Public Policy and Expenditure Mailing List Archive

["Per A. Eklund" <<address removed>>]

Forgive me for writing this long piece relating to empowerment, learning and 
aid evaluation. But support for empowering households especially in weakly 
integrated areas to develop self-financed independent community/based 
organisations emerges as a priority to many in this consultation. Andrew 
MacMillan's recent intervention, following contributions by John Farrington, 
Kevin Gallagher, Clive Robinson, Andy Bullock and others, is most useful in 
defining a core agenda for rural areas where Michael Lipton's Plan A will have 
limited impact. Andrew MacMillans's contribution invites further reflection.
 

 He writes: " I would also conclude - but many will not agree - that getting 
rid of most hunger in the world need not be very costly if we are successful in 
empowering the societies and communities in which hunger is most concentrated 
to identify and apply solutions which, at least in the first instance, lie 
largely within their own capacity and are not heavily dependent on external 
services, improved infrastructure and market linkages (which are unlikely to be 
supplied where they are most needed within the foreshortened lifespan of the 
hungry). The key investment is probably in building capacity to facilitate this 
process of local empowerment (and many thoughts on how to do this are emerging 
from the forum)."

 

Over many years, conducting field survey based evaluations across countries in 
Sub Sahara and Asia I came to realise the importance of exploring in workshops 
with local stakeholders ways to raise aid effectiveness by giving far more 
attention to empowerment and learning processes at community and local 
government levels.  The so called theory of induced institutional innovation 
provides an initial  framework for conceptualizing efforts to support the 
growth of independent community based organizations. Shared learning in 
voluntary associations induces co-operative solutions in information search, in 
building capacities for more informed decision making at household and 
community levels and beyond.  Voluntary associations create trust across 
members; 'free riding' and poor governance is then more easily exposed and 
limited. Governments can be asked to design regulatory and legal frameworks 
that are 'pro poor' in nature, to 'induce' associations to register with legal 
identity, and later to 'federate' across communities.  Moreover, members' 
perceived benefits of association need to exceed transaction costs for a 
voluntary association to survive and grow.  Perceived benefits increase with 
rising value to members of accessing external knowledge.. 

 

A common denominator in this consultation is precisely the recognition that 
giving communities access to external knowledge and technology drives 
organisational innovation and poverty reduction. Significant contributions in 
this area were made by Andy Hall, Eli Minja and others under 'science and 
technology'. It remains that entry points for interventions vary within and 
across communities. The positive experience with farmers' field schools with 
integrated pest management (e.g. with IPM), well described by Kevin Gallagher 
represents one case of association formed for knowledge generation that 
empowers and leads to improved practices.  Dispersed farmer-owned seed 
multiplication groups often stand to benefit from access to external knowledge. 
Voluntary traditional associations at community level for self-help, for 
savings mobilization and credit, often run by women represent another entry 
point. Moreover, mothers' changed behaviour is confirmed once they learn to 
diagnose that their child is stunted or vulnerable; several econometric studies 
have demonstrated the powerful impact of this enhanced maternal 'out-of-school' 
knowledge acquisition in terms of reduced stunting prevalence, even over and 
above the effects of growth of private income and of additional members of the 
household that have acquired formal schooling. Finally, active radio listening 
groups represents a further entry point (see below).

 

The institutional dimensions that facilitate for communities to select, own and 
integrate interventions need attention so as to offset traditional line agency 
attention to promote merely a series of single technology interventions. The 
contributions by Behrman, Alderman and Hoddinott under the Copenhagen Consensus 
project, "Feeding the hungry' summarised by London Economist on May 8th are 
highly relevant, (referred to earlier in this consultation). The Economist's 
summary - by default - confirms the need to create local capabilities for 
defining crossectoral priorities and sequencing.  The article presents the case 
for a set of complementary interventions ranging from intervening at the stage 
of utero to improved agricultural technology. 

 

The contributions of these three researchers to knowledge are outstanding. Yet, 
the Economist's summary does not make us grasp how deprived populations come to 
own and benefit from the suggested interventions. The summary does not refer to 
the need to support local institutional capacity to ensure that at community 
levels interventions complement each other; to wit, resource use efficiency 
increases with better complementarity. The need to empower local populations 
with knowledge and  capability to decide their own priorities is not referred 
to, let alone their preferred cross sectoral need of public goods, inclusive of 
cleaner drinking water and sanitation that preserves the nutrient value of food 
intake.

 

Donors need to facilitate experimentation in institutionalizing processes for 
empowerment, for learning, for assisting communities to reveal local 
preferences instead of being passive recipients of more or less relevant 
interventions. Enhancing capabilities means emphasis on training of leaders in 
managing community organizations and self help projects, in advocacy and in 
resource mobilization. Deprived, excluded factions at community levels can be 
targeted for 'inclusion' with easily collected baseline anthropometric 
nutritional status indicators,  be invited to set their own objectives for 
measurable poverty reduction and select members for training to become 
facilitators. When deprived households are empowered,  they participate in 
monitoring progress at community levels in reducing child malnutrition and 
vulnerability, not merely is deprivation better addressed, a fair conjecture is 
that then also probability of fund capture by local elites is reduced.

 

How are institutions transformed to support empowerment in deprived societies 
and communities with measurable goals for facilitation? Can hierarchic 
ministries of agriculture, mostly starved for funds, be transformed into 
delivering services that create the enabling conditions for widespread 
empowerment so that poorer factions within communities begin to demand and own 
services, agriculture related and others?  Perhaps the experience with farmers' 
field schools offers some lessons? Would a faster track in empowering deprived 
societies and communities be to use the route of supporting ministries of local 
or community development, or even entirely use prequalified experienced local 
NGOs to build capacity to facilitate empowerment and delivery of complementary 
cross sectoral services that reduce vulnerability and malnutrition? 

 

Scattered adult rural populations need to be reached. There is much value in 
the recent discussion within this consultation of mass communication tools such 
as radio. Rural radio networks in Sub-Saharan Africa have persisted in spite of 
little or no support from donors and governments. Experts from the British Open 
University experts during the 1980's promoted radio listening groups with local 
farmer monitors to create local capability in adapting messages,  reinforcing 
learning and adoption. Many adoption surveys have confirmed that diffusion via 
radio to farmers, or through well written textbooks in schools, increases 
uptake, especially when the quality of extension advice and local teachers is 
not in line with expectations. 

 

It remains that donors, multi- and bilateral with NGOs need to promote more 
discussion and local level learning across stakeholders and communities about 
programme results and aid effectiveness. Interventions in this consultation 
such as from Andy Bullock and Berga point to this need. Transparency of results 
and impact at household levels too often is limited. Rarely are data on impact 
properly collected and made available to local stakeholders for their 
evaluation. Even when several donors fund sector support programmes, this is 
not an excuse for them to not demand that minimal time series data are 
collected so as to demonstrate overall impact, particular attribution to single 
donor input is then a secondary matter. Once lessons learned from evaluations 
are presented in interactive workshops with local stakeholders, the latter are 
empowered with knowledge how to demand better designed and co-ordinated 
interventions with which to raise aid effectiveness across the donors that 
operate within their communities.

 

To accelerate progress in reducing food and nutrition insecurity, it is useful 
for donors to explore the availability of alternative  institutional delivery 
systems for facilitation and support so as to:

1) Offer eligible communities a 'generic' menu with facilitation for: (i) 
enhancing their organisational capabilities for democratic decision making, 
accountability and ownership; (ii) providing access to external knowledge and 
organisational know-how for: (a) nutrition education combined with child growth 
promotion, (b) provision of relevant pro-poor agricultural technology such as 
women managed back yard poultry, goats, improved varieties, etc.; and (c) 
improved micro credit and financial services; and (iii) accelerated self-help 
provision of local public goods through use of community development funds, 
i.e. for small scale infrastructure such as for drinking water and market 
access roads.

2) Empower targeted communities and beneficiaries to themselves select and own  
interventions, decide sequencing and measurable targets at household level for 
reduced malnutrition and vulnerability.

3) Minimise probability of capture by local elites by using low cost 
nutritional status indicators to ensure inclusion of deprived households and 
easy objective progress monitoring.

 

Donors would perform a further public service in ensuring that their evaluation 
missions:

1) In the common absence of meaningful data on impact, undertake their own or 
joint  surveys, present data on impact and review participatory processes, 
ancillary to adoption and impact;

2) Present lessons from evaluation in periodic workshops to local stakeholders 
including, civil society and donors, with transparent data for results 
comprising adoption and impact, and suggest solutions for the consideration of 
such fora.

 

In recent years, I conducted within a UN organisation, with a team of 
analytical facilitators, a series of such evaluation workshops in Sub-Saharan 
African and Asian countries where we used nutritional status as a useful impact 
indicator for non monetary poverty. There is much evidence that impetus to 
change and reformulated programmes derive from interaction and support in such 
workshops. In spite of expressed government and civil society support for such 

structured learning opportunities, it seems that few donors consistently 
present transparent meaningful results to local stakeholders and invite 
discussion, also of desirability of alternative solutions. Such shared learning 
is much needed.



Best wishes,

Per A. Eklund

<address removed>

<address removed>