Governance is a critical determinant of the social equity, effectiveness and sustainability of natural resource use and conservation. Improving natural resource governance, including securing rights and sharing power and responsibilities, benefits both people and nature. Despite this, governance remains relatively poorly understood and weakly addressed in many natural resource and conservation contexts. The Natural Resource Governance Framework (NRGF) is an IUCN knowledge product created to provide a robust, inclusive and credible approach to assessing and improving natural resource governance at multiple levels and in diverse contexts. This publication presents the NRGF as it has been developed to date through a robust and inclusive process involving IUCN experts, Members and partners.