24 Decentralization and rural development: FAO experience and proposals, Jean Bonnal, Rural Development Officer, SDA/Rome
25 Poverty alleviation through market generated rural employment: 'Success Case Replication', Jan B. Orsini, Economic Affairs Officer, ESCAP
26 People's participation in upland watershed management for rural development: Lessons for the 21st century,Prem N. Sharma. FAO (UN), Kathmandu, Nepal
Massive recent withdrawal by the State (privatization, deregulation and finance policies of restricted public spending) initially fuelled a large-scale reduction in public institutions' intervention capacity and, in rural development terms, triggered a contraction in the public institutions which had been furnishing agricultural services, the down-scaling or abolishment of subsidies and the privatization of certain agricultural support services.
Rural development institutions, therefore, are engaged in a restructuring process of equally massive proportions. Decentralization and the transfer of operational functions and certain support services to intermediate and local government levels, producer organizations and civil institutions, form a key facet of these developments. State withdrawal has created a window of opportunity for other rural development agents to undertake action.
Figure No. 1. Decentralization: a new equilibrium
State withdrawal has created a window of opportunity for otherrural development agents to undertake action. State and civil society institutions are in balance, with public institutions, privatzation, subsidies, deregulation sand financial restriction posed against civil society represented by local government, producer organizations, transfer of functions, support services.
Decentralization transfers decision-making powers and resources closer both to the target populations of public policy and to all protagonists in civil society, in the context of the redefinition of the role of the State, e.g. Deconcentration: transferring some administrative responsibilities; Delegation: assigning some tasks to the lower level; Devolution: creating independent levels or units.
1. Decentralization means the process whereby government institutions transfer decision-making powers and resources closer both to the target populations of public policy and to all protagonists in civil society, in the context of the re-definition of the role of the State, deregulation and privatization.
Figure No. 2. FAO Decentralization: Definitions
2. Decentralization can take three orms: Deconcentration to regional and/or local levels (for example, a Ministry transfers some of its activities and legal powers to its regional and/or local units). Such a transfer fundamentally constitutes administrative decentralization in that it does not really involve a shift in decision-making power but only in "some administrative responsibilities from the central government to the regional, zonal and district level government offices, retaining all powers of control and authority with the centre".
3. Delegation of functions to regional semi-public bodies (for example a Ministry transferring some of its activities and legal powers to regional and specialist agencies). Delegation consists of "assigning some tasks to the lower level. It implies that the central government creates or transfers to an agency or administrative level certain specified functions and duties, which the latter has broad discretion to carry out".
Figure No. 3. Risks of decentralization.
4. Devolution of functions and resources to the populations themselves or to local government levels (transfer to organizations representative of populations or to municipalities, village authorities or rural communities). Devolution "involves creating or strengthening independent levels or units of government through transfer of functions and authority from the central government.
5. The local units of government to which functions and authority are devolved would be mostly autonomous, with the central authority only exercising indirect, supervisory control over them". Devolution is the most advanced form of decentralization since it implies a transfer of power to a local institution or association which enjoys a high level of autonomy. Popular participation in the decision-making process is most important in this type of decentralization.
In the context of the legacy of centralized policies, the State's retrenchment and, in particular, decentralization, carry a number of risks which FAO's experience in the field has contributed to identifying.
There are five decisive legacy/risk pairs:
There is a risk that governments will be tempted to base their intervention approach on a pure demand philosophy, which would have the merit of taking account of the particular circumstances of each locality or type of producer, but the disadvantage that action would be diluted and that an overall philosophy to guide the definition of rural development strategies would be lost.
There is a risk that rural populations are unable to gain a general view of their demands and specific problems and to co-ordinate their activities.
If the relocation of functions is not accompanied by a transfer of legal power, decentralization can produce institutional vacuums, a reduction in the supply of support services and a widening of income disparities between urban and rural areas.
The imbalance in the organizational levels of rural populations creates the risk of an appropriation of the functions and resources transferred under decentralization by the richest, best organized municipalities and organizations.
Decentralization may lead to the paralysis of intermediate and local levels of government as well as of producer organizations, which are unable to assume the challenges posed by decentralization policy
Figure No. 4. Decentralization: FAO experience and proposals.
Presenting a study carried out by FAO on the risks associated with processes of decentralization (see Figure No. 4), an account was provided of the valuable knowledge-base and experience which FAO has built up, which places it in a position to propose appropriate ways of responding to such risks. Identification of the latter and of FAO's valuable advantages makes it possible, finally, to put forward a decentralization model (RED-IFO) based on a methodology of regionalization and differentiation and three associated policies: information, training and organization.
FAO's knowledge and experience relate to a number of actions concerning the overall support policies for processes of decentralization as well as to the restructuring of institutions themselves. Projects and programs developed by FAO represent particular responses to one of the following four situations (see Figure No. 5), or a combination thereof: a structural or temporary weakness in state institutions; a decentralization process which has led to the emergence of institutional vacuums with regard to the supply of a certain number of support services; decentralization processes which have put forward the need for a certain number of support policies; the restructuring of expensive, inefficient agricultural support services due to their excessive degree of centralization or the lack of ability to reach small farmers.
Figure 5: FAO's advantages: knowledge and experience.
In the first two cases, FAO sought to permit populations to play key roles in the new policy situation (state withdrawal, deregulation, privatization) or in situation in which policy is lacking (state weakness, institutional vacuums). In the latter two cases, FAO action is geared to improving effectiveness of government agricultural support bodies by promoting a greater involvement by rural populations.
Figure No. 6: Overview of FAO projects and programme. Focus on: public institutions, civil society and local government levels.
An attempt has been made to provide a summary in order to link consideration of the risks posed by decentralization, on the one hand, and, on the other, the advantages, experiences and knowledge which the different FAO services have built up. Thanks to this summary, it is possible to propose a tailored decentralization methodology and a set of support policies which are fundamental to the success of decentralization. Hence, it represents an ordering of FAO's different lines of action and focuses into a participatory decentralization model, called the RED-IFO model (see Figure 7, below).
The objective of the model, which comprises two parts, is to deal with the risks posed by decentralization. The first consists of a decentralization methodology, based on the regionalization of the needs of rural populations and policy differentiation (risk 1). The second part proposes three support policies: information (risk 2), training (risk 3) and organization (risk 4). One of the model's principal components is dialog (this offers a form of solving risk 5).
In order to avoid the first risk posed by decentralization (that of a supply philosophy being simply replaced by one that is demand driven), the RED-IFO model suggests the construction of an intersection area between rural development partners with a global philosophy and policy supply (international organizations and states), on the one hand, and the partners with knowledge of local circumstances and a specific demand for support projects and programs (rural populations, NGOs, the private sector) on the other.
In other words, in order for the State's policy supply not to be too global, there is a need to be able to differentiate policies and, therefore, obtain typologies of producers and regions, which would permit the institutional instruments which are best suited to each type of producer, product and region to be identified. However, at the same time, in order to treat rural populations' demands (which are necessarily specific and local) consistently, it is necessary to regionalize the needs and wishes of rural populations in order to give them a wider impact.
Figure No. 7. Red IFO: A decentralization analytical model.
Under this model three policies are deemed essential to supplement the regional analysis and differentiation methodology of the RED-IFO decentralization model and create the necessary conditions for participation by rural populations in the decentralization process: i) access to information; ii) training and iii) support for the organization of rural populations. FAO has built up a wealth of experience in these three spheres.
A) The role of access to information in dialog with the Statei) production of information relevant to a rural development strategy,B) Training as a means of avoiding institutional vacuums
ii) creation of conditions for a continuous flow of information among all rural development partnersTraining should be geared as a matter of priority towards municipalities and rural organizations with a weak demand-formulating capacityC) Organization and mediation mechanisms support for existing organizations and, in certain cases, the creation of intermediate associations and recognition of the latter as the State's favored dialog-partners, through the creation of a legal framework to encourage participation
Figure No. 8. Red IFO: A decentralization analytical model
In order to better understand the status and process of decentralization in member countries, FAO/SDA sent them a pilot questionnaire. This initial study is intended to serve as a basis for more in-depth investigation of decentralization issues. To date, a sample of 20 countries have provided exploitable responses.
Figure No. 9. Decentralization processes: questionaire and typology
Not all the questions have been used to analyzed the results. Much of the contextual information has not been included, and a few variables which provided dubious results were disregarded. In the end, seven variables were actually exploited. Two types of analysis were performed: a scoring of decentralization level (for each country the scoring of seven variables and, on the basis of the scores, a simple typology of countries was established.
The scoring procedure varied for each question, but in all cases, high scores indicate high degrees of decentralization. To reflect the multi-dimensional nature of decentralization, a more sophisticated statistical analysis was performed: the principal components analysis (PCA).
The PCA is a tool that allows the visualization of multidimensional data and the identification groups of objects or of outlines. Geometrically, it consists of making the projection of a "cloud" of data onto a planar representation. The projection plane is chosen so that it yields the "best" representation (i.e. it reflects the maximum variability of the raw data). The two axes of the plane do not represent a unique variable; rather each is a synthetic mix of variables. In mathematical terms, they are a linear combination of the variables under scrutiny.
Figure No. 10. Decentralization processes: questionaire and typology
The results are presented provides more technical details on the representation, including the representativity of the projection and the composition of the axes. A visual inspection of the Graph shows which countries are grouped together, thus indicating that they belong to the same family or result for the same process. The axes represent composite variable. While axis F1 quite neatly summarizes the degree of decentralization, F2 is more complicated to interpret. Basically it describes whether decentralization is a process lead by bottom up or top down initiatives.
Two initial groups appear along the first axis (F1): the "western" half gathers the centralized countries, while the "eastern" half represents the decentralized countries. The latter group can be further dived into two sub-groups according the vertical axis. In the "south east" corner, countries characterized by a high degree of local/regional autonomy are represented, thus indicating the pre-eminence of the sub-national levels of governments in the decentralization process. The "south east" corner contains countries where the central government leads the process of decentralization with strongly codified and active initiatives such as reform of central level institutions or policy procedures. The above mentioned categories should not be read in a too deterministic way. Rather, the graph indicates a tendency of the countries to fall into one category or the other.
Eight countries completed two years of field trails of the success case replication (SCR) methodology of rural employment promotion and are familiar with its strengths and weaknesses. Those countries include: Bhutan, Lao PDR, Nepal, Mongolia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam. In Thailand, three agencies - BAAC, DOAE and Thai DHRRA - were involved in the pilot project.
Success Case Replication
I. Philosophy: It is human nature to observe and imitate successful peers
Successful local enterprise: Successful enterprises at village level; Overcoming local constraints; Valuable experience. Some villagers have achieved a remarkable level of success in their chosen enterprise, be it farming, livestock, micro enterprise or a participatory group. In achieving this success, they have overcome local constraints and gained valuable experience, which is used in SCR.When villagers see a successful enterprise operating in their own village, they believe what they see. More important, as it is their fellow villager who is successful, they believe that they as well, can replicate the success. Training conducted by such successful villagers is always "hands on training", no lectures, no theory.Villagers as teachers: Familiar with local circumstances; Speak local language; Same social strata. Successful villagers have much to teach their peers, and as they are fully familiar with local setting, they speak the local language or dialect and come from the same social strata, they can become effective teachers.
Realistic success model: Believe the enterprise they are seeing; Believe they can replicate their peer; Hands on training.
II. How it works: Train field level staff
Step One: Locate success cases.
Finding successes is easy because the community is keenly aware of successful fellow villagers.Step Two: Ascertain if the success is replicable
1. Raw materials readily availableStep Three: Assess trainer willingness to train
2. All processing problems solved
3. Successful marketing at good price over sustained period
4. Does the local market have additional capacity
As the field worker gets to know the successful person it can be judged if the success case person is genuinely willing to train neighbours who may become competitors. Those who are not genuinely willing, will usually withhold critical secrets which will cause the trainees to fail.Step Four: Select trainees carefully
The field worker must carefully choose villagers genuinely committed to replicate the success. This requires cultural judgement. Alternately, a fee may be charged for chaining; eliminating casual participants. Most important, all trainees must have access to startup funds in the form of savings or credit.Step Five: Establish "practical" training programme
The successful person can design the "hands on" training programme, which must include raw material purchase, processing, and marketing the product.Step Six: Arrange followup assistance
The field staff must assure that the trainees can get further advice from the successful person to correct the difficulties that inevitably arise in the early stages of every new enterprise.Step Seven: Achieve secondary multiplications
Once several trainees have achieved good success in their new enterprises, they can be used to train another group of poor villagers. Be cautious of market saturation.Step Eight: Keep cost/benefit records
Train field staff to keep records of (1) all costs of delivery and (2) all net profit obtained by successful trainees during first year of sales. These figures will facilitate a cost/benefit analysis.III. Strengths of the methodology
Although it is a simple concept, Success Case Replication has advantages that can make it a powerful tool for employment promotion. SCR reduces risk of failure because enterprise is already a locally proven technology where the problems have already been overcome. The field worker is not introducing a new, unfamiliar and untested technology. It avoids a top-down approach to training: when a central planner chooses the enterprise that will be introduceds, it may not be locally feasible. It also avoids the "outsider" trainer problem. Government trainers often come from urban areas and while they are technically very qualified, they are often unfamiliar with local constraints. SCR does not use outsiders for training.
Success Case Replication removes the "social status" barrier. Trainers from outside the village are usually of a higher social status and may even look down on villagers. More importantly, villagers usually see outsiders as having privileged access to special inputs which they themselves lack. Hence, villagers do not feel confident that they can replicate the enterprise. In SCR, a local person of equal social and economic status is the trainer.
SCR trainers remain available after traing. Often the outside trainer leaves immediately after training is completed, leaving trainees without help to solve the inevitable unforeseen problems that can kill new enterprise.
Self deliance rather than dependency:
+ Outsiders create "Dependency"Using outside trainers tends to make the community members develop a dependency on government, which undermines their own self-reliance and problem solving initiatives. SCR promotes self-reliance by enhancing the social status of the local teacher and demonstrating that the community can independently replicate its own successes.
+ Undermine "self-reliance"
Multiple generation replication:
+ Ordinary extension reaches one person/one groupIn traditional extension methods, each field staff teaches one person or one group at any one time. If an agency has a staff limitation, this can severely limit the effectiveness of the programme. With SCR, dynamic field staff can use many successful villagers, with a broad range of successful enterprises, to do training on their behalf.
+ Staff limitation
+ Effectiveness limitation
Technology and strata neutral: Any technology
+ Any level of organizationEffective for any technology: Ranging in complexity from (1) three-hour course for two trainees making soy bean milk, to (2) three-month course for 17 village youth for polishing synthetic diamonds.
Effective at any level of organization:
Individual level... one successful villager trains another villagerLow cost but demands time:Group level... successful women's groups train new groups, and,Institutional level... entire institutions replicated across international boundaries.(Grameen Bank of Bangladesh being replicated in over 40 countries). You can test it in your own institution by using your most successful staff to train new, or less effective, staff (with help from your training division).
few training costsMany villagers are willing to train their peers without any compensation and the practical, on site, training usually incurs few training costs. We suggest that 10 of the value of "start up" loan funds be earmarked for training costs in the case where the villager is too poor to pay for training.
use 10 of loan fund for training
some demand on staff time
The methodology obviously makes some demand on staff time and for agencies where field staff are already overworked, such as with BAAC where each field officer must disburse and collect loans from 700 recipients, the added work time may make excessive demands on these staff.
I. Weaknesses of the Methodology
Although a powerful tool, it has inherent weaknesses that should be carefully minimized.
Does not replace conventional training and extension
+ Tech training and extension essential as ever;Technical training and extension remains as essential as ever. This methodology is not meant to be a replace them, rather it is a supportive methodology which can greatly accelerate technology transfer once one villager has become successful with the new technology.
+ Supportive in accelerating tech transfer.
Dependant on local successes:
+ Absence of local successes.If the area is very poor, and there is an absence of local successes, then the field staff have to introduce new technology or importing success cases from elsewhere. In this instance, there will be some risks in introducing outside successes. Careful comparative evaluation is necessary.
+ Risk for introducing outside successes.
Transferring success across barriers:
+ Local circumstances determine success;Since local circumstances often determine success in many enterprises, physical and cultural barriers can interfere with transfer to new locations. Physical barriers can be the lack of a market, raw materials, etc. while cultural barriers can be such as asking an ethnic minority person to train a lowland Thai.
+ Physical and cultural barriers.
Requires commitment of trainees:
+ Poor trainee selection, low successIf trainee selection is done poorly, there will be a low rate of success in the replication. There is cultural judgement involved and this ability to judge genuinely interested persons improves over time.
+ Cultural judgement involved
+ Improves over time
Requires honest trainer:
+ Holding back on business secretsHonest villagers who face a market constraint usually refuse to train potential competitors in their home market, but they may agree to train outside their market area. "Politicians" who agree to train to avoid being labeled "selfish" by the community but the withhold critical business secrets will cause trainees to fail. Assessing willingness requires cultural judgement, which improves with experience.
+ Assessing real willingness
Market oversupply:
+ Unlimited marketsFor crops or items with unlimited markets in which the market price is unaffected by added production (such as rice at the farm level), increased production causes no problems. In case of limited markets, uncontrolled multiple replications can lead to oversupply and price collapse.
+ Limited markets
+ Uncontrolled multiple replications
Attitude of Field Staff:
+ Critical "catalyst"Since the field staff is the critical "catalyst" in this methodology: without them, nothing happens. Therefore, if they are the kind of person that fully believes that illiterate villagers can successfully train their peers, then they will be effective with the method. On the other hand, if their attitude is that villagers are inherently inferior, then this attitude will undermine the methodology.
+ Attitude can endanger method
Cost/benefit analysis is the real test of impact
Two critical impact measures:
1. Money in the villagers hand:Hence, we now have lists of successful villagers, by name, their trainees, by name, and the net income they gained.All agencies agreed to try their best to measure the net profit earned by the trainees during the first year of product sales.2. Costs of delivery of SCRAll agencies agreed to try to keep records of staff time, per diem, transport, and training costs spent in conducting the SCR pilot programme.
We contrast net income data with the costs of delivery of the methodology, to ascertain cost effectiveness of SCR methodology.
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Example: |
Viet Nam |
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Counterpart: |
Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs. |
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SCR Training: |
March 1995 |
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Field trails: |
March 1995 to November 1996 |
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Results: |
1. Over 100 groups of trainees |
|
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2. Income for 656 households, 3 608 poor benefited. |
|
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3. Eighteen different enterprises, goats to guitars. |
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Cost/Benefit Ratio: |
Delivery costs: $4 272 = 1 |
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Net income gain: |
$114 551 26.8 |
In the Lao PDR, we were informed by a senior Irrigation Department Official, that he had witnessed over $10 million in irrigation works, over many years and had never seen any effort to measure the net income gain to the beneficiaries, much less, to contrast it against the costs of delivery to obtain a cost/benefit analysis.
Development professionals who will oversee employment promotion projects in future, consider introducing these measures to evaluate the impact of programmes and projects. Of course, it would be ideal if you could generate 20 million baht of income for the unemployed for each one million baht invested in each employment promotion project. The donor would certainly be impressed with this kind of performance.
This study sets the stage for sustainable participatory watershed management for rural development based on the indigenous knowledge of the people when revitalization of their confidence is needed. Participatory watershed management (PWM) is defined in the uplands as leading to holistic rural development. This leads to contrasting conventional vs. new participatory watershed management paradigms. Participatory watershed management is process- rather than target-based. Hence, the key elements in participatory processes and lessons learned from recent case studies of popular participation are summarized to help reorient integrated watershed programmes for more participation in the next century. This leads refocused policy options to facilitate rural people to take charge of the rural development process. In this way professionals and policy makers can assist in building the confidence of people in their own social institutions for sustainable watershed and rural development, examples of which are innumerable in history. This is to lead to overall human development through appropriate natural resources management on a small watershed basis in the upland rural areas.
Introduction
Upland watersheds (hence upland rural areas) are characterized by a relatively high degree of inaccessibility, fragility, marginality and diversity having their own special niche opportunities and human adaptation mechanisms (Jodha et al, 1992). While there are lessons to be learned from recent GO/NGO led watershed management and rural development efforts which might have been successful in limited areas at upland/mountain watershed rehabilitation, much can be learned from indigenous and peoples' own efforts since time immemorial in all aspects of participatory watershed management and/or rural development (Mishra, 1996a,b; Sheena and Mishra, 1998; Yao and Wu, 1998). Anupam Mishra (1997) stated that while "watershed management" as a term may not have been used more than 50 years, the issues associated with conservation, protection and development of forest, land and water resources are integral to human society and history. Civilizations could not have existed without such awareness. Society must "create systems that help in adapting to the availability of these resources," according to Mishra. "In doing this, a society has to rise above mere technological systems and mould them into socio-cultural mechanisms that also find a place in its religion. Instead of looking down upon large sections of our society as illiterate, poor and weak, we need to reinstate their self-respect and their sense of identity that they have lost. It is by building on the age-old indigenous knowledge of our society and its confidence in its capacity that foundations of sustainable watershed management and upland rural development can be laid".
Conventional vs new paradigm for participatory watershed management
Such thinking and analysis of other national and indigenous case studies of people's participation in watershed management (Sharma, 1997), new studies of peoples' institutions (Bhatt et al, 1998; Sheena, 1998; Yao and Wu, 1998) as well as new knowledge based on many failed experiences (Sanders, 1990, Dent, 1997) have given rise to a new paradigm for people's participation in watershed management. Since in the uplands rural development must be based on development of watershed resources, the new paradigm is valid for holistic rural development in the upland watersheds.
This new paradigm addresses watershed degradation as perceived by farmers, giving economically viable, environmentally-sustainable production-oriented, conservation alternatives built upon indigenous knowledge for overall development. Based on this, participatory and sustainable integrated watershed management was recently redefined to encompass holistic rural development of upland watersheds: Utilization and conservation of land, water, and forest resources at farm, household and community (or given watershed) level for continuously improved livelihood and human development (Sharma et al, 1997).
Participatory approaches
There are two schools of thought on people's empowerment. One is that empowerment of people will result in the disempowerment of professionals and technicians. Thus, they will resist the process. The other school of thought believes that empowerment of people will result in more empowerment of professionals and development agents as they gain more love and trust of the people. This will happen when professionals and development agents become true facilitators. Participatory approaches fall under two broad categories:
Table 1: Conventional vs. new participatory watershed management paradigm
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Conventional Approach |
New Approach |
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Based on technology and ideas from the professionals |
Based on indigenous technology, traditions and cosmic vision
of local people |
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Executing agency driven |
Participatory, farmer driven |
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Target based |
Participatory process based |
|
Aimed at soil, water and forest conservation only |
Aimed at NRM for overall human development thus holistic rural
development |
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Transfer of technology (TOT) extension method |
Farmer first approach married to TOT |
|
Extension and scientist led |
Farmer-led facilitated by professionals |
|
Top-down planning, M & E |
Participatory planning, M&E |
|
Land use based on land capability |
Land use based on land suitability and people's
needs/preferences |
|
Did not consider structural issues e.g. land ownership,
farmer's organization |
Land use titling and farmers' organization at fore-front of
Participatory WM |
|
Aimed at long term benefits |
Aimed at quick as well as long term net benefit
generation |
|
Empowered the agents of technology transfer i.e.
officials |
Aimed at people's empowerment |
|
Attended to selected generally better off farmers |
Aimed at marginal, small and poor farmers and gender equity
|
|
Tended to be grabbed by single sectors |
Multisectorial and multi disciplinary |
|
Engg. Structures prioritized |
Based on bio-engineering & agroforestry |
|
Incentives and aid used for people's participation |
Investment at the disposal of the farmers |
|
Did not encourage people's initiatives |
Based on people's initiative |
|
Disjointed and arbitrary, based on large watersheds |
Farming systems as well as common property management based on
small watershed |
These are based on ancient rituals and culture of people. These efforts are long lasting; structured around human development in harmony with nature and the cosmic world; and meet requirements mainly through existing endogenous funding channels.
Facilitated efforts
These are helped by various means by development agents. These efforts are either co-opted (by incentives, policy instruments or demands for free labour in return for development aid) or coerced participation. They usually succeed on a short-time basis but are not sustainable on a long-term basis. One key element for such success is envisioning a higher (cosmic) human dimension where project activities are integrated into the culture of people (e.g. by converting the various maintenance and operational activities into rituals as a duty and/or service to the God). The participatory process can develop an innovative mix of traditional and "imported" know-how, according to each context.
Participatory processes in upland watershed management
For achieving the goals of participatory watershed management as defined above, new thinking is required (Sharma and Krosschell, 1997). Farmers must become equal partners in development. Their local knowledge and capacity for continued experimentation and innovation must be recognized to reestablish their confidence and voluntary sprit in managing their natural resources as they have done for centuries.
Here, a synthesis of the key elements of the participatory processes for assured people's participation in integrated/comprehensive upland/mountain watershed management is presented. This synthesis is based on case studies of participatory watershed management so far available as well as some of the recent farmer-led or farmer based or user-based experiences and recent documentation of farmers institution indigenous strengthening, which are being gained today around the world[17].
The key elements of participatory processes for integrated upland watershed management can overlap; activities may be continuous or in sequence, depending on need.
Farmer and professional envisioning in accord with cosmic vision
Participatory watershed management should result in an improved livelihood and social lifestyle in harmony with nature based on the cosmic vision of a community. Cosmic vision is defined as the people's relationship with nature and the universe in accordance with the dominant philosophy of life in their community. Better morals should be added to combine moral knowledge and practice, thereby making the community healthier and happier.
Once the people attain a certain level of awareness, a voluntary code of conduct pertaining to their community and society could be laid down and a social structure (e.g. farmers' organizations) could be created to sustain it. However, if a social organization already exists, it may be used for this purpose. Besides, envisioning is a continuous activity and should not be used in isolation of the objectives of participatory watershed management. Furthermore, envisioning should not be misunderstood as being a religious conversion or as abstract preaching.
For successful watershed management it is imperative that the facilitators/trainers themselves inculcate good moral and ethical standards to impress upon common people virtues of better moral practices on strong moral footings. The envisioning process should result in farmer, community and professional awakenings and mobilization for their own integrated watershed management.
Farmers' empowerment and ownership by their organization strengthening
Empowering farmers and institutionalizing their ownership of integrated watershed management programmes and processes requires that their constitutional rights (individually or in groups) are allowed unhindered access and farmers are facilitated to use them. These include: the right to organize farmers organizations, the right to use/own land and other resources, such as land use titling and equity among all sections of society, especially as related to gender concerns and disadvantaged groups, i.e. main-streaming gender and other social concerns.
In addition to ownership of land, water and forest resources, farmers' organization strengthening based on their indigenous institutions and networking into federations helps them better institutionalize the empowerment process. This requires an integrated and well-coordinated approach at farmers' field and community levels by all concerned implementing agencies. Lack of investment is not necessarily the problem. Nevertheless, improving farmers' receiving mechanism with proper checks and balances and avoiding abuse of funds may be important in farmers' ownership of the investments. This can be better obtained by farmer-managed organizations (Sheena, 1998; Yao and Wu, 1998) rather than top guided organizations. The resources from local banks/district programmes and other local resources must be facilitated for integrated watershed management programmes.
The strategy for local ownership of the watershed management programme, therefore, consists of facilitating the empowerment process (not imposition) and guaranteeing long term ownership or usufruct (user) rights to land and other resources to the farmers/people. It further requires attitude changes by government departments and NGOs from target- to process-oriented development, so that it fits into farmers (not governments or NGOs) pace of life, capacity building and investments (public and private), and the necessary technical support to rebuild the confidence of the people.
The new vision needs government and NGO technical agents with persistence, commitment, innovation, dedication and better communication skills to assist in institution strengthening. Such planning and implementation would be based on farmers' traditional processes and indigenous technologies with which advanced technologies can be amalgamated. Subsidies, if any, should be replaced by investments if watershed managementprogrammes are to sustain themselves.
Land use titling/tenure
Control over land resources (by both men and women) is a pre-requisite of farmers' participation in NRM/WM programme as has been amply demonstrated by many case studies of successful participatory WM programmes. Empowerment is linked to control over resources, which in turn is linked to ownership. Hence, land ownership is seen as an important key element to facilitate people's participation. The different types of land ownership (public, private and community lands, tenure e.g. absentee landlords, etc.) will allow differently for empowerment. Therefore, they require different approaches to management of these lands. This requires a change of attitudes among all concerned so that the empowering process can help farmers to better handle the pressures from vested interests. Land tenure systems vary in different countries. Today various approaches by individual governments in the region are being tried for land use titling. These approaches have had limited success although good examples are available, e.g. in community forestry in Nepal (Kanel, 1997), CARL in Philippines (Escano, 1997) and the family contract system in China (Wu, 1995).
Integration of gender concerns
A majority of the farmers in the upland mountain watersheds are women. They spend long hours in agricultural as well as other natural resources management activities in addition to keeping the home fires burning. However, until recently, the WM policy makers, planners, as well as technicians, had not realized this. Thus, many professionals in the field are not fully aware of gender issues. Hence, urgent action is needed to correct the imbalance caused by lack of awareness to integrate the gender concerns. There are many myths about women farmers, e.g. that they only do domestic work; that a given technology is good for both men and women; that women cannot work as well as men; that women's concerns can be expressed correctly by their male relatives, etc. (Krosschell, 1997). These myths need to be broken so that the real farmers/land users (both women and men) in an upland watershed can participate. In addition, special efforts at confidence building of women farmers are needed, as they have been the most neglected farmers in Asia in the 20th century. To do this, gender concerns and remedies for alleviating inequalities (also for disadvantaged classes/castes) need to be designed and mainstreamed into watershed development programs. A gender audit in WM programme planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation is essential, i.e. ask at every step are women (and other disadvantaged groups) better off with the programme or not?
Assured and quick benefit generation
It is by now very clear that unless the WM/NRM activities result in quick (preferably within a crop season or a year) net direct benefits to the participating farmers, their participation should not be expected. Without this, there will not be any farm-level conservation and better utilization of natural resources. On common property resources also, if they are to be managed better by the people, they must produce quick benefits to them. Thus, gender sensitive activities assuring quick economic benefits, along with environmental and social benefits, are needed. Hence, if a WM/NRM activity does not result in quick and assured benefits, it should not be treated as a WM activity as the people in any case would not implement it.
The quick income generating activities could be a combination of both mechanical as well as biological (agro-horticultural-forestry) activities for land, water and forest conservation. In addition they should be labour and input saving.
Many examples of activities are today available which produce direct benefits within a crop season. Incorporation of better agronomic practices, cash crops, animal husbandry, off-farm income generation, better storage of farm produce, value-added products, marketing and rural infrastructure (e.g. farm roads, rural roads) require attention. Community facilities (e.g. ponds, community forestry) which result in direct farmers' income generation need to be strengthened. This requires promotion of farmers' capacity for investment. Thus rather than subsidies, incentives or other forms of government doles, promotion of investment from both farmers as well as government programmes is needed for quick economic, environmental and social benefit generation.
Lessons for future
1. Build participatory watershed programmes based on indigenous knowledge and their own social institutions of the watershed population and strengthen their (women, men and disadvantaged classes) confidence in their age-old cultural strength in land, water, forest management.Refocusing policy options2. Participatory watershed management should result in holistic human development. Thus, the goal of the watershed management programmes needs to be re-framed to encompass management of natural resources for overall human development resulting in holistic rural development.
3. Integrated watershed management should be based on the dominant cultural and value system in relation to the dominant thoughts of a society with respect of nature and the universe. Thus, spiritual or other ways of humankind's role in nature and the universe (cosmic vision) should become a continuous activity of the watershed management programmes. Education and training programmes also need to integrate them into their curricula.
4. Alternate ways of strengthening farmers' organizations for their empowerment need to be integrated into WM programmes. This will include farmer-led planning; farmer-led implementation, farmer managed funding and investments (e.g. rotating funds) and participatory monitoring and evaluation to channel corrections into the WM programmes. This is to be within the framework of a commonly agreed constitution of the farmers' organizations, respected by all participants. As far as possible, conflict resolution should be based on the dominant cultural values of the people rather than only legal deterrents. Clear rules and sanctions, clear leadership, clear decision-making procedures and a clear role of the organization are important as well. A mechanism for communication among all members and equitable distribution of benefits is important for organization building. This all will help develop a sustainable way of life by managing the watershed sustainably. Thus, programmes should introduce the mechanisms by which the WM process becomes part of the culture of the people.
5. Most education and training programmes need to update their curricula to train professionals to facilitate the process of farmers' decision-making, empowerment, organization building and self-management of the WM programmes.
6. The investment in such programmes should be at national level and made available to the farmers or other users through national channels. In most countries, bank loans exist for farmers. However, farmer-managed funding is more effective, less misused and results in better-managed community and household resources.
7. Policy frameworks in most countries allow community and public lands to be titled to the people. Watershed programmes should facilitate this process and help land titling to the people. As far as possible, the land titling authority should be designed into these programmes.
8. Quick benefit generation should be the primary concern of development activities. Farming systems improvement and common property resource development should seek this in an ecologically sound manner. Water being the primary natural constraint in mountains and rainfed areas, its harvesting and conservation can increase the sustainability of watershed resources.
9. Gender concerns receive only lip service in most watershed programmes in Asia. This creates a situation where more than half of the population (women farmers and land users) either do not benefit or become worse off. Affirmative action policies have limited impact. However, they are needed till the gender concerns and their resolution become a part of the dominant culture.
10. Most watershed professionals and technicians are aware of the above elements of participatory processes. Hence, much efforts will have to be made to update their curricula so that facilitators of the participatory processes can be trained properly.
Many policy options for institutionalizing participatory watershed management for overall human development and holistic rural development are in place in many countries. In spite of this, in many countries these options are not used as this represents decentralization of power to rural people. Thus, a refocus and re-education of professionals/policy makers to facilitate decentralization is needed. The important policy options requiring refocus coming out of the key elements of the participatory processes for upland watershed management are as follows:
1. Policy mechanisms for integration of various components of WM/NRM and rural development leading to overall human development.Conclusion2. Farmers' institutions to become main vehicles of development.
3. Facilitation of land use titling and ownership of other common property resources.
4. Development programmes to aim at quick benefit generation along with watershed conservation.
5. Mainstreaming gender and other disadvantaged groups concerns.
The participatory process requires an appreciation of women/men farmers' knowledge and their social institutions. For this, thorough and continuous dialogue among all stakeholders is important to achieve true participatory upland watershed management resulting in holistic rural development. The result of such an approach will be the boosting of confidence of both women and men farmers and the spreading of innovative ideas from farmer to farmer. By this it is hoped that the professionals can be prepared so that "Instead of looking down upon large sections of our society as illiterate, poor and weak, we reinstate their self-respect and their sense of identity that have been lost. It is by building on the age old indigenous knowledge in our society that foundations of sustainable watershed management can be laid" (Mishra, 1997). A refocusing of policy instruments to achieve this an urgent necessity.
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