17 Decentralized rural development: The FARM Programme experience, Bishan Singh, Malaysia
One strategic option for decentralized rural development is to build the capacity of self help organizations to enable them to enhance the ability of rural communities to assess their resources, needs and potential so that they can plan and manage their own development themselves and in collaboration with others. Such a decentralized approach is neither a top down approach to development, nor is it a bottom up approach. It is an interactive approach in which all stakeholders are involved. The difference is that the primary stakeholder, that is the community assumes the primary responsibility for all decisions and action. This was the strategic premise of the Farm Programme.
Farmer-centered Agricultural Resource Management (FARM) is a regional programme. Eight Asian countries participate: China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam. Funded by UNDP and executed by FAO, it was conceived as a contribution to Agenda 21, the Action Plan of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in 1992. The programme gives expression to a shift in the development paradigm towards a farmer-centered model of integrated participatory development in agriculture. The emphasis is on community empowerment and on creating an enabling environment for farm household resource management decisions. The aim is to promote sustainable agriculture, drawing on the indigenous knowledge, creativity and resources of rural people.
The paradigm shift also involves another change in focus: from targeting women as beneficiaries towards improving gender equity with the greater participation of women in the development process. Women are to be seen as partners in the decision-making process at all levels - household, farm and community. Women must be recognized as farmers with the same responsibilities, aptitudes and skills as men. They belong to the mainstream development process, and should not be marginalized and made invisible, as is still the situation now in many farming communities.
In addition, the programme focuses on rainfed areas. Most development aid and government support has gone in the past to irrigated agriculture: the consequence has been the neglect of rainfed areas. The programme addresses this situation thus helping to improve natural resource management, sustainable agriculture, food security and poverty alleviation. A new consensus is emerging that resource degradation, poverty and food security are closely associated, particularly in fragile rainfed ecosystems. Farm gives expression to the feeling that these issues need to be tackled together in a holistic manner.
The inclusion of these new dimensions and aspirations in the Programme clearly calls for a paradigm shift in the agricultural development approach. The paradigm shift from the old approach to the new one is conceptualized in the matrix below.
The Participatory Assessment and Planning (PAP) exercise is the principle tool adopted by the Farm Programme to bring farm communities to the centre of decision-making. The aim is to help them to manage their natural resources sustainably in carrying out their agricultural and livelihood practices. As the name suggests, the exercise has three principle aspects. The first is participation. It means opening up space and opportunity to facilitate stakeholders in working together for mutual benefit. The second aspect is assessment. The stakeholders identify opportunities, problems and constraints in their environment and in their community. They collect information, analyze such information and assess the situation. The third aspect is planning. Good planning is made possible if participation is genuine and the assessment is accurate.
|
Earlier Agricultural Development Approach |
FARM Development Approach |
|
Priority to irrigated areas |
Priority to rainfed areas |
|
Increased level of investment in physical capital |
Greater investment in human resources and capacity
building |
|
Technology driven |
People's participation oriented |
|
Intensive short-run resource use |
Long-term sustainable resource use |
|
Priority to cash crops |
Priority to food security |
|
Sectorial and single-disciplinary approach |
Multi-sectorial and multi-disciplinary systems
approach |
|
Top-down assistance approach, with centralized decision and
control |
Self-reliance approach, with community decision and
control |
|
Marginalized, subservient and stereotyped role of
women |
Gender equity and role of women as partners in all
aspects |
|
Segmented and fragmented approach |
Integrated and networking approach |
The assessments lead to the identification of possible solutions to problems and possible opportunities for potential. Such decisions provide excellent inputs to planning. What is planned leads to implementation. Implementation needs to be monitored for efficiency and evaluated to determine the efficacy of implementation. Finally the process is reviewed and reflected upon as part of the learning experience, before beginning the second cycle.
Key development issues of the Farm Programme
To understand the conceptual framework of the PAP process, it is important to analyze the key development issues that the Farm Programme was designed to address. These issues can be summarized as follows:
The key stakeholders in the Farm Programme
The second important aspect necessary to better understand the conceptual framework is the analysis of the stakeholders involved in the Programme. For ease of analysis and understanding the stakeholders involved in the Programme are divided into three categories, namely: 1) the primary stakeholders; the farm households involved in the Programme. Their participation, decisions and development are going to have great impact not only on their own lives but help catalyze changes in policies and practices that will affect the lives of other farm communities in the long run; 2) the secondary or intermediary stakeholders; the government support agencies, NGOs and private sector organizations working in the community. They are in the community and work with the community. Any development planning initiated without their involvement can cause conflict and tension in the community, and is invariably futile; and 3) the tertiary stakeholders; the policy makers, bureaucrats and donor agencies. They are mandated to work and improve the quality of life of the rural poor. Their involvement is essential to make the links to create a conducive policy framework that supports the kind of development aspired to by the people. The poor need to be enabled to decide what is good for them or the government will.
Institutional arrangements
Farm created the institutional arrangement of the Country Coordinating Committee (CCC), its national implementing mechanism. CCC selects one or two field sites for innovation, application, learning, improvement and demonstration through a gender sensitive participatory process of a specific community development approach. Other necessary institutional arrangements such as the Site Working Group (SWG), the Village Working Group (VWG) and the Farmers Working Group (FWG) are established for their respective purposes. Under these institutional arrangements, the support institutions are brought into a multi-disciplinary team to work with the farm community in an interactive partnership mode. This institutional arrangement provides the foundation that enables the PAP process to be successfully applied at the community level. This understanding of the institutional arrangements is necessary for a PAP trainer.
Field sites as the "doing and learning" nodes
To manage the "doing and learning" process at the field site, a Site Working Group (SWG) is formed there. The SWG includes local NGOs, community based organizations and farmer representatives in addition to technical specialists from government agencies, and local government representatives. SWG mechanism induces at the local level a collabourative, multi-sectorial and multi-disciplinary approach to development. This arrangement creates an interactive partnership-working mode that responds to local conditions and to farmers' needs. This is the unique institutional arrangement in the FARM Programme that transforms the "delivery mechanism" into a "facilitating mechanism". In this transformation of roles, the support services are no longer "deliverers" of service. They become "facilitators" of the development process with the farm households in the centre of action. Again understanding this strategic change in roles is essential for the PAP trainer.
The five steps of the PAP process
The PAP is a tool to enable a farm community or a group, through a gender sensitive participatory approach to: 1) map the natural resources available to the community and assess the problems and constraints in their use and sustainability; 2) assess the social situation and the community needs, think through the solutions and determine actions that will enable them to eventually meet their needs; 3) collectively acquire or develop a vision for the community, that is, the state they would like to see their community to be in after the next three to five years; 4) collectively develop a community plan to resolve problems and improve their livelihood; and 5) develop an implementation strategy with the necessary participatory monitoring and evaluation plan.
The community development plan
The output of the PAP exercise is a community development plan. The exercise is in essence a community assessment, planning and management tool for its development initiated by the people, the people. To keep the process within the capacity of the community, it is recommended that the planning process focus on: 1) the conservation and regeneration of natural resources; 2) agricultural practices and production techniques; 3) strengthening community's institutional and management capabilities; 4) improving the basic amenities and physical infrastructure; 5) initiating enterprise and financial management practices including operating a community credit facility to support the capital needs of the community to improve and add value to their production.
The community planning process must be contextualized within a sustainable framework to ensure that the development initiated is socially just (especially for women), ecologically sustainable to ensure non-depletion of agricultural resources, economically viable for cost effective management and sensitive to local culture, norms and religious beliefs.
The community development plan will include an implementation plan with a participatory monitoring and evaluation plan. The monitoring and evaluation plan is to be kept as simple as possible. To many communities, this may be a new concept and experience. With continued practice and use, their knowledge and skill in developing monitoring and evaluation indicators will improve and so will their ability to monitor and evaluate their performance. It does not need to cover all aspects and it must not exclude other aspects which the community thinks are necessary, such as meeting the cultural and religious needs of the community. The community development plan should be as holistic as possible. It must, however, be based on community needs as perceived and decided by the community.
Although the Farm Programme's major concern is natural resource management and sustainable agriculture in rainfed areas, it must not make the mistake of inducing the community to respond to its needs, but rather the programme must allow the community to resolve their own needs as they prioritize them. Where the needs correspond with natural resource management, active participation will be pursued by the programme. At the same time the community will be stimulated to meet their other needs as identified by them through their own initiative and resources.
Key considerations for a successful plan
Facilitating a community to develop their community development plan and to ensure that the plan is successfully implemented requires two important considerations:
Institutional arrangements
The Farm Programme finds expression in organizational and institutional arrangements at four levels:
(1) The farm household level. Here the farmers are organized into Farmers' Working Groups (FWG). Here the elected leader of farmers is responsible for coordinating activities.This is a breakthrough in working arrangements. It brings the primary stakeholders (the farm households), the secondary stakeholders (the extension services and NGOs) and the tertiary stakeholders (the relevant government ministries and NGOs) together into a partnership working relationship facilitating and bringing the farm household to the centre of decision-making. Thus the support services can work in an interactive partnership mode "with" (and not "for") the community. The farm households not only make the decisions; they also assume responsibility for their development. This is in essence the farmer-centered agricultural resource management approach.(2) The village level. Here the farmers are represented through their leadership in a Village Working Group (VWG). Again, the elected farmer leader at this level is responsible for coordinating activities. At both levels, equal participation of women is the operating principle.
(3) The community level. Here the government extension services, local government and NGOs working in the village are brought together with farmer leaders into a Site Working Group (SWG). The SWG is entrusted with the overall responsibility of facilitating village development. An individual, the SWG is given the specific role of coordinating the support.
(4) The national level. Here, the Country Coordinating Committee (CCC) composed of relevant government ministries and NGOs come together to provide guidance and reflect the work at the community level for promoting a conducive policy environment at national level.
The understanding and the internalization of this conceptual framework are a prerequisite for all PAP trainers and SWG members in order to facilitate a farmer-centered sustainable agricultural development.
Conclusion
The PAP process undoubtedly is one effective approach to bring about decentralized rural development. In addition, the PAP is an excellent tool for such a purpose. The assessment of the Evaluation Mission of the FARM Programme mounted by UNDP of the PAP approach was that, "Farmers from all villages irrespective of country, ethnic group, gender etc., stated that this was the most valuable skill imparted to them by the FARM programme. Communities emphasized that they had never before worked all together to assess their natural resources and decide on a joint strategy for their future management. Previously households had tended to work independently and only occasionally cooperated over farming issues. Now, group planning has helped to resolve community conflicts over agricultural issues. What is particularly new for farmers is the exercise of developing a mental picture, a VISION and then mapping their resources and designing new strategies for their management.
