Collective action problem describes the situation in which multiple individuals who all benefit from a certain action, but has an associated cost making it implausible that any individual can or will undertake and solve it alone and the ideal solution is then to undertake this as a collective action, the cost of which is shared.
A collective action problem or social dilemma is a situation in which all individuals would be better off cooperating but fail to do so because of conflicting interests between individuals that discourage joint action. 
