Abstract
People’s preferences influence national priorities for economic
development and ecological integrity. Often policy makers and
development agents base their actions on unclear assumptions about
people’s preferences. This paper explores rural citizens’ preferences
for economic and ecological development goals and how they differ within
and between communities. We collected data from three purposely selected
communities representing dominant social-ecological systems in the
transboundary Cubango-Okavango River Basin in southern Africa. We used
contingent ranking survey experiments, which are a novel methodological
advance in policy related research. This included a qualitative
experimental design process that provided a broad framing underpinning
the research. The contingent ranking itself allowed us to simultaneously
assess (i) participants’ ranking priorities for the development goals;
and (ii) participants’ preferences for the ordering of those goals. We
found relatively strong preference homogeneity within and between
communities. Economic development attributes were given high priority
across all communities. At the same time, all communities expressed a
high preference for a healthy river system providing stable water
quality and quantity. This does not mean that our respondents
prioritized nature conservation. They showed low preferences for
preserving biodiversity and forests which provide less important local
benefits than water. This is of high governance relevance. The results
point at development domains where policy makers can most likely expect
stronger buy-in from citizens. Understanding citizens’ preferences helps
to better align national development priorities with what citizens want.