People's preferences influence national priorities for economic development and ecological integrity. Often policymakers and development agents base their actions on unclear assumptions about such preferences. This paper explores rural citizens' preferences for economic and ecological development outcomes and how they differ within and between communities. We collected data from three purposely selected communities representing dominant social-ecological systems in the transboundary Cubango-Okavango River basin in southern Africa. We used contingent ranking survey experiments, which are a novel methodological advance in policy related research. This included a qualitative experimental design process that provided a broad framing underpinning the research. The contingent ranking itself allowed us to simultaneously assess: (i) respondents' priorities for development domains; and (ii) respondents' preferences for the ordering of outcomes in diverse domains. We found relatively strong preference homogeneity within and between communities. Economic development was given high priority across all communities. At the same time, all communities expressed a high preference for a healthy river system providing stable water quality and quantity. This does not mean that our respondents prioritised nature conservation. They showed low preferences for preserving biodiversity and forests that provide fewer local benefits. This is of high governance relevance. The results point at development domains where policymakers can most likely expect stronger buy-in from citizens. Understanding citizens' preferences help to better align national development priorities with what citizens want.

中文翻译：

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公民对发展成果和治理影响的偏好

人们的偏好影响国家经济发展和生态完整性的优先事项。通常，政策制定者和发展机构的行动基于对此类偏好的不明确假设。本文探讨了农村居民对经济和生态发展成果的偏好，以及他们在社区内部和社区之间的差异。我们从三个特意选择的社区收集数据，这些社区代表了南部非洲跨界古巴-奥卡万戈河流域的主要社会生态系统。我们使用了条件排名调查实验，这是政策相关研究中一种新的方法论进步。这包括一个定性的实验设计过程，为研究提供了一个广泛的框架。条件排名本身允许我们同时评估：(i) 受访者对发展领域的优先考虑；(ii) 受访者对不同领域结果排序的偏好。我们发现社区内部和社区之间的偏好同质性相对较强。所有社区都高度重视经济发展。同时，所有社区都对提供稳定水质和水量的健康河流系统表示高度偏好。这并不意味着我们的受访者优先考虑自然保护。他们对保护生物多样性和森林的偏好较低，而这些森林提供较少的当地利益。这与治理具有高度相关性。结果指向了决策者最有可能期望公民更强烈支持的发展领域。了解公民的