Posted June 1997

Participation and grass-roots organizations in integrated range and livestock development, Pakistan: Part 2

Organization of participation

Introduction

For the IRLDP, organizing people is an activity aimed at establishing among the members of the communities of the pilot areas specific institutional, managerial and administrative linkages which will allow them to act together to fulfil their needs.

Through appropriate organizations, rural populations would be in a better position to release their energies, building up group skills to gain greater access and control over land and productive resources. This Part discusses some elements arising from the organization of participation. Issues addressed include organizing for what, organization of whom, how to organize. Conclusions are drawn from the main lessons of the SEU experience in organizing people in the pilot areas.

Building on existing organizations and social values

• the socioeconomic studies had identified the main features of the notion of community among Pashtun populations. In the pilot areas, people appeared to be integrated both in kinship-based groupings and in larger neighbouring entities. These complex socio-territorial units were considered by the project as the most appropriate units for development interventions. From this perspective, organizing did not mean attempting to establish order out of 'social chaos', but rather entailed acknowledging and strengthening existing linkages between persons and groups of persons;

• the general principle was, however, to introduce into existing organizations new behaviours and attitudes. Traditional socio-territorial units appeared to be coherent only in certain spheres of social life and united only in cases of external danger and threats. These units were generally weakened by daily internal tensions and disputes between family lineages, and crippled by excessive individualism and trends towards autonomy.

Social values and participation
Two social values of the Pashtun were considered as particularly important by the project in its attempt to link the participatory approach to local culture: the pashtunwali and the jerga system:

• being a Pashtun means essentially behaving according to the Pashtun system of values, called pashtunwali, the social code of morality and honour, which is perhaps the most formal code known among Middle Eastern tribal groups (Lindholm, 1982:210). Pashtunwali is comprised of the total sum of values and social norms which determine the way of life peculiar to the Pashtun (Steul, quoted in Grima 1993:3). It is a concept which covers all kinds of public behaviour and includes everything a Pashtun should or should not do, with rigid behavioural requirements. According to the words of an elder in one the IRLDP pilot areas, pashtunwali is 'whatever is wise and good, whatever is outstanding and appreciable'. The notion of pashtunwali serves as an ideological model, which is particularly important in small communities, as well as in poor rural communities, where food security and subsistence are more important than accumulation of surplus. It is a stringent code, a tough code for tough men, living tough lives (Dupree, 1972:127);

• in Pashtun communities, councils of elders (called jerga) have always played an important role, regulating many aspects of community life according to precise rules and protocols. A jerga may be defined as an assembly or council, regulating life at all levels requiring community attention within the tribal society. The jergas may operate at the level of a tribe or a clan as well as of a village or a cluster of homogenous villages. Decisions are based on a combination of Islamic law and Pashtun custom (Ahmed, 1980:91), but the essential role of the jerga is the interpretation and adaptation of the prescriptions of the pashtunwali. The jerga expresses the cultural emphasis on egalitarianism and political autonomy (Barth, 1965:120). In fact, the basic assumption underlying the jerga system is that individuals and groups of individuals are basically equal and, more precisely, that all adult males (called spin jire or white beards) have an equal right to be heard. The jerga system has played a crucial role in handling democratically potential shifts towards anarchy (Planhol, 1993:612), in a society where people believe that individuals stand alone independent of the world and that every man stands in opposition to his nearest neighbour (Lindholm, 1983:114).

Many elements of the pashtunwali may constitute the basis upon which the entire process of participation can build, while others may pose particular problems. In its strong points, pashtunwali stresses the role of hospitality (melmastaya), while participation stresses that of interdependence. Pashtunwali emphasizes the importance of exchange (badal), participation the importance of solidarity. Pashtunwali is built upon individual honour (nang), participation stresses self-determination and the capacity of each individual to be involved in the development process. However, pashtunwali reveals some weaknesses. It is only in opposition to outsiders that people may realize their unity or the effectiveness of the social code linking them, and act together to preserve the honour of their lineage and their village. Without external threats, it is difficult to mobilize cooperation within the community, because this could destabilize existing equilibria and balances in terms of power. Yet, participative development needs a constant popular mobilization in all aspects of social and economic life.

Participation is based, as the jerga system, on the ideal of equality, and equality is considered as the core of the Pashtun culture and a fundamental feature of Pashtun tribal structure and organization (Ahmed, 1986). The sense of egalitarianism accompanies a strong sense of community. However, while the jerga system expresses a certain equality among people with equal status, it also indicates a certain vertical inequality among people with different status (such as men/women, or elders/youths). Women, for instance, do not participate in jergas and there are no specific councils for them. The jerga system has also traditionally dealt mostly with civil and criminal cases (murder, adultery, theft, matrimonial and land disputes), but has never acted as a body for social progress and welfare, and has never dealt with issues related to the protection and management of the natural environment. Jergas are activated only when there is a need, and do not occur with periodicity. Finally, recent social, political and economic changes have deeply weakened the role of the jergas in Balochistan. Only rudimentary forms of jerga still operate in cases aimed at the settlement of local village disputes.

The challenge faced by the project was therefore twofold:

• to base its approach to participation on Pashtun social and cultural values, and institutions;

• to make them a more effective means of achieving development objectives. Insecurity, poverty and destitution were to be considered as the real dangers faced by the community in the new social and political environment.

Multipurpose organizations

However, this restricted view of organization appeared unrealistic and opposed to the participatory approach. The project had to enlarge the scope of these organizations, attempting to establish multipurpose institutions capable of providing a framework within which a variety of sectoral interventions (mainly linked to livestock and agriculture productivity, but also to social welfare and identified through participatory mechanisms), may be coordinated and improved. From this revised perspective, the SEU was called upon to play an increasingly important role.

Roles of the organizations
Although an evaluation of the performances of the IRLDP organizations is premature after only one and a half years of operation, it may be said that they were efficient in what they were called upon to do. They constituted an essential means of development, providing the institutional nucleus for a participatory development framework:

• from an ecological point of view, these organizations have provided the necessary conditions for the initiation of a flexible, effective and sustainable system of natural resource management on a territorial basis which takes into account the particular characteristics of ecological variability. For example, the creation of resting areas (called pargora) within the territory controlled by a village or several villages (though problematic in certain aspects) do allow the communities to better fulfil their responsibilities in the protection of common resources;

• from a social perspective, these organizations have favoured the identification and implementation of a relatively large spectrum of initiatives aimed at satisfying the basic needs of local communities. Initiatives have stressed the establishment of an effective and appropriate system of provision of services to rural populations. These have ranged from provision and storage of water for human beings and adult education to creation of village infrastructures, provision of basic equipment, etc;

• from an economic point of view, the grassroots organizations established by the IRLDP in the pilot areas have also implemented productivity-raising technical packages, as well as activities aimed at generating income and improving local skills, in an approach stressing local capacity building. Grassroots organizations have also initiated a process of activating the financial contributions of local producers, promoting the collective interest of their members and coordinating their obligations. The principle was that self-sufficient organizations may decrease local dependency on the outside world and, therefore, decrease local vulnerability to changes in policies or lapses in delivery systems.

But, the IRLDP had to adapt this ideal scheme to its own schedule, with the SEU assisting local organizations to achieve a speedier transition towards assumption of multipurpose functions. In the near future, such an option demands a long phase of consolidation of existing processes.

Priorities of multi-purpose development organizations
According to the IRLDP approach, multipurpose organizations should undertake development activities which:

• balance long term goals (such as rehabilitation and protection of the environment) with current and immediate needs;

• are tailored to the needs/aspirations of local communities and take into consideration the social, economic, cultural and ecological conditions of the pilot areas;

• are economically viable, which means that, from a wider and long term perspective, they might be promoted by local governmental institutions or non-governmental agencies even without the financial support of a project;

• establish the social conditions for collective entrepreneurship;

• change the pattern of management of existing natural resources, by involving large groups of people in conservation and management techniques, and stimulating the adoption of new activities.

Multidimensional organizations

More precisely, from the perspective of the IRLDP, participative organizations should have two basic dimensions in order to be effective as social units of organization:

• horizontally, a primary organization should link a relatively small number of individual households (that is the elementary nuclei of social and economic life) to each other within the context of enhanced solidarities. From this perspective, the household and a grouping of homogenous households are considered as the focal points for production, consumption and social life. The question of size is important: social communication between members is not easy in large communities where the habitations are scattered. Within the general context of a segmentary society, the interests of community members often differ to such an extent that unified action is impossible. In larger groupings, influential and powerful members may more easily manipulate the other members and mobilize project resources for themselves. The relatively recent experiences of community forestry projects in developing countries suggest that it is preferable to put the focus on the small local community, made up of a limited number of individual families;

• vertically, these primary organizations should still be incorporated into larger socioeconomic structures and units of collective action within a wider framework. The basic principles are that: local socio-territorial units are not self-contained units; their reciprocal links should be strengthened; and they should not be isolated from the outside world. Being part of a larger group gives to primary social entities something of an inalienable guarantee of livelihood. Existing social and economic ties should therefore rather be enhanced against the trend towards atomization.

Village Organization
In the IRLDP approach, each neighbourhood constitutes the basic grassroots organization (called by the project 'Village Organization', VO, to follow the terminology already in use in Balochistan). Each VO is composed of a relatively small and manageable number of households (from 15 to 35), living in close proximity, maintaining daily social and economic relationships, and using and managing the same resources within the same micro-environment (village territory).

The members of a Village Council (or 'village's jerga'), selected by the community, are called upon to play an important role in grouping the members, guaranteeing their involvement in the identification and implementation of development initiatives, and inter-reacting with the project staff on a regular basis. The Village Council also plays an important role in the solution of potential disputes among the members of the VO in matters related to development initiatives.

In the work of the SEU, the role of the Council, acting as an intermediate body between the project and the larger community, is essential. This form of 'representativity' is not considered as an alternative to 'participation', but only as the first step towards a fully integrated participation, in line with the pragmatic participatory approach outlined above.

Within a VO, roles and responsibilities are shared. Given the fact that a VO is small, one every three to four heads of households are members of the Council. Several other members are involved in other aspects of the life of the community, namely as 'village specialists' with specific technical responsibility (para-veterinarians, accountants, traditional birth attendants, etc.).

Within each VO, interest groups (called 'associations') have also been created: rangeland users associations, women's associations, and orchard growers' associations. These units have been used to implement specific technical initiatives. Particularly important are women's associations, because they give women the possibility of fully acting as social actors in specific aspects of development, and palliate the lack of direct representation of women within the larger village and community organizations.

Community Organization
Within the boundaries of a specific socio-territorial entity, several Village Organizations constitute a 'Community Organization' (CO), an entity which covers a larger geographical area and a wider homogenous social group as a whole. A community organization 'vertically' links small grassroots organizations into a larger social, economic and institutional framework. Between the summer of 1994 and October 1995, 18 Village Organizations had been established in 4 different Community Organizations. About 400 households (i.e. about 3,500 persons) have been affected by the project.

On the one hand, a VO is considered a too small unit to deal with issues related to the general protection, rehabilitation and management of communal resources. It is also too small and fragile to interact with outsiders. On the other hand, a Community Organization is too big an entity to deal with small-scale income generating activities or with the management of small village-based infrastructures. There is thus a need for them both.

The VOs are represented in a larger council, called the Steering Committee of Community Organization (the 'Community's jerga'). This committee represents the population of the area as a whole vis-a-vis the external world (that is, projects, all technical units and government departments, and other participants in development). They guarantee the involvement of each VO in larger community development schemes and have a crucial role in solving eventual disputes between different VOs and/or members of different VOs. It was found that the respective roles of the Village Council and of the Community Steering Committee may vary from one community to another. For instance, in the largely compact residential setting found in Kach Mulazai, the role of the Steering Committee is less important than in a scattered residential configuration, as found in Asghara, because linkages between relatives/neighbours are stronger and more efficient in Kach Mulazai.

Within the community, a Motivator or facilitator (selected by the members) is a focal point for the project, providing constant communication not only between the project staff and the community as a whole, but also among members (a Motivator receives a small salary by the project, on a temporary basis)

Main lessons learned

From an institutional perspective:

• as noted above, it has to be acknowledged that there is a fundamental ambiguity in a scheme aimed at improving local participation that is planned from the top (a project of a governmental department) and promoted by outsiders. Furthermore, at the beginning of the process, local populations had not designated the establishment of grassroots organizations as a priority. However, the project considered that without this component, people's participation would not have been possible. Only local organizations may enhance the capacity of their members, maximizing the cumulative impact of the contributions of individuals and enabling them to perform activities and achieve objectives that otherwise might not be attained (Noronha & Spears, 1985:279). It is also interesting to note that, in subsequent evaluations of project activities, local populations (men and women) have stressed the importance to them of these organizations which afford them an opportunity to meet and discuss together common problems, apparently filling an important gap in the life of the community;

• local institutions may easily serve as the subject of mere rhetorical discourse: the IRLDP rejected the easy temptation to set up local institutions for their own sake, i.e., as has so often happened, to establish long lists of individual heads of households out of a comprehensive scheme of participative development initiatives. The creation of grassroots institutions could potentially be considered as a simple exercise of lumping together a set of individuals into artificial entities labelled as 'Village Organizations'. Other projects have not resisted this temptation, under the pressure of administrators who tend to evaluate the success of a 'participatory' project by the number of institutions created at local level.

From a social perspective:

• influential and powerful people may easily use the framework of newly established grassroots organizations to enhance their own positions and/or to re-establish hierarchies weakened by social change. In line with a participatory approach, the IRLDP has, for instance, slowed down its activities in one pilot area (Uch Wani) and has postponed all involvement in another area (Ragha Bakalzei) where these deviations seemed to be unavoidable;

• without a proper and separate entity (such as an association), women would be excluded from the development process and further marginalized. In order, however, to avoid counter-productive gender conflicts and resistance, the project should operate to increase men's awareness concerning the role of women in development, helping them not feel threatened by the process;

• only an appropriate chain of grassroots organizations at local level may raise popular participation and enhance the capacity of producers for collective action. It is extremely important not to limit the participatory process to the establishment of organizations, but to quickly define concrete and precise initiatives with attractive benefits. These organizations may effectively allow people to participate in the different phases of development programs, i.e., design, identification of priorities, methods of implementation, monitoring, evaluation and, if necessary, changes of direction. Furthermore, the ultimate goal is not to create autonomous and self-contained communities, but communities able to build effective linkages with the broader social and economic system.

From a development perspective

• grass-roots organizations should put people together not only for decision making, but also for resource mobilization and management. In this perspective, there is no participative development unless people realize that the process requires important inputs in time, energy and material contributions from them, and demands changes in many aspects of their individualistic attitudes/behaviours;

• grass-roots organizations should be given not only the right to participate in development, but also the capacity to assume their responsibilities in participation. There is no participative development without a strong emphasis on education, training and building on local skills;

• grassroots organizations may constitute an essential means of development and communication not only between local communities and the project and other external participants in development, but also among the members of local communities themselves, fulfilling an important gap in the life of communities which may be socially fragmented, economically diversified, and/or geographically dispersed.

Future perspectives

• first of all, in order to be efficient, local-level organizations should receive full legal recognition and legal empowerment from the state, particularly from local government structures, and be considered as the legal translation of the very notion of community. More particularly, the new institutional framework should encourage the progressive devolvement of some of the powers which are in the hands of civil servants and particularly of forestry officers to fully recognized community groups, according to principles of equity and justice;

• in a broader perspective, these organizations should represent local communities to the government and to other outsiders, and serve as the conduit through which rural populations could voice their needs for access to services controlled by the state and make services more responsive to users, activating at the same time their financial contributions;

• grass-roots organizations should progressively develop internal responsibility and capability for the management of their land and its resources. According to this principle, local organizations should have the capacity to organize and to supervise the protection and management of natural resources, to confirm their special priority access rights to specific grazing areas, and to resolve local land conflicts arising between different users and/or between different uses of the same land. These organizations should also provide a means of determining whose claims have priority and of reconciling available resources with those priorities, also providing the incentives to induce and the channels to permit appropriate responses to those claims (see Johnston & Clark, 1982:156). They could also serve as the nuclei for the provision of ecological information, both from local populations to technical services and from technical services to local populations;

• finally, from an economic point of view, grassroots organizations could contribute to enhancing the viability and security of the system, to reinforcing the labour patterns of individual households within the particular dimensions of economies of scale, rendering them more viable as dynamic economic units, and to reducing the vulnerability of individual households vis-a-vis economic and ecological crises.

Conclusion

The next Part will address the question of what can be done by participative organizations, presenting some aspects of the socio-economic activities initiated in the pilot areas.

To Part 3: Participative organizations in action