Posted February 1998

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

United Nations Capital Development Fund

International Fund for Agricultural Development

German Agency for Technical Cooperation

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

World Bank

Rome
16-18 December 1997
Technical Consultation on Decentralization
Documentation

Decentralisation and Natural Resource Management: Issues in Rural Development

The following comments are based on the questions raised in the terms of reference of the Working Group VII: Decentralisation and Natural Resource Management (NRM) in productive and conservation projects.

Many experience now exist that can be looked into, assessed together with the local populations and communities, and adapted into principles and methods with wide applicability. The assumptions and statements below are based on experiences in a large number of countries and research and development programmes including Bangladesh, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Papua-New Guinea, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, and Zaire.

Question 1. What are the specificities of this sector?

NRM issues (particularly sustainable use) have, a priori, high priority with local communities

• Many societies in Southwest and South Asia have intricate water management systems managed and co-ordinated by community elders. Examples include systems such as boneh, jugh, haraseh, salar, boluk, dong, etc. in Iran, and similar systems in the Indian subcontinent. There is evidence of similar systems for water management in some indigenous communities in South America, including in Colombia. Water conservation and spreading techniques such as khushab, abanbar, hutak, and band are prevalent among the populations of Baluch in Iran and Pakistan;

• In Southwest Asia, North and East Africa and the Sahel, nomadic societies have popular elders and chiefs who preside over tribal and clan councils whose primary role is the supervision of age-old rules for sustainable grazing of pastures and range lands. Many of these societies have elaborate ways of controlling seasonal grazing. The example of the Kurdish-speaking Turkashvand nomadic tribe in western Iran, which employ ecological scouts called mingæ-jüræ, who are sent ahead of seasonal migration to monitor the ecological situation in wintering and summering grounds, is prevalent in other nomadic pastoral areas. On the basis of the monitored information the mingæ-jüræ bring back, the tribal and clan councils estimate accurately the ecological carrying capacity of the destination range lands. On this basis they decide such issues as the number of livestock that are permitted to migrate from each clan and lineage group, the migratory paths to take, how long to spend in each eco-zone on the way and in the destination, and the dates of start and finish of grazing in summering and wintering grounds;

• The well known system of hema and its variants (such as the mahjar in Yemen, the mahmiyya in Sudan and the qoroq in Iran) are exclosures that have elaborate rules for grazing under community control;

• Women in pastoral nomadic societies of Southwest Asia have their own ways of rehabilitating rangelands. These include tying goatskins stuffed with desirable seeds of rangeland species of plants around the neck of the lead goat of the flock. As the goat drags this bag- that is provided with many holes- seeds find their way out and are ploughed under the soil with the marching of the flock behind the lead goat. With the first rains the rangeland is rehabilitated with natural species of plants. These activities are more effective and less costly than the modern rangeland reseeding projects that most governments of semi-arid lands seem to like.

• There are many examples of wildlife conservation and sustainable use rules in traditional societies of Africa and Southwest Asia. Wildlife in these societies, including migratory species, is treated as common property and cropped sustainably;

• Shifting agriculture, although condemned by many modern governments, was actually a way of sustaining the productivity of soils and the biodiversity of forests. Local communities knew exactly how to rotate the land and how long to wait before re-clearing and planting forest lands, as directed by community elders in order to preserve the health and productivity of soils. Examples are as wide as Papua-New Guinea, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa;

• Forest dwellers and users in Southwest and South Asia have had sophisticated ways of using and protecting the forest and its wildlife by carefully managing grazing, cultivating and gathering in the forest. One of many examples is provided by Burush, a community in the arid lands of North Darfur (western Sudan), where local tribal leaders impose heavy penalties on anyone who would misuse or overuse the resources of the large community forest. The community forests in Burush have been maintained in excellent condition despite the erosion of similar landscapes in other communities nearby. Burush and a number of other communities that have similar community forests protected by popular community elders are among those that have survived the terrible droughts and famines of the 1970s and 1980s;

• Traditional fishing communities in Africa, Asia and South America often have a "share" system in which the common property of fish are harvested together and the catch is divided in accordance with agreed formulas among the productive factors of labour, boat, engine and nets;

• Similar share systems in agriculture and animal husbandry exist among agricultural societies and pastoral nomads.

Most NRM problems started with the intervention of the state or of private enterprise systems

• Recent studies in Yemen and other societies have shown that pastoral nomads consider the disappearance of these systems (especially after attempts at nationalisation of rangelands) are responsible for the degradation of rangelands. In Iran the nationalisation of common property rangelands and their recent privatisation are among the chief contributing factors considered by many rangeland experts to have led to the tremendous degradation of rangelands;

• Land reform and the introduction of the cadastre system, supported by USAID in Kenya has caused a decline in land rights for women among Masaai tribes;

• The interruption of traditional systems of land and forest management in East Africa, and South and Southwest Asia has led to local communities having turned from sustainable users of wildlife to its poachers. Following systems inspired or dictated by colonial systems, a hostile style of national management of protected areas has replaced indigenous systems;

• Qanats in Iran are a very old traditional technology for sustainable use of ground water for irrigation, urban and domestic needs without the need for pumping. Qanats were usually treated as common property even if paid for by the village landowner. Their net contribution to meeting the water needs of the country was equivalent to all the water behind the many modern dams of Iran put together. The recent proliferation of permits for deep wells under the pressure of private owners, and the demise of traditional systems of their management (such as the boneh referred to above) have led to a lowering of the ground water table and the destruction and abandoning of many qanats.

NRM in rural development is best served within the context of a community-driven approach, as opposed to government-driven, or individual, private interests

A corollary of the above statement is that law enforcement for NRM is nearly always best done through strengthening local systems and institutions of customary law for NRM, rather than through centralised or even local government agencies

The above three approaches correspond respectively to the following natural resource property regimes

• Common Property (or at least common pool) resource management systems. It is known today that common property systems are the most conservative of resource use systems, as they are almost always tightly governed by a set of exclusion and inclusion rules that are enforced by local communities through systems of natural resource use management;

• State Property. This often leads to "open access" systems where no rules are respected, and ultimately the demise or mismanagement of the natural resource in question;

• Private Property. Although this can sometimes lead to good care over limited areas of land, the profit incentive is such that more often than not short-term financial return considerations overcome any long-range environmental considerations. Also, very often the development of private property over common property resources leads to the demise of NRM systems, such as the case of qanats in Iran or forest lands in Asia, Africa and the Amazon basin.

Many official or donor-driven or -inspired programmes of development and NRM result in the erosion of indigenous knowledge and community institutions for NRM

There has been a corresponding negative impact of programmes inspired by socialist countries of the North, whose impact on government NRM thinking still continues even in many countries of the South whose system is essentially inspired by market-driven systems. The nationalisation of natural resources (forests, rangelands, water and land) is one such concept leftover from the heydays of state socialism.

Both Northern systems have contributed to the large-scale erosion of indigenous knowledge and community institutions for NRM.

Question 2. What are the optimal roles of government levels, community organisations, and NGOs in the design of NRM strategies and the formulation of projects?

Local communities

There are many experiences in various countries of the South to support this claim.

NGOs

One of the most important roles of NGOs is in training programmes adapted both to the needs of local communities and of local and central governments. These training programmes, in addition to developing the technical capacities of local communities, can concentrate on building the sensitivity of government experts and decision-makers to the potential of local indigenous knowledge and management systems. They can also help local communities to understand the ways and rules of government and other outside agencies, and how they can be used to defend their legitimate interests.

Government

• Creating a positive and supportive legislative environment;

• Understanding local communities and their traditional and indigenous knowledge;

• Using this understanding as a basis for action, rather than top-down, bureaucratic, expert based solutions;

• Not imposing any ideas or external institutions on local communities;

• Supporting the recognition, formalisation and registration of indigenous knowledge, customary laws and institutions on natural resource management;

• Enabling priority judiciary support to local communities traditional and customary rights when in conflict with modern state or private sector interests and claims;

• Co-operating with NGOs and local community institutions and providing financial backing for their efforts in indigenous and community-based approaches to development;

• Providing training and sensitisation in programmes among their own staff, experts, managers and advisors.

Question 3. How to determine and implement these projects?

1. Participatory methods have been developed in recent decades for just this type of exercise. These include PRA (participatory rural assessment) and community animation techniques.

2. PRA was developed originally based on RRA (rapid rural assessment) and it bears some of the shortcomings of its intellectual ancestor. These include the primary purpose of the two methods, which is based on the needs of investigators and outside agencies to know, rapidly and cheaply, all that is relevant to their purpose, usually in facilitating outside projects and interventions. Although the proponents of PRA are usually advocates of local communities, in practice, this method is often at the service of the outside agent or investigator, and gives precedence to research and learning from the local community- albeit with their own participation and awareness building- over any factor inherent or indigenous to the interests of the local populations. In short, PRA, too, can become a powerful tool at the service of the outside agent (including the various levels of government and the researcher).

3. Community animation techniques have been developed in the context of a number of UNDP pilot schemes in Africa, Asia and South America, based on a great deal of work by others before. They tend to be a great deal simpler, faster, and more oriented to giving local communities control over the analysis of their problems and needs, and in taking control of the direction of planning and project design. Community animation techniques are not opposed to PRA. They are complementary. Techniques of one can be used to enrich the other as needed. In general, though, just as the names imply, PRA is more study, research, and assessment oriented, while community animation aims to build the capacity of local communities to take charge of their own development planning, implementation and M&E (monitoring and evaluation).

Question 4. How to determine the types and degrees of participation?

Stage 1. Approaching the communities with a well-prepared team of field workers and social animators/trainers

• those who are all out to change the local communities in their own image;

• people under the influence of lifestyles and world-views that do not respect the local indigenous cultures and their innate values;

• those who have an overwhelming academic orientation;

• those who like to talk and lecture to local communities, rather than to listen;

• those who look upon local communities with pity, etc.

Stage 2. Organising community sessions for problem and need analysis

• Identification of problems and needs (at this stage it is not necessary to make a distinction between these two closely related concepts) and their recording on some suitable medium. A simple flipchart-like set up or sheets hanging on a wall or tree or held up by people or spread on the ground will do, if suitable). While it is important to have a record of this and the subsequent steps, the field team should carefully avoid giving the local community any feeling of inferiority due to illiteracy. At this stage a simple question like, "What are your problems and needs in this community" may be all that is needed to start the process. The participation of all, whether elite or commoner, should be sought. If local customs do not encourage the participation of women in general community meetings, then separate sessions, animated by competent women field workers, will be needed;

• Classification of the list produced above by the community groups themselves. This is often done in answer to the questions, "What do we do now with this list? Can we put it in order? What boxes, topics or categories do these problems fall under?" It is important to have the patience to get the answers from the community members. A seemingly haphazard system of categorisation arrived at by the community is far better than a "technically correct" or "logical" and erudite list proposed by the field workers;

• Prioritisation among the categories. This, too, should be done by the local community, in answer to questions like, "If you only had the time and resources to get to one of these categories, which one would be first?" And thus following up with the remaining boxes;

• Prioritisation inside each category. Small groups or the whole meeting can do this together.

Stage 3. Looking for solutions

• Identification of traditional and indigenous solutions to the identified priority problems. A limited number of priorities from appropriate categories should be selected for this purpose. It is important to encourage a discussion of all traditional solutions and ways, especially drawing on the experience of community elders;

• Identification of local management systems, community accountability and auditing traditions, and customary laws;

• A critical discussion of whether and how well the traditional solutions are still adequate;

• A critical discussion of what new or seemingly improved ways, techniques and technologies are available. For example, if pest control is the issue, a discussion of biological, cultural and integrated pest management should be included, and not just the established technology of chemical pesticides. It is in this phase that the role of outside and scientific project workers can begin to come in;

• A discussion of whether and how old and new ways can be combined;

• A discussion of which problems have feasible and achievable solutions;

• Local/preliminary feasibility studies, which is primarily an assessment of the relative merits and costs of alternative solutions, including the following three criteria:
  • Financial (cost/benefit, total cost) and economic (local, regional and national impact and considerations such as employment generation, import substitution, foreign exchange implications, income- versus wealth-generation, multiple purpose- does the proposed solution meet more than one need? etc.);

  • Socio-cultural (self reliance, impact on social and cultural values, alienation, urban-migration, styles of living, conservation and evolution of indigenous systems versus introduced value systems and techniques, community-control versus individual or state ownership or direction, etc.);

  • Environmental (biodiversity, sustainability, pollution, local versus introduced varieties, etc.).

• A discussion of whether it is desirable to have someone of their own selected by them (a female or male community animator, depending on the situation). If so, who should "employ" the person? The local community, or an outside agency? What are the relative merits and risks of each solution? How can such a person be paid for/compensated on a sustainable basis- preferably from a share of the proceeds from the proposed project?

• A discussion of local and traditional ways, institutions and systems on which to base any organisation of the proposed productive/conservation enterprise/activity in order to allow local transparency, accountability and control. For example, many communities have come up with the concept of a community fund that would own the external (or internal) input, and use traditional "share" systems for its management and profit sharing. Can formulas for this sharing be found locally that would allow continuous and recurrent investment of an important part of the proceeds? Can such local funds team up in the form of sub-regional, regional and national unions of community funds that can operate with strength, be owned from below, and play their own advocacy role, in addition to giving local communities larger financial and social muscle in development affairs?

• The concept that decisions and projects are determined by outside agencies (such as the government), and the task is to attract the "participation" and consent of the local communities;

• The idea that participation means an in-kind or cash contribution by local communities to externally conceived projects;

• The belief that the role of participatory techniques is to give outside (government, academic or donor) agencies the understanding needed to manipulate local communities into accepting their own external perceptions and plans;

• The idea that participation is useful because it legitimises these plans, and

• The feeling that participation is an efficient, convenient or inexpensive way of obtaining information for the sake of mere research for the advancement of academic and research sectors.

Stage 4. Designing specific projects

Question 5. How to analyse preconditions, determinants and trade-offs for scaling up productive NRM and conservation efforts to sustain food security and rural development at the local level?

• The creation of a set of local community funds that use a large percentage of their income in reinvestment activities can lead to increased ability of a community to build up community reserves of food or purchasing power;

• Employment and skill development are two other benefits of this approach, as found by many communities;

• Conservation projects can be increasingly tied to productive and income generating activities;

• Income and wealth generating projects can be tied to the provision of services, including agricultural, infrastructure, health and education; and

• Income from productive activities can be partially applied to similar types of services as mentioned above.

Question 6. What are the implications for the design and sequencing of decentralised strategies?

• Decentralisation strategies should start with bottom up, community based approaches;

• Decentralisation should imply a redoing of government development apparatus from the bottom up, not from the top down;

• Decentralisation should not be motivated by the desire of the government to penetrate its control apparatus deep down into local communities;

• Decentralisation must start with, and be tied to significant demonstration programmes;

• Local government should grow out of- and be preceded by- these community-based strategies;

• Decentralisation in the South is a right of local communities as a way of resolving their own problems in their own way, not a privilege of central governments- as is the case in many countries of the North; and

• Decentralisation is, above all, a way of finding socially legitimate ways of solving community problems at the local level in ways that lead to the protection and sustainable use of natural resources.

1. Start with a series of demonstration projects in various provinces;

2. Build in a process of training and adaptive replication;

3. Build in self governance of development and natural resource management projects and programmes that lead to locally applicable wider systems;

4. Evolve local government out of these experiences;

5. Build in the cost of local government into local development;

6. Where local government already exists, evaluate and assess its relevance and usefulness to development and natural resource management together with the local population;

7. Revise and reform local government according to the findings of the step above;

8. Build in the lessons of local traditions and resource management customs discussed before into local government.

Question 7. What would an appropriate monitoring and evaluation system look like? What are the key impact indicators?