There are numerous small examples of successful community based management of natural resources. Often, these have emanated from NGO efforts that have been based on participatory approaches and formation of local institutions. NGOs have tried to scale-up their impact through a number of modes: (i) working with government to spread NGO methods and change policy through lobbying and advocacy; (ii) expansion of NGOs’ own approaches; (iii) strengthening the network of local membership organizations with which NGOs work. However, very few of these NGO approaches to replication have been successful in achieving regional impact (Edwards and Hulme, 1992). Farrington and Thiele (1997) in a review of three approaches to scaling-up participatory approaches conclude that public sector resources have to be brought in to permit scaling-up. They suggest that the most promising approach to scaling-up that NGOs can take, is to work with government and influence policy change.
This chapter draws upon experiences of programs which have increased their scale of operation to various degrees. Some are NGO programs that have expanded their operational coverage. For example, the AKRSPs in India and Pakistan and Sadguru Water and Development Foundation. Others, such as the Indo-German Watershed Development Program (IGWDP), scaled-up through networking of over 50 NGOs in 74 watersheds. The IGWDP only used NGOs to interact with villagers and catalyze the formation of local institutions. It relied upon government line departments for providing technical services associated with agriculture, soil and water conservation, and forestry. The remaining programs are implemented by state level government departments or agencies. These include the Doon Valley Integrated Watershed Development Project in India and the Agua Y Solidaridad Para el Progreso (Water and Solidarity for Progress - ASPRO) in Mexico. The National Watershed Development Program in India is a central government sponsored scheme implemented through de-concentrated federal administrative units (District Rural Development Agencies). In addition, programs that are not specifically NRM oriented but which have scaled-up geographical coverage have also been analyzed. In particular, the NRDP in Brazil which primarily implements economic infrastructure and community productive subprojects.
It is sometimes assumed that scaling-up can be faster if larger groups are promoted. Logic, on the other hand, implies that limiting the size of a group where consensual decision-making is required is more effective. The empirical evidence, however, is contradictory. Hobley and Shah (1997) found groups in Nepal with over 300 households no less effective than small groups with fewer than 100 households. In AKRSP (Pakistan) it was observed that some large village organizations, which had functioned effectively during the implementation phase of a subproject, subsequently fragmented over time to form smaller user groups (World Bank, 1996). With particular reference to micro-watershed activities, AKRSP (India) found efforts at forming large village organizations, that included all households, proved to be very slow and ultimately ineffective. An alternative strategy of forming smaller groups consisting of a few farmers with adjacent lands proved to be faster and more effective in terms of micro-level planning and implementation.[16] Eventually, other farmers groups evolved and some federated into larger village-based organizations. These cases demonstrate that the interplay of various factors is more important than one single criterion such as size.
Current understanding would suggest that catalytic organizations should focus on facilitating groups of individuals that share a common interest to organize. This may include: users of a specific resource, ethnic groupings, gender specific organizations, or individuals with other common interests. Given diverse local factors, who should constitute a user group cannot be pre-determined. It needs to evolve out of a participatory process wherein all resource users are defined and their participation solicited whether through a single organization, or through multiple groupings. As mentioned previously, the proportion of user households participating is an important factor in the functioning of the group. A high degree of non-participation may indicate a potential for sabotage and free-riders. Once groups of individuals sharing common interests have formed, they should be encouraged to evolve strategic alliances amongst themselves.
Social organizing activities of catalytic agencies are concentrated in “nodes” of 1,000 ha watersheds, or in a handful of villages. These provide a central demonstration area to which individuals from neighboring villages can come to see the impact and, hopefully, get motivated to adopt similar strategies. Empirically it has been shown that clustering program activities in nodes helps to stimulate demand amongst appropriators for program services. Nodes also act as training areas once new institutions are formed. The nodes are identified on the basis of favorable social and political conditions at the local level and the possibility of relatively quick and significant impacts. Intensive and concentrated awareness-raising and social organizing inputs are provided by the catalytic agency. If possible, community organizers live in the local area to interact on a regular basis with local residents. The net effect is that the program is able to demonstrate “visible” impacts to local communities in a comparatively short period of time.
By concentrating activities in a nodal area, the program is also able to passively draw upon traditional communication networks between local people and achieve an unnoticed village-to-village and farmer-to-farmer extension. The discernible impact leads to villages on the periphery of the node becoming aware of the potential benefits of collective action and they begin to voluntarily organize themselves and express demand for inputs from the program. By stimulating demand in this way, the program can, over time, reduce the costs of awareness-raising, motivation and, to some extent, social organizing inputs.
Clustering activities in a nodal area also enables early and more comprehensive testing of the environmental, social and economic impacts of the program. Scattering program implementation, on the other hand, would make it more difficult to test impact because positive synergies and negative interactions between local resource management activities would not be apparent. For example, in micro-watershed activities, upstream surface water interventions may result in less water downstream; or, the groundwater regime in the uplands may benefit communities in the lowlands. Both results may work against sustainable resource management by generating additional conflicts between resource appropriators. Given current knowledge, the environmental and social impacts of NRM programs are not known and predictable. Monitoring is therefore required in order to provide information and data on the various dynamics at work. By creating an “impact zone”, it becomes feasible to monitor at an early stage of implementation, the interrelated impacts of the program. Corrective measures can then be taken in the areas already covered by the program. Adjustments to program design and strategy can also be made before replicating the program to other areas.
Once a nodal area of impact has been achieved, farmer-to-farmer and village-to-village extension can be used to replicate the program approach by generating demand through demonstration. Individuals from villages in which the program does not operate can be brought to the nodal area to see for themselves the potential benefits of participating in the program and the processes involved. This much more effective than just using community organizers to explain the potential benefits. Experiences from agricultural extension programs confirm that farmers are more willing to believe other farmers than external agents. The time taken to motivate individuals and communities is therefore much less and the costs lower.
The AKRSP(I), SWDF and IGWDP all use versions of the nodal approach and farmer-to-farmer extension in their pathways to scaling-up geographical coverage. After high initial investments in social organizing, the programs were able to achieve a critical mass of villages where effective institutions had resulted in increases in the productivity and well-being of individuals through collective action. Once the critical mass had been achieved, individuals and groups began to approach the de-concentrated offices of the catalytic agency requesting program goods and services. In this way, the programs have evolved into responding to demand rather than having to stimulate it. The programs also hired vehicles to bring individuals from other villages to see the experiences in the nodal area and to interact with the participants. While unable to provide comparative data on cost savings, all the programs admit that the time taken to raise awareness, motivate, and organize individuals has been reduced considerably.
A media communications campaign can be utilized to raise awareness about program objectives, incentives and potential benefits amongst rural populations. Campaigns need to be appropriately designed for the given social and cultural environment. It also needs to enable illiterate, poor, and women to understand and access the messages. The potentials are greater where populations are more literate and communications infrastructure are wide spread.
A communications campaign in the NRDP has been modestly effective in facilitating the scaling-up of the program. Through printed posters and leaflets widely distributed through rural municipalities, and a few radio and television broadcasts, information about the program was widely disseminated.[17] Numerous Community Associations claim to have been catalyzed by entrepreneurial individuals who learnt about the program from listening to the radio or seeing a poster. In addition, the general awareness amongst institutional members about the program incentives has contributed to increasing transparency and therefore reducing the potential for powerful individuals to capture benefits. In Western India, radio programs and paintings on walls have been used to encourage farmers to design low-cost and simple means to directly recharge their wells through capturing run-off from their fields. The “movement” has now reached epic proportions and most farmers are at least aware about the recharge techniques, even if they have not implemented them.
High degrees of participation in decision-making are easy enough to implement on a small scale, but it is difficult to reconcile these approaches with the requirement to permit wide-scale implementation. A number of NGOs that have a goal of empowering local communities also have a propensity to implement participatory approaches in an unstructured and open-ended process. The danger inherent in this approach is that, rather than strengthening local organizational capacity, individuals and institutions become dependent on the catalyzing agency for various functions and especially conflict resolution. Furthermore, because there is no clear criteria for withdrawal, the NGOs get mired in the minutiae of rural life and cannot expand to new areas. Adopting a structured participatory process is therefore required if wide-scale implementation is to be facilitated. Structuring the process assists in defining an exit strategy so that catalytic agencies can reduce their involvement with institutions over time and move on to new geographical areas.
AKRSP(P) developed a highly structured participatory process consisting of three diagnostic dialogues carried out with villagers. The first dialogue consists of explaining the objectives and methods of the program and invites villagers to identify a subproject (PPI) that benefits at least 70 percent of the village population. The second dialogue explores the feasibility of the PPI under technical supervision provided by AKRSP(P); the products of the second dialogue are blueprints and cost estimates for a PPI. The third dialogue starts with discussion of the finalized scheme; terms of partnership between AKRSP(P) and the village institution; and, detailed implementation arrangements including enhancement of skills and contribution by villagers. If successful, this third dialogue ends with a village institution being formed and the first tranche of the program grant is presented to the institution. In practice the dialogues are a series of open-ended discussions that identify a viable entry point and develop the relationship between villagers and AKRSP(P). The structured dialogue was effective in enabling a rapid scaling-up of geographical coverage of the program (over 500 village institutions were formed in the first three years of implementation). However, dialogues worked well partly because the entry points were primarily small scale irrigation or economic infrastructure such as feeder roads and bridges. On-farm natural resource management practices were introduced through extension services only once village institutions were created using the incentive of the productive physical infrastructure subproject.
In AKRSP(I), the physical environment offered less opportunities for single highly productive entry point subprojects that provided broad benefit to the whole village population. Moreover, the program adopted a micro-watershed development approach that requires greater community organizing inputs, conflict resolution, and micro-level planning. Nevertheless, the program structured the participatory process by delineating phases in the formation of institutions to enable it to plan staff allocation more efficiently by increasing coordination between community organizers and technical service staff. For example, based on years of implementation experience, AKRSP(I) uses a similar delineation of phases as shown box 7 to plan the allocation of technical staff.
The PNGT in Burkina Faso, adopted the strategy of first carrying out village diagnostic and planning exercises on a large scale (using PRA techniques). As many as three hundred villages are included in the diagnostic in the space of six months. Following this phase, appropriate technical assistance for the design and implementation of prioritized subprojects are identified and they begin to interact with the villagers. The advantage of this phased approach is that planning and coordination between different government line departments is less complex. However, the delay between the initial contact with the villagers and initiation of subproject implementation is lengthy, often taking more than six months. As already explained in section 0, this approach does not build and maintain a momentum between the catalysis of collective action and accrual of benefits to those participating. There is therefore a greater potential for individuals to opt out of the institution and maximize their opportunity costs by free-riding on the actions of others.
Limiting the range of subprojects supported by the program helps to focus the participatory dialogue on outcomes; makes the program less complex to administer because of standardization of subprojects, technical assistance, production of operational manuals. It is also more transparent to beneficiaries. Some programs (e.g. the NRDP) have sought to achieve a “demand orientation” by producing a short “negative” list of subprojects that will not be funded by the program; anything prioritized by communities that falls outside of the negative list is therefore eligible for funding. Given the complex nature of goods supplied by NRM programs (see section 0), if the individuals are left to prioritize subprojects without a participatory planning process and with unrestricted choice, it is most likely that NRM subprojects will not be selected. The challenge therefore, lies in reconciling the management need to limit the range of subprojects with the necessity to adopt an appropriate entry point activity to stimulate collective action that ultimately leads to sustainable NRM.
AKRSP(P) restricts the entry point subprojects to those that have positive economic returns for at least 70 percent of the village population. In reality this means that the range of subprojects that fit these criteria are limited to a handful of options. Horizontal integration (i.e. adding of components) occurs after the village institution is formed and the entry point subproject is completed. AKRSP(I) restricts its interventions to a loosely defined set of activities such as water resources development, watershed development, afforestration and wastelands development, agricultural extension and energy conservation. The entry point activity, however, is usually infrastructural and relatively more capital intensive such as acquifer recharge structures. In general, these are required to have internal rates of return of between 15 and 20 percent (taking into account total cost of subproject) in order to be eligible for matching funding by the program. Although each activity is locally adapted by the inclusion of indigenous knowledge, restricting the range of subprojects has meant that operational manuals have been produced which provide design and cost features. Furthermore, the limited range of subprojects has been more transparent. As both programs have increased their scale of operation, new beneficiaries already have a higher awareness about the goods and services available from the program.
If matching grants are to be used (see section 0), logically, standardizing the grants for each type of subproject in each agro-ecological zone encourages transparency. It also lessons the time involved in negotiating an appropriate level of contribution from beneficiaries. Standardization enables individuals on the periphery of nodal interventions to predict the incentives, goods, services, and terms of partnership on offer by the program. Individuals are therefore better informed to decide whether the terms of partnership are sufficient for them to voluntarily organize themselves and form an institution to leverage program benefits. Obviously, adopting such a strategy will mean that the level of matching grant will be decided by the lowest common denominator (i.e. the poorest resource users). This raises an ethical issue of whether better off resource users should benefit to the same degree as poor resource users.
AKRSP(I) initially sought to raise as much matching contributions from beneficiaries as was possible. The hypothesis was that the higher the contribution from beneficiaries, the greater the ownership they would have of the subproject. This resulted in a variety of matching grant arrangements in different villages. Transparency was low and many villagers believed that the differences were as a result of rent seeking by AKRSP(I) employees (a common phenomenon in government programs). Moreover, the hypothesis of increased ownership is not proven. PNGT currently has a similar approach. There is resistance on the part of the catalyzing agency to introduce standardized matching contributions. They feel that, in the interests of equity, communities with higher incomes should contribute more than poorer communities. In contrast, programs which operate on a larger scale (e.g. NRDP, AKRSP(P), SWDF, and NWDP) have standardized levels of beneficiary contribution for different types of subproject.
The aim is to rapidly transfer responsibility for implementation to village institutions so that they can build internal capacity to independently raise user fees, operate, and maintain the subproject. Empirically, it is known that “learning by doing” is the fastest way for individuals to gain management experience and therefore collectively enhance the competence of the institution. Moreover, unless responsibility for day-to-day implementation arrangements are handled by institutions, the supervisory burden on the catalytic organization will soon become overwhelming and reduce its capacity to begin working with new communities.
Common to all the programs that have achieved some successes in scaling-up geographical coverage is that, to various degrees, implementation responsibilities have been transferred to village institutions. Of the programs studied, the NRDP in Brazil is the most reformist. Individuals are expected to voluntary organize themselves into Community Associations (CAs). These then have a high degree of autonomy and control over their actions. CAs are required to prioritize subprojects; source and contract technical assistance where required for design and implementation; organize subproject work schedules to fit with members other work commitments; and, supervise external technical assistance; and, ensure that each member contributes the required amount of cash and/or labor. State Technical Units verify that the charges of the contracted technical assistance agency are consistent with the task. This is based upon experiences gained over five years of implementation. The Technical Units also conduct ex-post verifications to ensure that the subprojects have been adequately completed. Where CAs have not completed the works adequately, or funds have been misused, they are excluded from applying for funding of subsequent subprojects. This approach has considerable advantages for scaling-up a program, but does not adequately ensure that decision-making and benefits are equitable.
Programs which implement natural resource management activities, tend to adopt a phased transfer of responsibilities and authority to institutions. Through the use of PRA techniques, village institutions prioritize subproject investments in negotiation with the catalytic agency. Often, technical assistance for design of subprojects is provided by the catalytic agency. However, in the case of the PNGT in Burkina Faso, once the prioritization of subprojects has been agreed, depending on the type of subproject, the catalytic agency draws in appropriate government line ministries to provide technical assistance for design. All the NRM programs studied as part of this research encourage institutions to organize their own work schedules for implementation. Some catalytic agencies provide periodic supervision of implementation depending on the technical complexity of the subproject. For example, the construction of a check dam on a stream requires constant technical advice and a site engineer or supervisor is usually necessary. Through a phased transfer of responsibilities, the catalytic agency is able to better encourage all resource users to be involved in decision-making regarding implementation and operation and therefore reduce the potential for free-riders remaining outside of the institution.
Responsibilities for procurement, making payments to contractors and laborers, and raising revenues should ultimately be managed by the institution. This reduces the management burden on catalyzing agencies, enabling them to interact with a larger number of villages. Implementation of a subproject is also expedited because less time is spent waiting for the catalyzing agency to make purchases or payments on behalf of the institution. It also serves to build the confidence of institutions and improve their managerial capacity. An additional benefit is that local procurement substantially reduces the costs of implementation (see section 0, page 12).
In the NRDP and AKRSP(P), all responsibilities for procurement, payment to laborers, and making payments for technical assistance are managed by the institutions from the start of subproject implementation. Funds are released to institutions by the catalytic agencies in tranches based on receipts of expenditure. Evaluation of these programs have found that, despite a history of high rent seeking in both environments, the decentralization of fiscal authority and control has been effective; rates of misappropriation of funds are relatively low (see World Bank, 1996 and World Bank, 1997b). In contrast, AKRSP(I) uses a phased approach to decentralizing authority and control of fiscal resources. Initially, all payments are managed by AKRSP(I). During this period, training is provided on book-keeping and other accounting practices to build managerial capacity. By the middle of the implementation phase, partial authority is transferred to the institution. This means that institutions take decisions on use of funds, but actual payments require two signatures from the executive members of the institution and one from the catalyzing agent. Ultimately, full control is handed over to the institution after subproject completion. Given the experiences in Brazil and Pakistan, one could argue that the AKRSP(I) approach is too paternalistic and that rural communities do have latent capacity to manage fiscal resources with probity. However, decentralizing fiscal resources is particularly sensitive, especially where donors demand a high degree of accountability for their funds. Piloting the NRDP and AKRSP(P) approaches could serve to test the appropriateness of decentralizing fiscal resources in the local context.
Creation of maintenance funds (or revolving funds) managed by the local institution increases the probability that subproject investments will continue to be maintained after completion. The fund can be accumulated through compulsory saving of a small portion of wages which are paid for members labor during construction. Alternatively, it can be accumulated through revenue generating mechanisms such as user fees or institution membership fees. This helps to make the fund a “live” issue rather than a situation whereby, once accumulated, the fund is forgotten about until needed.
AKRSP(P) relies on traditional systems for maintaining common assets; at the time of subproject approval the village institution enters into a “contract” to maintain the investment. Traditional systems are reliant upon obligations of all beneficiaries to provide labor, or an agreed payment in lieu, whenever required. It was found that over 90 percent of institutions were maintaining their subprojects adequately (World Bank, 1996). In contrast, AKRSP(I) found that formalized maintenance funds managed by the village institutions were preferable to contracts between institutions and external catalytic agencies. Experience indicated that contracts were often ignored when there is an external shock (e.g. environmental crisis such as a drought or flood); income is usually scarce and people have more urgent survival priorities. Furthermore, if a maintenance fund is not established, the cost of rehabilitating a damaged subproject (especially rock gully plugs, concrete check dams, etc.) may be too high to be met from annual incomes of beneficiary households. A fund which accumulates in the prosperous years through user fees would overcome the problem. In cash-starved economies, however, this may be difficult because people resent immobilizing resources when they are facing consumption needs. Consequently, wherever possible, such a fund should be deposited on an interest-earning bank account so as to provide a supplementary incentive.
Empirical evidence highlights the importance of soliciting early support from government to enable wide-scale implementation of the program. Cabinet Resolutions at state and federal levels are required to persuade sectoral line ministries to provide technical assistance, budgetary allocations, and acknowledge community rights over use of common pool resources. Although most bilateral and multilateral funded programs have implicit clearance from federal and/or state governments, this is often not followed through with resolutions at Cabinet level to facilitate coordination and collaboration from sectoral ministries. Furthermore, with programs that are implemented over five to ten years, regular public relations pressure needs to be maintained on Cabinet to assure its continued support for program goals.
Farrington and Thiele (1997) briefly discuss the experience of the IGWDP. Initially, the program focused on obtaining political support of Members of Legislative Assembly of the Government of Maharashtra (India) through inviting them to see a rehabilitated pilot watershed. Subsequently, it drew on this support to obtain a cabinet resolution and various Departmental orders to enable community institutions to evolve partnerships with the Department of Forestry for the management of common land. Political and administrative support from the state government enabled the program approach to rapidly scale-up to cover 74 watersheds and also replicated to the rest of Maharashtra state. The Doon Valley project obtained similar resolutions from state and federal government. Furthermore, it maintained public relations pressure on decision-makers through regular newsletters, brochures, press releases, and personal interaction (Datta and Virgo, 1997).
There are numerous trade-offs that need to be considered when scaling-up a participatory program for the management of natural resource. These essentially relate to internal and external efficiencies versus the pace of scaling up. They can be summarized as follows:
Adopting a structured participatory process increases the chances that vulnerable or inarticulate resource users such as women, landless, and poor households, may be excluded from the decision-making process. If all resource users are not included in the decision-making regarding the formation of an institution and the management of natural resources, there is a likelihood that they will not abide by the rules and seek to free-ride on the actions of others. Furthermore, if specific groups, particularly women, are not recognized and included in the decision-making processes, their local knowledge as resource users will be overlooked and therefore weaken the effectiveness of NRM interventions.
In AKRSP(P) it was found that in the rush to form village institutions, groups with common interests were not clearly defined. Subsequently, the institutions fragmented into more homogenous groups which then required their own subproject. The identification of homogenous groups, inclusivity, and representativeness of the participation process can be enhanced by the use of participatory rural appraisal techniques for micro-level planning (something not done by AKRSP-Pakistan). It can also be improved by ensuring that the catalyzing agency makes specific efforts to identify and target known vulnerable groups (such as women and landless) who are also resource appropriators.
Specifically, this relates to transparency within the institution, governance rules, managerial capacity, and rules governing resource appropriation. Rapid formation of many institutions inevitably means that the catalyzing agency can not devote much time to helping each institution develop its capacity. Without sufficient strengthening of individuals capacity and ensuring democratic rules are enforced, there is a potential for the institutions to be subverted by powerful or influential individuals. Ultimately, the sustainability of the institution and its effectiveness at managing resource systems will be compromised. Current experience suggests that proficient use of participatory processes to strengthen LOC improves the probability of effective institutions being formed.
The complexities associated with implementing a program on a large scale inevitably requires restricting the range of subproject interventions supported by the program. Allied activities such as credit, agricultural input supply, etc., that contribute to effective and profitable utilization of resources may have to be left out of the program package thereby reducing the potential for positive synergies. However, it could be argued that program intervention in these areas would only create market distortions and therefore are best left to the private sector. Some natural resource management activities such as integrated micro-watershed management, require multi-sectoral activities such as forestry, water resources development, soil conservation, etc., in order to achieve maximum impact. In the rush to expand coverage, there is an inclination on the part of program agencies to simply implement those activities that are the easiest to get resource appropriators to agree upon. For example, water resource development can result in just the construction of check dams or acquifer recharge structures. This will not result in adequate synergies between activities and the broader environmental goals will not be accomplished. Moreover, benefits from such activities are, in general, less equitable than implementing soil conservation works across the whole micro-catchment. One possible means of avoiding this is to specify essential components in the program budget and ensure, through physical and financial tracking, that they are not ignored by the catalyzing agency.
One-time investments in community organizing and formation of institutions for collective management of natural resources does not necessarily result in the institutions taking on other activities. For example, AKRSP(P) conducted an assessment of the maturity of the village institutions formed over 10 years. One criteria was the number of second generation subprojects that were identified and financed through the members own initiatives. It was found that, although institutions were operating and maintaining the initial subprojects, very few had evolved to initiate new subprojects. With hindsight, it was probably forlorn to expect institutions formed during a rapidly scaled-up program to take on broader planning functions and, in effect, substitute for local government. For institutions to evolve all-inclusive planning and implementation functions would require further investments in community organizing and strengthening of LOC.
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[16] The strategy of forming
small groups of farmers for the implementation of micro-watershed activities
means that the traditional wisdom of starting activities at higher elevations
and working down to lower elevations may have to be amended. For example,
AKRSP(I) adopted an effective strategy of initiating implementation with whoever
was willing and able to start, no matter where they were located within the
micro-watershed (European Commission, 1995). The assumption was that economic
returns to small on-farm soil and water conservation activities in a semi-arid
environment with low rainfall were sufficient to make the investments viable.
Once other farmers saw the increased yields due to increased soil moisture
retention, they inevitably also formed small groups. In this piece-meal fashion,
over the course of a few years, whole micro-watersheds were treated. In
contrast, the IGWDP approach was more stringent on the technical aspects in the
design and implementation of watershed programs which required the formation of
larger village-level watershed committees. The technical aspects were: (i) the
need to cover the full area from ridge to valley, including private land and
common lands; any inclination by villages to treat the lower slopes first was
resisted; (ii) priority was given to soil conservation and biomass development
first, and then to water harvesting measures. Pressure from farmers to enhance
irrigation sources by constructing check dams on streams was resisted because
they were expensive and inequitable. The over-riding priority was to enhance
percolation over the whole micro-watershed so that it acted as a large
underground reservoir. This approach initially took 25 years to reach 16
villages. Since 1989, however, using demonstration watersheds to motivate new
villages, the program has scaling-up to reach 74 watersheds. On average, it is
estimated that it now takes six months to treat one micro-watershed of up to
1500 ha. (Lobo and Kochendorfer-Lucius, 1995; and Farrington and Lobo,
1997). [17] It is not clear whether poor and illiterate sections of society were adequately reached through the communications campaign; there was a bias towards printed material and many poor households do not have radios or televisions. |
