The missing piece in the development puzzle

Sam Chimbuya and Rahel OtienoKhanya-African Institute for

Community Driven Development

Order of presentation

• What is development?• What is SLA in the context of develoment?• How the SL Framework helps in

understanding development process;• What is Community Driven Development?• Main actors in CDD• The main findings of the seminar in South

Africa• The missing piece in CDD

What is Development

• Development is a process that increases choices (for communities) to improve people’s wellbeing in terms of the lives that people have a reason to value (Cavaje, 2000; Emmerij, 1997).

• Development involves change and improvement due to a net increase in assets (human, physical, financial, social and natural) bringing about a qualitative and quantitative improvement in the living standards of people.

In the Development Context..

A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base”

(Carney,1998)

The Pentagon of assets• Assets are key elements of development

Assets

Human

Natural

FinancialPhysical

Social

Policies, institutions, processes

Increasing opportunitiesImpact on livelihoods

influenceinfluence

Vulnerability to stresses and shocks

Natural

Human

FinancialPhysical

Social

Community assets

Opport-unities

Livelihood strategies chosen

Impact on vulnerability

Implementation

Livelihood outcomes desired

Macro

Meso

Micro

Formal, informal External environmentImpact on institutions

The SL framework helps us to …

• structure and analyse the development situation of the communities

• Analyse the impact of policies institutions and services are affecting community development ;

• provide a holistic overview of how different elements and key players in development are positioned to give effect to development

What is CDD?

• Community-driven development describes the process that ensures communities have a voice and a choice to achieve sustainable livelihoods they have a reason to value.

• Best CDD happens where community are self organizing and taking charge of own development

When CDD is happening we see

• Empowered communities

• Strengthened local governments

• Communities holding government accountable;

• Capacity to support strengthened at the different levels of governance

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In empowered communities we see

2 A responsive, active and accessible network of local service providers (community-based, private sector or government)• eg HBC workers, paravets, voluntary savings and loan groups

1 People active and involved in managing their own development (claiming their rights and exercising their responsibilities) (and what about poor people)?• eg Community-based planning, School Gov Bodies, CPFs

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When local governments are strengthened we see that..

3 At local government level services facilitated, provided or promoted effectively and responsively, coordinated and held accountable

4 The province/region supportive and supervising local gov

The main actors in development

• These are communities and us

Size of the assets we have access to

Perception by us of assets that communities have access to

Perception by them of assets

they have access to We are the professionals, teachers

Academia, politicians, leaders,Development practitioners, NGOs

Uneasy relationship

WE…• are well educated and highly knowledgeable;• Live in urban areas away from communities;• Not familiar with local cultures and practices;• Are impatient with rural people; • Uneasy about spending time in the rural areas with communities; Do

not trust the communities with large sums of money;• Pretend we can bring solutions to the village;• Always very scientific in our approach;• Meet the communities as superior to community members so sit in high

chairs;• Suspicious of community members so do not eat with them;• Regard them illiterate so we want to do things for them;• Have access to money, networks and infrastructure.

POWER RELATIONS BEGIN TO PLAY OUT

Key findings from the Seminar Malawi

• They see support for CDD and SLA only in the context of decentralization since services are closer to people.

• However they found that government personnel at that level lacked understanding of how to support communities in CDD processes;

• Communities built social capital in CBO, Village Natural Resources Management committees and village forestry committees to gain access.

• Communities had access to natural forestry products, water from dam and fish;

• Membership was uneven in community so benefits did not accrues to majority of people;

• The Forestry Department was a powerful than the CBO so relationship was unequal.

Key findings from the SeminarMexico

• CDD was seen in the context of community empowerment process;• World bank personnel spend time with communities and government

people learning what worked;• Spending time with both government and communities enable

opportunities to build social capital which was sustainable for a long time

• CDD was see as a co-production phenomenon;• Roles of main actors were well defined;• Projects were designed in such a way that implementation was by the

communities; The main incentive was the money that was provided for community projects,; communities mobilized own resources

Key findings from the SeminarZimbabwe

• CDD and SLA is accepted at national as well as at community level but there are weak instructional frameworks to effectively support CDD;

• There is uneven facilitation skills at all level to support CDD and SLA at national even though accepted;

• There are multiplicity of approaches by NGO;• There are good case studies where communities

and government worked in a good partnership and produced good results;

• Little integration of CDD with other programmes;• Change of mindset seen as key at all levels.

Key findings from the Seminar South Africa…

• CDD was see as building capacity at national and provincial level

• IDP seen as key to CDD;• Government seen as paying lip service to CDD and

community empowerment;• There is lack of trust between government and the

people;• Communities largely not engaged with government

and so sit and wait for government to provide;• National people not learnin from on going good and

bad processes

Conclusion• Communities need to be seen as equal partners in development

processes so you talk, think, walk and sense the issues together;• A successful CDD is a co-production phenomenon of communities and

development practitioners so there is co-sensing and co-creation of solutions;

• Social capital/assets are an important element in sustainable CDD processes; question if how do you harness social capital resident in communities to make them work for development processes

• Financial incentives give reason for all concerned to participate effectively as seen in the Mexico example;

• We the development practitioners are the missing piece in the puzzle of development as we often withhold our assets which are critical to CDD processes.

• CDD processes take time to seen results;