Risk and Vulnerability Mailing List Archive

["Vinay Chand" <<address removed>>]

I have read with great interest contributions emphasising the need for 
developing processes of local empowerment. However, I need further guidance as 
to how it could be organised.

My own experience includes addressing thousands of farmers in Zamboanga Del 
Norte in Mindanao organised by the local leaders, speaking to farmers in self 
help groups within the context of Evaluating a project also in Mindanao and 
workshops with farmers in India but unless it is within the context of a 
project, dialogue with farmers is muffled by the need to go through local 
extension staff or representatives or NGOs.

The latter experience drove home the painful fact that those in agricultural 
Ministries charged with interface with farmers were not given vehicles or even 
budgets that would allow them do so effectively. They simply could not afford 
to travel within their areas to talk to farmers on a regular basis. In some 
countries I have found such little official contact with farmers that I have 
been reduced to travelling around and stopping at fields to talk to them 
personally.

Within this context I cannot see how DFID or others could help develop 
community empowerment except within a project and that may well be the best way 
to do it. The farmer self help groups in Mindanao had benefited from an EU 
project and were able to express their lessons and needs in a direct way. It 
would have been possible to build on that by helping them influence technical 
research and inputs and priorities but normally there is little follow up to 
projects that have been completed even if they are success stories. The agenda 
of developing agencies often requires closure and moving on to the next project.

Developing community empowerment on a comprehensive basis depends on resources 
and commitment of national agencies and my experience is that even when these 
are committed to doing so, in reality they lack the resources and substitute an 
institutional version which leads to lobbying by various parties involved in 
the development business and that is not the same thing as engaging in building 
community led empowerment.   
Best wishes,

Vinay Chand
<address removed><mailto:<address removed>>