IMPLEMENTATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY - LESSONS FROM INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT, GEORGE HONADLE AND JERRY VANSANT, 1985, WEST HARTFORD CT, KUMARIAN PRESS.
- Program failure...results, at least in part, from wills in conflict and the impact of this conflict on the organization and management of the development process. p.5
- often impose changes in the local authority structure by introducing temporary arrangements for project management. p.4
- Sustainability is the continuation of benefit flows to rural people with or without the programs or organizations that stimulated those benefits in the first place. p.2
- Development involves changes, the most important of which is in the attitudes and actions of those people who become participants - individually or in groups - in the process itself. Through participation in their own development, people have the opportunity to strengthen their capabilities and build their own channels for expression and accountability. p.46
- Local action is the key to sustainability. p.46
- Development initiatives will not be sustained unless beneficiaries make some form of resource commitment to support those initiatives. p. 46
- One way to improve the quality of project designs and the probability that beneficiary response will be achieved is to increase civil servants' understanding of the perspectives, priorities and behavior of the villagers. p.47
- Successful local organizations can play positive roles as vehicles for coordinating and spreading the benefits of outside assistance.
- Political development is a pre-requisite to sustainability. p.74
- Institutional capacity, therefore, is a key element in project sustainability. p.74
- Successful organizations in contrast gain legitimacy with the poorer elements in the community by addressing their specific needs, building trust, and achieving widespread user satisfaction.
- A major implication of this discussion is that a sensitive awareness of local conditions, practices, and needs, combined with knowledge of the policy environment, is essential for development planning and management. p.61
- It has also been suggested that when civil servants and project staff experience a participatory management setting they will be more willing to involve villages in project decisions. p.62
- The role of personal leadership is stressed. The issues importance derives from the crucial role of agency or project staff as contact agents between local people and civil servants. p.63
- If a participatory environment is nor established from the beginning, it is more difficult to establish it later. p.69
- What is imp.is the participants control how these locally generated res. are allocated and used.
- What begins, if anything, at project end is ultimately more important than the project itself; what continues represents the real contribution of the project. p.75
- Knowledge of rural peoples interpretations of their circumstance is a key element in ensuring the sustainability of interventions supported by outsiders. p.77
- In this context, every planning and implementation decision should be made in the light of the sustainability issue.
- Strategies for achieving sustainability, then, must be well grounded in the context of local decision making and they must be based on an awareness of local constraints. p.77
- Macroeconomic policies can impinge on both implementation and sustainability. p.81
- The reliance on a technological package requiring the heavy use of chemical fertilizer may not be sustainable in a country in which fertilizer is imported using scarce foreign exchange, or where the rural infrastructure is inadequate to ensure its timely distribution. p.82
- A key aspect of the process concept is the artificiality of the distribution between design and implementation. p.93
- The twists and turns of multiple objectives, informal processes, contradictory roles, and shared risk are necessary. Thus the lessons from the experience will be equally intertwined and each one must be seen in relation to the others. p.98
- A better approach is to determine a local mix of public or private initiative and internal or process capacity that can achieve sustained development. p.103
- Project should build on pre-existing leadership. p.103
- The project design process should be revamped to emphasize building coalitions and capacities en route to a design. p.107
- Good implementation does not guarantee success, but poor implementation is sufficient to block sustainability. p.116
- Successful development management is based on internal processes that build and use obligation and exchanged relationships grounded in the local environment. p.117
- This also suggests that sustainability requires the augmentation of informal dynamics that push towards post project initiatives consistent with project objectives. Sustainability, then, is less the maintenance of project assets than the enhancement of local capacities. p.117
- The general practice of informal negotiation was a universal characteristic of success, but its implementation style and mechanisms had to be context specific to work. p.112
- Development is essentially a creative and artistic social endeavor,
not a technical procedure or political dictate. But until development is
the primary agenda, implementation will seldom follow a course that leads
to sustainability. p.118
PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST - SOCIOLOGICAL VARIABLES IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT, SECOND EDITION, EDITED BY MICHAEL M. CERNEA, 1991, THE WORLD BANK, WASHINGTON.
Conrad Phillip Kottak, p.431-464
- To the extent possible, each project must have a socially informed and culturally appropriate design and implementation strategy. p.431
- Putting people first in development interventions means eliciting the needs for change that they perceive, identifying culturally compatible goals and strategies for change, developing socially appropriate, workable, and efficient designs for innovation; using, rather than opposing, existing groups and organizations; drawing on participants informal monitoring and evaluation of projects during implementation; and gathering detailed information before and after implementation so that socio-economic impact can be accurately assessed. p.432
- each project needs its own social analysis to reflect its individual features and goals. p.432
- The argument here is that the most productive strategy for change is to base the social design for innovation on traditional social forms in the project areas. p.449
- The sociocultural characteristics of affected people must be systematically taken into account for sound development strategies. p.457
Norman Uphoff
- enlist the participation of intended beneficiaries as much as feasible in all aspects of project operations. p.467
- development expenditures are likely to be more worthwhile to the extent that projects are planned in ways that involve the intended beneficiaries in decision-making, implementation, evaluation, and of course benefits. p. 467
- A participatory approach means bringing people into not only decision-making but also resource mobilization and management. p.491
- The exact dimensions, timing, and purpose of the project must be agreeable to the community or resource commitments will not be forthcoming or sustained. p.491
- Involving intended beneficiaries in project design and implementation is one way of bringing knowledge of past development experience to bear on the new effort. p.494
Chambers
- Evidence has built up to demonstrate that where people and the wishes and priorities are not put first, projects that affect and involve them encounter problems.
JOHN FARRINGTON, ANTHONY BEBBINGTON, KATE WELLARD, DAVID J. LEWIS, RELUCTANT PARTNERS? NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS, THE STATE AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT, 1993, ROUTLEDGE: LONDON & NY.
- Agroecologists have insisted that sustainable production systems must be based on processes that occur naturally in ecosystems. p.18
HARVEY BROOKS, SCIENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY - SELECTED PAPERS ON IIASA'S 20TH ANNIVERSARY, 1992, NOVAGRAPHIC, VIENNA, AUSTRIA.
- [Sustainability] It is strongly governed by previous developmental history, and the historical cultural context. p.35
- Only detailed understanding of the system in conjunction with all its interactions and the evolution of the external systems with which it interacts can determine whether a local activity or policy is truly sustainable. p.38
- For this reason...it is important to involve many potential "stakeholders" in dialogues leading up to development planning decisions. In this sense, such dialogue may be regarded as an integral part of the concept of sustainability in development. p.40
- [Sustainability] involves technical, economic, social, environmental, and cultural factors which interact with each other. p.55
"SOCIETY'S STAKE IN SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE", SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS, CLIVE EDWARDS, RATTAN LAL, PATRICK MADDEN, ROBERT MILLER, GAR HOUSE, 1990, ST.LUCIE PRESS, DELROY BEACH, FL.
Charles Benbrook
- The system must be economically viable. p.68
- Social expectations and cultural norms must be satisfied. p.68
TOWARD SUSTAINABILITY, A PLAN FOR COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH ON AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, 1991, NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS, WASHINGTON.
- Sustainability reduces risk. p.14
- Sustainable agriculture is often used to refer to agriculture and all its interactions with society and the greater environment. p.13
- adequate economic returns.
- Provision for social needs of farm families and communities.
- All definitions, in other words, explicitly promotes environmental, economic, and social goals in their efforts to clarify and interpret the meaning of sustainability.
RUTTAN, 1988, "SUSTAINABILITY IS NOT ENOUGH", AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ALTERNATIVE AGRICULTURE, 3(28), 130.
- Any definition of sustainability...must recognize the need for enhancement of productivity to meet the increased demands created by growing populations and rising incomes.
CAROLIE BRYANT, LOUISE G. WHITE, MANAGING DEVELOPMENT IN THE THIRD WORLD, 1982, WESTVIEW PRESS, BOULDER, CO.
- Projects are not judged solely on what rate of return they give, but on how much potential they have for increasing the capacity of agencies to implement development. p.109
- Designing a project to fit its environmental context involves assessing resources, possibilities, and political, social and economic constraints. p.109
- Are the behaviors that these incentives induce congruent with the projects goals and purposes.
- applying interventions in a way that will distribute their benefits within the project area. p.110
DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES RECONSIDERED, JOHN P. LEWIS, VALERIANA KALLAB, EDS, AID EFFECTIVENESS IN RAISING ADAPTIVE CAPACITY IN THE LOW INCOME COUNTRIES, OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL, WASHINGTON, DC, 1986, PP.129-148.
- Technology can be defined as the skills, knowledge, and procedures for providing useful goods and services; these skills knowledge and procedures permeate every economic activity and are constantly being added to and changed by a process of generation, diffusion, and adaptation that is intrinsic to investment and growth. All decisions on the allocation of physical resources for directly productive investments, on increasing human skills, and on strengthening institutions are a part of the process of technological change. p.142
- Organizations that work effectively and can change when change is called for are a defining characteristic of a successful economy. p.132
- It is premature to expect consistent and far sighted political decision-making in the absence of an indigenous analytical capability that can define alternatives in a clear and convincing manner. p.133
HELPING OURSELVES - LOCAL SOLUTIONS TO LOCAL PROBLEMS, BRUCE STOKES, WW NORTON & CO., NY AND LONDON, 1981.
- Local activities also need the investment of public resources to augment the investment of private resources by individuals and communities. p.126
- A dialogue at the local level between bureaucrats and citizens is essential. Such a dialogue would permit people to explain their most pressing problems, to outline what they want to do about these issues, and to describe the actions they expect governments to take. p.127
- National government support for self help programs can focus on efforts that respond to needs identified by the community. p.128
- The ultimate success of government support for self-help efforts will not be measured by the amount of money dispersed or the number of people who participate, but by the long-term viability of the social processes funded - processes through which individuals and communities not only solve problems, but also gain skills and confidence that will benefit them long after specific government projects have ended. p.129
- A resourceful leader can broker the various interests in a community to ensure that the success of self-help efforts by one group is not achieved at the expense of another. Being a leader of self-help activities demands more, however, than the mere definition of a path that others must follow. Leadership requires an understanding of group dynamics and skill in building a consensus. It requires someone who can deal with the confusion, the ambiguity, and the contradictions of participatory decision-making. Self-help activities depend on leaders committed to their communities and to the proposition that people are the best judges of their own interests. Above all, they require people who can lead a group by helping the group to lead itself. p.129
- The programs made the mistake of either aligning themselves with local elites, who were often part of the problem, or bypassing the community power structure completely, engendering political opposition and undermining their chances of success. p.127
- The state needs some formal relationship with community networks to establish which activities and responsibilities should be left at the local level and which ones should be centralized, to link national support for self-help activities with local efforts, and to orchestrate community involvement in self-help projects. p.131
- By bringing people together to solve problems, councils could form new social networks that complement existing ones, strengthening the communities social fabric. p.132
- Neighborhood councils would also work to bring together the federal government and citizens in new private-public partnerships. p.132-3
- These partnerships should be based on the principle that community organizations should match any government funding for their projects with several times the equivalent in local funds or donated labor. p.133
- The nature of society - its culture, traditions, and social norms - will also help determine the boundaries of self-help activities. p.135
- Self-help programs need to grow out of political processes in which local groups can shape the programs meant to help them. p.137
- They will shape people's sense of their own abilities, determine their future success in solving problems, and ultimately enable individuals and communities to gain greater control over their own lives. p.138
- Each individual's efforts to solve his or her problems and to create new values can be come part of a broader process of social change. As S.F. Jenck's points out with regard to self-care, "If participatory care gains wide acceptance, it will be accompanied by a revolution in the social structure of medicine. The rigid hierarchical structure in which all knowledge and planning flow downwards from the physician cannot survive the transition to participatory forms of care. p.141
- It is too soon to assess the full social and political impact of self-help activities, but such efforts can lead to more equitable political systems. p.141-2
- If individuals and communities can do more to help themselves and if their role in meeting basic human needs can be institutionalized into local social networks, then the power that accompanies the ability to solve problems will spread among a broad segment of a population. Thus, the challenge of building democratic, participatory societies is not simply a question of revamping electoral systems or reorganization of bureaucracies; citizens must also be involved in numerous enterprises ranging from the importance of health care to the management of industry. p.142
- The self-help process, as Eugene Meehan points out in his study, In Partnerships with People, is "a metaphorical time bomb in the culture. Its ultimate repercussions are beyond calculation, but is justification is found in the essential commitment to allowing men to make their own destiny as best they can. p.142
- Today, there is the opportunity for a quiet revolution, one based on people helping themselves. p.142
CATALYST OF DEVELOPMENT - VOLUNTARY AGENCIES IN INDIA, TERRY ALLIBAND, KUMARIAN PRESS, 1983, WEST HARTFORD, CT
- Because of its commitment to the broad dispersal of power and wealth generating resources, community-wide improvement, and gradual transformation of past social and economic patterns, 'community development' is inherently political in nature. p.9
RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATE - CONTRADICTIONS AND DILEMMAS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, EDITED BY DAVID A.M. LEA, D.P. CHAUDRHI, METHUVEN, LONDON, NY, 1983.
- Because these objectives are concerned with many different and interrelated aspects of rural life and the realization and unfolding of man's creative potential, the word 'integrated' was prefixed to 'rural development' to indicate a new multi-purpose thrust of rural planning. Rural development was no longer solely concerned with agricultural matters, but with all aspects of rural land, society and economy. Rural development was to be at least in theory, 'balanced', and the related and reinforcing nature of different subsectors of the rural system necessitated formulation of development policy and planning similar to that of natural development planning. p.13
- This meant that integrated rural development planning had to involve the target group, which, in turn, meant local participation and decentralization. p.13
- While not a nationwide program, integrated rural development had to be symbiotically related to nationwide development plans and programs. p.13
- Adding 'integrated' to 'development' is tautological. p.1
- A close study of successful projects indicates that common elements are :(1) an outsider institution or individual acts as a catalyst. The local influential groups and leaders come (sometimes with a lag and some persuasion) to accept the project and help in its implementation. Local leadership will participate if, and only if, their position is not threatened. (3) The beneficiaries or clients of the project perceive benefits of participation and become enthusiastic about the project. (4) Most successful rural development projects obtained resources from both these sources (outside and the wealthy class within the rural area). (5) Adapting existing rural institutions to the project involved public participation in most cases. p.17
- Whenever any of these are missing or the economic power base of the dominant group in the rural community is threatened, the rural development project either withers away or is abandoned. p.17
- An ideally formulated workable and consistent development plan would have many facets and be 'optimally balanced'. Optimally balanced implies that different goals and targets, in addition to being feasible and mutually supportive, should be achievable with minimum input of effort and resources, ensuring efficiency and economical of resource use. p.20
- Such a process is feasible if there is pressure for its success from above and below. p.21
- Local participation in rural development effort through local decision-making and local institutions has been emphasized by all nationalist social reformers interested in rural development. 23
- Complimentarity between rural development strategy and national economic development strategy is a necessary precondition for the success of both. p.335-6
- Integration of rural development planning with national development planning is essential if successful micro-level programs have to be adopted effectively as part of a national strategy. p.336
- The mechanisms for inducing local participation can be ideological, institutional, or locally generated by specific issues. The basic thing is that they must be induced somehow, for involvement of the rural people in some way is a precondition for success in rural development.
PEOPLE CENTERED DEVELOPMENT - CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARD THEORY AND PLANNING FRAMEWORKS, EDS DAVID C. KORTEN AND RUDI KLAUSS, KUMARIAN PRESS, 1984, CT, "PEOPLE CENTERED DEVELOPMENT: TOWARD A FRAMEWORK"
- The performance of a production system must therefore be assessed not only in terms of the values of its products, but also in terms of the range of society it includes as participants and the quality of the work life it provides for them. p.300
- The social techniques of people centered development...use of frameworks of human ecology in analysis of production choices and performance not only internalizes people and environment but makes the very foundation of the analytical process. p.300-1
- Achieving the purpose of people centered development implies a substantial decentralization of decision-making processes. p.301
- Decision-making must truly be returned to the people, who have both the capacity and the right to inject into the process the richness - including the subjectivity - of their values and needs. p.301
- If central controls over resources and essential services are relaxed, they must be replaced by new and appropriate mechanisms that place control in the hands of those whose lives they affect, rather than in the hands of officials who bear little of the consequences of their actions. The necessary mechanisms are built and institutionalized in local structures and values only with time. p.301
- Achieving a society which is both oriented to people-centered purposes and at the same time consistent with existing technical, social, environmental, and political realities is likely to involve structural and normative changes, as well as development of new society and technology capabilities throughout society. Three themes are basic: 1) focus public policy thought p.301 and action on the creation of enabling settings which encourage and support people's efforts to meet their own needs and to solve their own problems at individuals, family, and community levels, 2) developing organizational structures and processes that function according to the principle of self-organizing systems, and 3) developing territorially organized production-consumption systems based on principles of local ownership and control. The changes implied cannot be mandated and will not occur abruptly. They must emerge through evolutionary process, as an outgrowth of the efforts of countless individuals. These can be greatly facilitated by the appropriate choice of social technique. p.302
- The creation of enabling settings ...almost inevitably requires fundamental reorientation in the purposes, structures, and operations of government bureaucracies - away from direct service delivery or resource management to local capacity building and support. p.303
- Local self-reliance as a development strategy involves giving first priority to the creation of conditions that enable the people of an area better to meet their own needs using local resources under local control. Where local needs cannot realistically be met locally, they are met through external markets, to which the area's surplus production is sold as well.
- The performance of both territorial and functional organizational units is judges by the extent to which they contribute to the creation of enabling settings for self-reliant local development, the maintenance of community links between local units, and the development and exchange of technical knowledge for local adaptation and application. p.308
- If people centered development is to emerge, it will be an offspring of the production centered industrial era. p.309
- The industrial era has been a period of remarkable human accomplishment, creating potentials for advancement to a new evolutionary stage in which all people may have the opportunity to become and grow as full human beings. There is reason to believe, however, that realization of the same potential that was a product of the old paradigm will come only through relying?? on the alternative ideas, values, social technique, and technologies of people centered development. p. 309
PRA HANDBOOK, NES et al (no date), National Environment Secretariat, Government of Kenya, Clark University, Egerton University and the Center for International Development and Environment of the World Resource Institute.
- the methodology [PRA] assumes that popular participation is a fundamental ingredient in project planning; that locally maintained technologies as well as sustainable economic, political, and ecological systems are fundamental to reverse Africa's decline; and that truly sustainable development initiatives will incorporate approaches that local communities themselves can manage and control. p.2
- Communicating these core elements of success to target groups and collaborating with agencies outside the village may, over the long-term, promote decentralized, small-scale natural resource management policies and foster a growth of self-reliance in the communities themselves. p.3
- Its [PRA] goal is socially acceptable, economically viable, and ecologically sustainable development. p.5
- PRA assumes that communities need committed local leadership and effective rural institutions to do the job. p.5
- PRA can help integrate relevant sectors in rural development by focusing on natural resources. p.5
- Derived and managed by those who most benefit through their implementation, VRMPs offer a practical means for facilitating community self-help initiatives. p.6
- Using the theme of natural resource management to integrate development sectors, PRA facilitates multi-sectoral (for example, agriculture, water resources, forestry), multi-disciplinary (economics, sociology, engineering, biology), and multi-institutional (government, NGO, university, donor) collaboration. p.6
- a community with a specific problem such as deforestation may request assistance, based on its familiarity with work that PRA has initiated in a nearby community. p.7
- During the initial visit, the PRA team should encourage the community to examine past successes carefully in order to understand the root causes underlying these performances. p.10
- At every step, the PRA team leader should keep local administrative officers and the community fully informed about progress of the PRA exercise. p.10
- Their purpose [PRA & RRA field data approaches) are not scientific perfection, but flexible program and project design. p.12
- PRA uses a diversity of sources, including the assembled lore of the villagers themselves, to insure that comprehensive information is collected. p.12
- Most decisions on resource management are made and implemented at the household level. p.22
- Every community has a heritage of experience and environmental knowledge that influences present attitudes and behaviors. A time line is a list of key events in the history of the community that help identify past trends, events, problems, and achievements in its life. p.25
- Rather than defining what is "important" for them, ask the elders to identify events that shaped and otherwise influences individual and community activities. p.26
- the very process of discussing trends in resource use in different groups will bring out important resource management issues for preparing the VRMP. 29
- It [ a seasonal calendar] identifies cycles of activity that occur within the life of a community on a regular basis and helps determine whether there are common periods of excessive environmental problems or opportunities over the course of a normal year. p.35
- if a sector is clearly emerging as an area in which to act, carrying out pre-feasibility reviews makes the village ranking meeting more effective. p.52
- A primary goal of the PRA exercise is to initiate an interactive process between the community and the PRA team so that a VRMP can be prepared.
- Once problems and opportunities have been listed, the major task of ranking them remains. This may be the most important step in PRA since it enables village leaders, local development committees, representatives of key institutions, and others to join with technical officers, NGO staff, donors, and other interested parties to discuss and agree upon priorities. 61.
- Ranking problems and opportunities...creates community awareness of an information base oriented toward them and their needs. p.61
- the plan [VRMP] can help external donors and implementing agencies determine whether the community's common development goals are in line with their own priorities. p.69
- The community takes the lead in developing the VRMP. the extension staff and the research team act as facilitators and make technical information available to the community to help them come to rational decisions. It is also preferable to involve NGOs and donor agencies in this activity because in many cases, external input, especially funds, technical support, and training, may be critical for the success of the VRMP. If these p.69 groups are present while the plan is being prepared, they may be more likely to help implement it. p.70
CHALLENGING THE PROFESSIONALS - FRONTIERS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT, ROBERT CHAMBERS, INTERMEDIATE TECHNOLOGIES PUBLICATION, LONDON, 1993
- Decentralization and empowerment enable local people to exploit the diverse complexities of their own conditions, and to adapt to rapid change. p.11
- diverse ecological and socio-economic conditions and personal needs generate their own innovations, find their own solutions, and determine their own pathways. p.11
- Major shifts come not from big decisions, though they help, but also gradually through a multitude of small decisions and actions which together build up into a movement. p.13
- it is misleading to speak of maximizing any one thing. Maximizing coordination or integration would paralyze administration. Maximizing local participation would revolutionize the entire political structure of a country. What is required is a series of informed attempts to optimize a number of resource uses in relation to a number of outcomes, not to maximize any particular one. p.18
- If, for example, a capability exists in a department of community development in conjunction with a provincial or regional administration, local participation may appear an appropriate entry. p.25
- It is one in which common sense, imagination, sensitivity and patience are more important than any formal qualifications. p. 25
- What is perhaps new is treating management procedures for rural development as a field for systematic research and development and suggesting that it should be a concern not only of civil servants but also of others, including university staff. p.25
- Project preparation guidelines are designed to ensure that proposals are compatible with lending institution policies, procedures and requirements; and as such have become instruments of control rather than of aid. p.32
- For decentralization to work, financial discretion has to be given to staff at the local level. One pattern which deserve serious trials where it does not yet occur is a block grant system in which each financial year a sum of money is made available to local-level officials to spend at the discretion on projects which accord with centrally-determined guidelines. p.36
- When people are put first, and the poorer rural people first of all, it is more they who do the identifying and who set the priorities. p.88
MAKING A DIFFERENCE - NGOS AND DEVELOPMENT IN A CHANGING WORLD, EDITED BY M.EDWARDS AND D. HULME, 1992, EARTHSCAN PUBLICATIONS LTD., LONDON
"SCALING-UP THE DEVELOPMENTAL IMPACT OF NGOS: CONCEPTS AND EXPERIENCES" P.13-27
- One of the most important factors underlying this situation is the failure of NGOs to make the right linkages between their work at micro-level and the wider systems and structures of which they form a small part. p.13
- Traditionally, most NGOs have been suspicious of governments, their relationships varying between benign neglect and outright hostility. p.16
- The state remains the ultimate arbiter and determinant of the wider political changes on which sustainable development depends. p.16
- greater success may be achieved if NGOs allow governments to take credit for progress in program and policy development, regardless of their own influence in these areas. p.18
- even under the most authoritarian governments there are often opportunities for progressive change. p.18
- Successful past experience means that NGOs have already 'learned' what to do, so that they can tackle development problems with comparatively short 'start-up' times. p.19
- The characteristics that are presumed to explain NGOs 'comparative' advantage in local-level poverty-alleviation - the quality with relationships with beneficiaries, their flexible and experimental stance and their small size - all require modification or compromise as expansion occurs. p.19
- Dichter warns, many NGOs encounter severe problems as they expand and often retain '...cultural predispositions to non-hierarchical structures and are often anti-management'. p.19
- NGOs are viewed as the 'private non-profit sector...p.20
- Rather than working directly within the structures they intend to influence, NGOs may choose to increase their impact by lobbying government and other structures from the outside. p.20
- 'while isolated instances of local institutional development can be impressive, their cumulative effect is negligible...what counts are systems of networks of organizations, both vertically and horizontally'. (Uphoff, 1986, 213) p.24
- A strong case can be made for supporting and linking grassroots organizations: they 'empower', relate knowledge with action, are sensitive to local contexts, flexible and, when collectivities take collective action, can tackle regional and national level issues. p.25
- Developmental NGOs will not only forge linkages between grassroots organizations, but they will also forge linkages with other movements that have related missions - peace, environment, women, human rights and consumer affairs. In this grand vision NGOs become a force for dramatic social change that restructures class relationships and reforms global economic processes by non-violent, non-revolutionary means. p.26
"NGOS AND RURAL POVERTY ALLEVIATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR SCALING-UP, MARK ROBINSON, 28-39
- In some cases, the attraction of additional household earnings outweighed traditional restriction on women's mobility. p.32
- For a project to be financially sustainable it has to be able to cover its direct costs and generate sufficient income to make it worthwhile for the poor to persist with it. p.33
- Projects were more likely to succeed where their objectives corresponded to the priorities of the poor, and where the intended beneficiaries were regularly consulted and involved in decision making at all stages of the project cycle. p.35
- The challenge for NGOs is to maintain, and even improve, the quality of their interventions while at the same time scaling-up the impact of such interventions. p.38
- closer attention needs to be focused on the methods and circumstances of withdrawal in order to maximize the prospects for sustainability. p.38
NON-GOVERNMENT COLLABORATION IN BANGKOK, S. KLINMAKORM AND K. IRELAND, P. 60-69
- Neither true replicability nor sustainability can be demonstrated by pilot projects that are operated by NGOs and outside the constraints of government structure. P.60
- Both replicability and sustainability are conditions which must be met before scaling up can be achieved. P.66
MULTIPLYING MICRO-LEVEL INPUTS TO GOVERNMENT STRUCTURES, J. MACKIE, P. 70-77
- if multiplying micro-level inputs can be achieved in a way which integrates well into existing structures and can be consciously planned, micro-level impact can also be effective. P.73
BIGGER AND BETTER? SCALING-UP STRATEGIES PURSUED BY BRAC 1972-1991, M. HOWES AND MG SATTAR, 99-110
- in the absence of a viable institutional framework, the potential for a horizontal integration remained unrealized. P.104
SMALL, MEDIUM, OR LARGE? THE ROCKY ROAD TO NGO GROWTH, R. HOBSON, P.125-136
- Expanding work in advocacy, working with government, grassroots mobilization, network or expansion of operational programs all involve linking greater numbers of people working towards a common goal. 128
MAKING A DIFFERENCE? CONCLUDING COMMENTS, M. EDWARDS AND D. HULME, 211-216
- NGOs must work within the constraints of government systems - poorly-resourced, poorly motivated usually bureaucratic agencies that are resistant to change. P.212
- One clear conclusion which emerges from all the case studies represented in this book is that institution-building is the critical task facing all NGOs in their search for sustainable development. 214
STAN BURKY, PEOPLE FIRST - A GUIDE TO SELF-RELIANT, PARTICIPATORY RURAL DEVELOPMENT, ZED BOOKS LTD, LONDON AND NEW JERSEY, 1993
- Rural economists have shown that poor peasants as well as other poor producers will tend to adopt production strategies that minimize the risk of failure. P.7
- The lack of genuinely representative local governments prevents the emergence of local initiatives. P.8
- Any strategy of development, if it is to be successful, must act upon the factors that create dependency without creating a new and unbearable high risk situation. P.11
- many rural poor do not trust each other or their leaders. They will not pool their meager funds because they are afraid someone will misuse them. 15
- "so much stress was put on the external obstacles to development that the problem of how to initiate a development process, once these obstacles were removed, was rather neglected. In fact one gets the impression that the development perspective implied in dependency theory was the modernization model applied to a national economy. (Hettne, B., Development Theory and the Third World, SAREC Report No. 2, SAREC: Stockholm 1982). 29
- Ecodevelopment is therefore a developmental philosophy that aims to make efficient use of the natural and human resources of a specific region in such a way that provides in the minimum for the basic needs of the people living there while at the same time maintaining a viable ecological environment. 32
- Development necessarily involves structural transformation which implied political, social and economic changes. 33
- Does this mean that development cannot occur in rural areas unless all the macro-policies and relationships are conducive to local development initiatives? Certainly not. 35
- Economic activity, if it is to lead to development, must be carried out on a sustainable basis. This means that the returns to the activity must be greater than the costs: it must be profitable. 36
- Perhaps development workers need to settle down to working patiently over time, directly with people, facilitating and supporting initiatives arising from the ambitions and priorities of individuals, groups and the community at large. Perhaps then we can begin to see the emergence of sustainable development processes powered by people themselves. 39
- The poor will make changes when they see that such changes are to their advantage. 46
- New ideas and new behavior cannot be imported unmodified. 48
- People must feel and believe that it is their own efforts that are driving the development process. They must feel that they themselves are contributing the maximum of their own human, financial, and material resources, and that assistance from outside is only for what they cannot yet manage themselves. 50
- Participatory action research demands an unusual degree of awareness and humility on the part of the investigator. 60
- A true development process is based on a continuous series of analysis-action-reflection-action. 64
- The only thing that should end is the intervention of the development workers who should withdraw as soon as the people themselves can maintain the development process on the basis of their own initiatives. 70
- Self-reliant participatory development processes normally require an external catalyst to facilitate the start of the process and to support the growth f the process in its early phases. 73
- Change agents coming from outside the community will be completely frustrated in their development efforts unless they gain the acceptance and confidence with the poor people with whom they are trying to work. 78
- Change agents should promote the broadest possible participation through the emergence of numerous and varied small groups based on the interests of their members. 79
- Experience has shown that female change agents are in far better position to work with poor rural women than male agents. 84
- it is possible to prepare a manual for trainers. 88
- The example set by the coordinator is perhaps the single most important factor for determining the success or failure of the training program and the subsequent work of the change agents in the field. 97
- Projects are not ends in themselves but a means to strengthen rural people’s capacity to organize effectively. 121
- Trust cannot be imposed or bought; it must be built up gradually by sympathetic project staff working closely with the people and sharing their problems and hardships. 129
- Community-wide social projects allow local elites to demonstrate their social power while at the same time benefitting all. 166
- Participation should not only emphasize ‘effective struggle’ but also constructive conflict resolution. 170 (DD Solomon)
- Progress in one village provides a stimulus to the poor in neighboring villages to take collective initiatives of their own towards self-reliance. 174
- Self reliant participatory development processes should start on the basis of local resources, knowledge and technology. 180
- In order to increase production or improve productivity some amount of capital must be invested in the factors of production necessary to achieve the desired increases and improvements. 181
- One of the ultimate goals of a development agency should be to help integrate each and every small group into the existing institutional credit facilities where possible. 191
- The best indication of the viability of a project if the amount of labor materials and money that people are willing to provide from their own resources. 194
- Without participation, even appropriate technology can become another form of imperialism that may increase dependency, exploitation and monopoly by a few. 199
- Sustainable economic development must be based on savings and reinvestment. 210
DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AS POLICY EXPERIMENTS - AN ADAPTIVE APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION, DENNIS A. RONDINELLI, SECOND EDITION, ROUTLEDGE, NY & LONDON, 1993
- project sustainability - the degree to which assisted activities remained active or continue delivering benefits to people after international funding ended... 2
- In theory, projects would promote economic changes by integrating markets, linking productive activities in the public and private sectors, providing the organization and technology for transforming raw materials into economically and socially useful products, and creating physical infrastructure needed to increase exchange and trade. 5
- "there are many cases where the shortage of good projects is even more serious than the shortage of capital or foreign exchange." (UN, 1969:69) 6
- "Few projects can survive a rigid blueprint which fixes at the time of implementation the development approaches, priorities, and mechanisms for achieving success. Most projects scoring high on success experienced at least one major revision after the project [managers] determined that the original plan was not working." A large degree of flexibility is critical "particularly if the technology is uncertain or if local constraints facing small farmers are not well known." (Morss et al, 1975:329). 7
- Planning must be viewed as an incremental process that tests propositions about the most effective means of coping with social problems, reassessing and redefining both the problems and the components of development projects as more is learned about their complexities and about the economic, social, and political factors effecting the outcome of proposed course of action. Complex social experiments can be partially guided but never fully controlled: thus, analysis and management procedures must be flexible and incremental, facilitating social action so that those groups most directly effected by a problem can search for and pursue mutually acceptable objectives. 18
- Planning and implementation must be regarded as mutually dependent activities that refine and improve each other over time, rather than as separate functions. 19
- "When many divergent views exist, however, the possibility of establishing well-defined goals that satisfy everyone becomes much more difficult. Even the process of spelling out goals can result into considerable conflict as each contending faction struggles to place its own preferences high on the list of objectives." (Benveniste 1972:70) 21
- This implies that planning and implementation must be more closely integrated and that project planning must proceed through a series of stages in order to reduce uncertainties and unknowns. 24
- Pilot projects are usually intended to test new methods and technology, to determine their relevance, transferability and acceptability, and to explore alternative ways of disseminating results or of delivering goods and services. 25
- Replication, diffusion or production projects should evolve from experimental, pilot, and demonstration phases. 26
- It must be kept in mind, however, that all development projects are somewhat experimental and that even seemingly routine replications often meet unanticipated difficulties when projects are transferred from one culture to another. 26
- the objectives of planning should not be to control in fine detail the activities that will be pursued during implementation, but to increase the opportunity for those managing a project to take appropriate action as they learn more about the conditions affecting their activities. 27
- a primary purpose of projects should be to build up gradually the planning and administrative capabilities of people and organizations in poor countries rather than simply spending larger amounts of money to build yet another highway or factory for them. By designing and organizing projects to reduce uncertainties and unknowns incrementally, integrate planning and implementation, and use the acquired knowledge to alter and modify courses of action during project implementation, they will become more effective instruments of learning and make greater contributions to development in the future. 27
- The ability of governments to coordinate their activities among a variety of ministries and agencies to implement a ‘big push’ or leading sector strategy (was weak). 38
- Economic development is a process of changing old ways of doing things, of venturing into the unknown. It requires a maximum of flexibility, of possibility for experimentation. No one an predict in advance what will turn out to be the most effective use of a nation’s productive resources. Yet the essence of a program of economic development is that it introduces rigidity and inflexibility. 49
What is required in the underdeveloped countries is the release of the energies of millions of able, active, and vigorous people who have been chained by ignorance, custom, and tradition. ... These people require a favorable environment to transform the face of their countries. (Friedman, 1958: 256) 50-1
- [The WB rural-sector policy paper] ‘a special effort is needed to provide appropriate social and economic infrastructure for the rural poor and it is important to integrate these components into rural development projects.’ (1975:5) 64
- The only effective way of reaching these groups was to design projects that in some way were tailored to their specific needs and accounted for their special characteristics, a task with which international agencies and governments in developing countries have yet to come to grips. 70
- The complexity of the procedures used to plan and analyze project proposals, together with the scarcity of highly trained technicians in most developing countries, has usually resulted in greater dependence on foreign experts to do the required analyses and to manage development activities. 96
- Many UNDP projects failed to strengthen institutional capacity because technical experts simply took over or dominated the work rather than training their counterparts to improve their administrative and technical skills. 99
- In many rural areas, the longstanding and deeply ingrained distrust between rural people and government officials prevented either side from taking the other into its confidence. 100
- The transfer of inappropriate technology also indicated little knowledge of or sufficient concern about local conditions and needs in planning procedures of international assistance organizations. Evaluators of the UNDP’s (1979) rural development projects found that " a major constraint affecting achievement of project objectives id the transfer of technologies without local adaptation’. 100
- Experience suggests that the most valuable managerial skill in implementing development projects is not the ability to conform to preconceived plans or schedules, but the ability to innovate, experiment, modify, improvise and lead - talents that are often discouraged or suppressed by rigid designs and centrally controlled management procedures. 103
- The projects designers simply assumed that increased agricultural activity would generate larger profits, an assumption that turned out to be highly questionable. 109
- "Social acceptance became a particular problem in irrigation projects where nomads were expected to be available for scheduled work in their fields at time periods which apparently clashed with their livestock herding interests." (Thimm, 1979:48) 110
- experimental projects are needed when problems are not well defined, elements or characteristics of a problem have not been clearly identified, alternative courses of action have not been widely explored and their impacts cannot be easily anticipated. 121
- Pilot projects can perform a number of important functions: they can test the applicability of innovations in places with conditions similar to those under which experiments were performed; they can test the feasibility and acceptability of innovations in new environments; and they can extend an innovations range of proven feasibility beyond the experimental stage. 132
- A substantial amount of evidence from evaluations of rural irrigation projects also documents the importance of community participation in design and management in improving efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability. 134
- Participatory systems allowed farmers to adapt and modify the irrigation canals and structures more frequently to their own needs and thereby made the systems more functional over time. Those communities with high rates of participation had a much more decentralized structure, broader representation in their leadership, and more decentralized management of irrigation systems than did non-participatory projects. 135
- The success of pilot projects also frequently depends on the support of strong leaders who are motivated by community spirit. 135
- the following factors must be considered carefully in formulating and implementing pilot projects: (1) the basic knowledge, information, and wisdom of people concerning their own living conditions, perception of problems, identification of needs, and desirability and practicality of new methods; (2) the specific and unique ecological characteristics of areas into which innovations will be introduced, not only natural and physical conditions but also their relationships in supporting human and animal life; (3) an understanding and respect for the diversity of cultural values and norms found within communities, their amenability to change and the degree of control that local people have over the factors that create, maintain, and alter those values; (4) cultural traits that shape individual behavior and attitudes toward change; (5) the formal and informal authority relationships within communities into which changes will be introduced; (6) the leadership patterns and channels of cooperation, participation, interaction, and communication within the community; and (7) attitudes towards risk, achievement, and motivational incentives. 136
- Effective demonstration projects should: (1) offer low risks for participants; (2) provide visible and substantial benefits at the farm level; (3) offer participants regular access to cash incomes; (4) assist peasant farmers with meeting recurrent costs after the innovation is introduces; (5) avoid expanding welfare service before there is a production base that can yield revenue to pay for them; (6) use innovations that do not depend for their adoption on loan financing in the initial phases; (7) consider the log-term effects of technology transfer because these may be quite different from immediate effects; (8) not be implemented in a way that bypasses local officials, who will remain long after technicians and managers who initiated the project have moved; and (9) build administrative capacity on small and incremental, rather than on large scale and complex, activities that have a higher probability of succeeding. 140
- demonstration projects must generate immediate and direct benefits for participants in the form of improved living conditions or higher incomes. Without visible and immediate benefits, participation is likely to be weak, and those who are convinced to participate may do so apathetically or be distracted by other activities. 140
- if farmers are to assume a larger share of the risks in agricultural demonstration projects that use transferred technology, they must be protected from losses through direct compensation, crop insurance, subsidies, incentives, or provision of low cost inputs. Demonstration projects should have a short pay-off period. The new methods should be available to all individuals and groups who are interested in and capable of replicating them. 140
- Demonstration projects must be located carefully and tailored to local conditions. 140
- In nearly every developing country poor people’s distrust of public officials makes them suspicious of projects sponsored by national or local government agencies. Moreover, innovations may be resisted because poor people, having lived with existing conditions all of their lives, do not feel the same urgency for change as project staff. The fear of risk is especially important among those living at subsistence levels because the loss of meager assets endangers their survival. 141
- strategy for introducing demonstration projects: - standardize the program as much as possible, consistent with variations in local conditions, so that adoption is easier and management more efficient;- integrate projects into the economy of the area by convincing as many suitable farmers as possible to adapt the program; - saturate the area with promotional activities, even if it means over promoting the program in the early stages; - concentrate initial projects in a limited number of areas to prevent overextension of resources and manpower; and - accelerate the program rapidly each year after the success of the project has been effectively demonstrated. 141-2
- Demonstration projects must be gradually and carefully introduced into communities. Experience with community development projects in Asia suggested that a series of well-tested steps should be followed to introduce innovations and that the beneficiaries must be organized to accept them. 142
- When projects are aimed at the poorest groups in a community they must be class-biased and deliberately designed to increase the autonomy, self-reliance, and political influence of groups that are usually economically dependent and politically powerless. 142
- [Haque, 1977] suggested a number of criteria for evaluating demonstration projects, including: (1) changes in the economic base of the community and in the distribution of economic benefits; (2) changes in attitudes and behavior of beneficiaries as expressed in their increased self-reliance, solidarity, and collective and creative activities; and (3) changes in the ability of people to initiate and carry out development projects on their own. 143
- ‘many problems do not become fully apparent until a large scale operation has been reached. In effect, more of the system is tested in demonstration projects because logistics and support mechanisms, a full range of personnel, and other needs must be met to integrate all of the organizational and physical inputs. (Weiss et al., 1977:99) 143
- A study of a large sample of USAID projects concluded that "sustainability ratings on project involving outreach to dispersed participant or client groups are closely related to the degree to which those groups are involved in policy-making, planing and program management" (kean et al, 198:48). 144
- ‘Aggressive public relations efforts during the fieldwork are a necessary part of the pilot project’s life if eventual adoption is an objective.’ (Pyle, 1980:143)
- (Moris, 1981:24) found that certain principles are essential for adaptive and responsive administration. - The project should be kept under the control of a single organization, but contacts should be maintained with others that can support and promote its activities; - staff should be recruited from among qualified people who have served in the area will the project will be located; - political constraints should be taken seriously and, when it is possible, the priorities of politicians who can affect the success of the project should be accommodated. 151
- Although it may be necessary to standardize and institutionalize many tasks during replication and dissemination, care must be taken to maintain an adaptive approach to administration. Standardization is possible, but often risky. 151
- ‘In Mexico, exchange relationships bind pubic officials from various institutions together for the pursuit of policy goals: they serve to connect individuals within one agency for defense against the functional encroachments of another; they tie the bureaucratic elite to the political chiefs and make possible intra-governmental problem solving; and the manner in which they link the nationally oriented regional elite to the bureaucratic center is useful in understanding problems of policy implementation. 152
- Without strong administrative and political support, conventional methods of planning and management are inadequate to facilitate project implementation or to promote the adaptive and responsive approaches to administration. 153
- In their review of How the West Grew Rich, Rosenberg and Birdzell (1986:33) point out that the industrialized countries succeeded in achieving steady economic progress because they developed a pervasive institutional capacity and the human resources to innovate and adapt to change. The creation of this institutional capacity and human resource base depended in turn on the diffusion of authority, the widespread use of experimentation to find appropriate technology and effective means of production and marketing, and the emergence of diverse ways of organizing economic activities. ... Progress in economic development was thus based of three factors: autonomy, experimentation, and diversity. 154
- The challenge is to find more appropriate ways of dealing with the inevitable uncertainty and complexity of development problems and of creating the institutional diversity that allows experimentation, innovation, and widespread participation in economic activities. 158
- Ultimately, all development plans are political statements and all attempts to implement them are political acts. 159
- participants allow their own actions to be shaped by the interaction of competing interest groups, by unfolding events, by external forces, and by the unpredictable reactions of private and government organizations during the course of political conflict. 160
- Development administrators must give much more attention to processes of reciprocal exchange, compromise, formal and informal bargaining and negotiation, mediation, and coalition building in the process of decision-making if they are to become more effective in coping with the complexity and uncertainty of development problems. Once these means of influence are recognized, the costs of comprehensive planning, rationalistic analysis, and control-oriented management become difficult to defend. 163
- In an organization that seeks to be responsive, the dominant goal is to facilitate self determination among its clients or within the community with which it is dealing. The role of development administrators is to provide support for initiatives and to make available resources that will allow beneficiaries to achieve their development objectives. 164
- (Esman, 1969:13) defined institution building as "the planning, structuring, and guidance of new reconstituted organizations which embody changes in values, functions, physical and social technologies; establish, foster and protect new normative relationships and action patterns; and, obtain support and complementarity in the environment. 166
- Institution-building strategy was concerned not only with strengthening the administrative capacity of individual organizations, but also with forging cooperative relationships among them. 167
- the key to social learning is not analytical method, but organizational process; and the central methodological concern is not with the isolation of variables or the control of bureaucratic deviations from centrally-designed blueprints, but with effectively engaging the necessary participation of system members in contributing to the collective knowledge of the system. (Korten, 1981:613). 167
- it is necessary to build the administrative capacity of, and involve in planning and administration, "organized special publics": interest groups such as credit unions, women’ clubs, irrigation associations, labor unions, and cooperatives. By actively involving these groups in project planing and management, international organizations and governments in developing countries can create constituencies that will support projects for their members and act as channels of interaction between beneficiaries and the agencies sponsoring development programs. Once mobilized, these organization can also begin to generate their own projects, thereby supplementing and extending the impact of those sponsored by government. 170
- If administrative capacity for planning and implementing development projects is to be strengthened in developing countries, then both political leaders and international assistance agencies must give much more attention to decentralizing authority, responsibility, and resources. This implies that governments must decentralize by strengthening the field units of national ministries, creating or strengthening local administrative units, delegating functions to regional, special purpose, or functional authorities, devolving responsibilities and resources to local governments, and involving the private sector in service delivery. To the extent that economic growth depends on innovation and change, it also depends on the freedom to experiment. Such freedom requires the decentralization of authority to diverse organizations in society. 171
- By decentralizing development functions to the field officers of government agencies, or to local governments, more government officials can become knowledgeable and sensitive to local problems and needs because they will be working at the level where these are most visible and pressing. Closer contact between local populations and government officials can also allow the later to obtain better information with which to formulate plans and programs than they can obtain in the national capital. 172
- Decentralization can promote national unity by giving groups in different sections of the country the ability to participate in planning and decision-making and thus to increase their ‘stake’ in maintaining political stability. 172
- Development projects that reallocate economic resources, increase income, and expand participation in the economy also create new and potentially more powerful interest groups that can make claims on and challenge central authority. Indeed, the creation of countervailing power is often a precondition for sustaining organizational reforms such as administrative decentralization and privatization. 173
- Without decentralization and privatization, it is difficult to develop the widespread administrative capacity needed to plan and manage development activities in responsive and adaptive ways. 173
- The difference between more effective and less effective development projects has often been the willingness and the ability of government to assist in creating an organizational framework for mobilizing leadership, sharing power and decision-making, and expanding economic participation. 175
- adaptive institutional must be designed in conjunction with beneficiaries and open to local participation and leadership. 177
- adaptive institutions must designed in conjunction with beneficiaries and open to local participation and leadership. 177
- developing countries must seek the most appropriate and effective means of delivering public services that support productive activities and look to the private sector as a crucial part of the institutional network for service delivery. 178
- Adjunctive planning seeks to facilitate decision-making among a wide variety of organizations and interests in society, focus attention on solving remediable aspects of known problems, identify courses of action that move marginally, incrementally and through successive approximation away from unsatisfactory social and economic conditions even when "optimal" or ideal goals cannot be agreed upon, and explore alternatives on which diverse interests can act jointly. 179
- Strategic planning begins with what is known and attempts to broaden the base of knowledge and to formulate alternative interventions that will set other changes in motion, rather than beginning with sweeping and comprehensive reforms, the effectiveness and feasibility of which cannot be predicted. 179
- breaking down development activities into smaller projects could facilitate strategic planning and increases the possibilities for learning, adaptation and correction. 180
- ‘Projects thus are used, not to carry out existing knowledge, likely to be lacking, but to obtain knowledge through action. (Caiden and Wildavsky, 1974: 309) 180
- strategic and adjunctive planning focus on the examination of goals in close connection with emerging values and with the availability of resources to achieve them, and they encourage interaction with the groups that must participate in or benefit from projects. 181
- Field administrators must be trained the recognize the capacity of local residents, regardless of their social status, level of education, or income, to make important contributions to knowledge, skills, or commitment to the success of development activities. 185
- Sustainable and equitable economic development requires strengthening administrative capacity throughout developing societies. It implies expanding participation in economic activities, strengthening the capacity of a wide variety of pubic and private organizations to plan and carry out development activities, and increase the access of individuals to resources and opportunities needed to meet their basic human needs, raise their productivity, and develop their potential. Courses of action that lead to the attainment of these objectives will remain complex and uncertain. Planning and managing development activities seeking to attain these objectives require an adaptive approach. 185
- Dealing effectively and responsively with development problems on a larger scale in the future will depend on the ability of planners and administrators the use more effectively the political, social, and economic mechanisms of authority, exchange, and persuasion. 187
- These approaches require managers who can facilitate rather than control the interaction of those individuals and groups who have the bits of knowledge, resources and experience needed to change undesirable conditions and help define more acceptable courses of action. 187
DEVELOPMENT IN THEORY AND PRACTICE: BRIDGING THE GAP, JAN KNIPPERS BLACK, WESTVIEW PRESS, BOULDER, CO, 1991
- The bottom-up approach, designated in the 1980s in its most elaborated and ambitious form as empowerment, calls for attention to health and education, of course, but also to more effective locally based problem-solving techniques. ... the approach encompasses the promotion of community development through self-help, but with greater emphasis on the process itself rather than on the completion of particular projects. ... emphasis has been on the sustainability of the process enabling collective decision-making and collective action as well as any labor-saving or income-producing outcomes of such action. 21
- The role of the development practitioner or change agent in such an approach is that of catalyst and information broker rather than of decision-maker or information giver, that of promoting self-reliance rather than dependency. 21
- The most important contradiction he [Marx] saw in the capitalist system was the draining off of ‘surplus value’ - the gap between what workers earned for their labor and what they paid for goods and services - into profits. This gap would lead to overproduction and underconsumption - thus to economic depression - as workers became less and less able to buy what they produce. Eventually a desperate working class would rise up in spontaneous revolution and destroy capitalism, replacing it with a socialist system, in which the workers themselves would collectively own the means of production. After the transitional period in which the working class would control the state, the state would whither away, unneeded in a classless "communist" society. 27
- Lenin asserted that capitalism had been able temporarily to circumvent the problem of overproduction through the conquest of foreign peoples and the establishment of overseas colonies. 27
- [The assumptions that underpin dependency theory] First, economic interest has primacy over culture or attitude in determining the distribution of power and status in national and international arenas. Second, the causes of underdevelopment are not to be found in national systems alone but must be sought in the pattern of economic relations between hegemonic, or dominant, powers and their client states. The perpetuation of the pattern of inequality within client states is managed by a clientele class, which might be seen as the modern functional equivalent of a formal colonial apparatus. Third, both within and among states, the unfettered forces of the marketplace tend to exacerbate rather than to mitigate existing inequalities. That is, the dominant foreign power benefits at the expense of its client states, and the clientele class benefits at the expense of other classes. 28
- Even where such transfers from the developed states generate economic growth, dependentistas would expect it to be a distorted pattern of growth that exacerbates inequalities among classes as well as among regions within client states. 29
- Rejecting both the liberal preference for an unfettered market and the Marxist choice of state dominance of economic decision-making, International political economists contend that both state and market have important roles to play and that on occasion they are mutually reinforcing. 30
- class interests that coincide at one stage of development may not coincide at the next. The interests of middle and working classes, for example, tend to coincide early in the process of industrialization but to come into conflict at a later stage. 34
- Social action projects having only economic goals initially may give rise to explicitly political activism. 40
- Grass-roots development does not necessarily require the prior seizure of the central power of the state. 40
- Authoritarian or elitist rule requires that subjects concern themselves exclusively with their own welfare and that of their immediate family, distrusting their neighbors. Thus empowerment, or grass-roots development, is by nature collective or communal. 40
- [Import substitution industrialization] to encourage domestic entrepreneurs to manufacture the products that had been imported but were now unavailable. 81
- The real crisis of the ISI strategy was felt when it became clear that continual growth would be dependent upon expansion of the domestic market, and that such expansion implied a far-reaching redistribution of wealth and power. 83
- We have seen that the introduction of cash cropping often leads to greater concentration of landownership and to increasing landlessness among former subsistence farmers. 117
- New cash crops also generate new struggles over land tenure and further reduce the land area allotted to food crops, leading to shortages and higher prices for staple commodities. Any promising new source of income can also be expected to complicate relations among neighboring countries and to invite intervention, as foreigners seek to cut themselves in on profits or marketing arrangements or to suppress competition. 127
- The necessity of coalition building dictates that legislation or program planning benefiting the powerless must appeal also to some sector of the powerful. 141
- The lenders’ interpretation of creditworthiness generally results in discrimination against those whose holdings an ambitions are modest. 147
- The poorest peasants are often afraid to seek loans from private banks for fear that the bank will seize their land. Such fears may be unwarranted in particular cases, but they are not irrational. Likewise, peasant communities have been hesitant to enter into contracts with government agencies; they are not confident that they understand all of the ramifications of such contracts, and they fear they might somehow be tricked. 147
- Investment can rarely be the solution when the problem is lack of money. 148
- if development is to be sustainable, the unexpected must happen. 158
- Exploitation and racial and class discrimination may well be built into national and international systems, but the expression of these evils with which the poor must live on a daily basis is local. Thus, a requirement for changing traditional relationships may be the intervention of agents who are not local. 170
- Foreigners, and particularly young ones, are able to cross the lines of class in a manner that would be far more difficult for nationals. 170
- [PCVs] Like other kinds of "field agents", they tend to become "free agents"; that is, their performance in the field is determined by greater measure by their own imaginations and value systems and by their own personal interpretations of what their roles should be than by the objectives of funding or supervisory agencies. 170
- [PCVs] when they perceived differences between the objectives, wishes, or demands upon them of PC supervisors, host agency supervisors, and residents of their communities, they would be most likely to respond to their communities. 171
- The more leverage available to the field agent and the more intense and prolonged the contact between agent and beneficiary community rather than to the objectives of the sponsoring bureaucracies. 171
- Given the fact that the motives of external donors and/or of host governments may be less than forthrightly stated, the field agent who takes seriously the publicly stated goals of a development project (community organization for self-help) may on occasion find himself isolated. 173
- the development specialist...may find that the information or skills he is expected to pass on to host country authorities or counterparts are likely to be used in a manner utterly at odds with his own objectives or the stated purpose of the program. In such a case, he may find it necessary to redefine his own role or to sabotage his own project. 173
- Structural change...requires an unaccustomed unity among the underclasses and deepening cleavages among elites. 182
- In political discourse, "stability" may have any one of three meanings. It may mean (1) the routinization of political and social change in the absence of conflict; (2) the absence of conflict and the absence of change; or (3) the absence of structural change, even if such change must be staved off through conflict. 182
- development is a complicated process, deriving from many different sources and motives - an art rather than a science and a creature of fortune as much as of planning. No one, no even those who pay the bill, can control it. 188
- development programs often reinforce each other and acquire political significance through unforseen multiplier effects. 191
- new products, technologies, and credits have been available or usable only for the already affluent landowner, and enhanced land values have intensified struggles that peasants were sure to lose. 196
- for those of us, who for reasons of realism, pacifism, or cowardice, are not likely to engage in direct instigation of revolution, there must be some alternative to acceptance of a shamefully inequitable status quo. 199
- Real development, of the sort we are calling empowerment, will never be neat and orderly and predictable. For better or for worse, consequences do not derive directly from any identifiable constellation of motives. But the same uncertainty that makes development work so frustrating also makes it intriguing, challenging and promising. 200