Transcript Rural poverty and environmental planning – participatory

Rural poverty and environmental planning –
participatory evaluation of development initiatives
in Africa
Ton Dietz
Professor Human Geography
University of Amsterdam
Poverty map
Africa 2004
GNI per capita
Altas method
(Current US$)
Source: World Bank 2004
l. Yellow: Less than 530
D. Yellow: 530 - 1,250
Orange: 1,250 - 3,000
D. Red: > 3,000
Blue:
No data
http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/english/regions/africa/index.htm
Citation from Rural Poverty Portal
(IFAD, June 2007)
• “Poverty in Africa is predominantly rural. More than
70 per cent of the continent’s poor people live in rural
areas and depend on agriculture for food and livelihood,
yet development assistance to agriculture is decreasing.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 218 million people live
in extreme poverty. Among them are rural poor people in
Eastern and Southern Africa, an area that has one of the
world’s highest concentrations of poor people. The
incidence of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is increasing
faster than the population. Overall, the pace of poverty
reduction in most of Africa has slowed since the 1970s”.
IFAD citation continued:
Rural poverty in many areas of Africa has its roots in the colonial system
and the policy and institutional restraints that it imposed on poor people
(...)
Structural adjustments have dismantled existing rural systems, but have
not always built new ones.
In many transitional economies, the rural situation is marked by continuing
stagnation, poor production, low incomes and the rising vulnerability of
poor people.
Lack of access to markets is a problem for many small-scale enterprises in
Africa.
The rural population is poorly organized and often isolated, beyond the
reach of social safety nets and poverty programmes.
Increasingly, government policies and investments in poverty reduction
tend to favour urban over rural areas.
Rural development
in 1970s and 1980s
• Long history of project interventions, either
as stand-alone interventions, or as part of
‘integrated rural development’
programmes,
• both by central or decentralised
governments and by NGOs,
• often donor-sponsored, and with specific
care for isolated, marginal areas
Examples in Dutch aid to Africa
• Integrated Rural Development Programme
Western Province Zambia
• District Programmes Tanzania
• Arid and Semi-arid Lands Programmes in
Kenya
• Resource management in Kaya, Burkina
Faso
• Office du Niger, Mali
Measuring aid effectiveness
Gradually: more ‘logical frameworks’ in project design
(1980s), but also: process approach; ‘incremental
learning’
Increase in Monitoring and Evaluation attempts during
project implementation (1990s)
If done well:
base-line survey;
annual reports with (measured) progress;
and longitudinal analysis
However: within the aid industry: very few examples of
long-term commitment to these longitudinal approaches.
Problems of Measuring the Impact of Integrated
Rural Development Programmes
Often donor-driven; lack of institutional sustainability; lack of donor
continuity
Difficult ‘attribution’ of cause (intervention) and effect (‘development’/
’change’);
Contextual change often more important than project/programme
interventions.
Quality of measurement depends on quality of lowest-level data
collection: lack of quality assurance, lack of continuity, political
‘cooking’ of data, “just filling in forms”.
Dishonesty/corruption in project implementation often covered by nontransparant ‘reporting’ or no reporting at all.
Often naive neglect of existing power structures in intervention regions
and of existing geographical and cultural-institutional barriers
between area of intervention and higher-order regions.
Late 1990s-2007
• Rather sudden dismissal of (integrated) rural
development programmes by major donors and by
recipient governments
• Instead: allignment and harmonisation (“Paris agenda:
policy coherence for development”), resulting in sector
support and budget support to central governments
• Choice of sectors: often social sectors (health care,
education) and physical infrastructure (roads, dams,
drinking water); also stimulated by attention for MDGs
• At the expense of productive sectors, and
rural/agricultural development in particular
• And at the expense of marginal areas.
However....
• Lot of interventions continued/started by:
–
–
–
–
International and local development NGOs
Faith-based organisations
Environmental agencies
Local governments, assisted by supporters
(jumelages; home-area associations of migrants
abroad)
– International and national companies (e.g. as part of
their ‘socially responsible entrepreneurship’)
– Transnational migrants
– ‘Do-it-yourself’ aid entrepreneurs
Recent developments in the Dutch
aid industry-1
• Ministry: more emphasis on quality assurance
and measurement of impact (Directorate
Effectiveness and Quality – “DEK”)
• Integration of classical aid with human rights,
conflict management, fair trade; coherence
• 2003-2007: MDGs central, particularly primary
education and health care
• 2007 onwards: also attention for failed states,
women’s rights, energy, fair trade (and more
support expected for rural development and
agriculture, in line with the new World
Development Report of the World Bank)
Recent developments in the Dutch
aid industry-2
• Major boost to support via NonGovernmental Organisations
– Until 2001 mainly NOVIB (now Oxfam-Novib),
Cordaid, ICCO, Hivos and Plan
– 2001 onwards: also Thematic Co-financing
Programme (“TMF”)
– 2007 onwards: new integrated Co-financing
Framework for NGOs (“MFS”)
• More independent role for SNV,
Netherlands Development Organization
PME boost
Now:
Ministry, SNV, and >100 Dutch NGOs busy
with more professional attention for
Programming, Monitoring and Evaluation;
many have formed ‘knowledge units’, and
support their many partners (often NGOs)
in the South to improve quality and
become better learning organizations
New alliances scientists and Aid
agencies in PME designs
•
•
•
•
•
E.g.:
Economists Free University for DEK
CIDIN Nijmegen for Cordaid
ISS The Hague for HIVOS
AMIDSt for ICCO, Woord & Daad and Prisma
• DPRN organised a major thematic meeting
about ‘measuring impact’ in June 2006. See
www.dprn.nl, under publications
What is evaluated?
• The policy relevance of a set of interventions
• The effectiveness: outputs, outcome/effects,
impact
• The efficiency: inputs compared with outputs
(and impacts)
• The sustainability: the robustness of
technological and institutional change
• The attribution: what changes can be
‘believably’’ attributed to a set of interventions,
given many other interventions and many other
causes of change
Different approaches:
“diversity breeds quality”
• Project PME’s (often using logical frameworks)
• Comparison of same type of intervention in different
places/countries, studying the importance of contexts
• Effects of budget support on macro-economic indicators,
including poverty indicators
• Effect of sector support on sector-specific indicators (e.g.
in education, or in HIV-AIDS programmes)
• Controled case studies: Comparing change in
intervention areas with non-intervention areas
• Holistic, Participatory Evaluation (our approach)
Holistic, Participatory Evaluation
• Is an ex-post method of measuring change and
of attributing change to ‘most significant’
actors/change agents
• It enables the population/the leaders of a local
area to “look back” themselves
• Covering e.g. 20 years
• And it does not restrict itself to one sector and
not to one intervening agent (an organisation or
a ‘project’): it looks at all of it together (holistic
approach).
Approach tried out in NW Kenya, the area of North
Pokot in 2001-2002, in three different areas
Example: Kiwawa-workshop:
 60 local leaders of an area with 25,000
inhabitants, 30x50 sq. km.
 gathered for three days in June 2002
 to discuss their ideas about the recent history of
the study area.
 Participants came from four different sub-areas
 Participants were (elected) councillors,
(appointed) chiefs and assistant chiefs, local
church leaders, women group leaders, and
teachers, both men and women.
Research team
Kiwawa area,
North Pokot
K
Kapenguria,
district HQ
Nairobi, national
capital
Kenya: district
boundaries in
1980s
Type of area
• Culture of pastoralism (cattle, goats, sheep and some camels),
easily crossing Uganda-Kenya border
• But after disasters in 1979-1986 mixed economy (agriculture,
livestock, gold digging, trade)
• Mainly Pokot ethnic group, reluctant to accept Kenyan state
authorities; very autonomous attitude
• After 1979: influx of aid agencies, churches, state agents, and Dutch
development assistance (ASAL Programme)
• Lot of poverty and insecurity (‘cattle raids’, interethnic violence with
Turkana and Karimojong; military actions by Kenyan and Ugandan
army)
• Rapid increase of education, health care and provision of water; not
much improvement in economic wealth; perception of loss (of
livestock and pastoral way of life) and “being surrounded by
enemies”.
The workshop programme consisted of eight major elements:
1. Introduction and a round of personal life histories, focusing on the
importance of the disasters of 1979-86, and of later years for their
personal lives (day 1)
2. Writing personal life histories (on-going during the workshop, partly
assisting one another).
3. Reconstruction of the local history since 1979, focusing on ‘problem
years’ (day 1).
4. Discussion about poverty and about the changes in ‘capabilities’
between 1980 and 2002 (day 1)
5. Reconstruction of all development projects in four sub-areas
(day 2)
6. Assessment of the impact of projects and activities on each of six
groups of ‘capabilities’, and on their importance for poverty alleviation
(day 2).
7. Grading of all projects per sub-area, per subgroup of men and women,
and selecting and discussing the ten ‘best’ and the ten ‘worst’ projects
(day 3).
8. Final discussion about the development prospects of the area and
about the virtues and vices of ‘donor support’ (day 3).
The 1979-86 disasters and external
responses
1979-80
insecurity/raids, rinderpest, drought/famine, army operation, cholera, Roman
Catholic Mission (Italian) expands activities
1981
same, Red Cross services, no dowry payments, gold mining, ACCK and
AIC/RCA missions (both: US-backed) start activities
1982/83
Major Turkana and Karimojong raids, gold mining (many places), failed military
coup, ‘home guns’ provided by government for self-defence, peace
treatyPokot-Karimojong, but failed; start some ASAL projects Dutch aid (and
start of our research programme), rapid expansion of education (school
food aid)
1984/85
raids (Turkana), major army operation, drought/famine, exodus to the South,
peace Pokot-Karimojoing 1986
major army operation, famine, start Turkwel dam construction, start Kasei
dispensary by Kenyan government and Dutch aid
Self-assessment of recent local history by using the
Capabilities approach (adjusted from Bebbington)
• Changes in six capability domains since 1986
natural environment
physical environment
human resources
economic and financial capabilities
social and political
cultural
• Assessment: type of changes, and value judgement:
positive or negative
• Based on different groups: area-based and genderdifferentiated
EXAMPLE-1: NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
Capability
domain
Perceived positive change
Perceived negative change
natural
Permanent settlement is found in
more fertile areas where more land
is used for agriculture; by the use
of fertiliser and manure the land
has improved.
There is also enough pasture,
improved vegetation in some
areas, better water supply
(boreholes and gravity).
Land is still communally owned.
Because of the improved.
availability of drugs for livestock,
their numbers increased.
Water catchments have dried due
to deforestation in some areas
Soil erosion because of population
pressure.
No more shifting cultivation: soil
infertility.
More animals: overgrazing.
Spread of diseases increased in
mining areas because of the
interaction with outsiders.
The topography of the land was
destroyed because of mining.
Climate has changed rapidly:
prolonged drought.
Insecurity of wildlife because of
poaching.
Scarcity of wild fruits due to
persistent drought.
EXAMPLE-2: CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
Capability Perceived positive change
domain
Perceived negative change
Cultural
Spoiled ethnicity, and erosion of
cultural traditions.
Traditional religion kept people
together, now: cultural diversity.
Cultural dress style lost; new
‘modern’ clothes are expensive.
Vernacular language skills lost.
Lack of differentiation between
married and unmarried people.
Immorality and increase of crimes.
No payment of dowry due to the
diminishing numbers of livestock
among the poor.
Increased Christianity and
Islam,
Many more churches,
More ‘proper’ dresses,
Increased language
abilities,
Better food diets,
Reduced ‘evil practices’.
Increased Pokot pride.
Assessing interventions
(= ‘projects’)
•
Differentiating between four major intervening actors:
–
–
–
–
•
Government agencies
Arid and semi-arid lands programme (Dutch aid)
Church agencies (often foreign sponsored)
Non-Church NGOs (often foreign sponsored)
Status differentiation of each ‘project’
A: Project is still on-going, no impact to be decided yet
B: Finished projects
1
project never really started, or was negligible: ‘just talk’
2
project existed, but had no lasting impact, ‘nothing to
be seen on the ground anymore’, unsustainable
3
project was finished and had an impact that is
perceived to be positive
4
project was finished and had an impact that is
perceived to be negative
Self-assessment of ‘projects’ by
men and women in four areas
‘Donor’:
Gov.
ASAL
Church
NGO
Total
Project
scores
203
121
339
176
839
Finished
projects
127
106
178
118
529
‘just talk’
47%
42%
48%
47%
47%
‘no
impact’
19%
10%
8%
27%
15%
‘positive
impact’
17%
40%
35%
22%
29%
‘negative
impact’
17%
8%
9%
3%
9%
Self-assessment of capability
orientation of ‘projects’
Donor: Gov.
ASAL
Church NGO
Total
Total Cap. 281
scores
217
515
1265
Natural
7%
15%
7%
5%
8%
Physical
16%
31%
21%
23%
22%
Human
28%
21%
30%
26%
28%
Econ.
23%
16%
17%
20%
19%
SocPol.
16%
11%
14%
18%
15%
9%
6%
10%
8%
9%
Cult.
252
Self-assessment of ‘best 10’ and
‘worst 10’ ‘projects’ in four areas
Donor: Gov
ASAL
Church NGO
Total
Men:
best
7
2
24
5
37
Men:
worst
21
6
6
4
37
Women:
best
6
2
21
4
33
Women:
worst
24
2
5
8
39
Reasons for judgement
•
Positive:
–
–
–
–
–
•
Outcome fits own agenda of people
Realistic ambitions at start
Approach (planning and implementation) is respectful
Long-term commitment
Flexibility
Negative:
–
–
–
–
–
‘Parachuted’
Unkept promises
Disrespectful approach
Hit and run’ by non-locals
Creating tenions in the community without being there to assist in mediation
Need for more holistic, peoplecentred development interventions
• In practice, ‘project’/’interventions’ often done with tunnel
vision (‘sector aid’, without integration; ‘integrated rural
development’ cancelled for no good reasons).
• In practice ‘donors/intervention agents’ have different
and competing intentions:
-
‘national development’
‘national integration’
‘legitimise government authority’
‘restoring peace and order’
‘poverty alleviation’
‘empowerment’
‘environmental conservation’
‘proselytization’ (e.g. Evangelization)
‘teaching them a lesson’
article Kikula et al. Tanzania
• Shows how many potential linkages between ‘economic
growth’, ‘poverty alleviation’ and ‘environmental
conservation’ get lost because of:
lack of education and skills among
‘development staff’ and in the community
lack of community participation in design and
implementation of ‘projects‘
Lack of effective representation of women.
• I would add: lack of holistic, integrated thinking and
current overemphasis on bureaucratic sectors (‘sector
approach’) and separate Goals.
• And: lack of attention for how geography and (cultural)
history matter.