**5. Conclusions**

Based on landscape governance assessments in landscapes across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, we conclude that landscape stakeholders often do not have equal opportunities to influence decision-making, that integrated landscape planning e fforts tend to remain noncommittal, and that implementation and enforcement of regulations is often weak. We also found that multi-stakeholder processes are widely considered key to achieving inclusive landscape governance for sustainable

development. They are expected to help align and integrate planning and decision-making processes of different actors.

Such multi-stakeholder processes can take many shapes and forms. In the context of donor-funded projects—requiring clearly defined activities, outputs, and outcomes—a CSO may decide to design, initiate, and facilitate a multi-stakeholder process through a new institutional arrangement. Such arrangements mean to provide a space where stakeholders can meet periodically to discuss, negotiate, and plan for collaborative action.

However, such new multi-stakeholder arrangements initiated by outside actors may face various challenges, such as the lack of a clear local mandate and insufficient embeddedness in the existing governance system. Moreover, landscapes tend to be contested spaces, with large differences in interests between various actors. In this context, it would be naïve to assume that bringing stakeholders together in a new institutional arrangemen<sup>t</sup> will bring the result of collaborative action to address landscape-level challenges.

In practice, a landscape governance system is a complex and fluid web of rules and decision-making processes, which is influenced by the distribution of power and the ability of stakeholders to defend their own interests. Furthermore, although a governance system encompasses public, private, and civic actors, its outcomes will largely depend on the presence of an effective (local) governmen<sup>t</sup> that is accountable to its citizens, has the legitimacy to make decisions, and has the legal backing and capacity to enforce rules and regulations.

In any effort to strengthen landscape governance, we stress the need to understand and build on what exists, and work with landscape actors to improve existing processes in the landscape. We believe there is a role for CSOs to support landscape actors to develop procedures for discussing and negotiating within their landscape, and to strengthen the capacity of local governments to ensure meaningful input from all stakeholders in landscape decisions. Next to that, CSOs can work with different constellations of landscape stakeholders to help develop a shared understanding of developments, threats, underlying causes, governance processes, and possibilities for collaborative action. Similarly, they can facilitate valuable monitoring and evaluation systems for tracking the effects of agreed action agendas in the landscapes including the strengthening of governance. CSOs can also increase trust, strengthen weaker stakeholders, and create capacity, interest, and enthusiasm of stakeholders to take up their own role in landscape governance.

The method presented in this paper can be used in its current or adapted form for practical applications as part of integrated landscape initiatives. It could also be used in action-research settings, informing the implementation of interventions, while gathering data on (changes to) perceptions on landscape governance. However, assessment scores gathered in participatory workshops should not be treated as hard data, as their quality and comparability depend on the composition of the group of participants, the participants' understanding of the indicators, and, related to that, the quality of facilitation. Despite such limitations, we hope that CSOs as well as action researchers will build on the method presented in this article to further support landscape stakeholders, ultimately contributing to inclusive landscape governance for sustainable development.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization and methodology: M.D.G., L.B., and R.Z.; Investigation: M.D.G., K.G., A.M., H.M., T.H.N., and E.P.; Project administration: M.D.G. and R.Z.; Formal analysis: M.D.G., K.K., and R.Z.; Writing—original draft: K.K. and M.D.G.; Writing—review & editing: K.K., M.D.G., L.B., K.G., A.M., H.M., T.H.N., E.P., and R.Z. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS) of The Netherlands, gran<sup>t</sup> number 27549, and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).

**Acknowledgments:** The methodology was developed with the help of Seth Shames of EcoAgriculture Partners, and benefitted from feedback of the Dutch national committee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN NL), Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands), and the facilitators of the landscape governance assessment workshops. The article also benefitted from the comments of three anonymous reviewers.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest. The sponsors had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or writing of the study.
