Posted June 1997

Participation and grass-roots organizations in integrated range and livestock development, Pakistan: Part 1

Contents

1. Participation

• Introduction
• Constraints to participation
• Ambiguities in action
• Was there an alternative to participation?
• Towards step-by-step participation
• Conclusion

• Introduction
• Strengthening existing organizations and social values
• Multi-purpose organizations
• Multi-dimensional organizations
• Main lessons learned
• Conclusion

• Introduction
• From impoverishment to development
• Extension principles in a participatory approach
• Socio-economic initiatives
• Conclusion

Essential bibliographic references

Preface

The present paper discusses the principal aspects of participation and organization of participation, attempting to show how the findings of the research component have been translated into action through adoption of a development approach based on the participation of local communities. The first Part analyses some of the main issues arising from the focus on participation, pointing to constraints and potentials in the social, political and cultural context of Highland Balochistan. The second Part outlines steps taken to foster participation through the establishment of appropriate institutional framework at grass-roots level. The third and final Part presents the major socio-economic initiatives in the areas covered by the IRLDP, outlining the main features (principles, methodologies, etc.) of these initiatives and focussing on the role of the Socio-economic unit (SEU). This paper is not intended as an evaluation of the activities of the IRLDP as a whole, nor as a manual on 'participation and organization'. It simply aims to share some results of a two-year experience in community development in Highland Balochistan, in the belief that these may be useful for other field workers operating under similar conditions. It should be stressed that this paper reflects only the ideas and opinion of its author and not necessarily those of other staff of the project nor of the FAO/UNDP program in Balochistan.

Participation

Introduction

This Part analyses and discusses the major features of the 'participative development approach' adopted by the IRLDP and the general context in which it has been applied. Rather than evaluating the approach per se, this Part seeks to outline the main lessons which can be drawn from the IRLDP experience and, more particularly, from the work of the Socioeconomic unit (SEU).

Constraints to participation

Several constraints had to be overcome: on the one hand, those arising from the mentality prevailing among planners and development agents, and, on the other hand, those stemming from the cultural values and social patterns of the populations of the pilot areas.

The 'technocratic mentality'
Some of the problems encountered by the IRLDP arose from what could be called the 'technocratic mentality' of planners, decision-makers and development agents who, while advocating some forms of people's involvement in the development process, continue to think and act according to a perspective that posits people as 'passive targets' and not as 'active participants'. This technocratic mentality is firmly based on a number of attitudes and certainties. The following beliefs were encountered as the project unfolded in Balochistan:

• government and 'target' people share common interests, so that people's participation is simply a matter of collaboration by the community with project officials;

• social issues are either irrelevant or can be dealt with on the basis of a good dose of 'common sense';

• involvement of people is important only at the implementation stage, after the major technical parameters have been decided by the experts;

• a 'participatory approach' simply means that people have to be 'mobilized' quickly and easily in order to meet pre-defined goals and objectives, with no latitude for them to decide on other goals or objectives;

• rural communities are backward, primitive, and hostile to change, while their production methods are irrational and detrimental to the environment. Thus, people are viewed, on the one hand, as 'the problem' in development efforts and, on the other hand, as in need of technical direction since they 'do not know what is good for them';

• women are not important actors in productive activities, perceived as a predominantly male sphere, and thus may be conveniently ignored as participants in or beneficiaries of technical projects in this domain.

Local socio-cultural values and economic patterns
Other problems encountered by the IRLDP stemmed from specific social and cultural values of the populations in the pilot areas. These stress egalitarianism and the political autonomy of individual households, male honour, and women's seclusion, all of which have consequences for a participatory approach:

• traditional Pashtun society is characterized by personal individual ties within the framework of limited kinship-based groups. It is essentially within these groups that aid, cooperation, solidarity, alliances and obligations are regarded. Membership in these groups is based on birth and alliance;

• Pashtun communities are prone to schisms; each individual family head may pursue activities perceived in terms of his own family's interest, eschewing any form of solidarity;

• local social economy is broken down into independent household existences. There is a diffuse, local and familial control of production, decisions are self-centred and there is no wider organization nor centralization in the set-up of the productive process;

• rural communities in Balochistan are not and have never been homogenous. Today, after about two decades of significant economic, social and ecological changes, trends towards increasing social diversification and economic stratification are having a marked impact. The market-oriented economy has enhanced individualism and created new social and economic patterns, re-shaping existing solidarities;

• according to the ideology of honour prevailing among the Pashtun, every man is capable of defining himself, his rights and his property. But honour is a limited good, which can be acquired at others' expense; all men wish to avoid losing honour, but many men also attempt to increase their own honour and reduce others. Thus, honour is at the root of violence, expressing itself in individual and collective retaliation, revenge, and aggression. It is also at the root of behaviour patterns which reflect a fear of losing personal autonomy and independence and being directed by others. Such forms of behaviour produce factionalism and tensions between individuals and family groups, which threatens any form of cooperation and solidarity;

• control of women by men is expressed through the imposition of physical immobility and their restriction to the private domain (parda). The relative inactivity and invisibility of a man's womenfolk is considered as the most evident sign of social status. According to the principles of parda, women are not permitted formal education, are rarely seen outside their compounds, do not go to market places, do not play any substantial role in decision-making and the management of resources, and participate only in a limited way in agricultural activities.

Ambiguities in action

• the initial IRLDP project document itself reflects certain aspects of the technocratic mentality, particularly in its 'blueprint' approach which emphasises the introduction of a general technical package. It is pointed out, for instance, that 'technical innovations are available' as they have 'already been tried and tested elsewhere', and that a basic component of the overall strategy of the project consists of 'extension and implementation of new ideas and activities'. In other words, planners assumed that they already knew what was good for local populations;

• obviously, the very concept of an externally-induced and officially-driven approach based on popular participation presents many ambiguities. The Forest Department, to which the project is institutionally linked, had no previous experience of fostering participatory approaches to conservation, its work was (and is) mainly related to 'policing' rather than educating people in their sustainable use of their common lands. Thus, the department's general objective can be seen to be 'protect trees from people', rather than help people manage their environment;

• during the implementation of activities, extension methodologies adopted by some technical units working in the larger context of the IRLDP program reflect other aspects of the technocratic mentality. Reliance on the so-called 'progressive farmers' is a case. In fact, such farmers, usually influential, educated and/or wealthy people, generally were taught to accept project's technical packages more easily than other members of the community. By setting an example, they are supposed to create within the community a 'trickle-down' process, making change possible. However, this method is generally criticised by promoters of popular participation since it does not create the conditions for a collective take-off. Furthermore, the approach supposes that the community is homogenous and that situations of individual farmers are comparable. To the contrary, results of socio-economic studies (including those of the SEU in the pilot areas) clearly show that communities are extremely diversified and stratified. One category of people cannot therefore be assumed to represent the views and aspirations of the community as a whole, and responses of some individuals cannot be interpreted as those of other members of the community. In a segmentary society like that of Pashtun, messages do not flow easily from one segment to another;

• the 'technocratic mentality' was in one sense a response to the political and economic objectives which exerted strong pressure on the IRLDP. On the one hand, the government was demanding rapid achievement of ambitious physical targets. On the other hand, donor agencies were likely to evaluate the efficiency of the project according to the volume of funds quickly disbursed. Yet, the participatory approach adopted by the IRLDP did not involve, at least at the beginning, any large sums of money and did not achieve in the immediate future any large physical targets. Instead, it focussed on promoting new patterns of behaviour and attitudes. As it was, this 'gap' between expectations and realities was the source of misunderstanding;

• in spite of the initial, theoretical choice of participation as an overall strategy and guiding principle, some of the projects of the integrated program have adopted contradictory approaches, creating confusion among the populations in the pilot areas. For instance, the Watershed Management Project, working in one of the pilot areas of the IRLDP to build dams and dig contour trenches, used a 'food-for-work' approach which goes against the spirit of a participatory approach;

• the first attempts to start socio-economic initiatives in the pilot areas soon confirmed the independent nature of household units, constituted so as to operate parallel to each other and rarely cooperating during productive processes;

• in the course of its work, the IRLDP soon realized that the technocratic mentality was so widespread that it had created, at the level of the rural communities themselves, a self-depreciatory attitude: the 'tell-us-what-to-do' mentality, genuine or not, is the direct consequence of decades of development initiatives based on a technocratic mentality.

Was there an alternative to participation?

• a top-down approach, which, ignoring participation, would not have pretended to involve people, but would simply have aimed at achieving some immediate and concrete results (in terms of provision of technical packages, creation of infrastructures, etc.). In this approach (which is that of the initial project document), the IRLDP would have simply emphasized production factors or environmental concerns, without too many considerations for socio-economic issues;

• a mixed approach, which would have used certain tools and techniques of popular participation, but only for the ulterior purpose of serving pre-defined official political and economic goals. This approach, adopting 'participatory jargon' and using 'participatory roles' (such as recruitment of group promoters or social organizers), but not embracing the dynamics of participation, could be defined a 'manipulative' approach aimed at influencing skilfully (and unfairly) local communities, while pursuing a classic top-down approach;

• an incremental approach, which would have accepted in haphazard, unsystematic and ad hoc basis, implementation of unplanned activities as they were raised (requested by the communities or demanded by the government);

• a step-by-step, pragmatic participatory approach which, taking into consideration all the difficulties of fostering popular participation, would have tried to establish the most favourable conditions to increase the involvement of communities in the development process, eventually leading to the emergence of a fully integrated approach based on popular participation.

Towards step-by-step participation

In this pragmatic approach, the main elements upon which participation is based were still to be considered valid. The experience of other institutions operating in Balochistan (especially the Balochistan Rural Support Programme, BRSP) also proved that, in spite of failures and limitations, some forms of popular participation were possible. The failure of numerous top-down development initiatives in the past, especially those focussing on service delivery and on the management of local resources, had contributed to the widespread interest in the participatory approach as an alternative.

The political context also seemed favourable, at least on paper. Official documents (such as the 7th Five Year Plan, 1988-1993, and the plan of the 'National Commission on Agriculture, 1988) reinforced this option, stressing the necessity of directly involving local populations in the development process, explicitly recommending the establishment of 'Community-based Management Systems'. Another recent document (the 'Concept Eighth Five Year Plan 1993-1998', of the Planning and Development Department, 1995) also emphasises the importance of involving 'owners of private lands in planning and decision making through a chain of forestry committees', stressing the necessity of adopting 'a participatory approach' and securing 'participation and cooperation of landowners, livestock owners, graziers and villagers in conservation and management of watersheds'.

Elements of the participatory approach
In its pragmatic, step-by-step approach the SEU has attempted to:

• set up a favourable context allowing the populations to express their views and opinions;

• allow the different social categories of a community to meet and discuss problems;

• establish a dialogue between project staff and the community as equal partners;

• contribute to changing attitudes of development agents, through publications and organization of workshops and training courses

Realistic expectations
As Uphoff points out (1985:376), overly enthusiastic and uncritical advocates of participation have impeded its extension as much as have its adversaries. The pragmatic approach adopted by the SEU was based on a realistic assessment of the constraints imposed both by the prevailing technocratic mentality and by characteristic social values and patterns of behaviours.

In this way, it also steered clear of an alternative approach which sees participation only in the limits of the achievement of material objectives, and not as a comprehensive process of social change.

A 'learning' process
If local participation were to be considered as an essential element of development, the project had to adopt a 'learning process' in which changes may be incorporated into the initial plan and put into practice. It was clear, for instance, that:

• local participation could be obtained only by understanding how local community is organized, how its members inter-react, how collective decisions are made, what the main strategies for production and survival are, what processes of impoverishment are at work, etc. The choice of participation led the project to stress the necessity of a strong socio-economic research component to enlarge the knowledge base which in Balochistan appeared to be extremely weak. The results of this research were to be used in the establishment of development initiatives and, vice versa, the results of the first initiatives were to affect socio-economic research;

• the validity of local views must be accepted, and local aspirations, needs, points of view, local know-how, technical strategies and methods should also be incorporated into project design. This has progressively changed the project's orientation, leading to greater stress on general socio-economic initiatives rather than those related to rangeland improvement and management, since local populations see more immediate value in the first;

• local involvement may take place only when communication channels are appropriate, and when development institutions or projects are able to communicate with the communities about the techniques to be used, and vice versa. This principle has led the IRLDP to set-up a clear and flexible institutional framework, aimed at facilitating decision making and communication processes among members of the communities as well as between the communities and the project staff.

In the light of its pragmatic approach, the critical issue for the project appeared to be not 'from where' the initiative comes, but 'whether' it actually promotes locally felt needs, uses available technology, fosters collective entrepreneurship and enhances sustainable solutions.

In participation, project staff and members of the community are equal and both have to be active. As we will see in the following Part of this report, some initiatives came 'from the community', others 'from the project staff'. What matters is that they have taken place in the context of a new partnership between development agents and local populations.

Conclusion

The project was thus supposed to provide a participatory organizational structure at the local level capable of managing interventions designed to raise the productivity of agriculture and livestock and to achieve increased welfare. The next Part will discuss the main issues related to this organization.

To Part 2: Organization of participation