movement. This facilitated
the access to the sources of information such as official letters exchanged between the Face
foundation & UWA, their policy documents and reports etc. Furthermore, the support from
the Face foundation and its staff proved to be incredibly helpful in identifying other
respondent that could be important and be interviewed. I therefore paid frequent visits to the
office of the Face foundation based in Utrecht and have been in touch with Martijn Snoep
who knew enough about the UWA-Face project and the persons involved therein during the
past. After getting enough information about the key persons from the Face foundation, I
formulated a list of these respondents (attached as annex-I) and contacted to each of them. I
took appointments from these respondents before hand; hence the interviewing process went
smooth initially. However, some of the respondents had their own engagements and busy
schedules, which rather slowed down the process of data collection.
Interview guide and the questionnaires
After identifying the relevant respondents, I formulated an interview guide (attached as

annex-II) based on the information obtained from the documents reviewed at the office of
the Face foundation. This guide remained useful for the first few interviews; however,
afterwards, I made some necessary changes and updated this guide based on the learning
from the very first interviews. These alterations in the interview guide were useful for the
rest of the interviews.
One of the problems I faced during the process of data collection was accessing some of the
identified respondents as many of them were quite internationally oriented and would travel
abroad very often, others such as staff of the Uganda Wildlife Authority were based outside
the Netherlands. This problem, however, was solved by developing questionnaires (attached
as annex-III and IV) that resembled the questions that be asked during the interviews and
were sent to the appropriate respondents. Though these questionnaires did not entirely come
up with the positive results as those of the ‘interviews’ —because of face to face
conversation, probing and posing new questions to the respondents as they come along the
way— this has however, made it possible to include the views of the important respondents
that were identified before starting the process.
Interviewing and transcription
As indicated before that initially the process of interviewing went quite smoothly as the
respondents themselves were more interested in it and cooperated wholeheartedly in this
process of data collection by providing with the information as well their own views.
However, after conducting the very first two interviews, there came a long break of several
weeks in interviewing the rest of the respondents because of their personal official
engagements. For instance, I could not interview the staff, the present and a former director
of the Face foundation. Nevertheless, I tried to compensate this time break by reviewing
new literature regarding qualitative research, transcribing the already held interviews and
sending the questionnaires to the respective respondents. During this period I had been in
constant contact with the respondents and have been trying to arrange new dates for the
interviews. Though this process took a bit longer time than the planned, still I tried to
complete it in an appropriate scientific way.
Triangulation of information
During transcription of the interviews, I have been reviewing some relevant documents to
this case study, where I came across certain questions, which I considered important to
confirm from the respondents in order to ensure the ‘triangulation’ of information.
Therefore, I re-contacted some of the respondents and asked for the confirmation of the
information I had come across. After this process I proceeded further and started analyzing
the data collected.

Chapter 4
The partnership in 1989-1999
The chapter presents the data analysis and describes various events in terms of the ‘period
1989-1999’. It encompasses the instances of origin, stabilizing and partnership of Face
foundation with the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). The events have been described
based on the main findings illustrated followed by interpretations thereof. The next
chapter presents the events that took place in 2000 and beyond. These periods attempt to
highlight what has happened during the past and how it has strengthened the cooperation
between the two actors or otherwise.
4.1 Events in 1989-1999

Emergence of Face foundation
In 1989 the electricity generation board in the Netherlands, called NV SEP,

commissioned the University of Utrecht to conduct a study on the most efficient ways to
compensate for CO2 emissions. SEP, in fact, had established a 600 MW power station in
the Netherlands operating mainly using fossil fuels. The result of generating electricity
from this power station, of course, inter alia, was the release of CO2. SEP therefore
wanted to partly fix the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. Consequently it
came up with the scheme to commence a body that could carry out forestry projects
fixing the atmospheric CO2. Thus the foundation of FACE or “Forests Absorbing Carbon
dioxide Emissions” was laid down on October 18, 1990. The aim was to create a long
term stable resource that resemble natural forests and can capture CO2. The purpose of
the Face foundation thus became establishing and maintaining the forest cover around the
world with the prime objective to help mitigating climate change. The commencement of
the climate change debate in the early 1990s, of course, was an interesting but a complex
issue to discuss at time. The Kyoto Protocol —adopted in December 1997 at the third
conference of parties— was not in place yet, hence nobody had a clearer idea of the
subject. Still the Face foundation had the ambition to do something about mitigating
climate change and soon after its creation, started looking for partners that could joint
hands and help it achieving its goal. The foundation at time also had a strong back up
22
Chapter 4: The partnership in 1989-1999
from all the important and prominent Ministries in the Netherlands because its board of
directors contained representatives from the respective ministries such as Ministry of
Housing, Spatial Planning & Environment and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs etc.
Search for project partners
Before starting the projects in the early 1990s, representatives from the Face foundation
visited various countries —including the United Nations in USA— to sort out people’s
perception about their projects and to explain the details what the foundation intends to
do in the near future. The people from the Face foundation —mostly the Director and
deputy director at that time— travelled many countries and presented their vision to
various stakeholders. One of the pioneers that took part in founding the Face foundation
said, “there were more meetings worldwide at that stage; I remember one in Prague, in
Czech Republic and one in New Delhi, India. (These meetings were carried out because)
no body exactly knew what to do, how we can standardize these projects, everybody
wanted to learn about it”. The purpose of these visits was, undoubtedly, looking for
partners that can better understand the foundation’s goal and contribute to achieve it. At
that point there were two possibilities to find suitable partner(s) for Face foundation, i.e.
either the collaborator had the same objectives as Face’s or the cooperation between them
complements to some of their objectives.
Face foundation, however took initiative with its first project (Leeuwarden) in the
Netherlands which was started in January 1991 followed by another one in the Czech
Republic by the end of the year. The same year (1992), it started a project in Ecuador
called ‘Profafor’ with the local farmers, while in 1993 its collaboration was extended to
Malaysia where the foundation, with its contract partner Innoprise, established
partnership to restore a damaged tropical rainforest in the Sabah state of Malaysia.
Launching the UWA-Face project
The Face foundation, through IUCN-Uganda, got in touch with the Ugandan government
in 1993-94. A former director of Face foundation said “when we decided to have a
project in Africa, we contacted IUCN and they gave us a few projects that could be of
interest for us, and we ended up in Uganda”. The government of Uganda, in those days,
already had collaboration with IUCN via Mount Elgon Conservation and Development

Project (MECDP) in Uganda. The MECDP started in 1988 in which IUCN provided
technical support while financial support was provided by NORAD, Norway. The Face
foundation had communication with the then Chief Technical Advisor (CTA) IUCN and
they finally visited Uganda to assess what kind of project IUCN is doing with UWA. The
former CTA-IUCN mentioned, “The management of FACE visited Uganda after some e-
mail correspondence with me… After the visit it was agreed between UWA and FACE
Foundation that FACE would fund and organize the large scale reforestation in both
Elgon and Mbale”. Apart from development and conservation, the Ugandan government
was interested in restoration of its degraded lands, especially in Kibale and Mount Elgon
National Parks. The Uganda Wildlife Authority-UWA (then called Uganda National
Parks-UNP) showed its interest in the projects Face foundation was promoting to
compensate the atmospheric CO2. Hence Face foundation signed the Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) with the Ugandan government on May 15th, 1994 and entered into
partnership with the ‘Uganda National Parks’ (UNP) later on called the Uganda Wildlife
Authority (UWA) as it was the responsible authority at that time. Later on, the Face
foundation signed the contract with UWA to carry out two reforestation/ forest
rehabilitation projects in two of the national parks under its managerial control –Kibale
and Mount Elgon National Park. These projects were termed as UNP-Face projects
(today called as UWA-Face projects).
Responding to a question regarding how this partnership initiated and what were the
mutual interests of the two collaborators, a former coordinator of the UWA-Face project
said: “The national parks had lost their functions under the previous regimes of Idi Amin
and Obote, because the people had fled to the forests; they cut trees and established
agricultural plots and home states there. In the mid 80s when the new government (of
Museveni) came into power, at some point it decided to protect and rehabilitate the
national parks as they had other functions, e.g. income from tourism, water catchment
protection etc. According to the respondent, it was the national policy of the Ugandan
government to re-institute the national parks of the country, which was backed by many,
including IUCN-Uganda –by technically supporting the Mount Elgon Conservation and
Development Project (MECDP). Later on it invited the Face foundation to help with
restoration of the park. The current director of Face foundation termed the Mount Elgon
as a ‘hot spot’ for international conservation organizations. One of the respondents said,

“The Ugandan government was looking for a partner that could invest in the forest
restoration, and that was Face foundation. IUCN invited Face foundation to get involved.
The Face foundation went there and signed the contract with Uganda Wildlife Authority
(UWA) that’s how the collaboration started”. It was confirmed by an employee of the
Uganda Wildlife Authority; he mentioned, “Recommendation by IUCN for FACE to
partner with UWA in restoration of the degraded areas of Kibale and Mount Elgon
National Parks is one of the factors that helped UWA to establish partnership with
FACE”. This shows the importance of the role played by IUCN in bringing together
UWA and Face foundation. It is interesting that IUCN-Uganda had no interest in bringing
the two actors together. However, it did provide technical assistance and suggestions for
Face foundation while it was starting the UWA-Face project. “I remember that at a
certain moment we (in the project) received from IUCN (for which I was working at that
time in Uganda) a question whether we could advise any activity for the FACE
Foundation. Face at that time was looking for new projects in new countries and was
willing to bring its own funds. Well, as managers for the encroached Mt. Elgon area, I
thought that that would be great to have a self funded project aiming at restoration of the
degraded forests of Elgon” said a former employee of IUCN-Uganda. When asked about
the interest of IUCN, he said that “I assume it was pure on conservation efforts, nothing
else”.
Objectives of UWA and the Face foundation
The Ugandan government had main objectives of conserving wildlife, securing revenue
from tourism, restoring the ecological functions and improving the livelihoods of the
communities therein. The strategy was to achieve partly the objectives by the
‘development and conservation program’ of the IUCN while some by inviting Face
foundation to reforest the portion of the park previously degraded due to encroachment.
The “policy on strategic partnerships” document of UWA revealed that the guiding
principles of its strategies are more centred towards wildlife protection & conservation
and generating revenue for it. UWA had developed 10 ‘strategic program areas of
collaboration’, none of which mentioned restoring forest for CO2 compensation —which
is the main objective of Face foundation. In this document, it is noticeably mentioned that
UWA had limited funds and it cannot sustain itself, it therefore has to look for partners

that can financially assist UWA achieving its objectives, the document states, “there exist
partners that are able to contribute to UWA’s commitments; such partners have to be
identified to finance the wildlife conservation”.
A former employee of the Face foundation said that “forests have many functions and the
participants in a forestry project may not have interests in all those functions. It was not
the interest of UWA to sequester carbon, but of course, they liked the idea if they could
do something against the climate change”. According to him, though the objectives of
UWA and Face foundation were not exactly the same, they were complementary and
could serve achieving each others’ goals. For UWA, it was the ecosystem services,
restoration of the park, while for Face it was the carbon finance. Regarding the same
query, the former director of Face foundation stated that “the general scope of the project
was to rehabilitate 25.000 ha of the park. We agreed on that. We paid for the activities
agreed in the plan of operation and its implementation. UWA, in return, was obliged to
include these areas in their management plan, and to manage them for a long time
period, 99 years”. The Face foundation and UWA play a role that is focused at the
conservation of protected area ecosystem and biodiversity for the benefits of the global
community, stated an employee of UWA; but he further mentioned that “Face foundation
supports the restoration of the formerly forested areas with the goal of fixing carbon
(offsets) thus compensating the global CO2 emissions. UWA on the other hand
complements the restoring activity by ensuring that the planted forests are protected for
99 years for the benefits of local, national and global communities world at large”.
When a former employee of the IUCN was contacted to ask about the interests/
objectives of both partners from this collaboration, he mentioned, “UWA was eager to
have the funded restoration activities while FACE wanted a ‘safe area’ to invest in forest
restoration.”
Non conformities among the two actors
It is observable that Face foundation kept cooperating with its partner as it had to ‘keep
the carbon stored’ for a longer period and that it invested a huge budget in this project.
When the former director was asked about the interest of UWA in this partnership, he
replied, “keep in mind the budget involved was huge for UWA, it was in millions of
Euros. It was more than the total budget of UWA. It was a good reason for UWA to stay

friends with its foreign partner”. Normally this partnership initially was levelled and all
the activities were being carried out jointly in a smooth way. This is also clear that the
cooperation between UWA and Face foundation was based on a written official
agreement, which had obliged UWA to include the area in its normal management plan
afforested by Face foundation under UWA-Face project. UWA had another obligation of
ensuring to protect these forests. However, after the project was initiated, there were
some minor events that had created confusion among the two partners. A former
employee of the Face foundation, for instance, was asked about any decisions or policies
of UWA that were non conforming to those of the Face foundation, “It took quite a while
before a management plan for the park was made, including the Face project”, he said.
In response to another such question, he said, “Once a Chief Warden in Elgon allowed
the people to make use of areas allocated for reforestation, but not yet planned for that
year. This caused a lot of confusion with local people; I guess this was in 1998”. Taking
longer time than the normal, UWA finally prepared the management plans but it did not
mention Face foundation as a ‘strategic partner’. This was noticed by Face foundation as
its management deemed that this was not in line with what both the partners agreed
before. This, even so, was corrected when the Face foundation communicated with the
UWA directors and the Park’s Chief Wardens. However, these were a few meagre non
conformities, later on in the beginning of the next year (2000); there were relatively
major differences in the approaches that amended the entire structure of UWA-Face
project. Some of them even resulted in alteration of the beliefs (i.e. from secondary
aspects to policy cores) of the two partners. This will be discussed in details in the next
period 2000-2008.
4.2 Interpretation
Formation of advocacy coalition
The above details elucidate how the Face foundation came into being, started making
coalitions and finally how this coalition became stable (or unstable) overtime. In other
words, this explains the first two expectations put forward in the second chapter.
According to the first expectation, the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife
Authority share the same policy core beliefs, hence forms the advocacy coalition. Before
going into further details however, it is important to know how the subsystem has

evolved in this case. The Advocacy Coalition Framework argues that the most likely
reason for emergence of a new subsystem is that a group of actors become dissatisfied
enough with the neglect of a particular problem by existing subsystems to form their own
(Sabatier, 1988). In this case however, neither the actors were dissatisfied nor was the
particular problem neglected to create an isolated subsystem. It is rather a part of a set of
the emerging debates that formed the subsystem and in which the NV SEP had already
been taking part by establishing the Face foundation. The foundation, in turn, became
quite active in this subsystem, the climate change, which has got tremendous attention
during the last few decades and resulted in the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997. The
Protocol entered into force on February 16, 2005.
Referring back to the first expectation the illustration pictures that the Face foundation
forms advocacy coalition with UWA. This is evident from the fact that it established two
mega projects in the two Ugandan National Parks that were (and still are) under the
managerial control of UWA. The very first visits of the management of Face foundation
to different countries were the efforts to look for partners that could contribute to achieve
its goal. This approach, the efforts to look for partners, is termed as seeking advocacy
coalition, by ACF. During these meetings —while others were not yet clear of the
standards and position of afforestation projects— the Ugandan government seemed
interested in the ideas of Face foundation and formed partnership with it. Starting projects
all over the world compensating atmospheric CO2, however, was a challenging
assignment for the newly emerged Face foundation. Its management, therefore, had to be
vigilant in choosing its partners to create, develop and strengthen its coalition. Due to the
reason, internationally known reliable stakeholders, such as IUCN, were also included in
these ‘project promotion’ meetings. The Face foundation’s communication with IUCN
demonstrates its trust on it while looking for durable coalition partners. However this is
clear that the main link between Face foundation and UWA was established by a third
party, the IUCN —that played a ‘bridging’ role to bring the two actors together in
partnership and forming the advocacy coalition.
A way to strengthen the advocacy coalition
The second expectation listed in the second chapter is more intrigued to know how this
partnership or the advocacy coalition became stable. This part of analysis is rather

interesting because this expectation was listed assuming that UWA and Face foundation
share the same policy core beliefs. This assumption was based on the seemingly long
term partnership between the two actors. Nevertheless the interviews, the illustration
above and the review of (e.g. policy) documents uncover that Face foundation and UWA
did cooperate with each other. This cooperation however, contrary to the expectation,
was not much stable initially. The reason is the fact that UWA and Face foundation did
not share their policy core beliefs, i.e. they had no common goals and objectives. This
signifies that half of the expectation —cooperation between Face foundation and UWA
evolved over time— is true. The initiation of cooperation between the two partners was
based on a common activity —restoration/ rehabilitation of the park’s natural
vegetation— but not on the common goal. UWA and the Face foundation had separate
objectives and beliefs at that time; both of them, initially, cooperated to achieve their own
objectives and not the common goal.
Although the preferred objectives of both the partners were not the same, still they shared
one activity, and that was restoration of the park’s natural vegetation. This, in fact, was
the only shared policy core belief among the two partners based on which they started
cooperating with each other. Rehabilitation of MENP is a tool or instrument for both the
parties, which the ACF describes as a regulation to reach their desired objectives. This
common basis in the policy core beliefs of both the partners, however, was not sufficient
to keep them cooperating for long time. Consequently, at certain stages of their
cooperation, the secondary aspects of their policies switched into their policy core beliefs
overtime. In fact, this was the main factor that strengthened cooperation between UWA
and Face foundation, hence their advocacy coalition overtime. The specific features of
the secondary aspects of the two actors that switched into policy cores are explained in
the coming section and are explained in table 4.1.
Beliefs of UWA and the Face foundation
Based on the information retrieved from various sources, it is perceived that sustainable
management & conservation of wildlife, and earning revenue from tourism & other
sources lie at the heart of UWA’s policies. They are the guiding principles and the basic
normative commitments of Uganda Wildlife Authority, hence, according to ACF, are
included in its policy core beliefs. Apart from wildlife conservation and getting revenue,

the general restoration of the park and ecological functions are also included in the policy
core of UWA. The ACF defines secondary aspects of an actor/ coalition as a set of
narrower beliefs concerning the relative importance of various causal factors in specific
locales and/ or the policy preferences regarding its budgetary allocations. According to
the former condition, CO2 sequestration being relatively less important in specific locality
of MENP —because it was degraded in the past and was important to be rehabilitated
first— comes under its secondary aspects. The latter criteria of policy preferences is
applied to the fact that UWA is willing to managing its resources (forests, national parks)
according to the international standards if there are enough financial resources available
for that. (See table 4.1).
Likewise it is perceived that the normative commitment of rehabilitating natural

vegetation with the causal perception of mitigating the climate change, or at least
contributing to the efforts, comes first on the agenda of Face foundation. It believes in the
positive role of afforestation activities in absorbing the atmospheric CO2 helping reduce
the enhanced global warming effects. Hence the mentioned belief is perceived to be one
of the policy cores of the Face foundation. In order to fulfil its commitment, the
foundation believes that the areas afforested/ rehabilitated should be managed according
to the globally accepted standards, e.g. FSC certification, which is another aspect of its
policy cores. Cost effectiveness and social acceptability of its projects are the further
policy core beliefs of Face foundation. Contrarily and interestingly, these beliefs of the
Face foundation were included in the secondary aspects of UWA. It is therefore
perceived that the policy core beliefs of the Face foundation were more centred towards
the climate change through afforestation/ rehabilitation programs sequestering the
atmospheric CO2 all over the world.
The prime utility of forests, according to the beliefs of the Face foundation is
sequestering the atmospheric carbon. The relative importance of other functions such as
economical, ecological and others —perceived supplementary and hence are not
undervalued though— are given less preferences, because the desirable function is
helping mitigate the climate change. Consequently, contributing to the local livelihoods,
improving the national economy and getting other benefits from the forests were
categorized under the secondary aspects of the Face foundation (See table 4.1).

Secondary aspects turn into policy core beliefs
With the course of time, new research, influence of media and many other factors the
actors and organizations learn from their own and others policies and experiences over
time. ACF called this approach the ‘policy oriented learning’, which refers to the
relatively lasting alterations of thoughts or behavioural intentions resulting from
experiences and new information, and are concerned with revision or attainment of the
policy objectives. This learning involves increased knowledge of the problem parameters
and the factors affecting them. With the increased knowledge and better understanding,
the secondary aspects of the two partners switched into their policy core beliefs, which
alternatively helped them gluing together for longer time. The certification of UWA-Face
project —and later the entire Mount Elgon National Park— according to the FSC
standards is an example in which the secondary aspect of UWA translated into its policy
core matching those of the Face foundation, hence strengthening their bond. Here the
relative low preference of UWA —to manage their resources according to the
international standards— got priority when funds were made available by the Face
foundation. Likewise UWA, at first, did not acknowledge the importance of sequestering
CO2 while afterwards it was set as its commercial objective. Though this objective is
‘commercial’ aiming at generating revenue, still this shows how the secondary aspects
got converted into the policy core of UWA. Another example is that when the global
attention focused more on biological diversity, sustainability and more social aspects of
afforestation, the Face foundation has been adding them up into its policies and relating/
applying them accordingly to its projects. These beliefs, before, were incorporated in the
secondary aspects of Face foundation which, accordingly, transformed into its policy core
overtime harmonizing to those of UWA. Thus providing more space for the mutual
cooperation to strengthen and endure. Due to the reason, today the Face foundation not
only talks about carbon sequestration but sustainability, conserving biological diversity
and ecological functions remain prioritized in its projects. Both coalition partners,
therefore, benefit from conversion of their respective secondary aspects into their policy
core beliefs overtime that helped them revitalizing and stabilizing their partnership. (See
table 4.2)

Table 4.1: The belief systems of UWA and the Face foundation in the beginning of coalition
formation; only one aspect of their policy core beliefs is common.
Belief type Face foundation Uganda Wildlife Authority
Shared
Restoration/ rehabilitation of the forest at Mount Elgon National Park
Policy Core
-Reforestation activities contribute to -Sustainable management and

the global efforts of mitigating climate conservation of wildlife & protected
change areas of Uganda are important for
Uganda and the global community
- Forests sequester atmospheric CO2

and help mitigating climate change - Management of such areas increases
revenue from tourism contributing to
Policy core
the national economy and diversifying
- The afforested areas should be the local livelihoods
managed according the globally
accepted standards (e.g. FSC)
- Ecological functions such as
microclimate, rainfall and soil
- The forestry activities should be cost stability are important functions of
effective and socially accepted forests
- Besides CO2 sequestration the forests - CO2 sequestration is additional

performs various ecological functions benefit of forests that help mitigating
climate change
Secondary - Social and economic aspects of the

aspects forests such as improving local - The natural resources (e.g. National
livelihoods and contributing to the Parks) should be managed according
economy of the country via tourism are to the international standards if there
important supplementary functions of are enough financial resources
afforestation available.

Table 4.2: The secondary aspects (coloured text) of UWA & the Face foundation tuned into their
policy core beliefs, harmonizing with policy cores of each others, hence strengthening their
coalition.
Belief type Face foundation Uganda Wildlife Authority
The initially
shared policy Restoration/ rehabilitation of the forest at Mount Elgon National Park
core beliefs
- Reforestation activities contribute to the - Sustainable management and

global efforts of mitigating climate change conservation of wildlife & protected
areas of Uganda are important for
Uganda and the global community
- Forests sequester atmospheric CO2 and
help mitigating climate change
- Management of such areas increases
revenue from tourism contributing to the
- The afforested areas should be managed national economy and diversifying the
according the globally accepted standards local livelihoods
(e.g. FSC)
Policy core - Ecological functions such as

beliefs shared - The forestry activities should be cost microclimate, rainfall and soil stability
over time effective and socially accepted are important functions of forests
- Besides CO2 sequestration the forests - Managing natural resources (NPs)

performs various ecological functions according to the internal standards
- Social and economic aspects of the - CO2 sequestration is additional benefit

forests such as improving local of the forests that help mitigating climate
livelihoods and contributing to the change
economy of the country via tourism are
important supplementary functions of
afforestation
Secondary
aspects

Chapter 5
The partnership in 2000-2008
Whereas data analysis in the previous chapter described and interpreted various events of
the period 1989-1999, this chapter illustrates various events that occurred in 2000 and
beyond until 2008. Consequently, more rapid changes in the external events have been
observed that dramatically affected the proceedings and policies of UWA and the Face
foundation.
5.1 Events in 2000 and beyond
FACE as independent organization
In the early 2000 with the liberalization of energy market in the Netherlands, NV SEP,
the only funding agency for the Face foundation, was dissolved. At this stage now, there
were fewer funds available for Face foundation to continue its projects. This era —after
the disappearance of SEP— was described by one of the former directors of the Face
foundation as “There was no income, no budget and no funding. Our partner apparently
was unable to take over these project areas and put them in their management plan. So
what they told us beforehand that they will handle the problems, we will do that etc…
later on there was nothing, there was mismanagement on UWA level as well”. Another
problem the foundation faced was that of selling the carbon credits; during this phase the
credits from forestry projects had less demand in the market. The only thing the
foundation could do was to get some companies interested in adopting these projects (in
Uganda, Ecuador and other), which up to some extent was a success. Visibly after
disbandment of the NV SEP, the flow of funds to the Face foundation was not like it was
before; it had limited resources, hence the on going projects, including UWA-Face,
would not get enough funds to run smoothly. However the NV SEP assistance (from
2000 to 2004) with the aim to make the Face foundation self sufficient helped it in
generating its own funds from other sources. This ‘assisting period’ of the Face
foundation is termed as ‘transition’ from dependent to an independent, self sustained and
non-profit making organization, which still prevails.
34
The UWA-Face, new responsibilities
Precisely in those days when the NV SEP was dissolved in 2000, UWA got financial
assistance from the World Bank in order to improve its management and to enlarge its
management area. This is also worth mentioning that UWA never made financial
investments in the UWA-Face project, so the only funds available for the project
activities were provided by the Face foundation. The World Bank, apart from providing
funds for the general management of UWA as an institution, also appointed its own
Executive Director to monitor the flow of funds and activities, he was from South Africa.
Not surprisingly, the new policies of the new management were different from those of
others the Face foundation was used to. The new Executive Director (ED) of UWA was
more centered to UWA as an organization paying less attention to the UWA-Face project.
“What I do remember is that he (name of the new Executive Director) was rather
aggressive towards FACE because he considered the original UWA-Face set up as
interfering in his chain of command”, wrote one of the respondents via e-mail, who
formerly coordinated the UWA-Face project. The new ED personally did not like the
FSC assessment, especially when the SGS (certifying body contracted by FSC) was
carrying out the evaluation to fulfill the FSC criteria of forest management certification.
The evaluation of UWA by SGS was a necessary step in the FSC certification process
that was requested by the Face foundation. The new management of UWA, however, was
not happy with this and did not seem to cooperate; he was insisting to integrate the
UWA-Face set up into the general structure of Uganda Wildlife Authority. A former
employee of the Face foundation said that “he (the new Executive Director of UWA) did
not like the SGS assessment saying that he did not need such a check on his management,
until the lead assessor makes the clear statement that SGS was only there to underline the
good and sustainable management of the organization”. While corresponding with a
former coordinator of the UWA-Face project, he mentioned that they should have started
preparation of FSC certification process before the assignment of the (name) as Executive
Director because —before him as head of the organization— they never had noticed any
reluctance from the UWA side. However during the renewal of contract with the new
management, the then coordinator of the UWA-Face project had a meeting with the
Executive Director regarding the issues concerned. The outcome of the meeting was,
according to the mutual consent of both the parties, the integration of the UWA-Face
35
CO2 compensation in practice: What makes actors cooperate??
project into the general structure of UWA in the year 2000. According to the new
decisions, the Face foundation was obliged to do the payments through the UWA
headquarters while the UWA-Face would no more be a separate entity with its own
bookkeeping. The Face foundation conditioned that their funds would only be used for
the UWA-Face project and that the project management would be at the highest level
wardens with sufficient capacity for this specific task. About how the collaboration
between the two partners remained after the UWA-Face project was merged into the
larger set up of UWA, a former coordinator of the UWA-Face project mentioned that,
“except for the difficult negotiations with the new director, the collaboration with UWA
has never suffered from painful disagreements; with the new structure agreed and
implemented the collaboration remained good”.
Steering committee; an attempt to rejuvenate
The Face foundation from the early beginning has been trying to shape its projects
according to the internationally set standards. However, after the integration of the UWA-
Face project into UWA and disappearance of the NV SEP in 2000, the Face foundation
endeavored to register the project as CDM to secure its revenue. For this purpose, inter
alia, approval from the Meteorological Department in Uganda was required. In October
2000, the Face foundation decided to establish a steering committee comprising of
various stakeholders including the Meteorological Department in Uganda with the aim to
provide a platform for dealing various technical, social and political issues. Another
objective was an attempt to get the project registered as CDM from the CDM Executive
Board. In spite of all the efforts, the UWA-Face project could not be registered as —
according to the new CDM statute affairs at that time— only projects starting from the
year 2000 onwards are eligible to be registered as CDM. On the other hand, the newly
established steering committee due to certain reasons, including insufficient funds, could
not meet again after its first meeting in October, 2002 in Kampala.
Elections in Uganda
Above all these difficulties faced by the Face foundation, the local political situation in
Uganda made it worst in the 2006-07 elections. During the elections, the political
candidates promised the local people that if he/she was elected they would be allowed to
go back to the forests. The former director of Face foundation said, “We had that
36
situation before but then the President Museveni made a very strong statement that the
local people cannot go back to the forest. But at this time his position was not strong
anymore, his turn was over and he wanted to be re-elected so he became very much
flexible”. The local people took advantage of this situation; they extended their
agricultural lands and encroached, once again, the areas inside the boundaries of the
National Park, which severely affected the afforestation made by UWA-Face project.
“They came back to the park and destroyed a large area, no body could stop them, UWA
couldn’t. At the end people from the army came and they stopped the local people”, said
a respondent. A former director of the foundation further explained this situation that it’s
very difficult to work with these large scale projects in countries like Uganda, especially
if the project is supposed to run for such a long time. At that moment the Face foundation
was expecting UWA to interfere and help solving the issues as the foundation itself,
while sitting in the Netherlands, couldn’t do much. Also because UWA, according the
agreement, is obliged to assure the protection of the park area rehabilitated by the Face
foundation. However, UWA at this moment appeared unable to protect the areas
encroached by the local communities who uprooted the trees. One of the respondents,
involved with the Face foundation for a long time said, “This from a political point of
view is much destabilized area. It is difficult there when your partner is not strong
enough to give answers to all the problems. It is not only weak; they don’t have the
position as well”.
Competing ideas of WRM
These events and issues have been noticing by various journalists and organizations,
especially when UWA evicted the local communities outside the park. The World
Rainforest Movement (WRM) that claims to secure the lands and livelihoods of the
‘forest peoples’ is one of the organizations that are quite critical to the CDM (and other)
projects under the Kyoto Protocol. It sent its representative to the area that interviewed
the local people and contacted many others including the Face foundation, SGS and the
Climate Neutral Group. In December 2006, the WRM published a report titled “A Funny
Place to Store Carbon” a description that alleged the Face foundation and UWA of
violating the local people’s rights. The report especially accused UWA of brutally
evicting the people from the park. This report intrigued the media and the journalist that
37
publicized this issue quite extensively. The issue has been given coverage by the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and a local TV channel (Zembla) in the Netherlands.
The impact of such TV programs, especially the one from Zembla —which broadcasted
its documentary in March 2008— has been quite negative to the status of the Face
foundation. Such circumstances led to a situation where the foundation encountered
numerous problems especially in the carbon market. Its customers started taking less
interest in buying the carbon credits particularly those gained from the UWA-Face
project at Mount Elgon. Even at the Forest Day at Mbale, one of the high representatives
of the United Nations (UN) mentioned about the MENP case and suggested that the
project should not be executed. However the director of the Face foundation, present at
that moment, protested and referred to it as a wrong advice; she said that as a responsible
functionary, the UN representative was not in the position to take that stand. The director
of the Face foundation was of the view that the high UN officials should make the base of
their statements the facts rather than a report written by somebody. This shows the impact
of such reports and documentaries. The mentioned report and coverage by TV channel(s)
have brought an extra attention of the public and other organizations to the conflict
between UWA and the local communities. When a high ranked representative of the Face
foundation was asked whether the problems come from the report published by WRM,
she said, “Ultimately, yes, I mean they have triggered the situation whereby none of the
credits are sellable anymore. The project has become 100% cost centered…. It has
become a reputational hazard or liability”. About the impact of the WRM report and the
resultant criticism on the partnership with UWA, she further explained, “UWA still gets
big budget from us every year and they are keeping their obligations too. Our
commitment to the project is still as genuine as it was; it is just made impossible from the
outside”. While regarding the impact of such publicity on the income of the foundation,
one of its former directors said that, “What I would do is to never start these kinds of
projects. At that stage with SEP and the funds available you could start such large scale
projects. But currently where there is hardly any demand for the credits, because that is
the only income you can generate now, you can only work with very small scale
projects.”
38
The board and management of Face foundation
In spite of all these challenges the SGS Qualifor, issued the ‘Forest Management
Certification Report’ in October 2007 stating that the FSC certificate for MENP and the
UWA-Face project has been extended till September 2012. This certification, according
to Face foundation, confirms the fact that the forest management activities at MENP are
still in compliance with the international standards. However, this certification as a tool
to defend the foundation reputation didn’t work and its Board of Directors (BoD) had a
meeting in March 2008 to confer the issue. Due to the immense pressure and criticism on
the one hand, and cost-centered position of project on the other, the board discussed the
option to develop an exit strategy, hand over the project responsibility to suitable
partner(s) in the region and gradually step back from the UWA-Face project. However
this decision was kept aside until the new director of the Face foundation joined the
office in April 2008. The new management was not in favor of the board’s decision and
wanted to keep continue the project under any possible circumstances. The new incoming
director came up with the suggestion to improve the sale of carbon credits and share 10%
of the revenue with the local communities. She agreed with the option to look for other
project partner(s) to work with in restoration of the park but insisted on not to step back.
To discuss this option, she visited the Ugandan partner, in June 2008, and put emphasis
on resolving the encroachment issue and to restructure the project. The UWA got some
time to discuss the issue with the concerned minister and the local communities.
According to the current director of the Face foundation, “what is changing now is the
revenue sharing with the local communities, which in the past was not an issue because
there was no carbon market and no body was interested in the carbon. Now the
international context has changed, also Uganda is interested now in undertaking the
climate change mitigation projects, because you can earn money with that”. Revenue
sharing with the local communities is the idea of the new management while the final
decision making authority of the foundation is the Board of Directors that still insists on
developing exit strategy for the project. The current management, at this stage, awaits the
results of the new agreement between UWA and the local communities, expected to come
forth in September this year. Hence the current year may prove quite decisive for the
future of the UWA-Face project at Mount Elgon National Park.
39
5.2 Interpretation
Resource dependency for coalition
As explained in the interpretation section of the first period, it is obvious that at the time
of coalition formation, both UWA and the Face foundation were not precisely sharing the
same objective. It means that they have been contributing to achieve each others’
objectives, not directly but complementarily. However both the actors kept cooperating
and have been benefiting from the coalition, which initially went on quite smoothly. As it
is obvious that UWA had no interest in offsetting the atmospheric carbon at the initial
stages of this coalition, neither had the Face foundation shared its policy core beliefs with
UWA. But the question here is what kept UWA and the Face foundation cooperating if
they did not share the same policy core beliefs in the very beginning?
This is understandable that the Face foundation, from the early beginning, had a strong
commitment towards its goals and objectives, hence its policy core beliefs. The
foundation had sufficient financial resources to make coalition with a partner of its
choice that could contribute achieving its goals and objectives. The Uganda Wildlife
Authority, on the other hand, needed financial assistance from external investors to
restore the park’s natural vegetation, the status of which was recently upgraded.
Furthermore, UWA was willing to ensure protection of the restored vegetation in the par,
which is what exactly the Face foundation wanted. Thus contrary to the ACF —which
argues that the shared policy core beliefs of the actors serve as glue among them in a
coalition— the resources of both the actors, in this case, became the glue between UWA
and the Face foundation. On behalf of UWA, provision of land for afforestation whereas
the financial investment of the Face foundation, were the resources that kept them
cooperating. Nevertheless, as explained in the illustration above, this cooperation has
been subject to many ups and downs during their partnership. The main reasons for such
variations have been changes in the management of UWA and the economic conditions
of the Face foundation.
Media strengthens the partnership…??
In order to seek the influence of WRM report on the partnership of UWA and the Face
foundation, we refer to the third expectation that was put forward in the second chapter,
40
which took the WRM report as an external event and expected that it had affected the
partnership between UWA and the Face foundation. This expectation was based on the
assumption that the WRM —with its competing ideas and strong campaigning
coalition— would bring the world’s attention to the UWA-Face project as an unfair
coalition and would influence the UWA-Face partnership negatively. However the
illustration above describes that this expectation proves to be partly true. In other words,
the WRM report exposed the Face foundation to media, journalists that resulted in
international criticism on the Face foundation and UWA, and has brought them under
severe pressure. Nevertheless, the UWA-Face partnership has not been affected
negatively rather they are coming closer to each other to in order to compete the
consequences of media and WRM campaign and the criticism resulted thereof. However,
such reports, the journalists’ interference and criticism have played a crucial role in
altering the policies of both UWA and the Face foundation. UWA is now thinking more
about adopting projects that help sequestering CO2, generating revenue from such
projects and working together with communities. The Face foundation, on the other hand,
perceives sharing its revenue from the carbon credits with the local communities as well
as to improve their marketing strategies. In light of the interviews, documents reviewed
and the above illustrations, it is concluded that there has been changes in the policies and
strategies of the Face foundation and WRM. However, these changes are not exclusively
due to the report of WRM and media campaigns; there are many other factors involved
that are responsible for altering the policies of the two actors. Some of them are listed
below
Changes in the socio-economic conditions
The ACF argues that changes in the socio-economic conditions are one of the dynamic
factors and a pre-requisite to major policy changes. This argument precisely fits into
social and particularly the economic conditions of the Face foundation. After the NV SEP
dissolved in 2000, the Face foundation had impediment in generating its own funds,
though the NV SEP provided financial assistance for the coming four years, the
foundation never had the flow of funds it was used to. This is also clear that major part of
the budget the Face foundation provided for UWA-Face project has been utilized for
transport, staff housing and their maintenance; only fewer funds have been used for
41
technical work, e.g. afforestation. Above all, the encroachment of areas afforested by the
Face foundation and uprooting brought disastrous damage to the funds spent by the
foundation therein. Thus it had to reduce funding to its projects, which ultimately had an
impact on its partnership. Socially, of course, there is growing awareness that public
relations are very important for organizations while the Face foundation particularly
relies on the market and the people who want to compensate their emissions. Face
therefore, in the light of the reports and media’s negative campaigning, had to improve to
its relation with its business partners, consumers and the general public to keep its
standing. This has had a particular influence on the strategic policies of the Face
foundation.
Impact of others’ policy decisions
The ACF argues that policy decisions and impact from the other subsystem has a role in
bringing major policy changes. The same holds true for the policy decisions of the CDM
statute which stated that no projects that started after 2000 could be registered as CDM.
This had hindered the financial position of the Face foundation —as it could generate
revenue from it— and have had an influence on its strategies regarding its finances.
Resources and constraints
Apart from the dynamic factors discussed above, the ACF also defines relatively stable
parameters that are difficult to change. These parameters however, could prove either
resources or constraints of the subsystem actors. The Face foundation, in terms of
resources, in the beginning, had sufficient funds that could help it choosing its
collaborator for carrying out projects. It had and still has technical and well learned staff
that can handle the projects technically. On the other hand ‘attributes of the problem
area’ (or good) according to ACF could be a resource or constraint, which for the Face
foundation, in this case, proved to be a constraint. One of the basic attributes of the
problem area is inaccessibility for the Face foundation, i.e. the project is located in
Uganda whereas the Face foundation, while sitting in the Netherlands, cannot approach
or totally control whatever is going on with its project in the other continent. There were
certain situations the foundation could have handled easily in the Netherlands, which it
could not in Uganda. The conflict between the park and the people and changes in the
management of Uganda Wildlife Authority are a few examples.
42
The ACF describes the fundamental socio-cultural values and social structure as another
stable parameter that determines the constraints or resource of the subsystem actors. This,
especially was depicted by some of the respondents during interviews, i.e. the African
way of managing resources seems to be quite different than that of the European. The
more or less similar minds and behavior might have had a positive impact in carrying out
such joint projects in long term. For instance, the militarization of UWA that took place
in 2003-04, which the Face foundation did not like. The Face foundation rather favored
any unpleasant happening making a police case while UWA, in the past, would handle
such cases by itself. This act of UWA provided the opportunity for others to point them
as cruel and an institution favoring trees over humans. Such stories have been quite
frequently mentioned in the WRM report that has brought the reputational liability to the
UWA-Face project in particular and the Face foundation in general.
This is evident that the Face foundation has been relatively altering its behavioral
intentions that resulted from the experiences and the new information concerned with the
attainment or revision of its policy objectives. This alteration is referred to as ‘policy
oriented learning’ by ACF. This involves the increased knowledge of problem parameters
and the factors affecting them. The framework assumes that members of various
coalitions seek to better understand the real world in order to further their policy
objectives. That is accurately the situation which Face foundation is passing through; it is
learning from its previous experiences and policies and is trying to understand what the
problem is and how to overcome such difficulties. The decision of the Board of Directors
of the Face foundation in the coming few months (probably in September, 2008) based
on its ‘policy oriented learning’ would draw the destiny of UWA-Face project. The
policy oriented learning in ACF describes two additional sources affecting the policy
change. The first one involves changes in the system dynamics such as changes in socio-
economic conditions—as already discussed above— that can dramatically alter
composition and the resources of various coalitions. The second non-cognitive source of
change that can substantially alter the political resources of various coalitions and thus
policy decisions is turnover in personnel (Sabatier 1999). This aspect of ACF
interestingly can be, correlated to the change in the management of UWA when the
43
World Bank appointed its own (South African) Executive Director in 2000. Precisely,
after his appointment, the Face foundation faced problems with the new decisions taken
by the new management. The UWA-Face no more remained a separate entity and was
integrated into the structure of UWA, which indeed was a big adjustment with the change
in command or ‘turnover in personnel’ of the Uganda Wildlife Authority.
WRM as advocacy coalition
In this case study, an important actor, the World Rainforest Movement came in as another
advocacy coalition with its own ideas and beliefs regarding the issues such as climate
change and the Kyoto Protocol. The WRM coalition has entirely diverse ideas and
perceptions advocating that the emission reductions should be dealt with separately from
afforestation and plantations projects. According to their beliefs such projects under the
clean development mechanisms and the Kyoto Protocol would result in inequality among
the nations of the ‘South’ and the ‘North’ that would favor the ‘North’ being richer in
economy and technology. This coalition, therefore, campaigned strongly against the Face
foundation and UWA and, through their campaigns, pressurized the two partners to step
back from the UWA-Face project. The WRM campaigns resulted in changing the
behavior of the important actors, i.e. the consumers of the Face foundation; however, it
had no visible impact on the partnership of UWA and the Face foundation. This indicates
the strong bond between the two actors that resulted from converting the secondary
aspects into their policy core beliefs.
44
Chapter 6
Conclusion and Discussion
This chapter consists of two sections. The first section concludes the results and findings
of the study while the second section reflects on the relevance of empirical results and the
selected theoretical framework as well as the research methodology involved therein. The
latter section briefly describes what the empirical case is about and how it relates to other
cases in terms of tracking policy changes and application of the ACF approach. It also
illustrates which method has been used to collect data from various sources and what
discrepancies were faced by the researcher while adopting the said methodology as well
as the theory to study this case.
6.1 Conclusion
In this research study, I found that the collaboration between the Face foundation and the
Uganda Wildlife Authority is an innovative and an important partnership that results from
a new policy instrument, the flexible mechanisms of the CDM and the KP. The study is
quite intriguing and pertinent as it describes how actors in practice, under certain
international treaty, tend to cooperate and which factors make their cooperation stable or
else. Furthermore, there are not so many detailed studies pertaining to such cooperation
or partnerships of actors under certain treaties, e.g. the Kyoto Protocol, in the real world.
This study, therefore can contribute to the understanding and explaining of how such
partnerships under the Clean Development Mechanism succeed in being ‘good
partnerships’. The following section attempts to conclude the results of the study in terms
of answering the proposed research questions.
45
Chapter 6: Conclusion and Discussion
Answer to the 1st research question
The first research question proposed for this case study was, “how has the cooperation
between the Face foundation and UWA evolved since the launch of the UWA-FACE
project until now”. Based on the literature review, Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1999),
identified that the shared policy core beliefs are the factors that keep actors in a coalition.
Due to this argument, in the second chapter I indicated that the Face foundation and
UWA shared their policy core beliefs, i.e. the goals and objectives concerning the UWA-
Face project. Therefore, I expected that the commonality in goals and objective as well
the shared ideas regarding CO2 sequestration resulted in the cooperation between the two
actors. In this specific, however, the findings reveal that the cooperation between UWA
and the Face foundation started in 1994. But there were no sharing of ideas regarding
CO2 compensation, which was the main objective of the Face foundation. The Uganda
Wildlife Authority, on the other hand, wanted its park to be rehabilitated by external
investor(s), hence its objective was entirely different from that of the Face foundation.
The Face foundation, at that stage, had enough financial resources that it could invest in
rehabilitation of the park for UWA, which, in turn, offered the Face foundation enough
land, the park resource, for afforestation to partly fix the atmospheric CO2. Therefore, in
this case, not the shared policy core beliefs but the resources of both actors served them
to initiate cooperating with each other. Nevertheless, only one of the policy core beliefs,
i.e. rehabilitation of the park, was the activity/ objective that the two partners shared.
None of the actors were aware of each other’s objectives entirely unless the IUCN came
in the scene, which played the bridging role between the Face foundation and UWA. That
is how the cooperation between the two actors established via a third party, the IUCN that
played an important role in establishing the partnership between the two actors.
Consequently, in this case, unlikely the policy core beliefs indicated by Sabatier (1988),
the resources of the two actors and a third party played the important role to glue the two
actors. The ‘only one’ shared policy core beliefs (rehabilitation of the park) was not
enough to keep the cooperation longer between the Face foundation and the Uganda
Wildlife Authority though it helped in initiating this partnership. The following table
elucidates the expected and the real factors that induced the cooperation among the two
actors.

Table 6.1 Factors inducing cooperation between UWA and the Face foundation
Factors inducing Remarks

No. Expected In real
cooperation
Shared ideas about CO2

1. Yes No -
sequestration
Common goals and shared only one
2. Yes Yes
objectives objective
Interdependency on each
3. No Yes -
others’ resources
The IUCN helped the
Involvement of the third
4. No Yes actors initiating the
party
partnership
Answer to the 2nd research question
The second research question for this case study was how can the stability in partnership
between the Face foundation and UWA be explained? In the second chapter I indicated,
apart from the same policy core beliefs, some other factors that might have contributed to
the stability of cooperation between UWA and the Face foundation. These factors
included the social and economic conditions and the mutual trust of the two actors that
led to the enduring relationship between UWA and the Face foundation. Nevertheless, the
major contributing factor for stability was expected to be the ‘commonality in policy
goals and objectives’ of the two actors —the same as expected for the 1st research
question. Earlier, I already indicated that initially both actors had developed partnership
due to the ‘only one’ shared policy core belief, i.e. the rehabilitation of the park’s natural
vegetation, which alone was not sufficient enough to maintain their partnership glued for
longer time. This is evident from the events covered in chapter 4 describing the ups and
downs in the relationship of the two actors, which means that this partnership was not
stable initially. However, during the later stages, it grew into a more stable cooperation,
which can be explained in terms of ‘policy oriented learning’. This cooperation stabilized
when both the actors started learning from their experiences, which was due to the

changes in their beliefs as their secondary aspects gradually converted into their policy
cores strengthening their cooperation. The tables 4.1 and 4.2, in chapter 4, describe how
and which secondary aspects of both actors converted into their policy core beliefs.
Though the mutual trust and the socio-economic conditions of both the partners also
played their role, the policy oriented learning, however, in this case, remained the
important factor that contributed to the mutual partnership between UWA and the Face
foundation. The following table explains the expected and the real factors that
contributed to the stability of partnership between the two actors. .
Table 6.2 Factors contributing to stability in the partnership between UWA and the Face
foundation
Factors contributing
No. Expected In real Remarks
to stability
Rehabilitating the park’s

Common goals and
1. Yes No vegetation was the only
objectives
common objective
The FACE’s financial
The socio-economic
2. Yes Yes support to UWA kept them
conditions
cooperating
Without mutual trust the
Mutual trust and
3. Yes Yes partnership would not be
enduring relationship
established
Learning from past
altered the actors’ policies,
4. No Yes
experiences which helped the
partnership get stabilized

Answer to the 3rd research question
The third research question, I proposed for this case study was structured as, “how has
the World Rainforest Movement report affected the stable cooperation between the Face
foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA)?” Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith
(1999) in the ACF describe that significant perturbations or external events to subsystem
are the main driving forces to bring changes in the policy core beliefs. In this case as
mentioned in chapter two, I had assumed that the report published by WRM was an
external event that altered the policies, and ultimately negatively affected the partnership
between UWA and the Face foundation. Therefore, I expected a change and in the
policies and partnership of the two actors due to certain factors like the WRM report,
attention of media to the UWA-Face project and the pressure from various conservation
organizations to stop the project activities at Mount Elgon. The results in this case
showed that although the WRM report had a major impact on the policies of both UWA
and the Face foundation, however, it had no marked impact on their partnership. This
report exposed the Face foundation to the media, the international critics and the general
public, which eventually altered the behaviour of the consumers of the Face foundation.
This situation induced the decision makers at the top level of the foundation to alter their
strategies. The limited options left with the Face foundation, regarding the UWA-Face
project, is either to absorb the local communities in its coalition and work in
collaboration with them or to withdraw from the UWA-Face project. At this stage
whereas the credits are no more sellable in the market and the foundation is under
immense pressure of criticism, it is indeed, a decisive moment for the foundation to take
bold steps in altering their policies. The future of UWA-Face project —hence partnership
of UWA and the Face foundation— in fact, significantly depends the decision taken by
the board of directors of the Face foundation. This would either save its coalition or
become the target of the ideas of the opposite coalition, the World Rainforest Movement,
which has been seeking alteration in its policies since 2006. Moreover, apart from the
WRM report, events, such as the elections in 2006-07 in Uganda, changes in economic
conditions of the Face foundation, changes in the management of UWA, resources &
constraints of the two partners and impact from others’ policies had an important
outcome on the policies, and consequently on the partnership of the Face foundation and

the Uganda Wildlife Authority. The following table explains the real factors and those
that were expected to bring change in the policies and partnership between the two actors.
Table 6.3 Factors contributing to changes in the policies and partnership between UWA
and the Face foundation
Factors contributing
No. Expected In real Remarks
to change
Brought changes only in

1. The WRM report Yes Yes policies and not in the
partnership of the two actors
Media and Change only in policies of
2. Yes Yes
international criticism the two actors
Pressure from
3. conservation Yes Yes Not very conspicuous
organizations
Change in behaviour
Reluctance of consumer to
4. of the consumers of No Yes buy carbon credits from
the Face foundation UWA-Face project
Events like elections

Significant impact on the
in Uganda, changes
policies and partnership of
5. No Yes
in the management of the Face foundation with
UWA
UWA etc.
Socio-economic Disbandment of NV SEP

conditions of UWA had enormous impact on the
6. No Yes
financial conditions of the
and Face foundation Face foundation
Impact of the CDM statute
Impact of others’
in 2003 that restricted
7. No Yes
policies’ decisions UWA-Face to be registered
as a CDM project

6.2 Reflections on results
The investigation process, in this research had its focus on describing a detailed
explanation of the events that occurred during a period of 19 years (1989-2008) reflecting
on the history, the policies and the coalition formation of the Face foundation. The
emphasis was to comprehend how the Face foundation started making coalition and how
this coalition did stabilize over time. Another aspect of the study concentrated on
alteration in the coalition and strategies of the Face foundation as a result of the
competing ideas of WRM that confronted those of the Face foundation regarding CO2
compensation.
The theoretical perspective of advocacy coalition framework (ACF) was applied to the
case as a lens to look through the events, whose major assumption is that the policy core
beliefs are the fundamental glue of the coalitions as they represent the basic normative
and empirical commitment within the domain of specialization of policy elites (Sabatier
and Jenkins Jenkins-Smith, 1999). However, the results in this case reflected that the
policy core beliefs are important, but they may not necessarily help in gluing the coalition
partners. An important aspect which the ACF does not pay enough attention is the
resources of coalition partners. Resource dependency, in a coalition, could be as equally
important as the policy core beliefs of the actors. This case study has clearly
demonstrated that the actors, UWA and the Face foundation, have been relying on each
other’s resource for their mutual cooperation, i.e. financial resources of Face foundation
while the park resources of UWA were the main factors that kept them cooperating with
ach other.
Jenkins-Smith (1999) applied two theoretical perspectives, the policy network analysis
(PNA) and advocacy coalition framework (ACF), to explain the policy change and
stability in UK industrial pollution policy. In his article, he signifies the importance of
resource dependency for making coalitions and/ or bringing about changes in a policy
domain. Jenkins-Smith (1999) exemplified that transformation of certain beliefs into
practice (which was based on advocacy coalition) was prevented in the UK air pollution
policy in 1970s due to the lack of political resources. Hence Jenkins-Smith (1999)

explicated that resource dependency holds an imperative position in altering policies or in

other words, keeping long lasting and effective coalitions.
The phenomenon of resource interdependency is further explicated by Fenger and Klok

(2001) when they applied the ACF approach —with certain proposed hypotheses— to the
coalition behaviour in the U.S oil and gas leasing debate that started with the Santa
Barbara oil spill controversy in 1969. In their article Fenger and Klok (2001) focused on
the creation of opposing advocacy coalitions by environmentalist group and oil & gas
companies trying to shape the public policies according to their own beliefs. However, at
a certain instant both the coalitions realized that they are symbiotically interdependent on
other actors. Though at large, their work describes certain aspects not covered by the
ACF, Fenger and Klok (2001) gave an explicit touch to the term interdependence that is
crucial, and in many cases as important as policy core beliefs, for actors to cooperate in a
specific coalition.
The above results from various authors signify the findings of this case study in terms of
resources being an important factor keeping actors cooperating in the same coalition.
However, being an idiographic explanation of the specific case —of UWA-Face project
at MENP— this case study cannot necessarily be generalized to other cases/ projects. It
could, however, be used as a pattern in the context of CO2 compensation efforts and as an
inspiration for future research focusing on how different actors perceive the problem of
climate change according to their own beliefs and ideas. Furthermore, the scientific
relevance of this study is never denied, as it can contribute to the efforts in understanding
the complexity of policy processes in the fields of forestry, carbon sequestration and
climate change. Moreover, the study is obviously relevant to the policies and strategies of
the actors involved in the case; hence the picture drawn from this research could prove
fruitful for their policies and strategies in the future.

6.3 Theoretical reflections

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) offers an instrument to explain policy change
over time and is based on the premises, inter alia, that policy subsystem is the most useful
unit of analysis, and that a time perspective of a decade or more is needed to understand
policy change (Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1998). Another premise of ACF is that actors
within a subsystem join the same coalition if they share the same policy core beliefs. It
provides a useful mechanism for explaining dynamism in policy processes over a period
of a decade or more. Based on the mentioned premises of ACF and its apparent relevance
to the empirical case —of UWA-Face project at MENP— I opted to apply the advocacy
coalition framework as a lens to look through, i.e. how the Face foundation formed
coalition with its partner and how the changes in their policies took place over time.
Interestingly, during the study, it was found that the certain premises of the ACF were
precisely confirmed while it was applied to the empirical case. The use of time
perspective of a decade or more, for instance, was significantly important as a dramatic
change in the policies of both the Face foundation and UWA was observed during 19
years. Had this premise not be used, it would not be possible to track the changes in its
policies as most of the changes had occurred during the later phases of the project
implementation. Likewise, the term policy oriented learning have been observed on
behalf of both sides, i.e. Face foundation and UWA, as there have been alterations in the
thoughts or behavioural intentions of the two actors. The ACF argues that such alterations
result from experience and new information that are concerned with the revision of policy
objectives. Furthermore, the impact of socio-economic conditions, policy decisions and
the external non-cognitive factors on the actors’ resources and, in turn, on their policies
was also demonstrated in this empirical case. This condition was quite visible after 2000
when the NV SEP was dissolved; the Face foundation had fewer funds available for its
projects; thereafter the UWA-Face project was integrated into the general UWA structure
that affected the resources, hence policies of the Face foundation. However, the most
prominent changes in its policies were observed when the external factors such as hostile
reports from WRM, media campaigns, elections in Uganda and the new CDM statutes
proved crucial for its marketing that affected its financial resources. Besides, being
helpful in many regards, I faced some discrepancies while applying the ACF to this
specific case; that are described below.

6.4 Discrepancies faced

Although using the ACF approach has been quite helpful in understanding the
partnership, the stability therein and the changes in policy processes of the Face
foundation and UWA, still there were some factors described in the ACF that I found a
little hard to understand or to apply to this specific case of my research process.
The broadly defined deep core beliefs
The belief system premise of advocacy coalition framework (ACF), particularly the
policy core, was the main concept used in assessing the process of coalition formation,
the stability and changes in the policies and partnership of the two actors in this case. It
was, however, rather intricate task to define the deep core beliefs of the coalition actors,
the Face foundation and the Uganda Wildlife Authority. One of the reasons is the broadly
defined concepts of the deep core beliefs within the framework in which the juvenile
researchers can easily be lost. The ACF rather focuses mainly on the structure, contents,
stability and evolution of the policy subsystems of the coalitions. To sort out the relation
between coalition actors, however, the policy core and secondary aspects were given
more emphasis as the former is the determinant, according to ACF, of cooperation among
coalition partners.
The subsystem ‘boundaries’
Besides the broadly defined deep core beliefs, I had complications in limiting the
boundaries of the subsystem. The debate of CO2 compensation, apparently, was a part of
the subsystem ‘climate change’ however; it was not clear how this subsystem originated,
where did lay its boundaries and what are factors that could determine those boundaries.
Therefore, I indicated the subsystem as a series of debates directly or indirectly related to
the broader concept of the climate change. These debates of the subsystem in this case
included sequestration of the atmospheric CO2, conservation of wildlife and the
biodiversity, the clean development mechanism and Kyoto Protocol etc.
The role of policy broker(s)..??
The ACF argues that conflicting strategies from various coalitions may be mediated by a
third group of actors termed as policy brokers whose principal concern is to find a
reasonable compromise between the actors that will reduce the intense conflict. In this

case, I was expecting such actor (or group of actors) that could have reconciled the
conflict between UWA and the communities surrounding the MENP or between WRM
and the Face foundation. The most ideal candidate for playing this role was considered to
be the Conservation Union, the IUCN-Uganda, which being a trustworthy and interest-
free organization could have led the role of policy broker. Another facet that put IUCN-
Uganda on the favourite list to lead the role of policy broker is that it had readily played
the ‘bridging role’ in bringing together UWA and the Face foundation, and that it was
already involved with the local communities via MECDP in Mbale. However, so far, it
has not come forth to lead any negotiation in this respect. Nevertheless, the concerned
Ministry (especially the minister himself) in Uganda got interested to resolve the conflict
between UWA and the local communities after the fact that the Board of Directors of the
Face foundation is considering to step back from the UWA-Face project. The time frame
given by the current Director of the Face foundation to UWA resolving the encroachment
issue before September this year (2008) has its own significance for UWA. The said
ministry and UWA, in collaboration with the local communities, have prepared the blue
print for resolving their mutual conflict. Thus, if successful, the role of the said ministry
in resolving this conflict would be a big deal as policy broker.
6.5 Reflection on research method used

As described in chapter 3, the method for data collection in this case mainly involved
reviewing the archival records, the policy documents and interviews from personnel
directly or indirectly related to organizations such as the Face foundation, the World
Rainforest Movement and the Uganda Wildlife Authority. Some of the respondents were
not available for interviews, due to which they were sent questionnaires and were
requested to respond to them accordingly. Some respondents were not included initially,
but later on they were identified by other respondents as useful sources of information,
due to which they were taken in as additional respondents, for instance, the former chief
technical advisor of the IUCN project at Mbale that was indicated by one of the
respondent. Though the arrangements (such as sending e-mails to and taking appointment
from the respondents) were made before starting the research, yet there were some
inconveniences faced during the process:

Reluctance of respondents
In spite of the fact that almost many of the respondents were fairly open and cooperative
during interviews, some of them were a bit reluctant in providing information for this
study. The reason was being vigilant due to the past experiences of their interviews that
turned against them or the organizations they are/ were working in. For instance, when
the reporters from a Dutch TV channel, Zembla, went to Uganda, they apart from the
communities’ members also interviewed the UWA staff responsible for managing the
UWA-Face project. The staffs were supportive and provided the reporters with the
relevant information they needed for their TV documentary, which consequently, came
out to be against UWA and its partner, the Face foundation. Due to the reason, some of
the respondents would not answer questions in an appropriate way. This factor could
limit the information or in a way make the data biased.
Access to respondents
Access to some of the key respondents had been an obstruction due to certain reasons.
For instance, some of respondents had quitted their jobs, hence there whereabouts were
not known; others are fairly internationally oriented and travel quite frequently which
made it hard to locate them. Some of the respondents that were able to be accessed had
busy schedules and were not able to be interviewed in time. A number of people were
planned to be interviewed online (via Skype) but due to the lack of internet facility (e.g.
in Africa), it was not possible. However, the viewpoints of such respondents were
included by sending them the electronic questionnaires, to which some of them
responded promptly.
Time perspective
Lack of time has been an issue of concern throughout the process though a research plan
was prepared and scheduled before carrying out the research process. Many activities,
particularly access to sources of information —mainly due to the busy schedules of
respondents— in practice could not follow the specific time planned for it, which marked
its impact on other phases, such as interview transcription, data analysis, and writing
down the final report, of the research process. Because of such discrepancies, the data
analysis took more than the time specified, ultimately the time for writing the draft and

final report was affected. Nevertheless, putting extra efforts in the entire research process
made it possible to give it a final and comprehensive shape.
Lack of resources
This study could have been made even more detailed, interesting and effective, had the
lack of resources not hindered its way. At the commencement of this study, I had the
ambition to go to Uganda and include the local communities and other stakeholders (e.g.
UWA and IUCN etc) as primary source of information in this research. This, however,
due to lack of financial means was not possible anymore. This might have consequences
in the data collected being more ‘one sided’.

References
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Annex-I
List of respondents
No. Name Occupation/ position Date interviewed
1.
Former Coordinator of the
Mr. Igino Emmer June 4, 2008.
UWA-Face Project
2.
Former Director of the Face
Mr. Hans Verviej June 9, 2008.
Foundation
3. Author of the report “A Funny June 30, 2008.

Mr. Chris Langs Place to Store Carbon” on
behalf of the WRM (Via Skype)
4.
Director of the Face
Ms. Eveline Trines July 15, 2008.
Foundation
5.
Former Director of the Face
Mr. Denis Slieker July 15, 2008.
foundation
6.
Mr. Martijn Snoep Staff of the Face foundation July 15, 2008.
7. Data through
Former Chief Technical questionnaire
Mr. Jan Betlem
Advisor of the IUCN-Uganda
8. Director Field operations of Data through

Mr. Fredrick Kizza the UWA- Face project questionnaire
Uganda

Annex-II
The Interview Guide
This interview guide will take into account the research questions and would be guided
by the premises of the Advocacy Coalition Framework. It will attempt to cover the
mentioned topics/ discussion points while interviewing the respondents.
Introductory questions:
• Name/ Current position/ relation with the organization(s) and the UWA-Face project
etc.
• What is the main goal of the Face foundation and what are the designed objectives
under it? [Policy core beliefs]
• How did the idea of the UWA-Face project evolve within Face foundation and who
gave this idea? What was the main concept behind this project? [Origin of the
subsystem]
• How did the partnership between Face foundation and UWA establish? What were
the joint ideas of the two partners? [Policy core beliefs of UWA & Face]
• Why UWA was chosen as a partner and not others? What was the interest of UWA in
this project? [Advocacy coalition]
• What are the factors you think contributed to the development of stable cooperation
between the Face foundation and UWA? [The impact of external events]
CO2 compensation in practice: What makes actors cooperate?? II

• Any dissimilar ideas/ strategies/ policies of UWA which you think if they would
change, it would be even better for the partnership of the Face foundation with
UWA?
[Differences in beliefs]
• How did the Face foundation conform to the dissimilar ideas (if any) of UWA while
making partnership with it? [Difference in beliefs?]
• What in your opinion are the main factors (concepts/ ideas) that kept the Face
foundation and UWA partners for such a long time? [Similar policy core beliefs]
• How did the Face foundation lobby for or to convince the Dutch and Ugandan
Environmental Ministries for this deal? [Political resources of actors]
• What was the purpose of organizing the steering committee meeting in Kampala?
Who were involved and who not in this committee? [Advocacy Coalition]
• What are the existing policies of Face foundation on developing strategic partnerships
with other actors/ organizations? [Policy oriented leaning]
• How did the Face foundation & UWA respond to the attempts of WRM —and certain
journalists— that challenged their partnership regarding the UWA-Face project?
[Response to external events]
• What are the ongoing changes in the policies of the Face foundation and its partners
regarding the UWA-Face project? [Policy oriented learning]
CO2 compensation in practice: What makes actors cooperate?? III

• What are the strategies of the Face foundation to cope with certain unforeseen
situation in the future? [Policy oriented learning]
• Is there any actor/ organization that had tried to resolve the differences between the
Face foundation and WRM? Or differences between UWA and the local
communities?
[Policy brokers]
• When did SEP dissolve? Where from the Face foundation get funds then?
[Changes in the socio-economic conditions]
• When there were no funds available for UWA-Face project what was the response of
UWA at that time? [basis for cooperation]
• How would you describe the relationship of the Face foundation with the new
Executive Director of UWA (Mr. Robinson)? [External events]
• What changes did Mr. Robinson make in the existing policies of UWA? Which
changes didn’t match or fit to run the UWA-Face smoothly? [Conformity in policies
of the actors]
• What was the aim of UWA to take financial assistance from the World Bank? How
did the Face foundation respond to this action of UWA? [Basis for cooperation]
CO2 compensation in practice: What makes actors cooperate?? IV

Annex-III
Questionnaire for the staff of Uganda Wildlife Authority
Question 1: What is the main goal of Uganda Wildlife Authority and what are the
designed objectives under it?
Question 2: What are the similarities in the goals and objectives of Face foundation
and Uganda Wildlife Authority?
Question 3: What are the differences in the goals and objectives of Face foundation
and Uganda Wildlife Authority?
Question 4: How did the joint partnership between Uganda Wildlife Authority and
Face foundation came into being? And how it developed over time?
Question 5: What are the ideas or perceptions of Uganda Wildlife Authority in terms
of CO2 sequestration?
Question 6: How the idea of CO2 sequestration helped Uganda Wildlife Authority to
establish joint partnership with Face foundation?
Question 7: Apart from CO2 sequestration, what are the other factors that helped
UWA to establish partnership with Face foundation?
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Many thanks for your kind cooperation!
CO2 compensation in practice: What makes actors cooperate?? V

Annex-IV
Questionnaire for the staff of the IUCN-Uganda
Kindly describe, as much in details as possible, the background of UWA-Face project in

Mount Elgon National Park (MENP) Uganda in terms of the following questions:
Question 1:
How did Face foundation and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) join hands to start
the UWA-Face project?
Question 2:
How and when did you join the Face foundation? At which management position did
you work for UWA-Face project?
Question 3:
How long did you work with UWA-Face project? When exactly (year) did you leave
the project and why?
Question 4:
What role did IUCN play to bring together Face foundation and UWA? Who gave the
idea of UWA-Face project on behalf of IUCN?
Question 5:
What was the interest of IUCN in bringing together Face foundation and UWA?
CO2 compensation in practice: What makes actors cooperate?? VI
Question 6:
Why did IUCN give up its conservation and development programs in MENP after
the Face foundation started the park’s restoration?
Question 7:
What, in your opinion, are the joint objectives of both parties (UWA and Face) that
kept them glued in partnership for such a long time?
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Many thanks for your kind cooperation!
CO2 compensation in practice: What makes actors cooperate?? VII

MSC Thesis - CO2 Compensation in Practice - What Makes Actors Cooperate

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MSC Thesis - CO2 Compensation in Practice - What Makes Actors Cooperate

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CO2 Compensation in Practice:

What Makes Actors Cooperate??

Assessing Stability and Dynamics in the Actors’ Cooperation and

Assessing Stability and Dynamics in the Actors’

A Case Study of the UWA-FACE Project at

ACF Advocacy Coalition Framework

1.1 The climate change and the Kyoto Protocol

binding commitment by the industrialized and developed countries (referred to as Annex-I

CO2 compensation in practice: What makes actors cooperate?? 2

However, polemic prevails amongst various international conservation organizations

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1.3 Problem Statement

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1.4 General objective and research questions

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2.1 The choice of theoretical perspective

2.2 The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF)

2.3 The ACF premises

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CO2 compensation in practice: What makes actors cooperate?? 9

2.4 The key concepts of the ACF

The stable and dynamic parameters

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The advocacy coalition

The beliefs system

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Policy oriented learning

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2.5 Theoretical expectations

Expectations from the 1st research question

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• The shared ideas about CO2 sequestration

Expectations from the 2nd research questions

• The common goals and objectives regarding the UWA-Face project

• Mutual trust of the two actors

Expectations from the 3rd research questions

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• Attention of media and other critiques towards the UWA-Face project

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3.1 Character of the thesis work

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3.2 Data collection

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3.3 The arrangements prior to data collection

Interview guide and the questionnaires

After identifying the relevant respondents, I formulated an interview guide (attached as

Interviewing and transcription

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4.1 Events in 1989-1999

In 1989 the electricity generation board in the Netherlands, called NV SEP,

Search for project partners

Launching the UWA-Face project

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Objectives of UWA and the Face foundation

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Non conformities among the two actors

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A way to strengthen the advocacy coalition

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Beliefs of UWA and the Face foundation