Global sustainability and grass roots development, gender & appropriate technology

1. Kondratiev cycle
2. The global poor - 3 tier trap
3. Conscientization
4. Participation
5. NGO responses
6. Approaches
   
7. Program stages
8. 3 Way Fit
9. International support
10. Learning curves
11. Third sector
12. The "Bare Foot" bank
    

CONTEXT

1. Kondratiev cycle

1. 'Millennium' Cycle/5th Kondratiev. The new cycle will involve:

   • 'Networking'/systems thinking - as opposed to production-line, linear Fordist thinking. 'Community thinking.'

2. "The new world will largely depend, as the old world did, on human creativity; and creativity flourishes where people come together face-to-face." (Peter Hall, 1997, p89)

3. The best correlation with the WEALTH of a region is:
   • the number of choral societies
   • the number of soccer clubs

   The vitality of civil society ensures :

   • networks
   • trust
   • personal and business responsibility
   • government accountability

In other words "COMMUNITY IS NOT A SOFT OPTION" [Professor Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Tradition in Modern Italy, Princeton University Press, 1993]

In true grassroots community development the community is encouraged and often re-established as an effective unit in the life of the local people and in the grassroots governance of the region. In particular government accountability is ensured. Often imperialism, globalization and external resources have resulted in the loss of accountability to the poorest.

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2. The Global Poor - 3 Tier Trap

To alleviate poverty it must be worked on at many levels. While this topic focuses on work with and amongst the poor it is important to remember the context. The poor are constrained by 3 levels of influence: Village, National and International

The following has been summarized from Worldwatch Paper 92: "Poverty and the environment: reversing the downward spiral", November 1989.

Village Level

• lack productive assets (not just poor earnings but poor through lack of means too). e.g. land. - those who are landless (effectively) face daily survival based on:
  • availability of work - (unemployed vs underemployed)
  • wages offered
  • price of food
  • unforeseen expenses
  • breakdown of traditional village safety net
  • loss of fallback resources of the commons
• physical weakness and illness
• population pressures - competition for work, more mouths to feed, but forced by:
  • children will die - so give birth to more
  • poor women - least educated, low status - more children
  • least access to means to control fertility
  • many children as strategy for economic security. Maybe lower chances of pulling the whole family out of poverty but reduces the risk of falling into starvation.
• powerlessness - subject to the powerful. Political action avoided as it may endanger them further.

National Level

• cities favoured
• industrial temples favour few
• tax codes - work against those who cannot use tax shelters etc.
• rigid regulations - breed informal sector and bribery
• war & military expenditure
• budgets favour the minimum number for maximum national benefit
• international development assistance often directed at next tier up from the poor - poor people's farm animals under attended in breeding programs
• public credit flows to privileged
• education favours wealthy - tertiary levels dominate over primary.
• hospitals favour urban elites

International Level

• debt 1.2 trillion dollars in 1989 - net flow of 50 billion per year to wealthy countries. By mid 90's this had risen to 2.2 trillion dollars (1 trillion = 1000 billion).
• export earnings falling due to:
  • slow economic growth in industrialised countries = weak markets
  • technical advances results in uses of new material produced in the industrialised countries (e.g. optical fibres) - low trade
  • rising trade barriers in rich countries
  • glut on commodity prices due to Third World competition.
  • flight capital
  • IMF structural adjustment - devaluation, export orientation, import reduction, sale of state-run industries, and budget cuts ( poor hurt disproportionately)

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3. Conscientization

Paulo Freire, a Brazilian, explored the theme of education and the poor in his book "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed". His insights have had a significant impact on the way the very poor may be facilitated to learn from one another and to grow in a critical perception of the world and the events that impact on them. Many non-government organisations (NGO's) use his ideas directly or indirectly in their group work with the poor. Here is a brief summary of his ideas:

Poor oppressed

• domination is externally applied, internally accepted
• "things" owned by oppressor for whom "to be is to have"
• to be is "to depend on oppressor" & "to become like him"
• accept constraints (as unable to see them as solvable) " i.e. fatalistic

Participation

• put aside "adaptation" to situation
• begin "integration" to reality + "critical reflection" results in change
• discover themselves as "subject" not "object"
• "in-depth" interpretation
• look for "causal principles" (not magical)
• "test" findings (open to revision)
• "dialogue" (not polemics)
• keep what is "valid" in old & new

Process

• Use "codified" representations of existential situations (help see reality through sense of distance that coded form creates)
• Initially explore the active role in and with their reality
• Joint responsibility of teacher and student to "teach" each other
• Through meaningful initial contact and reciprocal relationship come to share "a critical perception of the world" (i.e. values and issues may be opened up to critical analysis by both sides - all involved)
• Groups who participate in such activities become more able to creatively reflect on their local situation and how to jointly act to overcome some of the obstacles. Women, especially, become more confident in themselves and together with others in their groups often take up social and economic joint activities.

Although Paulo Freire's approach implies that the poor are divided and dominated by an elite group, this isn't always the case. In the reading "The green solution for India's poor" inequality is stated by Agarwal to not be a problem in half of India's villages. These villages tend to be in fragile areas where perhaps the cultures have evolved to be more mutually supportive. However even in these villages many of the characteristics described by Freire are still exhibited. Hope has increasingly died away.

That does not mean that the poor are without skills. Try living off a $1 per day as many of the poor families do, and see how long you survive! No, they are experts in survival and are experts in understanding much of the natural wealth that surrounds them. That is why, for example, they are often employed by multinational organisations to find and sample local plants.

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4. Participation - a confusing word. Just what does it mean?

The concept of participation, and in particular the word itself is frequently used in describing the involvement of the poor in decision-making, programmes and benefits. It has been pointed out, however, that the word 'participation' needs to be critically analysed, otherwise it could or will mean different things to different people. Because of this confusion the word is sometimes deliberately used to imply one thing but to justify another. Here is a list of some of the questions that should be asked when the word participation is used.

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5. NGO's responses to the needs of the poor has historically taken on various forms

In 1987 Charles Elliot saw the historical change in NGO activity in these terms:

Welfare approach:

• delivers services
• concerned more with relationships than empowerment

Development approach

• ultimate goal is the improvement of the capacity of a community to provide for its own basic needs

Empowerment approach

• poverty the result of political process so communities to be enabled to enter those processes

By 1990 David Korten was seeing the role of NGO's in even a broader role:

Korten is not saying that the fourth generation is the only important generation. Our focus in this GEI topic is more on the first 3 generations, particularly the second generation. However, there is a need to recognise and encourage NGO's to also participate in the fourth generation.

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6. Grassroots Development Approaches

The second generation of NGO activity is explored further below. There are various approaches that can be adopted, although in summary there are 2 basic paths out of fatalism and/or divisiveness.

Both are in essence involve the people leaning to stand back a little from their circumstances and to become more critically aware of the options open to them. It involves interaction with facilitators, but only as much as necessary to generate small levels of positve change that in turn encourages the poor to tackle other problems. It is a form of education, but not the traditional rote learning or education by deposit (information deposited in the minds of the student). It is better described as a non-formal action/reflection education tackling real issues and promoting real solutions from amongst the people.

The two approaches are:

1. Using informal teachers and group discussions of basic concepts of their surrounding life to foster critical awareness of their predicament. This breaks the 'culture of silence' that traps the poor into powerlessness and vulnerability. (Paulo Freire - Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

2. Action speaks louder than words - a tangible result is generated.
   • The Ugly American (Lederer, W J.and Eugene Burdick, 1959,Gollanc, London ). Although a rather dated book it sets the scene of how small changes can help a community find its feet. Written in the era of the cold war it also explores how the super powers didn't want effective local action!
   • Two Ears of Corn (Ronald Bunch): small, uncomplicated distinctive change that induces hope, the energy of further change when coupled with the released ingenuity of the mind.

In the case study at the end of this topic, the focus is on the 1st method. There was, however, a limited component of the second approach. Treatment of TB, where good care and followup even in difficult circumstances, produced significant results which in turn generated positive rapport with the people. Likewise the establishment of mother and child health clinics and the involvement of local people in some of the decision making, paved the way for effective community development in some communities.

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7. Program Stages

The approach that Ronald Bunch advocates in his very insightful book (Two Ears of Corn, World Neighbors, 1982) is summarised in the following table and diagram:

Bunch also outlines the Good Program Principles that enable the Program to Achieve its Goals

In essence this is saying that to enable the poor to really get on top of their situation it is important to introduce limited technologies that:

• can be understood,

• that work (and bring results in a short time) and

• that can quickly taught to others by the local people themselves.

Complex solutions that yield benefits in the long term and that are introduced from the top down, are far less likely to work.

Bunch uses the concept of 'hope' as the engine for effective change. In most circumstances the poor have lost hope. An intervention must quickly generate this hope so that the villagers will again take up the potential that is latent within them.

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8. Process Approach: 3 Way Fit

Intervention amongst the poor often take the form of an imposed solution from experts, the so called engineered blueprint approach. Korten (1980) researched successful NGO operations and came up with this conceptual understanding of how best to work with people that the organisation wants to see benefit.

Flow of information between the 3 main ingredients must be integrated. The organisation must be able to listen to the beneficiaries who in term need to learn to clearly express their needs. Likewise the program needs to fit the needs of the people, not primarily the expertise of the organisation. If the program doesn't fit then the expertise of the organisation will need to change to insure that it does. It is a process approach where the beneficiaries and the organisation truly learn from one another, but the key is that the beneficiaries do benefit. Over time the interlinks continue to evolve as "development" is a process not a fixed achievable goal.

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9. International support for co-operation of 'all' in development activities

Statements from international forums recognise the importance of involving all people in sustainable development activities. The rhetoric, however, is often louded than actual commitment.

The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992)

• PRINCIPLE 5
  All States and all people shall cooperate in the ssential task of eradicationg poverty as an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, in order to decrease the disparaties in standards of living and better meet the needs of the majority of the people of the world.
• PRINCIPLE 10
  Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level. At the national level, each individual shall have appropriate access to information concerning the environment that is held by public authorities, including information on hazardous materials and activi-ties in their communities and the opportunity to partici-pate in decision-making processes. States shall facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making information widely available. Effective access to judicial and administrative proceedings, including redress and remedy, shall be provided.
• PRINCIPAL 20
  Women have a vital role in environmental management and development. Their full participation is therefore essential to achieve sustainable development.
• PRINCIPLE 22
  Indigenous people and their communi-ties, and other local communities, have a vital role in environmental management and development because of their knowledge and traditional practices. States should recognize and duly support their identity, culture and interests and enable their effective participation in the achievement of sustainable development.

International Conference on Population & Development in Cairo (Sept 1994)

• 180 Nations
• Sense of urgency Plan to stabilize Global population at 7.8 billion by 2050.
• Fill the family planning gap 120 million women who want to limit family size but are not able to access services.
• Gender Equality The empowerment of women and the improvement of their political, social, economic and health status is a highly important end in itself plus it is essential for sustainable development.

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10. Program Learning Curve

Korten goes on to say that organisations need to evolve over time, from not only learning to be effective, but to learning to achieving this effectively and building in momentum so that the benefits multiply to many others in an expansion phase. Too often NGO's have been effective in a very limited way. The needs are great and the benefits need to flow onto many.

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11. The Third Sector - NGO's (Governments and Corporations are the first 2 sectors)

A recent report from the Wordwatch institute distributed by e-mail on 29 October, 1999

Curtis Runyan's article, "Action on the Front Lines," looks at the growing power of nongovernmental organizations in influencing and setting policies that were formerly the preserve of governments and corporations. Through their international connections and networks, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are giving local concerns global platforms--connecting the hundreds of millions people who belong to grassroots, community organizations that are working in small but significant ways to change the status quo. This chaotic "third sector" is charting a new course deep into the waters long ruled by nations and corporations. And increasingly, its swelling numbers, size, complexity, and effectiveness are compelling the two traditional sectors to change.

Summary

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12. The 'Bare Foot' Bank

Grameen (Village) Bank in Bangladesh is an interesting example of how the poor, without capital, can be provided with credit. This link takes you to the BareFoot Bank article (Brisbane Institute) that explores a way that a western city can learn from the Village Bank experience in Bangladesh.

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CASE STUDY

This case study is set in the Chalna Thana (small administrative area) in the Khulna District of Southwest Bangladesh. The project is under the overall management of a small NGO called HEED Bangladesh (the word HEED is derived form Health, Education and Economic Development).

While reviewing the case study ask yourself the question, " How well does the project match the criteria introduced above?"

Case Study

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