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Abstract
Local institutions are commonly referred to as mediating factors that govern the relationship
between a community and the natural resource base upon which it depends. However, conventional
agricultural research and extension approaches have had limited impact in positively influencing
the role of institutions in natural resource management (NRM). In this paper we discuss the role of
Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) in by-law enactment, implementation
and compliance in southwestern Uganda, and the potential benefits of the IAR4D approach for the
development of local-level institutions. Although the level of awareness of the enacted by-laws was
highest in the conventional sites, compliance was highest in the innovation platform (IP) villages.
With the multi-stakeholder participation of the IAR4D approach in the IPs, there was a conducive
environment in which to formulate and implement new by-laws, such as those relating to the
harvesting and marketing of produce. IAR4D was found to have the potential to empower individual
farmers through their interactions with each other, as well as to increase inter-institutional
interactions for increased information sharing among stakeholders, thus building social capital for
collective action.