In the developing countries, some 2.3 to 2.6 billion people are supported by agricultural systems based on modern technologies brought by the Green Revolution. After these types of agriculture, some 1.9 to 2.2 billion people are largely untouched by modern technology and are still reliant upon indigenous farming systems. They tend to be in poorer countries with little foreign exchange to buy external inputs. Despite the fact that indigenous systems of soil and water conservation are widespread, soil erosion continues to be a far-reaching problem. Agricultural land continues to lose productive soil, water and nutrients resources. This is, in part, because not all farmland is protected by conservation measures, but also because not all erosion arises from farmland; erosion arises also from degradation of forests, rangeland and other areas (Pretty, 1995 reviewing numerous sources of data).
There is growing body of evidence demonstrating that regenerative agriculture requires an integration of different approaches for the sustainable management of natural resource systems. Reducing the rate of environmental degradation therefore requires programs and policies that address the problem in a holistic mode. This includes using: (i) locally adapted resource-conserving technologies; (ii) coordinated action by groups or communities at the local level; and, (iii) supportive external government and/or NGO institutions working within an enabling policy environment and in partnership with resource users. So far, most of the successes have been achieved despite existing policy environments. It is partly for this reason that most of the success stories consist of small islands of accomplishment; scattered projects working with small numbers of communities.
The challenge for governments and donor agencies lies in learning from, and replicating, these islands of success so that whole regions and nations can be transformed. Scaling-up geographical coverage does not mean, however, that programs must just do things bigger and faster. On the contrary, as this paper will demonstrate, at the heart of sustainable management of natural resources, are community-based institutions consisting of resource users working together for individual benefit. Programs therefore need to achieve sustainable results at a grassroots level through beneficiary participation, while at the same time, operating on a large scale. The requirement for participation of beneficiaries in program decision-making is now the accepted mantra amongst most donor agencies. Unfortunately, rhetoric is not matched by reality. This is because there is insufficient knowledge and theory on how to foster effective and sustainable local level institutions for collective action or a regional scale.
This paper aims to provide practical guidance to program planners on how to design community-based NRM programs that can be scaled-up. Suggestions are provided on policy preconditions, program strategies, structure of program implementing agencies, and appropriate financing mechanisms. The paper is based on a review of community-based NRM programs that have achieved some degree of success in fostering effective local level institutions on a large scale. This paper focuses on design aspects specifically related to NRM activities that have productive attributes i.e. they have been shown to have positive cost-benefit ratios and result in increases in real incomes for beneficiaries. Within this category, the paper concentrates on those NRM activities that can be implemented at the level of a community (or village). It has been established that programs that function at this level of planning have a greater potential to be scaled-up since they do not have to struggle (at least in their initial stages) with intra-community and regional externalities.
The next chapter shows the relationship between NRM, collective action and decentralization. In the absence of a commonly agreed definition, the chapter starts by defining the term “natural resource management”. It then proceeds to discuss the nature of goods delivered by NRM programs and provides a justification for public resources to be used for financing goods that result in both private, and social, benefits. The evidence for collective action to sustainably manage natural resources is then discussed. While analyzing the essential characteristics of long enduring local institutions for collective action, the paper posits that decentralization policies and programs are essential for the large-scale supply of such institutions. Chapter 0 briefly summarizes the essential macro-level policies and preconditions that are necessary in order to create the conditions for economically viable investments on private and common property. The following chapter discusses some generic socio-psychological and environmental factors influencing the propensity of resource appropriators to organize themselves for collective action. Chapter 0 provides an overview of the program strategies that can be used to stimulate the formation of local institutions and how these might be strengthened. Chapter 0 reviews the various avenues used by programs to facilitate scaling-up of geographical coverage and impact. Chapter 6 discuss the characteristics that external government agencies must have in order to catalyze the formation of local institutions and provide technical inputs. The final chapter provides an example of a tried and tested Bank lending instrument that can be adapted for financing small community-based NRM subprojects.
This paper is based on a review of community-based NRM programs that have achieved some degree of success in scaling-up implementation to cover ample numbers of communities and villages. However, since there are few programs that have track records in actively attempting to form institutions for collective action, strict criteria based on scale of operations were not used to exclude programs from this investigation. In addition, programs that are not implementing community-based NRM were also studied. For example, the NRDP in Brazil and the Municipal Funds in Mexico, despite not being focused on productive NRM programs, were nevertheless investigated because of their innovative decentralized financing instruments that were used to fund community subprojects.
An analytical framework is used to compare the attributes of different programs (see Annex 1). The analytical framework is based upon a review of secondary data, completed questionnaires, and also field visits to some of the programs. Due to resource constraints only three Bank supported programs were visited during the course of this investigation: PNGT in Burkina Faso, NRDP in Brazil and Municipal Funds in Mexico. Many South Asian cases are appraised in this paper on account of this author’s 10 year association with the Aga Khan Rural Support Programs in India and Pakistan.
