3. Definitions and Limitations - Adjusting to the Findings of the Study

The first question we were asked in our interviews was often ‘What do you mean by development approach’, closely followed by the observation that these things cannot be separated into neat categories. Indeed it is very difficult to distinguish between an approach, an ideology, a methodology and a tool. Participatory rural appraisal, for instance, can be described as each and all of these depending on its application. The distinctions between these aspects of development are becoming increasingly blurred with the trend towards holistic learning, inter-disciplinarity and participatory diagnosis and processes in all aspects of development planning. The SLA, for instance, explicitly states that it is an objective, a framework for analysis and a set of principles that together constitute an approach. In fact, it is partly the fact that the SLA has so prominently labelled itself an ‘approach’ that has raised questions as to how and why it is ‘new’ and different from the methods that came before.

Our choice of approaches for closer study is therefore not intended to make a statement about what is valuable or relevant. One of the approaches under review - Integrated Rural Development - has, in fact, been widely discredited. Rather, the intention is to pursue the four substantive points outlined in the introduction through a comparison of some of the approaches, which have emerged from different development contexts, and the more established approaches to the newer livelihoods type. Therefore, the approaches have been selected with the following issues in mind:

1. Sustainable Livelihoods, Farming Systems, Integrated Rural Development, Gestion de terroirs and Latin American approaches are all approaches that have developed within the specific context of rural development with the primary objective of solving rural poverty.

2. All the approaches incorporate both diagnostic and operational components.

3. They are approaches of which FAO has considerable in-house experience on which we can draw.

4. They are all ‘livelihoods type’ of approaches (albeit to be discussed and qualified) in that rural poverty is targeted in all its dimensions.

5. They cover the most significant approaches used in each of the chosen linguistic groups; all three of which are officially represented within FAO.

6. They all have a considerable international, institutional and applied history.

Several other approaches were isolated as interesting and worthy of inclusion in future efforts to provide a ‘route-map’ to approaches for development. These can be divided into those developed within FAO and those developed elsewhere; the list is not conclusive. See Annex 1 for a profile of these approaches as well as resource people to contact for more information.

Other Approaches: Community Driven Development (CDD), Rights Based Approaches, Regional Rural Development (RRD), Holistic Management.

FAO’s projects or programmes with specific people-centred approaches: Integrated Pest Management (IPM); Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Mapping Systems (FIVIMS), Nutrition, Socio Economic and Gender Analysis (SEAGA), Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM).

The decision to consider the Francophone and Latin American context of development emerged initially in the context of the claim that the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach, as promoted by DfID, is problematic in translation. The argument was, therefore, that not only is the SLA difficult to translate both linguistically and contextually, but livelihoods-type approaches already exist in the Spanish-speaking and Francophone context. The notion that there is a distinctive Anglophone, Francophone or Latin American approach is of course simplistic; both in assuming that there is consistency within linguistic divides and in over-riding the linkages that exist between them. Nevertheless, FAO’s widespread experience provides an opportunity to see beyond stereotypes and to more objectively assess the potential lessons for the various contexts. We are, of course, aware that in selecting French and Spanish as our comparative linguistic context we are engaging in the further exclusion of other cultures and languages.

A brief profile of the approaches discussed in this study is presented in Annex 1. A more comprehensive presentation of the main approaches considered in this study as well as a brief comparison between them can be found in the Brief Literature Review that has been developed in the context of this study.^[9]

As the results of this study were unfolding, we gradually realised that this should be seen as a first step in an action-research process that has started with consultations at FAO headquarters’ level, but that will later on involve, amongst others, consultations at and inputs from regional levels, including FAO staff and a few regional resource persons. With that in mind, it is easier to acknowledge the limitations and weaknesses of this study. Indeed, the comparison between people-centred approaches and the influence of different cultural contexts on their implementation has not discussed thoroughly enough in this study.

There are several reasons for these weaknesses, including:

In order to avoid over-complicating the issues, the approaches and methods discussed in this report have been divided according to the language blocks of their implementation (i.e. Anglophone, Francophone and Spanish-speaking), It is important to emphasise here that these cannot be considered as being the equivalent of cultural contexts. For instance, the use of farming systems approach in, say Zambia or India - which both belong to the “Anglophone” block -obviously denotes two very different cultural contexts. At best, this study can claim to have categorised the use of several people-centred approaches according to “academic language backgrounds”. This is further discussed in Section 4.1. In fact, this issue of the feasibility of accurately comparing development approaches according to specific cultural contexts is one that has emerged from this study. However, more detailed work on cultural contexts falls outside the scope of this study. As such, they are likely to be the subject of future discussion as regards people-centred approaches to development.

The comparison between the different approaches discussed in this study has had to rely far more on the literature review than on the interviews of FAO staff. Three main reasons explain this:

• Not many staff has experience in the three language blocks that have been used in this study. Their education and experience is often more focused on one of these.

• However and perhaps more importantly, the above limitation is compounded by the fact that the majority of the staff interviewed seem to use an approach which has been adapted to the organisational context of FAO. This is the “no name approach”, which will be discussed in Section 4.3. This method consists of elements taken from different formal development approaches, which are then used as and when appropriate. This “blending” effect, therefore, makes it difficult to compare formal development approaches as they are applied by FAO staff.

• Perhaps as a consequence of the above, the interviewees have focused much more on the practical constraints that they face in applying people centred approaches. Some of these are common to many - if not all - development agencies, while others are specific to FAO.

Given these circumstances, we have decided to organise the outputs of the study in the following way:

One document would focus on the presentation of and comparison between the different people-centred approaches, based on a brief literature review^[10]; and

This document, which focuses on the practical constraints to applying people-centred approaches within development agencies and, more particularly, FAO. This is the purpose of this study.