Economic Opportunity Mailing List Archive

["MacMillan, Andrew (TCOD)" <<address removed>>]

I shared Per Eklund's note on the above with my colleague Kevin Gallagher,
who had the following reaction, which I believe is highly pertinent to the
discussion. 
-----Original Message-----
From: Gallagher, Kevin (TCOS) 
Sent: 27 April 2004 09:23
To: MacMillan, Andrew (TCOD)
Subject: RE: Capacity development & accountability revisited


Andrew,
 
In the 1970's at the end of the Freedom from Hunger, there was a strong
recommendation for adult continuing education. Also a 1974 World Bank
publication of poverty alleviation strongly insisted that community
education was an important component of poverty reduction. At some point,
T&V systems came into fashion with little educational component but rather
"training" (which of course refers to teaching tricks to animals, not giving
knowledge and organisational skills). The T&V focus groups were for the
convenience of the extension officer monitoring and did not attempt to build
independent community organisations that could self-finance their
activities... a missed opportunity to be sure.
 
Today, individual farmers are (still?) faced with low farm gate prices, poor
village infrastructure and high input costs. Their organisations are
increasing but in general are few and not well organised. The state run (and
mismanaged?) cooperative movements of the 1980's led to a distaste for
cooperatives I am told by farmers. Yet, it is primarily through better
community-based farmer organisations that farmers will have political voice
and economic scale sufficient to achieve profitability. I see the  Farmers
Field School (FFS )  networks in Western Kenya and Kagera as being good
evidence that educational activities for building both technical skills and
organisational skills can assist farmers to become more involved in large,
more profitable economic ventures. The role of government and private sector
is essential for promoting these educational activities and assisting with
access to a wider set of alternative economic activities. Investments in
community-based FFS have shown clearly how farmers can direct the activities
for which they will invest themselves while ensuring accountability and
transparency in the process.
 
In terms of higher level farmer associations that require membership fees
that not all can pay nor see the relevance of a national association
directly, I see our job as one of assisting farmers to economically rise to
the point where as a group or as individuals they can decide to participate
or not. National farmer associations obviously have an important role to
play but do need to have strong community roots to ensure true
representation. Thus I think it is always to be clear in "farmer
association" discussions if we are talking about "community-based
independent groups" or "representative lobbies".
 
Farm gate prices still need to go up and trade distorting subsidies need to
change. Agro ecological approaches need to be more widely known. But for the
moment, farmers do need to work together to take advantage of economies of
scale and move from producers of raw products to processors adding value.
Assisting in the process of developing self-financed independent
community-based organisations is by far one of the most critical issues
where we should be investing.
 
Kevin
-----Original Message-----
From: MacMillan, Andrew (TCOD) 
Sent: 27 April 2004 08:24
To: Gallagher, Kevin (TCOS)
Subject: FW: Capacity development & accountability revisited


Another useful contribution by Per Eklund.
-----Original Message-----
From: Per A. Eklund [mailto:] 

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