Identifying appropriate organizational and management structures

The organizational structure will determine the real control or say that the community has in CBT. There is no single organizational model that will fit all circumstances and countries. In a review of CBT in Latin America, about half the communities surveyed classified their business as wholly community-owned, with half describing shared ownership between the community and NGOs, private operators or corporations (Jones 2008). With the case studies reviewed for this manual, the type of ownership arrangement varied from 100% community owned or a joint venture with a private company.

Even where the business is ‘owned by the community there are likely to be a number of legal structures to make this possible: forms of cooperatives trust structures and others. However, the exact legal structures that are available will be determined by the legal jurisdiction and therefore will differ fundamentally around the 21 countries that are members of APEC.

Whatever the formal arrangements, which are legally available, the general guiding principle in any jurisdiction is that stakeholders choose an organizational arrangement that is appropriate to the objectives of the CBT venture. Also, stakeholders should be clear about the organizational arrangements and in particular how the community is represented.

Some of the ventures, which term themselves CBT, are totally owned by a private company. While this legal structure is becoming commonplace it is very difficult to align this form of legal ownership with the key components and considerations for best practice CBT contained in this manual.