The key difficulty making an SL approach "work" has been how to move from a livelihoods analysis of a situation to determining the action-oriented specifics of actually doing something:
who to do it with.
SL principles provide criteria against which actions can be measured, but don’t say which actions to take. The question of how a combination of livelihoods analysis and livelihoods principles can inform intelligent and effective action is posed graphically below:
How can livelihoods analysis, combined with SL principles, help you figure out what to actually DO? The answer is not always self-evident.
If this question can’t be easily answered a priori on the basis of deduction from the principles, it may be useful to look at patterns in the actions of successful projects and see how they approached the "operationalisation" problem.
One key question is whether all of the SL principles have to be applied all the time in order to have impact. Toner et al for example write that ‘attention to all SL principles is required for an intervention to have the potential to create sustainable impact’ (2004: 3).
The reality however seems to be that very few cases can or do activate each and every SL principle, and that positive impacts can be achieved without doing so. This prompts the question of which principles are the truly necessary ones, and how and when in the project cycle do they need to be at their most influential?
The "bare essentials" toolkit for effective analysis, planning, and ultimate success appear to include:
a sequence of sound entry points (only some of which will be evident from the beginning); examples of such entry points include
o easily assimilated technical improvements to hillside farming techniques which will reduce vulnerability
o support to existing local credit institutions,
o partnerships for the improvement of roads, improvements to local educational and health situations....
an openness to synergy, partnership, and reverberating energy.
The following diagram looks at some aspects of how SL principles (alongside the usual and still quite valid non-SL-specific principles) were operationalised in the case Nepal (WIN Project, Diagram 1).
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WIN project (Nepal) addresses vulnerability related to food insecurity, lack of human and social capital, and conflict |
Is there a "right" or "most effective" sequence in the application of SL principles? For each part of the project cycle (preliminary identification, planning, implementation, evaluation, revision, etc), are there certain SL principles which are absolutely essential, while in other parts of the project cycle adhering to these same principles might not be so absolutely essential? Or is the key not in some sequence of strong application of various principles, but in patterns of implementation actions or even partnership linkages, different actions and different linkages each having its own associated constellation of actively implemented SL principles?
The data in our case studies is not sufficient to give a definite answer to these questions, but it has provided some interesting and potentially useful indications through our attempts to visualise approaches to these questions in various graphical ways.
The first of these visualisation tools looks at timing, at when during the project cycle different principles were very strongly or less strongly in evidence. The second of these tools looks at patterns of institutional relationships and partnering.
When looked at closely not many of our case studies turned out to have enough time sequence data to construct the kind of detailed timelines we were looking for. The WIN (Nepal) and the Shagbe (Bangladesh) cases however were among the better ones in this regard it seemed worth a try. We tried to look at:
o the timing of when different principles were most strongly in evidence (or their absence was most conspicuous!), and see if this correlated with any important aspects of project’s processes and outcomes.
o Whether there was any evident and common pattern in two projects with respect to this timing
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Please note: The timelines shown on the next two pages are given as examples of the tools. The details of these timelines may not make a lot of sense to readers who are not familiar with the details of these specific projects. Those readers who DO want to understand the individual entries are warmly invited to consult the extensive summaries of the case studies in the Supplemental Materials (being made available separately because it has so many pages, more than this present document) |
Figure 2. WIN (Nepal) time variation in the strength with which various SL principles were applied
While no standard pattern emerges from these timelines, they do help to visualise the strengths and gaps that were important in influencing project performance.
The implementation of the WIN project for example, was initially constrained by the reluctance of FAO Headquarters to allow field staff to adapt the project document to the situation facing them on the ground. The national team found a way to work flexibly within these confines however, and succeeded in building local ownership. Equally, the strong emphasis placed on working in partnership from the outset proved critical to project performance. In collaboration with NGO’s, IGO’s and GO’s, the WIN project was able to work with the most poor and marginalised, as well as with isolated communities situated in conflict zones.
In turn, the case of SHABGE highlighted the need for certain SL principles - in this case, flexibility and participation - to be in place throughout the entire lifespan of the project in order to achieve effective and sustainable poverty reduction.
Scoones (1998) points out that it is not sufficient to analyse specific elements within cases. Rather, it is more important to analyse common institutional and organisational patterns that link these elements together. In addition to the time sequences (above), we’ve tried to look at this through operational/institutional implementation maps which highlight key elements and linkages in successful cases (Figure 4).
Identifying a "minimum set" of good development principles necessary for success would be good, but still not sufficient. Principles make good measuring sticks, but are often not very useful in giving concrete ideas and guidance on decisions regarding specific strategies tactics and actions. For this it can be instructive to look at what some successful projects actually did, keeping in mind that this may be rather different from what they had originally said or planned.
The sequence of institutional and issues linkages in several of our case studies point to the possibility that certain successful projects may have shared certain patterns of implementation, as was the case in Honduras and Yemen. It is not clear if this structural similarity in implementation patterns of some successful projects derives from an underlying context: nearly everybody in the regions where these projects had the most impact were very poor, even by national standards. It is also possible that SL type projects may simply work best in areas where everyone, being very poor, share many of the same problems. (Rather a good attribute for SL approaches, if it turns out to be a valid idea.).
In the process of sketching out diagrammatically the sequences, processes, and linkages of several of the more successful projects we noticed that in some ways they showed very similar implementation patterns. The implementation pattern found in both the Yemen and the Honduras projects, originally developed as an animated PowerPoint presentation, is laid out on the following page.
The implementation map is more easily understood if one pays close attention to the sequence in which the various elements are presented, as indicated and described more fully in the list just underneath the diagram. The interested reader is encouraged to consult the electronic version of this document for the animated sequence, which is much easier to follow.
"THE IMPLEMENTATION MAP"[19]
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NOTE: the numbers in the diagram above refer to the elements described more fully in the list below, in roughly the sequence as used in the projects on which this diagram is based. |
A comparison between two of the more successful cases, Honduras and Yemen, revealed common patterns both in terms of their operational processes and institutional linkages and in the sequence in which these processes and linkages were introduced[20].
1. Collaborative diagnosis, planning and evaluation. In other words, the continuous participation of beneficiaries and other stakeholders throughout each stage of the project cycle. The project must be able to respond to/act upon factors such as strengths/weaknesses in project performance, potential conflicts, and changing social, environmental, political and economic conditions.
2. Risk minimisation. Prior to, or whilst integrating new enterprises, issues such as food insecurity and vulnerability to natural and other shocks must be addressed. This was done in the case of Honduras through natural resource recovery measures, which in turn led to increased agricultural production and improved food security levels.
3. Profit generation is promoted through enhancing and/or increasing on- and off-farm activities.
4. Vocational and/or technical training is provided in order to support and improve upon profit generation strategies, and to build human capital.
5. Training provided by local trainers catalysed by the project constitutes part of the strategy to build a human ‘critical mass’ which will continue to exist beyond project completion, and which contributes to the longer-term sustainability and replication of (successful) project interventions through the continued presence of technical support.
6. Locally accessible financial services (credit and savings) are created or supported and strengthened in order to support profit-generation activities.
7. A number of Community Development Associations (CDAs, or functionally similar organisations) are established in order to accurately represent the real needs of the rural poor, to facilitate the full participation of rural communities in the development process, and to negotiate with local and national authorities and other institutions.
8. Organisational development training is provided to these CDAs in order to equip them with necessary technical, organisational and managerial skills.
9. Micro-macro linkages are established through local government, which engages with CDAs in order to better represent the needs of rural communities at the institutional level, and to translate these needs into policy at the national level.
10. Organisational development support units, which often take the form of partnerships with local and national NGOs, provide technical and financial support to the implementation of project activities.
11. CDAs finance community benefit activities on a loan basis, and part of the profits generated from these activities are then channelled back into the CDAs in order to fund future activities. CDAs are also responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of these activities.
12. Demand-driven, multi-sectoral interventions (health, education) are piloted by the CDAs with project support. Successful interventions in sectors outside the principle mandate of the supporting project (health and education, for example, in the context of an FAO project) are from the beginning done in partnership with other relevant projects, programmes, and line ministries, which then take on full responsibility after a successful piloting period.
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[19] In electronic
(especially Word) versions of this document the Implementation Map is also
present as an icon which opens an animated PowerPoint presentation, easier to
follow and with more detail. [20] |
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