innovations for a sustainable economsustainable economyy · 2018. 6. 16. · active authors of...

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Innovations for aSustainable EconomyInnovations for aSustainable Economy

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Niger was all but given a death sentence in the1970s when drought-propelled desertifica-tion, rapid population growth, and unsus-tainable farming practices threatenedecological collapse and mass human suffering.Women on average each gave birth to morethan seven children, and the population wasexpected to double in the next two decades.Families who had worked their land for gen-erations could see the tell-tale signs: it was tak-ing longer and longer to get to trees andfresh water, and the Sahara desert was gettingcloser and closer.1

Thirty years later there is startling evi-dence of a turnaround, thanks to changesundertaken beginning in the mid-1980s. (SeeFigure 12–1.) At that time, farmers in severalvillages were taught to carefully plow aroundtree saplings when sowing crops of millet,sorghum, peanuts, and beans. Careful nur-turing, along with other simple soil and waterconservation practices, saplings became trees,

putting down roots and a buffer against top-soil erosion and crop loss.2

The quick-growing native trees becameassets that families used to supplementincomes, provide insurance against crop fail-ure, and meet their own needs. The treesprovided wood for charcoal, foliage for ani-mal fodder, and fruit for food. News spreadthrough social networks and marketplaces inthe more densely populated regions of thecountry until an area of 7 million hectares,about the size of the state of West Virginia,was re-greening with trees.3

Did farmers do this alone? Hardly. Betterrains helped, and so did the government.But the standard anti-desertification strategyof massive tree planting projects was not whatmade the difference. The forest law previouslystated that both land and trees were the prop-erty of the state. Recognizing that farmers hadde facto ownership of the trees and wereinvesting in their regeneration, the govern-

C H A P T E R 1 2

Jason S. Calder

Mobilizing Human Energy

Jason Calder is Director of the Engaging Citizens and Communities in Peacebuilding Project at FutureGenerations.

ment wisely amended the forest code, givingfarmers formal property rights. This addi-tional security helped reinforce a trend andadd momentum. The forest service began tochange from policing tree cutting and levy-ing fines to partnering with communities toassist regeneration. Nongovernmental orga-nizations (NGOs), the Peace Corps, anddonors helped promote the new practicesthrough training programs and farmer-to-farmer visits.4

Notwithstanding this support, it was theenergy invested by the farmers of Niger thatfueled this massive transformation of landand livelihoods. The result is a more complexagricultural system and a more diverse econ-omy that is helping farmers invest in regen-erating once-infertile lands. Today farmerscredit their efforts with lowering poverty,improving nutrition, and reducing vulnera-bility to hunger. The average distance a

woman must walk for firewood in the Zinderregion has declined from 2.5 hours in 1984to half an hour today. When a regionaldrought and massive locust invasion hit in2005, many of the villages in the “greenbelt” reported no child deaths from malnu-trition because they were able to sell wood inlocal markets to purchase expensive cerealsthat normally would have been beyond reach.5

This success story from Niger demon-strates that the greatest untapped resource insolving the problem of global poverty andenvironmental decline is the poor themselves.They have the most unambiguous incentiveto change their condition, yet this simple factis all too rarely embraced by governments, aidworkers, and the market. In the face of depri-vation, discrimination, and oppression, thepoor are all too often offered charity, manip-ulation, and condescension.

But there are signs that this is beginning to

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Figure 12–1. Farmer-managed Tree Regeneration in Galma Village,Niger,1975 and 2003

1975 2003

USGS and Institut Géographique National du Niger

change. Over three decades of grassroots com-munity development experiences that began asa search for an alternative to mainstream eco-nomic development have coalesced into newapproaches to citizen and community empow-erment that embrace partnerships with gov-ernments and markets while maintaining anemphasis on self-reliance and self-help.

As with traditional community-based devel-opment, this newer community-driven devel-opment recognizes that the poor must be theactive authors of their own destiny and thatdevelopment cannot be sustainable if it dis-locates people from their communities andresources. Recognizing poverty as much morethan a lack of income, the new approachesemphasize building assets, expanding free-doms, and mobilizing the poor to overcomethe voicelessness and powerlessness that aredefining characteristics of poverty.6

Informed by an emphasis on incentivesand client knowledge, community-drivenapproaches are being implemented by NGOs,businesses, and large organizations like theWorld Bank. Perhaps most promising is thatpractitioners are tackling the question of howto scale up community-driven change overwide geographic areas involving significantnumbers of people.

While the international community setsambitious development targets like the Mil-lennium Development Goals, it is not clearhow to achieve them. So far, the debate ispolarized between mobilizing massive finan-cial resources for technical fixes and piecemealresponses sought by entrepreneurs. But finan-cial resources and technology, althoughimportant, are not the binding constraints.Experimentation and local solutions are alsoimportant, yet the scale of the challengedemands a more ambitious response. As thehopeful case of Niger demonstrates, what isrequired are ways of tapping into the ultimateresource: human energy.7

Grounding Action in Local Realities

Thanks to several encouraging developmentsin the 1990s (see Box 12–1), there are signsthat thinking in international developmentpolicy circles is converging around severalsensible propositions that could reorient theglobal poverty fight. The first is that no one-size-fits-all model of development can beapplied anywhere. The generally poor recordof various western-inspired plans for devel-opment has been well documented. Eventhe World Bank draws this conclusion in itsreading of the development experience ofrecent decades: “The central message...isthat there is no unique universal set ofrules….we need to get away from formulaeand the search for elusive ‘best practices.’”8

Referring to the standard set of free mar-ket reforms promoted by western develop-ment institutions since the 1980s, in 2006development economist Dani Rodrik notedthat “the question now is not whether theWashington Consensus is dead or alive; it iswhat will replace it.” It is increasingly acceptedthat each country’s path to success will be dif-ferent, based on the particular obstacles andopportunities set forth by their histories, cul-tures, social institutions, political climates,and geographies.9

The second sensible proposition is thatpoverty is about much more than lack ofincome. The U.N. Development Programmehas been publishing annual Human Devel-opment Reports since the early 1990s; itsHuman Development Index combines health,education, and income as an alternative mea-sure of national progress. (See Chapter 2.)Informed by the role of social capital andinstitutions, this is also about more thaninvesting in the “social side” of development.A much broader view is emerging: develop-ment is about the expansion of freedoms that







The 1990s were a period of momentous changein global affairs, with significant consequences forinternational development and, in particular, theenvironment for more holistic, less prescriptive,more locally driven development.

First, with the end of proxy wars betweenEast and West and the historic “third wave” ofdemocracy resulting in greater political openness,it was no longer defensible for rich nations toprop up and defend corrupt and authoritarianregimes with aid dollars (although by no meanshas that practice ended). This opened discussionsabout issues of good governance—democracy,accountability, transparency, rule of law, and cleangovernment—that had long been swept underthe carpet in official international development.Evidence emerged over the decade that donorsslowly but surely were becoming more selectivein who received their aid.

As it became more difficult to tolerate unac-countable behavior on the part of aid recipients,the tables were turned on the providers. Devel-oping countries and social activists argued forgreater “ownership” of development by thosewho ultimately lived with the consequences ofaid. Society-wide attempts to transform econo-mies from the top down through “structuraladjustment” were deeply resented. In an era ofpolitical opening and concern for good govern-ance, it became clear that development policiesshould be the result of public dialogue betweencitizens and their governments at all levels, andnot principally the result of conditions imposedon cash-strapped governments.

The World Bank instituted sweeping changesin the late 1990s requiring governments to con-sult with citizens on strategies and policies forpoverty reduction. There is still plenty of debateon whether governments yet really “own” theirdevelopment programs, particularly in the macro-economic arena, but reform of developmentassistance and “aid effectiveness” are major top-ics of reform.

Second, it became undeniably clear that thecountries that had made the most progress withsustained growth and poverty reduction werefollowing their own unique paths. The good news

was that the absolute number of people living onless than $1 a day worldwide had decreased by500 million between 1981 and 2001, mainly as aresult of growth in China and India. Yet the for-mer had done so without democracy and tradi-tional private property rights, while the latterhad a significant government role in the economy.

In addition to these and the well-known EastAsian “miracle” economies, countries such asBangladesh, Botswana, Egypt, Mauritius, Sri Lanka,Tunisia,Viet Nam, and others also achieved pro-gress with “unorthodox” strategies. Meanwhile,countries that had supposedly gotten theirmacroeconomic fundamentals in order—Bolivia,Brazil, Mexico, Philippines, and Venezuela, forexample—had very mixed records. This experi-ence argued for much more humility among pol-icy reformers and international institutions, andmuch greater attention to the specific conditionswithin countries.

Third, globalization of trade, investment, tech-nology, and communications accelerated humancontacts and shrank the psychological distancebetween people. Private capital flows outstrippedofficial development assistance by wide margins,although only small amounts went to Africa.Global threats such as climate change, terrorism,and disease, with their various connections tohuman deprivation, made it increasingly clear thata more robust global engagement on povertywas imperative.

Fourth, the United Nations sponsored a succession of international conferences on theenvironment, population, food security, socialdevelopment, women, and housing that shaped a broad international consensus on fightingpoverty. These culminated in the adoption of theMillennium Development Goals by the U.N. Gen-eral Assembly in September 2000, followed bythe International Conference on Financing forDevelopment in Monterrey, Mexico, to considerhow to fund the goals’ achievement through public and private financial flows. This agendahelped establish new norms for internationaldevelopment cooperation.

Source: See endnote 8.

Box 12–1. Reshaping the Development Agenda in the 1990s

people experience, requiring the interactiveengagement of citizens and communities withstate and markets.10

By the early 1980s, there was growingfrustration about the top-down, expert-dri-ven nature of prevailing development mod-els. Many commentators saw that the key toreversing this was to value and build on localknowledge and respond to the “felt needs”of communities, an idea articulated by Brazil-ian educator and activist Paolo Freire. Later,Robert Chambers helped popularize a seriesof participatory or community-based devel-opment techniques that were effective instimulating greater community awareness,identifying local needs, highlighting localassets, and mobilizing community actionaround projects of their own conceptionthat fit with their cultures, ecologies, and

local economies.11

Use of these techniques exploded in the1980s and 1990s in NGO projects and beganto be adopted by institutions such as the U.S.Agency for International Development, theUnited Nations, and the World Bank. Muchhas been learned and accomplished by com-munity-based approaches, but most have notsucceeded in igniting fundamental transfor-mation of societies in an age of globaliza-tion. (See Box 12–2.)12

Several pitfalls have been common. Insome cases the use of participatory techniquesby donors and NGOs was nothing more thanan attempt to co-opt communities into devel-opment schemes that had already been fullyformulated elsewhere. After all, British andFrench colonial administrations in Africa andelsewhere had used involvement of “tradi-




Scope. Many projects were conceived on a nar-row basis, such as helping communities buildschools or increase food production.These mayrespond well to an NGO’s particular expertise,a congressional earmark, a bureaucratic priority,or the demand for straightforward quantifiable“results,” but they do not reflect the real worldof individuals and communities whose problemsand challenges are complex and interrelated.Integrated rural development programs in the1970s and 1980s attempted to combine socialand economic needs, but they proved unsustain-able and gave little room for local voice. Morerecent area development programs have hadgreater success.

Scale. Community-based projects were toosmall and localized to make much of a difference,given the scale of the problems faced. Despitesuccess, replication “a village at a time”’ was notfeasible. In addition, many supporters of theseprojects assumed that eventually someoneelse—the government, a donor agency—woulddo the work of replication.

Sustainability. Community-based projects toooften failed the “walk-away test” and essentiallycollapsed or were abandoned by communitieswhen the funding ran out and a sponsoring NGOor aid agency left. There may have been commu-nity involvement, but not true community own-ership. Communities learned to use outsideresources for a one-time effort, not how to seekout, create, and manage partnerships.

Structural change. The obstacle to resolvingmany community problems lies outside the com-munity in institutions and political and socialstructures. Community-based projects that dealtexclusively with the local, no matter how partici-patory, would never achieve fundamental trans-formation. Until development is understood asan inherently political process of people claimingbasic rights, people will never ultimately reshapethe structural forces in society that are responsi-ble for the deprivation, discrimination, exclusion,vulnerability, and violence that mark the lives ofthe poor.

Sources: See endnote 12.

Box 12–2. Common Critiques of Community-based Development

tional leaders” and “community participa-tion” as a means of exerting social control. Ina reprise of this role, NGOs and private con-tractors, who were increasingly the conduitsof official foreign aid, were driven by donor-mandated results and timetables rather thancommunity needs, capabilities, agency, andvision. Many of these “participatory devel-opment” projects weren’t all that participa-tory from the perspective of the poor.Captured by elite interests or simply involv-ing information sharing or consultation butno real control or influence, these were a farcry from the liberating process of local ini-tiative and social movement that their advo-cates claimed.13

Many of these projects also idealized com-munities in ways that undermined their poten-tial. First, they imagined communities ashomogenous and harmonious entities whenoften they were far more complex units withinwhich needs and interests were mediated bypower, caste, ethnicity, age, religion, or gen-der. Second, many NGOs who supportedthese projects were ideologically or other-wise antagonistic toward working with gov-ernment or the private sector. Their efforts attimes isolated communities or promoted thenaive notion that bottom-up mobilizationalone would overcome the powerful andentrenched forces arrayed against them. As aresult, many community activities remainedessentially local projects and failed to affect orengage wider social and political structuresthat were driving poverty, environmentaldegradation, and social injustice.14

These criticisms were one helpful reminderof the inherently political nature of poverty.The poor are poor because the rich and pow-erful have created institutions to serve theirinterests. The landmark Voices of the Poorstudy, which gathered the views of 60,000poor men and women from 60 countries,confirmed that the poor saw their humanity

devalued by the world around them. Sus-tainable routes out of poverty would have toinvolve the poor not only by building theirassets and capabilities but by engaging withthe institutions and structures of governanceand markets. Engaging this governanceagenda involves communities participating inpublic budgeting decisions, scrutinizing pub-lic and private development projects, giving“report cards” to government ministries,and campaigning for greater access to pub-lic information.15

The Unlimited ResourceIncreasing poor people’s freedom of choiceand action to shape their own lives is criticalto achieving development outcomes becauseit taps into their natural energy and incentive.World Bank research on this topic has dra-matically expanded theoretical and practicalapproaches to understanding and measuringempowerment. It requires the poor to buildtheir individual assets (material, financial) aswell as their capabilities (human, social, psy-chological, political). The poor also requiregreater collective assets and capabilities, asthese provide security, preserve culture, pro-vide meaning, protect the local environment,and expand voice and power. Particularlycritical is the role of collective organizationsand social movements. Informed by theseconcepts, efforts to stimulate community-driven development are showing promise inovercoming some key shortcomings of earlyefforts at community-based development.16

A leading example is the Self-EmployedWomen’s Association (SEWA), a 30-year-oldgrassroots movement that has empoweredsome of the most marginalized of India’spoor women. Where economic growth hasoutpaced employment growth, many Indianwomen take up casual labor or self-employ-ment in the informal sector, including load




pulling, street vending, and home-basedwork. In addition to poverty and insecurity,these women are regularly cheated by employ-ers, charged exorbitant interest by money-lenders, and forced to pay bribes to police andpublic officials to ply their trades. Despitetheir varied and dispersed occupations, laboractivist and SEWA founder Ela Bhatt believedthese women could be organized and helpedto become more self-reliant.17

SEWA today has over 700,000 rural andurban members in seven states. It has orga-nized women to fight for their rights to fairtreatment, ranging from better prices fortheir goods and services to influencing the for-mation of India’s first National Policy onStreet Vendors. To secure income and assets,SEWA has formed 76 cooperatives in a vari-ety of fields—from tree growing and handi-crafts to milk production and salt farming. Itgives women skills training and marketingassistance, helping them to avoid exploitativego-betweens.18

The organization helps its members gainaccess to state-provided services (where theyexist) and lobby for improvements of inade-quate services. If these approaches do notwork, SEWA helps members organize the ser-vices for themselves. SEWA today maintains anetwork of services to meet basic needs suchas child care, health care, insurance, and hous-ing. More than 300,000 women have used itsprimary health services and 110,000 are cov-ered by its insurance program.19

The movement has grown and sustained awide scope of activities and services involvinghundreds of thousands because of its orga-nization, values, leadership, and flexibility.SEWA’s decentralized structure and strongvalue system have kept the movement respon-sive to the women’s needs. Bhatt emphasizesthe fundamental difference between runningan organization and sustaining a movementlike SEWA: “The movement flows at times

faster and at other times slower, and mayoccasionally be deflected around an obstacle,but it always moves in the same direction.”20

Daniel Taylor and others at the develop-ment NGO Future Generations considercommunity-driven solutions the basis forredirecting globalization, reducing inequality,and preserving and restoring the environ-ment. They maintain that most developmentprojects fail because they seek to control andmanage communities rather than unleashenergies and potential. Instead of buildingconfidence and resourcefulness, such pro-jects teach dependence on outside actors andfunding. When funding runs out and theproject ends, communities are left waitingfor the next project.21

Taylor has developed a simple system ofcommunity-driven learning and adaptationcalled Seed-Scale—a process that helps com-munities to marshal and direct their energy inways that fit their economy, ecology, and cul-ture at a pace that is natural and organic.Seed-Scale is based on four simple principlesembedded in a seven-step community dia-logue and planning process. (See Box 12–3.)These are so intuitive that communities, nomatter how daunting their situation, canquickly and easily absorb and use them tomobilize and channel their efforts.22

The idea of building purposeful humanand social energy is at the center of Seed-Scale. To catalyze it, the poor must believethat a better future is possible and that theycan bring about positive change. ArjunAppadurai of The New School has devel-oped the idea of the “capacity to aspire” tounderstand this aspect of empowerment. Itis a cultural capacity based on how the poorlearn and understand their “place” in societybased on wider cultural norms. It is an abil-ity to navigate the wider world that is devel-oped through experimentation and learningin a way that helps to expand the horizons of




the possible.23

In the beginning, anything can be thespark that nurtures this capacity, whether it isa mother learning to treat her baby’s diarrheawith homemade oral rehydration solution, afarmer learning better farming techniques,or a group effectively confronting a pollutingindustry in its community. The critical insightis that the ownership of the success and itsdeeper meaning resonates within the com-munity, which outsiders need to accept andbuild from.

In Seed-Scale, the initial emphasis of out-side assistance is on guidance with themethodology and facilitation of communityaccess to knowledge that responds to local pri-orities in areas such as health and hygiene, lit-eracy, natural resource management, andincome generation. This happens by teaching

simple techniques or by taking individualsto see successes in other places. People adoptsomething new when they see others doingit in circumstances similar to their own.

Since 1997 Future Generations has appliedSeed-Scale in the northeast Indian state ofArunachal Pradesh, which shares a borderwith Bhutan, China, and Burma. Arunachalis home to 125 tribal groups and the centerof biological diversity for all the bananas andcitrus fruit in the world. In this isolated areaof India, communities have persisted for cen-turies in very basic conditions. While theBritish Empire never successfully penetratedthis area during colonial rule, outside inter-ests are encroaching on the state today, eye-ing its vast potential for hydropower andtimber. The government has promised thepeople of Arunachal a great deal since inde-pendence, but little has been delivered. Socialconditions are harsh, particularly for women.Polygamy and child marriage are entrenchedtraditions, and forced labor is still practicedby some ethnic groups.24

Today, from four core sites radiating acrossmore than 100 villages, communities inArunachal Pradesh are actively and creativelysolving their own problems. Small successesare keeping communities motivated and mov-ing forward. Village Welfare Workers takethe lead—gathering data on health, eco-nomic, and environmental issues; deliveringhome-based services; and mobilizing thecommunity to action on a wide scope ofissues and advocating for change. Workstarted with women’s groups but laterexpanded to include men. Health improve-ments came from communities learning howto treat diarrhea and pneumonia, improvematernal care, have safer child births, immu-nize children, and monitor child growth.25

Husbands who were initially unsupportiveof their wives’ involvement quickly changedtheir minds when their families’ health and




Build from success. Every community has arecent or distant success that can be the basisfor inspiration and insight as to how the com-munity can work together.

Engage in three-way partnerships. Part-nerships require that communities, state andmarket actors, and outside individuals (asfacilitators, knowledge brokers, and changeagents) all work together.

Make decisions based on evidence.Objective data can inform decisions and helpmeasure progress. Learning simple surveytechniques gives villagers a deeper under-standing of their environment and powerover information collection.

Measure results through behaviorchange in individuals and communities.Behavior change happens when peopleperceive something works and is in their self-interest to continue.


Box 12–3. Basic Principles of Seed-Scale

welfare improved. They have gained access tomicrocredit and have started small businesses.They also have improved farming techniquesand learned how to improve food security andnutrition. Impressed with the success inArunachal, the state government asked thateach new village council be trained in theSeed-Scale methodology so that the 6,000 vil-lages in the state could be equipped to orga-nize a process of local change.26

Perhaps the most impressive indicator ofcommunity empowerment is demonstrated bywhat the women have done to change somedeep-seated social norms and institutions.Indian law exempts tribal areas from lawsbanning polygamy and child marriage, so thepractices flourish. Some of the women incommunity action groups were from the low-est rungs of the social hierarchy, as one-timechild brides and the third or fourth wives ina household. Once their value to their fami-lies and communities was enhanced throughnew knowledge and practices brought backfrom village health trainings, they found thevoice to argue against child marriage andbecame part of a gathering community pres-sure to end the practice voluntarily.

Dialogue started within a few women’sgroups spread and then percolated up into vil-lage council meetings. A petition was drawnup and endorsed by men and women at aseries of public meetings and given effect bytribal leaders. When rumors surfaced of an oldman planning to take a child bride (hisfourth), he was confronted and stopped bythe community and reminded that this prac-tice was no longer acceptable. This new atti-tude has held up throughout an areaequivalent to 10 percent of the state. It isnoteworthy that this change was the result ofan organic process that was directed by thecommunity. For this reason it is likely to besustained because it reflects changed rolesand behaviors.27

What has transpired in these cases represents a different way of achieving theMillennium Development Goals. An empow-erment approach sees citizens as the authorsof their own destiny, not passive vessels await-ing government programs, services, or edu-cational campaigns to catch up with them.While financial resources are an importantcomponent of any community developmentplan, the first question addressed by empow-erment approaches is whether the plan can bemobilized from within by using existing assetsdifferently or through partnerships with oth-ers. What is perhaps a greater challenge isthe fact that this approach requires outsideexperts and agencies to relinquish controland agree to an iterative effort that startsmodestly and will take unexpected directionsas well as its own time.

Scaling Up Local SuccessesOne of the greatest challenges for develop-ment organizations is taking a success thatis working locally and translating it to theregional or national level. This principallyinvolves understanding why somethingworked in a particular place and time andthen determining how those lessons can beapplied elsewhere. In some cases, expansiondepends on a quantum leap of investment;in others, it may depend more on removingbarriers to entrepreneurial activity or mak-ing government agencies more transparentand accountable. Numerous approaches toscaling up successful programs exist. (SeeBox 12–4.)28

Each approach has its place. The biologi-cal approach would not be appropriate, ofcourse, to respond to a natural disaster orbuild a transnational highway system. Butthe explosion or campaign approach is notappropriate for community-driven develop-ment. Yet too often such top-down, expert-




driven approaches are the favorite of aid agen-cies and politicians because they deliver tan-gible goods quickly: school buildings,hospitals, large dams, airports, and the like.These are not undesirable per se, but thisapproach is not good at engaging the humanelement. For example, the spread of micro-credit programs in Bangladesh used the blue-print approach for expansion initially but wasforced to adopt the biological approach whenthe limitations of the initial model werereached and it became clear that site-specificsolutions were needed to ensure that the

poor were reached. The Millennium VillageProject of the Earth Institute combines ablueprint approach offering villages choicesfrom a list of over 40 poverty reduction inter-ventions with a campaign approach for thedistribution of commodities like bednets, buthere again it is not clear how much localadaptation, ownership, and integration withlocal institutions will develop.29

Some promising programs to stimulatecommunity-driven development reachingmillions of people are being supported by theWorld Bank using essentially a blueprint




Blueprint approach. A technical solution thathas worked under a set of generally widespreadcircumstances is codified into a plan for replica-tion on a large scale. Attempts are sometimesmade to tailor to local conditions during imple-mentation, but to communities this is essentiallya process that operates down from the top or infrom the outside. Local actors might comment onproposed implementation but not on the basicplan. Examples include many nature preserves,appropriate technology projects, large-scale micro-credit programs, and infrastructure expansion.

Explosion or campaign approach. Thisinvolves a large-scale, concentrated effort tomarshal resources to deliver commodities orservices in response to a generally narrow need.Food, humanitarian aid, and reconstruction assistance after a natural disaster are typicalexamples. Campaigns focused on disease eradi-cation, such as the global smallpox campaign inthe 1970s, are another example. While intensiveand generally effective in achieving results, thismethod is not well suited for systemic change,local variation, or sustainability in terms of localownership. In fact, some of the favorite disease-specific programs of donors are accused ofundermining national health systems, anddonated food aid’s deleterious impact on localagricultural economies has long been known.

Additive approach. Typical “bottom-up” pro-

jects engage in site-specific activity (a communityor cluster of villages) for an extended period oftime, developing local leaders and change fromwithin. Often implemented by NGOs or religiousmission groups, these projects get to know thelocal circumstances and adapt to local conditions.Replication is additive as success spreads villageby village, community by community. Given thatthese are often pioneering initiatives or demon-stration projects, proponents of this approachargue that governments or others with largerbudgets have an obligation to adopt and expandthese projects. Going to scale with this approachis very slow and dependent on outside resources.

Biological approach. Drawing comparisons tothe way species evolve in nature, this approachsupports local experimentation and adaptation(“evolutionary adjustments”) and then sets anenabling environment for rapid expansion. Itcombines the local focus of the additive modelwith the growth potential of the explosion andblueprint approaches, but unlike the latter theimpetus comes from within adapting communi-ties. Government plays an important role inremoving obstacles and facilitating expansion.The potential for exponential growth, healthyrelationships, and balanced and organic growthmake this approach more self-sustaining.


Box 12–4. Common Ways to Scale Up Successful Programs

approach but still managing to support localcollective action and give discretion to com-munities in the selection of projects to fund.They are designed to institutionalize com-munity participation in decisionmaking.Funding is transferred directly into villagebank accounts to be used for the projectsselected by elected local committees follow-ing extensive public dialogue. The programsupports various NGOs to help facilitatecommunity participation and the inclusion ofmarginalized people. Critical to their effec-tiveness are built-in systems to promotetransparency and control corruption. TheKecamatan Development Program (KDP)of Indonesia and the National SolidarityProgram (NSP) of Afghanistan are twoexamples of the Bank’s new approach toscaling up successes.

Between 1998 and 2006 KDP covered34,233 of the poorest villages in Indone-sia—about half the villages in the country. Theprogram is significant for the World Bank,representing almost half its lending portfolioto the country. KDP provides grants in therange of $60,000 to $110,000 to districts foruse in projects chosen by the community.Open public meetings are held at the hamlet,village, and kecamatan (district) levels todetermine priorities; independent facilitatorsensure the participation of women and thedisadvantaged. Projects are carried out byvillages with local labor and materials.30

The KDP promotes transparency by usingthe local media and billboards to publish theamount of funding provided to each com-munity and the details of the contracts. Inaddition, the media are given unhindered

access to information needed to investigateand publicize incidents of corruption. Rig-orous evaluations of KDP have shown that ithas made important contributions to behav-ior change and social norms in project areascompared with control sites, even taking intoconsideration the broader democratic trendsin the country during the period. More peo-ple are participating in local decisionmakingforums, including more women. In East Java,67 percent of survey respondents in KDPvillages say decisionmaking is more democ-ratic now, compared with 46 percent in non-KDP villages.31

The NSP in Afghanistan is implementedthrough a partnership between the govern-ment and NGOs and is the only program tohave reached all 34 provinces, affecting 13million Afghans—two out of every three ruralindividuals. In rural Afghanistan, where noform of local election has taken place indecades and where some traditional leadershave lost credibility because of their role in20 years of civil conflict, the NSP organizeselections for community development coun-cils and the key leadership positions. Women’sparticipation in the elections and as candidatesis supported by program facilitators. Com-munities have used NSP resources to buildcommunity centers, health posts, and schools,to resurface roads, and to construct run-of-the-river hydropower projects. Communitymembers are learning important civic skills,and community cohesion is being rebuilt.32

Innovative blueprint programs such asthese, with the backing of government andWorld Bank resources, are not available to allcommunities. In addition, their focus hasbeen on providing block grants for small-scale infrastructure, which, combined withthe weak coordination within government,has placed limits on community choice.33

A biological approach appears mostpromising for stimulating solutions that




Governments can institute changes in laws, policies, and practices that reshapeinstitutions and remove obstacles to change.

evolve to fit a variety of local possibilitiesrather than being adjusted after the fact.According to Seed-Scale, the process ideallyunfolds simultaneously along three dimen-sions: community, regional, and national.The first dimension is reached when com-munities have mastered how to build upontheir local success. Initial interventions inone area such as community health havestimulated a wider scope of action in otherareas such as food security, environmentalprotection, education, and income genera-tion. Through partnerships with NGOs andgovernment officials, communities gain accessto the knowledge and resources necessary tosustain momentum.

The second dimension is pursued whensuccessful communities share their experi-ences formally and informally with othercommunities in the same region. As the farm-ers in Niger showed, this can happen whenNGOs facilitate farmer-to-farmer site visitsand when farmers meet and share knowl-edge in markets and social settings. Specifi-cally, the idea is to help transform clusters ofcommunities that have already mastered aseries of interventions into formal ActionLearning and Experimentation Centers,where experimentation takes place to adaptthese interventions to each local area. Visi-tors from other communities are welcomedto this group of villages to learn and take partin workshops and formal training. The con-trast between traditional development—where outside experts design thesolution—and truly home-grown approachescould not be stronger.

The third dimension happens at the levelof systemic enabling conditions over whichgovernments most often have the greatestinfluence. They can institute changes in laws,policies, and practices that reshape formal andinformal institutions and remove obstacles tochange, encouraging people and institutions

to respond to new incentives. In Niger, thechange in the forest code that gave farmerssecure rights to the trees on their land had thiseffect. It stimulated investments by farmersthroughout the country and further experi-ments that the forest service could support.Alternatively, structural change can happen atthe local level and be scaled up to other lev-els, as when the women of Arunachal broughtabout the end to child marriage.

Each of these dimensions is an entry pointto the other, and all are necessary to seechange operate on a regional or society-widelevel. Recent developments in Tibet are agood illustration of this. In the early 1980sTibet faced growing environmental pres-sures from population growth, increasingfuelwood consumption, and resource pres-sures from China’s economic expansion.One national policy response was the creationof the Qomolangma National Nature Pre-serve (QNNP), where local people wereencouraged to continue living in the preserveand attention was focused on promotingtheir economic and social development—action that, in the traditional view, wouldhave been seen as antithetical to environ-mental protection. The regional governmentprovided budgets and staffing for the con-servation area—not to police the region butto engage people through education andincentives. Outside partners brought inknowledge and partnered with communi-ties and townships to focus on improvinglivelihoods rather than expecting people onlyto protect nature. A participatory model ofconservation management emerged reflect-ing the Seed-Scale principles.34

Today the duality of development andconservation success can be seen in theQNNP. In the late 1980s the area had onlyone bank; by 2006 there were 10. Initiallynone of the 320 villages had protected watersupplies; now 64 villages have them. The




number of schools has grown from 5 to 38.The population of the area has swelled, partlyfrom immigration due to the growth of sev-eral towns but also because better healthmeans more children are surviving. The con-servation side of the ledger is just as impres-sive. Now 42 percent of the land area isprotected under conservation management.Wild animal population numbers are increas-ing for every species, including the endan-gered snow leopard, the Tibetan antelope, redghoral, and argali sheep. Deforestation rateshave decreased by over 80 percent, and large-scale tree plantations are being started infragile river drainages. The use of environ-mentally friendly solar, geothermal, andhydroelectric generated energy is expandingacross Tibet.35

Overcoming Obstacles When considering Earth’s potential to sustaingrowth, the case is often made that the richand affluent need to reduce their consump-tion of resources in order to make room forincreased consumption by the world’s pooras they climb out of poverty. (See Chapter 4.)This proposition stands on its own merits, butit also suggests international action is a zero-sum proposition. Yet poor countries neednot repeat the mistakes of the rich or emulatetheir overconsumptive lifestyles. Sustainableprogress on global poverty need not rest oneconomic growth and resource consumptionalone. Attacking poverty as it is conceived bythe poor themselves opens up a wider rangeof possibilities for action.

But for globalization to allow these possi-bilities to be pursued, the rules of the gameneed to change at all levels. Needed reformsof the global development architecture oftrade, aid, investment, migration, security,and rich-country environmental policies arewell documented. For example, international

trade rules are not designed to enhanceopportunities for the poorest countries. (SeeChapter 14.) In fact, many rich-country poli-cies do just the opposite. U.S. and EuropeanUnion agricultural barriers and subsidies denymarket opportunities to poor countries. Notonly do such impediments need to beremoved, but Paul Collier, former head ofresearch at the World Bank, argues that themost destitute nations actually require sometrade protection (from Asia) to get theireconomies started.36

International aid, held up as a symbol ofrich-country concern and generosity to theless fortunate, is hardly accountable to thosewho receive it. Many rich countries recycle alarge percentage of their aid back to influen-tial constituencies of NGOs, consulting firms,and universities. Current estimates are that asmuch as 57 percent of U.S. developmentassistance comes back to the United States topay for good and services. This “tying” of aidreduces its value by up to 25 percent andcloses off opportunities to support businessesin poor countries.37

A good deal of donor assistance bypassesgovernments in the name of avoiding cor-ruption and bureaucratic inefficiency, tar-geting beneficiaries, and supporting civilsociety. While these goals and concerns areworthy and often legitimate, it means thatdonors miss the opportunity to build statecapacity to deliver services effectively. In anage when the international community istrying to build democratic states that areaccountable to their people, the persistentchanneling of aid through scattered projectsof myriad donors breaks the link between cit-izen and government. Donors recognize this,and in countries that are reasonably wellgoverned they are attempting to channelmore of their aid into budget support ratherthan stand-alone projects.

If donor nations are to make this invest-




ment, developing countries need to makechanges too. In return for investments ingovernment capacities, there must be strongefforts toward decentralized and open gov-ernance. Deepa Narayan, lead author of theWorld Bank’s Voices of the Poor, highlightsfour priorities: enabling citizen access to pub-lic information, promoting policies of par-ticipation and inclusion, ensuring democraticand client accountability, and enhancing localorganizational capacity. These will help pro-vide the enabling environment.38

These and many other systemic changesare critical for unlocking the potential forhome-grown development. Developmenteconomist Bill Easterly describes it as theneed for more “searchers” and fewer “plan-ners.” Empowerment frameworks such asSeed-Scale argue for a change in mindset

from control held by experts and officials toone of learning and experimentation amongpartners. This is often antithetical to the“results-based” mindset that insists on get-ting things right the first time.39

Yet around the world there are many whowill be left behind because even the basic con-ditions for change are absent. Collier arguesthat the growth engine in many of the moreadvanced developing countries will eventuallypull the poor out of poverty, but it is the weak-est states—many caught in conflict and badgovernance, where growth is not happening—that need attention and support. The “bottombillion” of the world’s poor live in such coun-tries. Perhaps it is here where empowerment-based approaches hold the most promise.Why? Because little more is required to startthan a little capacity to aspire.40




46. Database of LEED projects available atwww.usgbc.org, viewed 5 October 2007; LEEDfor Neighborhood Development, op. cit. note45; Henry, op. cit. note 45.

47. Sarah James and Torbjorn Lahti, The Nat-ural Step for Communities: How Cities and TownsCan Change to Sustainable Practices (GabriolaIsland, BC: New Society Publishers, 2004); Sus-tain Dane, “Eco-municipalities,” at www.sustaindane.org, viewed 5 October 2007.

48. Local Works, “Campaign for the SustainableCommunities Bill,” at www.localworks.org, viewed9 October 2007; “The Sustainable CommunitiesBill,” at www.neweconomics.org/gen, viewed 9October 2007.

49. Bill McKibben, Deep Economy: The Wealth ofCommunities and the Durable Future (New York:Times Books, 2007), p. 149; Bernhard Poetter,“People Power, Danish-style,” OnEarth, summer2007, p. 20.

50. “Million Solar Roofs Bill (SB 1) Signed intoLaw,” press release (Los Angeles: EnvironmentCalifornia, 21 August 2006).

Chapter 12. Mobilizing Human Energy

1. U.S. Agency for International Developmentand Comité Inter-Etate pour la Lutte contre laSécheresse au Sahel, Investing in Tomorrow’sForests: Toward an Action Agenda for RevitalizingForests in West Africa (Washington, DC: 2002);Lydia Polgreen, “In Niger, Trees and Crops TurnBack the Desert,” New York Times, 11 February2007.

2. Figure 12–1 from Institut GéographiqueNational du Niger (1975) and Center for EROS,U.S. Geological Survey (2003); Mike McGahuey,Chris Reij, Tony Rinaudo, George Taylor, andBob Winterbottom, e-mails to author, 9 Septem-ber to 1 October 2007.

3. Polgreen, op. cit. note 1; McGahuey et al.,op. cit. note 2; data on estimated tree coveragefrom G. Gray Tappan, geographer, SAIC, Center

for EROS, U.S. Geological Survey, e-mail toauthor, 11 October 2007.

4. McGahuey et al., op. cit. note 2.

5. Yamba Boubacar et al., Sahel Study: NigerPilot Study Report (Washington, DC: Interna-tional Resource Group, 2005); Chris Reij, “MoreSuccess Stories in Africa’s Drylands Than OftenAssumed,” in Forum sur la Souveraineté Alimen-taire (Niamey, Niger: Resau des OrganisationsPaysannes et de Producteurs Agricoles de L’Afriquede L’Ouest, 2006).

6. Deepa Narayan et al., eds., Voices of the Poor:Crying Out for Change (New York: Oxford Uni-versity Press, 2000).

7. Polarized positions from Jeffrey D. Sachs,The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for OurTime (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), and fromWilliam Easterly, White Man’s Burden: Why theWest’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So MuchIll and So Little Good (London: Penguin Books,2006).

8. Poor record of western-inspired develop-ment plans from William Easterly, The ElusiveQuest for Growth (Cambridge, MA: The MITPress, 2002); quote from World Bank, EconomicGrowth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade ofReform (Washington, DC: 2005). Box 12–1 fromthe following: donors becoming selective fromDollar and Levin (2004), as cited in Carol Lan-caster, Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development,Domestic Politics (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 2007), p. 53; on reform of developmentassistance, see, for example, The Carter Center,Development Cooperation Forum: Achieving MoreEquitable Globalization (Atlanta, GA: 2007), DavidGouldsbrough, Does the IMF Constrain HealthSpending in Poor Countries? (Washington, DC:Center for Global Development, 2007), andOxfam International, Oxfam International Sub-mission to the World Bank/IMF 2005 PRS Review(Oxford, U.K.: June 2005); data on decline inabsolute poverty from World Bank, World Devel-opment Indicators 2004 (Washington, DC: 2004);varying progress of nations from Dani Rodrik,ed., In Search of Prosperity: Analytic Narratives on



Notes

Economic Growth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-versity Press, 2003).

9. Dani Rodrik, “Goodbye Washington Con-sensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review ofthe World Bank’s Economic Growth in the 1990s:Learning from a Decade of Reform,” Journal ofEconomic Literature, December 2006, pp. 973–87.

10. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (NewYork: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000); Michael Woolcockand Deepa Narayan, “Social Capital: Implicationsfor Development Theory, Research, and Policy,”World Bank Research Observer, August 2000, pp.225–49; World Bank, World Development Report2000/2001 (New York: Oxford University Press,2001).

11. Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (NewYork: Seabury Press, 1970); Ghazala Mansuri andVijayendra Rao, Community-Based and -DrivenDevelopment: A Critical Review, Working Paper3209 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004);Robert Chambers, Whose Reality Counts: Puttingthe First Last (Warwickshire, U.K.: ITDG Pub-lishing, 1997).

12. Limited impact of community-basedapproaches from Jason Clay, Borrowed from theFuture: Challenges and Guidelines for Commu-nity-Based Natural Resource Management (NewYork: Ford Foundation, 2004). Box 12–2 from thefollowing: lessons of integrated rural developmentprograms from John Farrington et al., Do AreaDevelopment Projects Have a Future, NaturalResource Perspectives No. 82 (London: OverseasDevelopment Institute, December 2002); struc-tural change from Bill Cooke and Uma Kothari,eds., Participation: The New Tyranny? (New York:Zed Books, 2001).

13. Cooke and Kothari, op. cit. note 12.

14. For complexity of communities, see, forexample, Irene Gujit and Meera Kaul Shah, TheMyth of Community: Gender Issues in ParticipatoryDevelopment (London: Intermediate TechnologyPublications, 1998).

15. Narayan et al., op. cit. note 6.

16. Deepa Narayan, Empowerment and PovertyReduction: A Sourcebook, 1st ed. (Washington,DC: World Bank, 2002), pp. 13–29.

17. Jobless growth in India from Bhattacharyaand Sakthivel (2004), as cited in Deepa Narayanand Elena Glinskaya, eds., Ending Poverty in SouthAsia: Ideas That Work (Washington, DC: WorldBank, 2007).

18. John Blaxall, “Collective Action by WomenWorkers,” in Narayan and Glinskaya, op. cit. note17, p. 68–103.

19. Ibid.

20. Bhatt quoted in ibid., p. 70.

21. Daniel Taylor-Ide and Carl Taylor, Just andLasting Change: When Communities Own TheirFutures (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univer-sity Press, 2002); Daniel Taylor, Carl Taylor, andJessie Oak Taylor-Ide, A Future of Hope: From Seedsof Human Energy to the Scale of Social Change(New York: Columbia University, in press).

22. Taylor-Ide and Taylor, op. cit. note 21; Box12–3 from ibid.

23. Arjun Appadurai, “The Capacity to Aspire:Culture and the Terms of Recognition,” inVijayendra Rao and Michael Walton, eds., Cultureand Public Action (Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni-versity Press, 2004), pp. 59–84.

24. “Beginning Social Change: The Principles ofSeed-Scale as Shown in Arunachal Pradesh, India,”in Taylor, Taylor, and Taylor-Ide, op. cit. note21.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Daniel Taylor, president, Future Genera-tions, discussion with author, 1 August 2007;Tage Kanno, program director, Future GenerationsArunachal, e-mail to author, 12 October 2007.

28. Box 12–4 is adapted from Taylor-Ide and



Notes

Taylor, op. cit. note 21, pp. 47–61.

29. Negative impacts of explosion approach fromLaurie Garrett, “Do No Harm: The Global HealthChallenge,” Foreign Affairs, January/February2007, and from Celia W. Dugger, “CARE TurnsDown Federal Funds for Food Aid,” New YorkTimes, 16 August 2007; Taylor-Ide and Taylor, op.cit. note 21; Hassan Zaman, “Microfinance inBangladesh: Growth, Achievements, Lessons,” inNarayan and Glinskaya, op. cit. note 17; LídiaCabral, John Farrington, and Eva Ludi, The Mil-lennium Village Project—A New Approach to End-ing Rural Poverty in Africa? Natural ResourcePerspectives 101 (London: Overseas Develop-ment Institute, August 2006).

30. Scott Guggenheim, World Bank, “Crises andContradictions: Understanding the Origins of aCommunity Development Project in Indonesia,”2003, at siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDONESIA.

31. Patrick Barron, Rachael Diprose, and MichaelWoolcock, Local Conflict and Community Devel-opment in Indonesia: Assessing the Impact of theKecamatan Development Program (Jakarta: WorldBank, 2006).

32. World Bank, “Afghanistan’s National Soli-darity Program: Overview & Challenges,” 2007,at web.worldbank.org, viewed 31 July 2007.

33. Samiullah Naseri, former National SolidarityProgram community facilitator, discussion withauthor, 11 June 2007.

34. “Going to Scale: Nature Conservation inTibet—Empowerment, Not Enforcement,” inTaylor, Taylor, and Taylor-Ide, op. cit. note 21.

35. Ibid.; recovery of fauna populations in RobertJ. Fleming, Dorji Tsering, and Liu Wulin, Acrossthe Tibetan Plateau: Ecosystems, Wildlife, and Con-servation (New York: W. W. Norton & Company,2007)

36. For more on the global development archi-tecture, see The Carter Center, Development Coop-eration Forum: Human Security and the Future of

Development Cooperation (Atlanta, GA: 2002);for trade policy, see Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globaliza-tion and Its Discontents (New York: W. W. Norton& Company, 2002); Kevin Watkins and PennyFowler, Rigged Rules and Double Standards: Trade,Globalization, and the Fight Against Poverty (Lon-don: Oxfam International, 2002); Paul Collier, TheBottom Billion (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2007).

37. For U.S. tied aid percentage, see data in theCenter for Global Development, 2007 Commit-ment to Development Index (Washington, DC:2007); for reduction in value of tied aid, seeDepartment for International Development, Back-ground Briefing: Untying Aid (London: Septem-ber 2001).

38. Deepa Narayan, Measuring Empowerment:Cross Disciplinary Perspectives (Washington, DC:World Bank, 2005).

39. Easterly, op. cit. note 7.

40. Collier, op. cit. note 36.

Chapter 13. Investing for Sustainability

1. Anthony Ling et al., Introducing GS SUS-TAIN (New York: Goldman Sachs Global Invest-ment Research, 22 June 2007); Anthony Ling etal., Introducing the Goldman Sachs Energy Envi-ronmental and Social Index (New York: GoldmanSachs Global Investment Research, 24 February2004); Goldman Sachs, Environmental Policy(New York: November 2005); Goldman Sachs,Goldman Sachs Environmental Policy: 2006 Year-End Report (New York).

2. Ling et al., Introducing GS SUSTAIN, op. cit.note 1; Marjorie Kelly, “Holy Grail Found,” Busi-ness Ethics, winter 2004.

3. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of ClimateChange (New York: Cambridge University Press,2007).

4. Thanks to David Myers of Lehigh University



Notes

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