TRE is Co-Designing a Regional Community for Inclusive Local Governance in the Mano River Union

Côte d'Ivoire 2026

Across Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, The Resource Exchange and regional partners are building a practitioner-led community of practice to strengthen inclusive local governance in the context of natural resource development.

Across the Upper Guinean Forest, one of the world's most biodiverse and interconnected landscapes, communities are navigating rapid growth in mining, agriculture, forestry, conservation, and infrastructure development. While these sectors are creating new opportunities for jobs, investment, and economic growth, they also raise important questions about land, livelihoods, environmental stewardship, equitable benefit sharing, and who has a voice in decisions that shape the future of communities.

From Côte d'Ivoire to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, practitioners are asking many of the same questions. How can communities participate meaningfully in decisions that affect them? How can the benefits of development be shared more equitably? How can governments, communities, companies, and civil society work together to manage cumulative impacts that extend beyond national borders?

The answers will look different in every community, but one thing became clear in May 2026: the region doesn't need to solve these challenges alone.

Strong local governance helps ensure these decisions are inclusive, transparent, and locally led. Yet many practitioners across Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are working to address similar challenges without regular opportunities to exchange ideas, share practical experience, or collaborate across borders.

To help bridge that gap, The Resource Exchange (TRE), our global network hosted by RESOLVE, convened a co-design process for the Resource Exchange Mano River Union (MRU) in May 2026 in collaboration with WUSC. More than 60 representatives from government, Indigenous and traditional leadership, communities, civil society, academia, development organizations, and the private sector came together through two simultaneous co-design workshops in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, and Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Participants shared details of various initiatives to support local governance and responsible natural resource development during the co-design workshop in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.

The workshops were intentionally designed as a collaborative co-design process, ensuring practitioners from across the region played a central role in shaping the Regional Hub's vision, priorities, and direction. Rather than creating another standalone initiative, participants began building a regional community of practice that will connect people, strengthen relationships, and support practical learning across the Mano River Union.

Strong local governance doesn't happen in isolation. It grows through relationships, shared learning, and collaboration. That's the foundation of The Resource Exchange.

The Resource Exchange connects people to the tools, knowledge, resources, and relationships they need to strengthen local decision-making around natural resource development. Through technical exchanges, workshops, peer learning, and resources, members learn from one another, share what works, and build lasting relationships that strengthen local governance in their own communities.

The proposed Resource Exchange Mano River Union Regional Hub builds on this approach by creating a regional community of practice where practitioners can continue exchanging ideas, strengthening partnerships, and collaborating on shared governance challenges long after the workshops have ended.

Why a Regional Approach Matters

The Mano River Union spans Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, countries connected by shared ecosystems, watersheds, cultures, supply chains, and many of the same opportunities and challenges associated with natural resource development.

Map of the Mano River Union and its shared watershed across West Africa

While governance solutions tend to remain locally led and responsive to each country's context, many of today's challenges are regional. From managing cumulative environmental impacts and strengthening benefit-sharing systems to supporting community participation and improving coordination across sectors, there is tremendous value in learning from one another and working together.

The Resource Exchange Mano River Union is being co-designed to complement existing national initiatives by strengthening regional collaboration, sharing practical knowledge, and building relationships that support inclusive local governance across the Upper Guinean Forest landscape.

Sharing Practical Solutions Across the Region

Sharing a case study during the Freetown co-design workshop.

Throughout the workshops, participants shared practical approaches already making a difference in their own countries.

RESOLVE explored how the Peace Diamonds Restoration Initiative (PDRI) is strengthening Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) through integrated land management and engagement with villages and chiefdoms. The Centre for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI) and WUSC demonstrated how community-led nature-based solutions combine climate adaptation, traditional knowledge, and local monitoring. Representatives from government shared The Mano River Union Water Landscape Initiative and highlighted opportunities for regional watershed protection, while Namati examined Carbon Justice, and Diamonds for Peace shared approaches to strengthening alternative livelihoods and community benefit sharing. Rather than presenting isolated projects, these sessions revealed common challenges and practical solutions that can be adapted across the region. This led to nuanced conversations and revealed several priorities that will guide the co-design of the Regional Hub, including: 

• Inclusive decision-making systems and community participation

• Equitable benefit sharing

• Landscape approaches and cumulative impacts 

• Community visioning and planning 

• Information for decision-making and community-led monitoring

• Multi-stakeholder collaboration and partnerships

• Leadership capacity

• Managing project-induced in-migration

• Strengthening implementation of local governance policies and regulatory requirements 

Together, these discussions reflected the TRE Framework for Inclusive Local Governance and they also reinforced a shared commitment to strengthening local governance through collaboration, practical learning, and peer exchange across the region.

Learning Beyond the Workshop Room 

The conversations didn't end when the presentations finished.

In Divo, participants heard from women’s associations about how they use traditional knowledge and women-led decision-making processes to determine which species are cultivated and re-planted for forest diversification projects with local cocoa farmers.

In Côte d'Ivoire, participants travelled to Divo to meet with women's associations, community leaders, and a cocoa cooperative participating in a forest diversification plan as part of a broad nature-based solutions initiative. Seeing local partnerships in action demonstrated how community knowledge, landscape restoration, and sustainable livelihoods reinforce one another when local governance is strong.

In Divo, participants learn about how the saplings grown by local women’s groups are planted at neighboring cocoa farms, providing needed benefits for soil and tree cover. Farmers also shared how they work in partnership with the local women’s groups who use the various plants and trees for medicine, food and construction materials.

Members of the implementing group showcase a two-year-old tree selected to provide tree cover for crops while supporting cocoa production on the farm.

At the same time, participants in Sierra Leone joined Sierra Leone Mining Week, connecting regional discussions with national conversations on the future of responsible mining.

Participants from the National Minerals Agency, RESOLVE, Women on Mining and Extractives (WOME), and Diamonds for Peace attended Sierra Leone Mining Week in Freetown, an event that convenes government leaders, mining companies, investors, and industry experts from Sierra Leone, the region, and the international mining community.

Together, these experiences reinforced a defining principle of The Resource Exchange: some of the most valuable learning happens when practitioners get out of the office and learn directly from one another.

From Co-Design to Action

Phase 0 marked the beginning of an ongoing process to establish the Resource Exchange Mano River Union Regional Hub.

Participants identified strong interest in creating a practitioner-led regional platform that complements existing initiatives, strengthens partnerships, and provides opportunities for shared learning across the four countries.

Over the coming months, TRE and regional partners will continue refining the Regional Hub's governance model, expanding stakeholder engagement, identifying founding partners, and mobilizing financial and in-kind support. The next phase of co-design will continue at the November 2026 regional workshop in Abidjan, bringing partners together to advance implementation and launch the next chapter of the initiative.

Join Us

Building stronger local governance requires collaboration. We invite governments, civil society organizations, private sector, foundations, and development partners to help shape the Resource Exchange Mano River Union through financial support, in-kind expertise, technical collaboration, and strategic partnerships.

If you are a working in natural resource governance, mining, conservation, land rights, community development, government, or related fields, we also invite you to join The Resource Exchange. Members become part of a growing global community that shares practical experience, participates in technical exchanges and workshops, accesses the TRE Virtual Hub, and works together to strengthen inclusive local governance around the world.

Together, we can strengthen the relationships, knowledge, and leadership needed for communities to shape the future of natural resource development.

Get Involved

Cocoa farm.