The success of historically developed adaptation practices among the rural poor depends crucially on the nature of prevailing formal and informal rural institutions.

This report assess the role social differences such as caste, and other household characteristics, play on leadership and collective action, taking the case studies of forest commons. Primary data for the analysis was drawn from a survey of eight community forest user groups in the mid-hills of Nepal.

This document focuses on the role of local institutions in adaptation to climate change. It does so under the belief that climate impacts will affect disadvantaged social groups more disproportionately, and that local institutions centrally influence how different social groups gain access to and are able to use assets and resources.

Social capital has been recognized as the ability of communities to cooperate that different communities possess to different extents. But what are the factors that help build this capital in different communities in order to enable them to preserve a resource and what factors help sustain and maintain this capital over a period of time?