Case Study

The concession that worked on paper

Sankuyo Community Concession, Okavango Delta, Botswana

A wildlife concession in Botswana's Okavango Delta that delivered revenue, training, and conservation outcomes on paper, but placed decision-making authority with the safari company, not the community whose land it was. We managed this concession. The governance flaw we identified there shaped our current practice.

Botswana's Community-Based Natural Resource Management program was one of the most ambitious conservation experiments in southern Africa. The premise was simple: communities living alongside wildlife should hold the rights to that wildlife and generate income by granting safari companies access to their land.

The Sankuyo village community held its wildlife rights through a community trust. A photographic safari concession was awarded to a private operator, who hired a manager to build the camp, train local staff, run daily operations, and maintain the relationship with the trust.

The model worked on paper. Revenue flowed to the trust. Staff received real training in guiding, vehicle mechanics, camp management, and hospitality. The people who received that training were capable and motivated.

The governance flaw was in the design, not the delivery

The manager was employed by and accountable to the safari company, not the community. His salary came from commercial revenue. His authority was defined by the company's management. The decisions that shaped how the concession was run were made inside the company's commercial logic, not the community's governance structure.

The training produced good employees of the safari operation. It did not build the community's capacity to evaluate, direct, or challenge how their own land was being managed. Those two things look almost identical from the outside. They produce very different outcomes over time.

A community that depends on an outside manager to run its land is a community that cannot hold that manager accountable when the relationship stops working. The revenue was real. The skills transfer was real. But the governance arrangement meant the community could never take the wheel.

This pattern repeats across the sector

Projects report community participation. Budgets show benefit-sharing. Evaluations document training delivered. But when you look at where decision-making authority actually sits, the community is a participant in someone else's project rather than the governing body of its own system.

The question that matters is simple: does the governance design place authority with the community, or does it place the community inside someone else's authority? The answer is almost always visible before the project begins. It lives in the design.