Conclusion: Governance arrangements and policy capacity for policy integration

Successful policy integration poses significant challenges to policymakers. The provincial cases studies of Integrated Land Management described in this volume suggest three main lessons. First, integration is often a response to a long period of policy layering or drift that has resulted in a highly disorganized policy regime, with potential for generalized incoherence within and between policy goals and policy means. Second, policy integration will often pose formidable difficulties of multi-level governance. Third, the multiplication of new actors often outstrips the ability of governance mechanisms to cope. Responsive policy-making for large-scale complex policy issues such as ILM requires both sophisticated policy analysis as well as an institutional structure which allows problems to be addressed on a multilevel and multi-sectoral basis.