The CGIAR System-wide Program on Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) is one of several Inter-Center Initiatives of the CGIAR and its Secretariat is hosted by IFPRI. With all 15 CGIAR centers as members, the overarching goal of CAPRi is to contribute to policies and practices that alleviate rural poverty by analyzing and disseminating knowledge on the ways collective action and property rights institutions influence the efficiency, equity, and sustainability of natural resource use. The collaborative effort aims to produce coherent frameworks, research methodologies, and rigorous, cross-comparable case studies that enable the development of locally relevant policies and institutions, as well as internationally generalizable lessons.

Within this framework, the program’s research agenda seeks to increase knowledge of the emergence and performance of voluntary, self-governing community organizations; the emergence and performance of different property institutions in natural resource management; the pros and cons associated with different types of institutions in different resource and socio-economic conditions; and the similarities and differences associated with the effects of different property institutions across different resources and regions.

It tries to identify concrete policy instruments that facilitate and encourage the formation, improved functioning, resilience and spontaneous evolution of organizations of users and property institutions that assure optimal resource use; and promote partnerships between local organizations, states, civil society, and private entities to limit duplication of effort while supporting these goals.

Finally substantial work is devoted to strengthening the capacity of national and CGIAR research centers, non-governmental organizations, universities and local organizations to do research on the above collective action and property rights issues, and forge and strengthen linkages between them in order to capitalize on synergies created through collaborative effort.

The following themes receive priority in the CAPRi program, based on their importance in natural resource management, policy focus, relevance to the CGIAR mandate, and their widespread applicability across resources and regions:

• Adoption of Technologies for Natural Resource Management
• Accommodating Multiple Uses and Users of a Resource
• Structuring Devolution
• Role of Environmental Risk
• Feminization of Agriculture and Demographic Change
• Changing Market Relationships
• Managing Local Genetic Resources

To facilitate comparative research the program sponsors research on priority themes by CGIAR centers and their national partners, and develops broad conceptual frameworks. It also sponsors workshops, training, and panels on priority research themes, directs face-to-face meetings of researchers and experts, edits books, journal special issues, and a working paper series featuring members' research on collective action and property rights, coordinates an e-mail network for exchange of information, and supplies literature reviews, a searchable annotated bibliography, an inventory of CGIAR projects related to collective action and property rights, and publications.