Grace Boone of CDA Collaborative and David Yamron of Search for Common Ground were the special guests at our meeting today, briefing us on a project central to Community-led Development – “Stopping As Success: Transitioning to Locally Led Development.” The project website here has just gone live, and will feature 20 case studies and tools.
Author: Jenny Hodgson, Originally published at www.bond.org.uk, 11 March 2019. Featured photo by Anna Dubuis/DFID – CC BY-NC 2.0.
Our world is changing from the ground up. Whether a community-owned pub in the UK, participatory budget-making in Spain, a community endowment fund in Zimbabwe, or a post-earthquake bare-foot volunteer program in Nepal, local communities are finding new ways of deciding things and doing things for themselves. And they are organizing themselves and the resources they have to do so.
Within the INGO sector, the recent conversations about localisation, resourcing and the future of civil society offer the perfect opportunity for some radical and bold thinking. As a new social renaissance emerges, there are valuable experiences and lessons to draw in from the global south.
There is a growing recognition that our collective “ubuntu” – the ties that bind us together as humans – is broken. Digital technologies and social media mean that we are more connected than ever, and yet distrust, isolation and fragmentation characterise our social condition. Increasingly, this global phenomenon has translated into political spaces, as we’ve seen with Brexit, Trump’s election and the rise of right-wing populist parties across Europe.
Societal divides are no longer as simple as north-south or “developed”-“developing”: inequalities within countries are as great as they are between them. Initiatives that set out to organise, mobilise and engage people where they are, to re-connect neighbours with each other and reignite a sense of shared purpose and possibility are crucial to countering these negative forces.
The world needs community weavers and bridge-builders, people and institutions who can instil hope and build power at the margins of our societies, in villages, towns, cities around the world. This new social renaissance is characterised by distributed, citizen-led networks and “relationalism” rather individualism.
Over the last twenty years, a quiet revolution has been taking place in communities around the world, often despite rather than because of the big machinery of international development aid. Community philanthropy has emerged as a way of organising, as a development strategy and as a set of institutions in countries as diverse as Brazil, Kenya, Russia and Vietnam.
These initiatives have been shaped by local context and culture, and have been led by individuals concerned about disenchantment and disengagement at the community level, frustrated by the failures of traditional development aid. They are inspired by the belief that without local resources, local leadership and local buy-in, development projects will continue to land like fireworks – to flash spectacularly and then die.
Although many of these local funds and foundations – such as the Kenya Community Development Foundation, Tewa – the Nepal Women’s Fund and the Zambia Governance Foundation – were established as one-offs, there is now clear evidence of a distinct community philanthropy “field”.
Take the question of money. Although external resources may make up part of their funding structure, these community philanthropy organisations seek to build local cultures of philanthropy – especially among ordinary people – as a good in itself. In other words, people become active citizens who are part of the solution, fostering collective action and flattening power dynamics between who gives and who receives.
Acknowledging, respecting, valuing and pooling local resources is a direct rebuke of the “beneficiary” mindset that the international development community has helped create.
In the last few years, this scattered and often invisible field (invisible at least in the eyes of the mainstream development sector) has started to organise itself globally, to express its collective voice as an effective alternative to a development system that has been preoccupied by scale and dominated by big institutions.
It has also become a driving force behind the #ShiftThePower movement. Participatory grantmaking, giving circles, community or affiliate funds have emerged as strategies that seek to share and shift power away from the hands of big institutional gatekeepers – regardless of whether they are in the north or south.
Pieces of the solution are already out there for those would care to look, both in terms of practice and theory. If we want to realise the vision of a flatter, networked world driven from the ground up (rather than the funding down), we will all need to join forces, in solidarity, and in the case of big institutions, that may require some fundamental re-writing of roles.
Global Fund for Community Foundations
Jenny has been the executive director of the Global Fund for Community Foundations since 2006.
One of the greatest challenges for community-led development is that in many of the poorest nations, public resources do not reach the communities. While local governments typically get half the public resources in wealthy countries, this number is often well below 10% in many of the poorest nations.
As witnessed by many articles on this site, this data is hard to find. One would hope that every citizen could know what the budget of their local government actually is! We have proposed that the share of public resources going to local government should be a key indicator for SDGs 11 and 16.
In October of 2016, our friends at UCLG published this volume of country profiles with what they could find. We share this link here to buttress advocacy for our colleagues around the world engaging with governments to ensure communities have a change to succeed in their own development.
Tenth in a series for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence. Photo: iStock.com/araoraor
December 4 – On this day in 1961, Britain’s National Health Service first made oral contraception available. Despite opposition from the Catholic Church and some other religious groups, a 2012 study by the Guttmacher Institute found that 99% of all women of reproductive age who have ever had sex—including 98% of Catholic women—have used a method of contraception other than natural family planning.
A Harvard Study in 2002 demonstrated the “power of the pill” to give women greater power over their careers and marriage decisions.
Despite near universal acceptance by women – and demand worldwide that exceeds supply – suddenly during the 2012 US Presidential Campaign, some conservative politicians began saying that contraception is controversial. Melinda French Gates, a lifelong Catholic, expressed shock that contraception could possibly still be controversial. In her keynote address at the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, she stated: “Helping women gain access to contraceptives saves lives. It improves the health of mothers and children. It increases children’s school attendance. It leads to more prosperous families. At the national level, it has even been linked to GDP growth.” And she announced an increase of her foundation’s commitment to family planning to $1 billion by 2020.
That 2012 Summit launched the Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) Campaign. Its July 2018 progress report shows usage of modern contraceptives had increased by 17% in its 69 focus countries.
The political controversy around contraception is the tip of a more complex and deadly iceberg. The underlying issue is the patriarchal mindset that believes, at some level, that women are the property of men and that they do not have sexual and reproductive health rights. This same mindset underlies the belief that men have the “right” to beat their wives.
There are studies that show that gender-based violence (GBV) leads women to not use contraception – leading to more unwanted pregnancies – which can lead to unsafe abortions. Research in Vietnam explores this pathway – including the fact that unsafe abortions accounted for 11% of the deaths of women of childbearing age.
The World Health Organization, UNWomen and UNFPA have drafted an addendum to their clinical handbook on health care for women subjected to GBV, empowering contraception providers to detect the warning signs of GBV.
In July of this year (2018), the 38th Session of the Human Rights Council achieved major international progress for women and girls. The Council recognized the right to sexual and reproductive health (SRHR) for the first time ever in a Geneva or UN politically-negotiated document. It urges universal access to evidence-based comprehensive sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services. And there were also resolutions for the elimination of female genital mutilation (FGM) and for accelerating efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls.
As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Overcoming patriarchy – and the violence and destruction it causes – involves transforming social conditions that have been deeply entrenched for thousands of years. We are fortunate to be living at a moment when – despite some dramatic patriarchal backlash – the efforts of so many courageous feminist leaders are finally resulting in progress towards gender justice.
Part 7 for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence
December 1, 2018 – World AIDS Day: In the 1980s, the first cases of AIDS were a shock to everyone. It took months for top researchers to understand it. In Africa, where the pandemic became most widespread, the campaign to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS forced both women and men in rural and urban communities to rethink gender roles and other traditions that had prevailed for thousands of years.
Gender fueling the spread of HIV. In Africa, while males do not necessarily have any more sexual partners in a lifetime than men in other regions, they tend to have them concurrently. And women were socially conditioned to not say “no” to sex. In addition, in some areas, sex was part of traditional rituals.
Communities take up the challenge. In such situations, and particularly in a largely rural society, mere “messaging” is never enough. Organizations such as those in the Movement for Community-led Development, needed to launch massive campaigns to provide accurate education about HIV/AIDS to grassroots community leaders – or “animators” – who in turn would educate all the members of the community.
Beyond the Facts: While having people know the facts is crucial, it has also been necessary to create spaces where community members can analyze their own situation – identify their own barriers to halting the spread of HIV (basically their own gender analysis) -and launching their own solutions. In some cases, community members created solutions that the NGO community organizers would have never imagined. Here are some examples from Malawi, which has a high infection rate:
Living Positively: Initially, microfinance groups in Malawi were reluctant to loan to HIV-Positive people, on the assumption these people would not have long to live – despite the fact that ARVs were becoming widely available. To overcome this stigma, “Living Positive”with HIV support groups were established, and microfinance organizations reserved a special part of their capital for loans to those groups.
Investing in Community Health. The massive international effort to fight HIV/AIDS initially had the unfortunate side effect of pulling the already-scarce health professionals out of the community health system to focus on HIV/AIDS. Now, the world is coming to recognize that even “single disease” campaigns must intentionally focus on strengthening the overall community health system, and engage community members every step of the way.
Ownership and agency. As Mahatma Gandhi wrote, whatever action we contemplate, we must think of the face of the poorest person we have ever seen, and ask ourselves whether the action we take will restore her to control over her own life and destiny. Applying this wisdom has proven invaluable in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa – it was proven again in the response to Ebola (link) and Malaria (link) – and it is a mandate we must apply to all development activities.
USAID is undergoing a major transformation under the theme “Journey to Self Reliance.” Extensive field experience shows that this journey begins in communities, and that aid strategies should be designed from the community upwards.
In the past 50 years, countries as diverse as Korea, Philippines, Brazil and most recently Kenya have achieved broad-based economic growth, poverty reduction and improved social indicators through programs of what is now referred to as community-led development (CLD, Caledon 2012). CLD is distinct from “community-based projects” in that it is a multi-sectoral, multi-year change process that strengthens both sub-district governance and grassroots civil society so that communities can set and achieve their own vision and goals.
Many of those success stories benefited greatly from USAID support, and learning the lessons of those successes can be applied to implementing USAID’s future country programs.
Mahatma Gandhi’s famous talisman asks us to think of the face of the poorest person we have met, and ask ourselves whether the action we contemplate will restore her to control over her own life and destiny?
In practice this means starting with the institutions closest to the people and asking if they were working here, how would they be working? And then, how can we contribute to making them work?
CLD is how development intersects with governance – and, most notably, good community-level governance. If there are no responsive institutions within walking distance, then the young mother in the photo is systematically denied her basic right of voice in the decisions that affect her life.
Based on our research across 70 countries (THP 2013, 2014 and Coonrod 2016), we assessed this question across 5 dimensions – both in terms of national policies and their implementation. Analysis along these dimensions can achieve human-centered systems analysis.
Mindset: The first step in implementing CLD programs is to transform the mindset of both grassroots people and local leadership – from dependency and clientelism – to just or democratic , rights-holding citizenship. This process of building confidence and community trust requires skilled facilitation and a phased curricula that builds social capital over time. There are excellent examples of these processes – from Citizen Voice and Action (World Vision), to The Hunger Project’s Vision, Commitment and Action, to the 5-stage Community Empowerment Activity Cycle (CEAC, 2014) of Kalahi CIDDS in the Philippines.
“Exit as you Enter”: It’s critically important that – from the start – communities are creating their vision of self-reliance, including their ability to mobilize even more resources at the end of the program than during it. The community must own and celebrate their own “graduation”, and realize clear benefits, so as to avoid perverse incentives.
Animators: A key to ultimate self-reliance in these processes is the training of community volunteers who are the “spark plugs” for ongoing community mobilization. Animators are often drawn from and specialize in addressing key audiences (youth, women, ethnic and religious minorities) or develop expertise in a particular sector (health, agriculture, WASH, nutrition). Animators often work alongside and “leverage” the often-scarce front-line professionals, such as community health workers, nurse midwives, and agricultural extension agents.
Self-reliant action projects: There are many development actions that do NOT require external funding, and it is critical in Phase One to “strengthen this muscle” within the community, as money can be a spoiler. Good examples include hand-dug wells, restoration of irrigation canals or pathways, improving classrooms, or taking loans to purchase food processing equipment that can be used collectively on a fee-for-service basis.
Strengths and Assets: Another key in building confidence and trust is to focus on mobilizing strengths and resources within the community itself. A hallmark in the evolution of CLD is that most practitioners discover it is far more effective to organize around vision and existing assets than around problems. Many tools exist, including PRA tools for asset mapping, simple participatory “SWOT” exercises, formation of VSLAs (village savings and loan associations) and community philanthropy/community foundations through which villages can often access their local “diaspora” working in cities with access to local funding and business contacts.
The urgent challenges of the SDG era require integrated programming at the community level. You cannot make progress in reducing stunting, building resilience or women’s economic empowerment without people having access to a comprehensive package of public services (Buvinic 2016).
As community trust and social accountability improve, the community can begin a process of collective planning and priority setting to ensure they have access to a comprehensive set of public services which meet the Four-As (THP 1994):
This phase often includes the creation of social infrastructure (village development committees, health committees, education committees) as well as physical infrastructure (wells, grain mills, clinics, and schools and classrooms).
In rural Africa, it is often more politically feasible for government to employ people than to build the physical infrastructure they need. This has been key to the success of the epicenter strategy, in which district government agrees to employ functionaries if the community can construct both the physical service center as well as decent housing for nurses.
Once a community has both the social and physical infrastructure to achieve progress across multiple sectors, there needs to be a regular cycle of data gathering / participatory planning / community action through which people can set priorities and track progress.
This cycle requires a data-for-the-people mindset, so that community members are not only the source of data but also the principal client. Nearly all CLD practitioners have such a system. CARE’s “participatory performance tracker” (CARE 2015) is a well-documented example.
Best practices in this are public information boards, with budgets, targets and achievements, as well as high-visibility Citizen Charters that inform people of service standards to which they are entitled, and phone numbers to call when something is not working.
Note: A well-paid, Western-trained “expert” is likely to achieve sectoral outcomes faster than CLD, but without the ownership, scale and sustainability that CLD achieves for the long-term.
Many (but not all) CLD practitioners have a clear, measurable exit strategy. The Hunger Project, for example, empowers communities to set and achieve targets across 8 overarching goals measured by 58 indicators (THP 2016), thus “graduating” from the program.
Key prerequisites for graduation (and sustainable self-reliance) include:
Buvinic M. and O’Donnell, M. 2016 “Revisiting What Works: Women, Economic Empowerment and Smart Design https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/CGD-Roadmap-Update-2016.pdf
Caledon Institute 2012, “Community-Led Development”, https://maytree.com/wp-content/uploads/978ENG.pdf
CARE 2015: Participatory Performance Tracker http://www.care.org/work/world-hunger/agriculture/models/participatory-performance-tracker
CEAC 2014. https://ncddp.dswd.gov.ph/Media/uploads/Standard_Community_Empowerment_Activity_Cycle_CEAC_Activity_Matrix.pdf
Coonrod, J. 2016. “Participatory Local Democracy: Key to Community-Led Rural Development”, Development (2016). doi:10.1057/s41301-016-0008-2
The Hunger Project 1994, “What Constitutes and Enabling Environment for the Poor to Succeed in their own Development?” https://en.thpbd.org/1994/04/29/enabling-environment/
The Hunger Project, “2013 State of Participatory Democracy Report,” http://localdemocracy.net/report
The Hunger Project, “2014 State of Participatory Democracy Report, ibid”
The Hunger Project 2016, “Measuring Self-Reliance”, http://www.thp.org/our-work/where-we-work/africa/epicenter-strategy/measuring-self-reliance/
World Vision, CVA within DPA. https://www.wvi.org/sites/default/files/CVA_within_DPA.pdf
I had a striking experience this Spring in rural Benin (photo above). Young villagers were learning to use the web at their Hunger Project epicenter. What were they looking up? How to access their local government — information still all too rare, and information that is power.
July 10, 2017 began the second UN High Level Political Forum (HLPF). Forty-four nations have submitted reports on their progress towards achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the focus on Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world.
From our perspective in the Movement for Community-led Development, the key is to shift the power from top-down to bottom-up. Countries must put resources and decision making in the hands of local communities. In the words of Pope Francis, we need to empower people to be “dignified agents of their own development.”
Is this happening? Are grassroots people gaining power? And how would we know?
One good sign is that many of the 44 countries are putting it in their Voluntary National Reports (VNRs). The VNRs cite planning and consultations with local governments and civil society, and making “localizing the SDGs” a priority. For the first time in years, the Human Development Report 2016 writes about fiscal decentralization. Yet grassroots women’s organizations and youth continue to express frustration at their lack of inclusion — particularly given their critical roles in society.
Here is a top 10 list of best practices that some countries and donors have begun applying — and we believe all should follow suit. Click on the links to learn more.
(Photo: The Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University)
Researchers at Princeton, Columbia, Cambridge and BRAC — working in communities mobilized by The Hunger Project — have demonstrated the value of building strong communities.
As announced here by Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School: “Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study finds that low-income individuals who trust their communities make better long-term financial decisions. This is likely because citizens rely on friends and neighbors for financial support rather than quick fixes like payday loans, which further indebt them.”
“In terms of policy, the findings show the importance of building strong communities, especially for low-income individuals. The researchers suggest moving away from a focus on low-income individuals, instead focusing on low-income communities through targeted policies.”
NCBA CLUSA‘s Resilience and Economic Growth in the Sahel-Enhance Resilience (REGIS-ER) project, is part of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Resilience in the Sahel Enhanced (RISE) multi-sectoral initiative started in November 2014 and will continue until November 2018. REGIS-ER promotes sustainable livelihoods, strengthened governance, and improved health and nutrition. This project breaks out of silos in funding and programming to bring integrated program design to a susceptible region.
The USAID RISE program is bringing humanitarian and development funding under a single initiative. The relationship between humanitarian and development funding is found in resiliency. By building resiliency, communities hit with disasters will be able to break out of the cycle of crisis management and need less humanitarian aid. Projects in REGIS-ER are community-driven: community members are intimately involved in program participation and execution. Highlighted projects include poultry vaccinations, water borehole rehabilitation, conservation farming techniques, and mother-to-mother groups that promote healthy pre- and ante-natal care.
The REGIS-ER projects engage local governments and, in partnership, work together to build infrastructure. Physical infrastructure like new wells and field improvements will help a community become resilient. Investment in human infrastructure will lead to healthier children and soon, a healthier population. Programs that encourage exclusive breastfeeding and educate about good nutrition are beneficial and necessary for long-term sustained resiliency. Additionally, many programs encourage women’s engagement and participation in the economic sector.
This integrated multi-sectoral approach breaks down siloes and promotes development that is community-driven and sustainable. This kind of approach gathers support from within communities and is more self-sustaining in the long-term. As more evidence that supports integrated solutions and community-led and driven development emerges, USAID should continue to fund these kinds of projects. The long-term benefits from community-led and community-driven development will make regions like the Sahel less susceptible to crises caused by severe weather occurrences and other disasters.
This type of integrated approach is mirrored within USAID, too. In the Request for Application form for this project there is a directive to carefully track funds used in the project that come from earmarked funds (p.74): Global Climate Change, Global Health Initiative, Feed The Future, Environment, Water, and Humanitarian Assistance. The request to track and report these specific funds suggests that the RISE program is gathering funds from multiple stakeholders; a collaborative and integrated approach. Here USAID is truly leading by example.
Read more about USAID’s RISE initiative and NCBA CLUSA’s work here, here, and here.
Image courtesy of ncba.coop
Counterpart International recently completed a three-year leadership development project in Bangladesh (LDP) with 13,000 participants funded by USAID. Several conclusions from the Baseline Assessment (here) and the Impact Assessment Final Report (here) that are relevant to our Movement for Community-led Development are:
