Mobilizing Assets for Communitydriven Development

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Mobilizing Assets for Community-driven
Development

• Learnings from action research
• SL-ESH Conference
• University of Guelph
• June 5, 2006

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Outline

• Coady International Institute
• Needs, Assets Citizens
• ABCD and SLA
• Learning from the field Ethiopia Philippines
• Implications
• Questions and Discussion

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Coady International Institute

• History The Antigonish Movement
• Current work
• Educational programs for community development
  practitioners primarily from the global South
• Teaching informed by global partnerships,
  research and action research
• Asset-based Community Development as an area of
  focus
• ABCD tools and methods adapted as a way of
  operationalizing SLA in action-research
  partnerships

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Needs, Assets and Citizens
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Needs, Assets and Citizens

• Asset-based Community
• Development emerged
• as a result of
• A growing critique of problem solving or
  needs-based approaches

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Needs, Assets and Citizens

• Consequences of problem-solving
• approach
• Leadership emphasizing community needs in order
  to secure resources
• Community members internalizing what their
  leaders are saying
• Funding by categories of needs
• The money goes to the institutions filling the
  needs
• External rather than internal relationships
  (dependency)

Downward Spiral
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Needs, Assets and Citizens

• Asset-based Community
• Development also
• emerged as a result of
• Recognition of the
• existence of a multitude
• of assets in even the
• poorest communities

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Needs, Assets and Citizens
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Needs, Assets and Citizens

• What do we mean by community assets?
• Capacities, talents and skills of individuals
• Associations
• Local institutions
• Physical assets and natural resources

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Assets (social, physical, natural, human, and
financial)

• .are resources for making livelihoods and coping
  with lifes setbacks
• .provide us with a sense of identity and
  meaningful engagement with the world
• .provide us with the capacity to act
• .motivate us to get involved as citizens or
  entrepreneurs
• Bebbington
• .and so create agents of development

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Needs, Assets and Citizens

• SERVICE DELIVERY
• Focus on needs
• Responds to problems
• Charity or entitlement orientation
• Emphasis on agencies
• Power comes from credentials
• Motivation to act- incentives,
• terms of employment
• Focus on individuals
• Goal is excellent service

• RESPONSIVE INVESTMENT
• Focus on assets
• Builds from opportunities
• Investment orientation
• Emphasis on association
• Power comes from relationships
• Motivation to Act dreams,
• fears, being asked to contribute
• Focus on community
• Goal is community-driven development

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Community-driven Development

• In every country there
• are countless stories of
• communities that have
• undertaken development
• initiatives without
• assistance (at least
• initially) from outside
• organizations

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Community-driven Development

• Common Threads
• Communities took the initiative to mobilize their
  own resources before seeking outside help
• Citizens not governments or NGOs are at the
  centre of the development activity
• Leadership that is able to stimulate a sense of
  pride and opportunity

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Community-driven Development

• Common Threads
• Strong base of social relations (inside and
  outside the community)
• Start very small, build some momentum, and then,
  over time, grow to be more ambitious
• Tend to be successful in attracting external
  resources that support the communitys
  development agenda

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Asset-based Community Development and Sustainable
Livelihoods Approach
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Theoretical Influences on Asset-based and
Community-driven Approaches

• Appreciative Inquiry
• Social Capital
• Community Economic Development
• Participatory Approaches to Development
• Sustainable Livelihoods Approach

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Theoretical Influences on Asset-based and
Community-driven Approaches

• Sustainable Livelihoods Approach
• Recognizing the importance of multiple types of
  assets
• Human
• Financial
• Physical
• Social
• Natural
• Framework for analysis

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Theoretical Influences on Asset-based and
Community-driven Approaches

• Instrument for policy/program design
• Holistic view of how assets can be accessed,
  combined, and built for sustainable livelihoods
• Promotes an enabling environment in terms of
  policies, institutions and processes
• Need ways to better operationalize SLA at the
  community level

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Theoretical Influences on Asset-based and
Community-driven Approaches
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ABCD as a Methodology
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Asset-based Community Development as a Methodology

• ABCD as a methodology is context specific. Among
  other factors, its application depends on
• Historic relationships between the intermediary
  organizations and community
• Power dynamics
• Formal and informal leadership capacity
• Culture
• Relationships between community and local or
  state governments (especially regarding access to
  assets)

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Asset-based Community Development as a Methodology
Discovering Strengths
Organizing and Mapping
Linking and Mobilizing
Community Driven Initiatives
Sustaining the Process
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Asset-based Community Development as a Methodology
Discovering Strengths
Organizing and Mapping
Linking and Mobilizing
Community Driven Initiatives
Sustaining the Process
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Asset-based Community Development as a Methodology
Discovering Strengths
Organizing and Mapping
Linking and Mobilizing
Community Driven Initiatives
Sustaining the Process
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Asset-based Community Development as a Methodology
Discovering Strengths
Organizing and Mapping
Linking and Mobilizing
Community Driven Initiatives
Sustaining the Process
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Asset-based Community Development as a Methodology
Discovering Strengths
Organizing and Mapping
Linking and Mobilizing
Community Driven Initiatives
Sustaining the Process
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Operationalizing ABCD
Agency and assets in community driven
development Ethiopia and the Philippines
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Purpose

• To learn from best practice in community-driven
  development
• To test whether a shift from a needs-based to an
  asset-based paradigm can improve the
  effectiveness of development practice
• To have a clearer understanding of
• How communities mobilize themselves and their
  assets to meet opportunity
• The enabling environment most conducive to
  continued building and mobilizing of assets at
  the community level

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Objectives

• To learn from communities that are driving (or
  beginning to drive) their own development, and
  find out what is significant in terms of
• Their own capacity to organize
• Their existing asset base and how it is mobilized
• How they leverage external assets to sustain
  their own development
• What role NGOs or other organizations play to
  facilitate community driven development

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Progress so far

• Action Research Studies
• SEARSOLIN, Philippines
• Oxfam Canada, Ethiopia
• CREADIS, Kenya
• Retrospective Studies
• Jambi Kiwa, Ecuador
• Sagare and Kankana Halli villages, MYRADA, South
  India

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Operationalizing ABCD Ethiopia

• Action Research
• Chose partners
• Initial workshop
• NGOs attempt to operationalize an ABCD approach
• Semi-annual review workshops
• Key NGO staff
• Local government staff

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Operationalizing ABCD Ethiopia

• Appreciative Inquiry

Everything we needed to solve our problem was
within our own community Emmanuel
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Operationalizing ABCD Ethiopia

• Asset Mapping

Because we mapped our assets, we are able to
make plans for developing the community. Abera
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Individual Skills
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Other Community Assets
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Land Use
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Identifying Economic Opportunities
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Opportunities Identified

• Planting of indigenous trees for future
  harvesting
• Introducing improved livestock varieties
• Promoting organic fertilizers and indigenous crop
  rotation techniques
• Constructing high school in the community
• Reducing alcohol consumption
• Reducing spending on social festivities

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Community Visioning Process

• Improving fertility of the land through
• Planting indigenous trees
• Organic manuring and crop rotation
• Terracing
• Irrigating land through a small river diversion

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Initial Action Planning
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Operationalizing ABCD Ethiopia

• Results
• Increase/improvement in physical, financial
  natural assets
• Indicators
• Increased household/community assets
• Increased savings and/or ability to mobilize
  money
• Increased ability to preserve/manage assets
• Increased ability to leverage assets

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Operationalizing ABCD Ethiopia

• Results
• Increased sense of trust
• Indicators
• People speak increasingly about trust in
  community and leadership

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Operationalizing ABCD Ethiopia

• Results
• Increase in self-mobilization
• Indicators
• Increase in self-initiated projects (household
  and group)

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Operationalizing ABCD Ethiopia

• Results
• Evidence of ongoing leadership development
• Indicators
• People can identify the qualities they look for
  in their leaders
• People are accepting of emerging forms of
  leadership (i.e. community members who have lived
  away)

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Operationalizing ABCD Ethiopia

• Results
• Identification of economic opportunities
• Indicators
• Opportunities for increasing community and
  household income identified
• Opportunities for decreasing community and
  household expenditure identified

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Operationalizing ABCD Ethiopia

• Results
• Evidence of associational development
• Indicators
• People are adapting traditional associational
  forms for economic ends
• Increase in number and/or membership in
  associations
• Evidence of increased inclusiveness within
  associations

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Operationalizing ABCD Philippines

• Action Research
• SEARSOLIN and Xavier University
• ABCD approach integrated into overall work
  (educational programs and community extension)
• Chose to apply ABCD in different ways
• Ongoing documentation

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Operationalizing ABCD Philippines

• Action Research
• The communities
• Midkiwan
• integrated ABCD into existing extension work
• Tongantongan
• integrated ABCD into sustainable agriculture
  program

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Operationalizing ABCD Philippines

• Midkiwan
• Shifting from DCBA to ABCD Identifying and
  appreciating assets
• Focus on linkages with NGO sector
• Informal leadership (benefits and risks)

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Operationalizing ABCD Philippines

• Tongantongan
• ABCD compliments sustainable agriculture
• Household assets survey
• Internal problems Internal solutions
• Collaborative efforts of major stakeholders
• SA and ABCD lead to both social and agricultural
  transformation

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Operationalizing ABCD Philippines

• Results
• ABCD helps people to recognize their assets
• ABCD stimulates group activity
• An ABCD approach facilitates linkages with local
  government

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Operationalizing ABCD Philippines

• Results
• ABCD changes the relationship between
• Community development worker and community
  members
• Communities and outside agencies (NGO, LGU, etc.)

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Operationalizing ABCD Philippines

• Results
• ABCD helps communities to mobilize themselves
  both proactively and reactively
• ABCD focuses attention on the importance of
  social capital linkages as assets

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Key Insights and Implications for Agency Practice
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InsightCapacity to organize

• Effective organizing is around relationships of
  trust
• Revive and revamp organizational capacity by
  analyzing past success
• Both traditional and new leaders are essential in
  linking capacity to organize with incentives and
  opportunities
• Leadership is action rather than position -
  Voluntary leaders are critical
• Confidence in existing strengths and assets
  motivates people to organize themselves

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InsightMobilizing existing asset-base

• Recognition of individual and collective assets
  is first step
• Use internal solutions to solve internal
  problems
• Security enables access to opportunity
• Capacity to demand rights to services and access
  to assets improves through mobilizing and
  building assets (especially social capital)
• Assets-thinking provokes social transformation
  sources of power are re-evaluated

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InsightLeveraging external assets

• Communities/community groups that are organized
  and have mobilized their own assets first are an
  attractive investment

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InsightRole of External Agents

• External agents that genuinely value skills and
  capacities of even the poorest are the most
  effective in stimulating CDD
• Local government capacity to respond is key
• Upscaling requires collaboration with government
  and private sector

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Implications for Agency Practice

• Finding alternatives to the development project
• Shifting from problem solving to responsive
  investment in community-driven initiatives
• Facilitating rather than driving the community
  development process

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Implications for Agency Practice

• Supporting the emergence and building the
  capacity of local leadership
• Encouraging inclusiveness in the face of power
  differences in the community
• Helping communities negotiate with multiple
  stakeholders

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Implications for Agency Practice

• Rethinking accountability mechanisms
• Helping to create an enabling policy environment
• Focus on learning
• Emphasize on-going documentation of the process
  as it unfolds
• Challenge people to appreciate complexity,
  interconnectivity and synergy
• Look for unexpected outcomes

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Livelihood Assets Agency
INTERNAL
EXTERNAL
Leverage
voice
obligations
mobilizing doing
informing responding
Associations
Institutions
or any community social relations that can
access and mobilize assets
and their policies and programs that provide
access to assets or asset-building services
Investment