Lessons learned

Topic:	Participation: a tool for sustainable territorial development
Background document providing these lessons learned:	Territorial Development Meeting, 8 June 2007 (FAO Headquarters, Rome). See Meeting Agenda
FAO Resource Persons:	Groppo, Paolo (NRLA) Rossi, Massimo (NRLA) Cenerini, Carolina (NRCB)
FAO Division:	Land and Water Division (NRL) Environment, Climate Change and Bioenergy Division (NRC)
Applied Participatory Approaches:	Participatory Negotiatied Territorial Development (PNTD) Regionalization and Differentiation - Information, Training and Organization (RED-IFO) Participatory Land Use Development (PLUD) Audiovisual Pedagogy methodology (PAV)

During the last years the need to focus on stimulating and supporting dialogue within a territory has been highlighted. Therefore territory is more and more conceived as an arena for dialogue and negotiation. Social dialogue, whether in the form of a conflict or an agreement on territorial development projects, is essential to construct the social fabric of a territory, to elaborate synergies within the territorial system and to recognize all actors as promoters of territorial development, integrating the diversity of their interests and strategies.

The different and sometimes conflicting values, visions and interests related to the use and management of the land and other natural resources coexist in a given territory and have to be oriented towards a common ground as a basis for the design of territorial development strategies. Negotiation is the means to conduct this dialogue towards an agreement. With the term negotiation we do not only refer to the management of conflictive situations but to any process of searching through dialogue a way to harmonize the diversity of interests.

If territorial development is perceived as the outcome of a negotiated process involving the local community, effective actors’ participation becomes an essential prerequisite for improving their livelihoods. Promoting a negotiated and concerted vision of territorial development demands a discussion among involved actors, in order to understand feasible interventions and the ways for their realization. The main challenges for territorial development consist in reducing power asymmetries, stimulating mutual trust between local actors, supporting circulation and access to information, promoting social equity and enabling democratic decision making processes. In order to face these challenges, to encourage broad participation and to reinforce horizontal and vertical trust, it is essential to stimulate the creation of alliances among agencies of cooperation, governmental institutions, civil society and their representatives – farmers’ organizations, research institutes, trade unions, etc.

A Meeting was organized on 8th June 2007 in FAO, in order to share field experiences and methodological concerns about the issue of Territorial Development. The meeting was chaired by Land Tenure and Management Unit (NRLA) and saw the participation of more than 35 participants from different FAO units. Participatory and bottom-up approaches were highlighted as the key concern for effective territorial development initiatives. Past and ongoing experiences were analyzed, in order to draw some lessons which will serve as guidelines about how to implement an inclusive dialogue”.

Lessons learned n. 1: Equity

Territorial development aims at decreasing inequalities, fostering equal distribution of resources of opportunities. However FAO past and current experiences often neglected equity concerns.

In Ghana an assessment was made by FAO in 2006 in relation to the Community Based Rural Development project (CBRDP) experience. It was observed that CBRDP uses a limited level of triangulation, because the range of participatory tools was very limited and because the identification of categories of local population was insufficient. In that case, the adoption of the following tools would have been recommended: historical diagnosis, semi-structured interviews, stakeholder analysis, focus groups. Furthermore, CBRDP did not categorize the population into target groups, according to agreed clear criteria (age, gender, income). In Senegal, where different living conditions were observed in the Regions, many programs have been implemented homogeneously (without differentiation of target areas) in all regions. This resulted in an increased inequality between the richest and the poorest regions. Again in Senegal another case of growing inequalities was observed, due to the promotion of territorial development initiatives neglecting the consideration of territorial segmentation as a pre-requisite for intervention planning. An FAO methodology called “Regionalization and Differentiation - Information, Training and Organization (RED-IFO)”, was used in 2005 to analyze the relationship between participation and decentralization processes in the country. The analysis revealed that, because of the prevailing asymmetry at organizational levels in rural areas, a misappropriation of power and resources transferred by the decentralization process by stronger actors have took place.

Thus, different target groups and regions should be identified at the initial stage of the project, which is expected to carefully map the expected impacts on each group and region, and to integrate adequate corrective actions in the activity plan, according to equity goals.

Lessons learned n. 2: Territory

Participatory Land Use Development (PLUD) was applied in the municipalities of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the project Inventory of the post-War situation of land resources in Bosnia and Herzegovina (GCP/BIH/002/ITA). The following phases were implemented: Economic-Ecological Zoning, identification of skills of Land Use Development Practitioners (patience, creativity, flexibility, communication abilities, technical skills), sharing a Territorial Pact, identification of a development portfolio consisting of a list of project ideas, formulation and implementation of projects using the Logical Framework Approach and participatory monitoring and evaluation.

Gračanica municipality, located in north-eastern Bosnia, is one of the ten municipalities where the PLUD is currently being implemented. This municipality, which defined rural development as one of its strategic orientations, is becoming a unique municipality in the Federation entity of BIH. Namely, in addition to the digital databases featuring data on land-resources, socio-economic resources and a farming system analysis available at completion of the PLUD process, the municipality is soon to carry out a census of agricultural households that will further complement the databases and will allow this municipality to make wise planning decisions to meet its strategic orientation of rural development. “For better planning of the use of natural resources as well as the identification of specific regions that have great potential for agriculture, a good database and various thematic maps are invaluable,“ Nermina Trutović, local PLUD coordinator, said. “The data on natural resources and agricultural households that are currently available are, as in many other municipalities, very sparse and old.”

Lessons learned n.3: Communication

Territorial development is driven by the quality of communication among local stakeholders. In particular, communication is directly related to dialogue and mediation, which play a crucial role for successful participatory initiatives. During the last years, the role of communication has undergone a dramatic change from a one-way, top-down transfer of messages by technicians to farmers, to a social process which starts with farmers and brings together both groups in a two-way sharing of information among communication equals. This approach, known as participatory communication, highlights the importance of cultural identity, concerted action and dialogue, local knowledge and stakeholder participation at all levels: international, local and individual.

The use of communication processes helps rural people to exchange experiences, find common ground for collaboration and actively participate in and manage agricultural and rural development activities.

In Bolivia the utilization of the Audiovisual Pedagogy (PAV) methodology, which is a communication methodology that aims to analyze and integrate traditional farmers knowledge with modern scientific knowledge, has proved successful: it has been applied in the past years by the Project Communication for Development in Latin America (GCP/RLA/114/ITA) and by the Project GCP/BOL/034/ITA. Intensive Training Audiovisual Workshops were organized by Guaranì Training Units and by the Training and Communication Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management. Capacities of local municipalities were reinforced on territorial development planning and natural resources management. Decentralization policies and strengthened local organizations facilitated the implementation of participatory Forestry and Water Management Plans.

Lessons learned n. 4: Flexibility

Territorial Development initiatives should be based on a systemic vision of the territory (two dimensions: multi-sectoral and holistic) which offers an accurate view of its functioning (dynamics, flows, inter-territorial relations, boundaries) and enables vertical and horizontal integration between territorial scales (local, subregional, national, international) and levels (e.g. geographic, socio-economic, administrative). Furthermore, it allows focusing on the assets of the territory (including the cultural and natural heritage), its potentialities and constraints. Such a vision requires an ad hoc and flexible approach, based on a full understanding of the territorial assets and its specific dynamics, which cannot be ensured by a preset methodology.

PNTD Principles

In this context it is worth mentioning the PNTD approach that points out the various moments which compose the territorial negotiation process, underlining the main principles that can be considered the basis of all development actions:

Actor based: Recognition of the heterogeneity of the actors’ interests and visions of the territory.

Territorial based: Based on the territories as spatial units of analysis, shaped by the social and historical relations between the actors and the territory.

Dynamic: Understanding of and learning from the complexity of a changing environment to support positive patterns of change and help mitigate negative patterns.

Systemic: Assumption of the complexity of a territorial context and the interdependencies within and between territories.

Multi-sectoral: Integration of the environmental, social, economic, political, cultural dimensions of the actors’ visions of the territory.

Multi-level: Integration of different territorial levels and scales in the governance system.

Participatory and negotiated: Notion of the territory as a negotiation arena to strengthen dialogue and mutual trust, and increase bargaining power.

Modest: Recognition of the usefulness of different disciplines, methods and tools; prioritizing areas of intervention and problems; identification of modest territorial projects (elements: one purpose, few results, few indicators).

These principles have been declined in different ways according to countries specificities and actors points of view. The need to promote effective inclusiveness of different actors in the elaboration and implementation of projects, policies and programs is a priority. The process enacted by the negotiation and dialogue mechanism is a fundamental component of the final outcome: it allows the development of new synergies within a territory by taking into account linkages among all actors involved.