The text covers the issues of decentralisation and participatory and local self governance. The Workshop represents one of a series of concerted efforts to bring together the voices of people from across the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region and give them a forum in which to address questions of governance and rights over the use of local natural resources in a climate in which the natural environment is undergoing serious degradation. This workshop marks a new phase in ICIMOD’s efforts in the area of governance, particularly decentralisation and participation in the management of natural resources in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas. The forum brought together women and men who had been elected to local institutions at village and district levels with members of village, district, or national community forestry groups and networks and non-government organisations.