Participation for Human Development

It has been argued that while improved economic growth is a vital component of sustained improvement of human well-being in the Pacific, it will not be sufficient. A large proportion of the population will not have access to formal sector incomes for many years to come. In attempting to provide services, many governments are faced with extreme difficulties associated with the wide geographical dispersion of settlements, the considerable cultural and linguistic diversity within countries, and the serious shortage of skilled manpower. Funding constraints, as a result of the combined influence of significant population growth and slow economic growth, becoming increasingly evident, while geographical disparities in human development are in many countries, increasing.

All these factors suggest that a vital step towards achieving higher levels of economic and social development by the people of the Pacific is increased participation and responsibility towards their own development. Indeed achieving sustainable human development for the Pacific people means their further empowerment with information and skills, as well as access to development resources and opportunities, so that eventually they can expand their choices for a fulfilled life.

The principal means to achieve this objective is for communities to intensify their self-help activities, encouraged and assisted by government and NGOs, including religious and indigenous institutions, and for government to adopt measures in support of participatory development, i.e. gradual decentralization of decision-making to lower levels of government; improvement of service delivery mechanism; and provision of policy support and administrative procedures to grassroots initiatives. External donors, regional institutions and other entities have a vital role to play in helping further strengthen such partnership for people-centered development.

4.1 Key Issues for Enhancing Participation for Sustainable Human Development

4.1.1 Participation as means to empower people

Promoting participation means helping empower people with information and skills so that they can have greater access to resources and opportunities which will make possible their attainment of an improved way of life. It also means helping them create, direct and maintain their own organizations capable of self-help activities undertaken with popular support to satisfy community requirements. Hence, participation is basic to ensuring the provision of services and resources for human development. It creates the conditions for people to move away from dependency to self-reliance, from being passive recipients of decisions, often emanating from a central authority, to an active role in decision-making.

4.1.2 Close partnership required to promote participation

Putting people at the center stage of development requires the close partnership of various agencies and entities: NGOs and grassroots institutions, central and local governments, private sector and commercial entities, external agencies and donors.

Their complementarities, at each PIC, will have to be identified and further strengthened. A reassessment of their pivotal role in the overall development process is vital for a more systematic approach to forging their closer collaboration. In many PICs, for instance, NGOs have demonstrated effectiveness in many areas of development work. However, although they can reach more remote communities and be effective in raising consciousness towards change, they lack the resources to provide support to local programmes and projects. This area is largely the task of government, assisted by external agencies and donors.

Decentralization programmes have succeeded to create local governments which can be effective participative structures. Its members have political and cultural ties with the community. It is the first contact point between the people and their government. In all PICs, they provide a forum for consultation with the people, serving as intermediary between the local communities and central government. Most external agencies and programmes work through them. Hence, local governments can play a crucial role in the promotion of participatory development through their tasks associated with service delivery. They can also help create a favourable environment for the growth of community organizations.

Promoting participation also means learning from the people and building on their local organizations. It is widely recognized that local communities themselves have a lot to contribute in terms of traditional knowledge, indigenous technologies and organizational know-how. Under the time pressure of project schedules and prior agreements with donors, NGOs and other entities operating at local level may not take these vital matters into account.

More than any other development partner, the central government at each PIC has the authority, the organization and the resources to create a policy and implementation environment favourable to human development. Only the central government can set the process going for a reexamination of the role of the state in a new context, to subscribe to human development, rather than to narrow economic goals; only the central government can set reforms for budgetary allocation and plan formulation based on the requirements of people-centered development; and only the central government can set about the streamlining of the bureaucracy so that it can be a more effective tool for service delivery and citizen participation.

Many PICs have taken steps in recent years to reduce government investment and develop the private sector. For their rapidly-emerging role in fostering economic growth, commercial entities will have a strategic role in putting human development on a sound sustainable basis. Participation of the majority of the people in economic activities and, more importantly, in the sharing of benefits from such activities will necessarily be an important goal in developing private sector interests in the PICs.

The increasing use of participation as modality for development planning, implementation and management will offer opportunities for external agencies and donors to review current direction of programmes, reflect on the efficacy of existing requirements and priorities in supporting people-centered concerns and expand alliances for development assistance, e.g. more support to local governments, churches and indigenous organizations to further strengthen their partnership with established NgOs and government sectoral ministries.

4.1.3 Sustainability will depend on overcoming constraints to genuine popular participation

Participation is understood in as many ways as there are programmes and projects, as there are agencies, NGOs and donors promoting participatory approaches. Indeed participation takes many forms and the means to achieve it vary: consultative meetings, community self-survey and dialogues, participatory planning, demonstration projects, credit schemes, etc. All these, no doubt, are important, but they may only succeed to provide the social management of participation, rather than its substance. If they are means for genuine popular participation, these activities must lead to greater control by the people themselves of the development activities; to their sharing more in the benefits of development; to enabling them to help transform institutional structures for greater community cohesiveness; and to making their organizations a vehicle for democratic values without which participation will neither be genuine nor sustainable.

Some of the major constraints to popular participation are as follows:

a. Inadequate outreach to local communities.

It is apparent that before the people can be motivated to participate, they first must be reached and brought to the mainstream of the development process. An inventory of specific project coverage of each government agency and NGO operating in each PIC is important.

b. Lack of awareness and skills of fieldworkers to make use of service delivery activities as opportunities or engaging people in an educative process towards greater participation in development and community life.

These constraints calls for NGOs and government agencies to share lessons learnt in community work. The Solomon Islands Development Trust (SIDT) has a wealth of approaches to share which have been developed from years of work in remote communities. The South Pacific Commission (SPC) has had remarkable experiences in the Cook Islands on how to generate participation.

c. Inadequacy of the project design to include social preparation/mobilization component.

This constraint is reflected in problems such as: lack of the project by the community; lack of “fit” between project-developed mechanisms with existing community structures; lack of awareness about the project itself. Initial project activities need to be within the capacities of people to implement. Sustainability is a painstaking process of building on people’s understanding and willingness to carry out on simple everyday tasks. Large-scale projects are made possible through efforts exerted by making people capable and confident in tackling relatively smaller tasks.

d. Constraints arising from a country’s political or development management environment.

These constraints look formulate: lack of access to land, and other resources; inadequate policy and programme support; lack of participation in planning; inadequate service delivery mechanisms; lack of coordination; interference of politicians in the selection of development projects, etc. Most of these concerns are not within a programme or project to control. While these constraints look formidable, they are not impossible to solve. It calls for a covenant amongst the various development partners to work towards their common vision and always with the interest of the people at heart. It also indicates the urgency to help people build strong grassroots organizations that can eventually articulate the need for policy reforms to overcome these constraints. Towards this end, both the NGOs and the government have a vital role to play.

4.2 Non-Government and People’s Organizations and Community Participation

Traditional ethos of participation is being supplanted gradually in many Pacific villages by the authority and instrumentalities of the church and government. There has been tremendous growth in NGOs, a significant number of which are supported by religious organizations. They link up with communities and, in most cases, they establish community groups or work with existing organizations to implement local projects. For its part, the central government has set up its own network of governance, island/village councils and the various units of sectoral ministries which now co-exist with indigenous institutions. These local institutions still exert tremendous influence on how communities react to externally-initiated development schemes.

NGO and community self-help involvement in human development in the Pacific offers a potential that has yet to be completely realized. There are numerous local and international NGOs operating in the region. (Box 13). Local NGOs with a developmental orientation include Women’s groups and youth organizations, many of which predate the recent interest and support of NGOs.

NGOs have multiplied their numbers in the region basically as a response to the many pockets of opportunities left behind by the inadequate service-delivery efforts of government. Church-based NGOs have not confined themselves to missionary work; rather they have found themselves responding also to new aspirations, i.e. for education, skills training, health and nutrition. Likewise, branches of international NGOs, as well as country-based NGOs, have specialized their services to cater to new needs: women in development, youth and sports, support to disabled, job creation, awareness-building on the environment.

NGOs and government agencies primarily serve as vehicles for linking up with communities within a development context or in a programme of planned change. In effect, they represent intrusions into local culture, with its own unique values and belief systems, set patterns of thinking and doing which have been formed and nurtured through years of contending with both the forces of nature and man-made conflicts. PICs value their culture highly; their national development plans invariably reflect the need to preserve cultural integrity despite the frenetic race to achieve progressive changes in their way of life.

There is a growing recognition amongst development planners and implementers that in the haste to produce these changes, the role indigenous institutions and local cultural practices may have been largely ignored. It has been noted, for instance, that despite the cohesiveness of Pacific communities, their participation in development activities remains token and merely ceremonial. In many villages, community participation tends to lose considerably vitality and consistency outside the framework of traditional culture and practices. Development planners are becoming increasingly aware that outside the maneaba and the nakamal, and without the blessing of the priest, pastor or minister, enthusiasm for projects will most likely wither and die.

Traditional communities in the Pacific remain highly cohesive, with widespread kinship ownership of land and a strong ethos of supporting other members of the community. The structure of the community varies across countries with patrilineal, matrilineal and chiefdom systems all present. These community structures provide a well-defined security system for the sick and elderly. Despite this internal cohesion, however, there has been relatively limited involvement of communities in self-help development activities. This is a crucial constraint to an improved human development performance for two reasons. Firstly, given a shortage of funds and skilled staff, the active involvement of the community offers the only realistic solution to inadequate service delivery. Secondly, the effectiveness of government interventions at the community level can be significantly undermined by a lack of community involvement and awareness.

The reasons behind the relative absence of self-help activities are complex, but a number of contributory factors stand out. One is a perception amongst communities that it is the responsibility of the government to provide improved services and infrastructure. In many countries of the Pacific, the attitude of being passive recipient or services has been influenced by traditional cultural values, by the impact of colonial administrations and, in some cases, by the relatively easy availability, at least at the national level, of large foreign aid flows. The donor community itself, therefore, must ensure that its aid programmes incorporate sustainability and self-help objectives and that through these efforts, the impact on human development in outlying regions and islands maximized.

The lack of skills in promoting self-help and programme sustainability, even amongst NGOs, has also contributed to the relative absence of communities with their own support programmes. There are numerous examples of NGO projects, funded by international donors, which have failed to survive once funding ceases. Many projects have placed greater emphasis on provision of direct assistance by the NGO, than on the building of sustainable self-help capabilities. While the projects may have the full involvement and participation of the community while underway, little emphasis has been placed on building the institutional structures and village committees that carry on once the donor leaves. In addition, insufficient attention has been paid to starting income generation activities by individuals or groups in rural communities. An income base is necessary to help communities meet their own needs and to fund the operation and maintenance of village infrastructure.

More extensive training of Pacific NGOs is needed, not only in the management and financial control of NGO activities themselves, but also in approaches to community mobilization, income generation and self-help activities.

Another difficulty is the continuity of funding. Most domestic and international NGOs do not have sufficient resources to continue working in a community after donor funding ceases. Donors are often unwilling to provide support beyond the initial project life, for the additional time required to build self-motivation and the necessary institutions in community.

4.3 Non-Government Organizations and the Government

The inability of many governments to deliver adequate services to the rural areas in the Pacific is well established. In some countries, NGOs and community-based organizations have had notable successes in both mobilizing community participation and in delivering services. In Fiji, the government, NGOs and local communities have well-established collaborative relationship in operating the educational system. They have delineated their respective responsibilities vis-à-vis the education sector. (Box 14). The integration of developmental concerns into the traditional system of governance in Western Samoa has ensured broad-based support to family welfare, education, agriculture, environment and income generation. The Village Women’s Committees have preformed an outstanding role as participative structure for varied developmental concerns. (Box 15).

These successes, however, are limited and do not enable NGOs to offer universal coverage. Much is still to be done, and further progress requires a significant shift in the attitudes and practices of government departments in most Pacific countries. It also requires changes in the practices of NGOs. The advocacy for human development, which stresses reaching out to majority of the population marginalized by current socio-economic trends, will require reassessment of existing NGO-government collaboration in each country. Such reassessment may, in turn, require major shift in government policy towards the promotion of community participation and greater support for NGOs.

4.3.1 Government Policy towards Community Participation and NGOs

The development of an effective interface between the government and NGOs is not common. At one level this is not surprising. The NGO movement encompasses organizations that vary greatly in terms of their strength, orientation and motivation. The NGO movement as a whole adopts more innovative approach than governments, often in concentrated geographic locations. In contrast, the government is charged, at least in principle, with universal coverage and has predefined administrative procedures. As a result, antagonism sometimes arises between NGOs and government staff. The inherent differences between NGOs and government make it difficult to establish an ongoing working relationship. At the same time, these differences offer the potential to exploit complementaries.

The first step that a government needs to take, therefore, is the recognition that community self-help is an established component of a country’s development efforts. It also needs to acknowledge that its own field staff, in those sectors that interact with communities, have a responsibility for promoting community self-reliance; that many NGOs have a special skill in this area; and that these skills need to be integrated with government activities. NGOs, however, do not have the funds or the staff or, in most cases, the management skills to cover all parts of the country. Government and NGOs therefore need to work together to define their respective responsibilities.

Common workshops on community issues, on the respective geographical and functional responsibilities of NGOs and government, and on approaches to community mobilization, income generation and self-help are a necessary part of developing and implementing an operational policy. Part of this policy must be to define the specific role that government staff may have for the promotion of community participation in each sectoral ministry.

Several PICs have given due recognition to the role of indigenous institutions and traditional leaders and the influence they still exert in many villages. Structures have been established to allow traditional authority to have a say in resolving issues related to land and culture, e.g. House of Iroj (Marshall Islands), Great Council of Chiefs (Fiji), Malfatu Mauri (Vanuatu). It is a recognition that traditional authority still exerts significant influence on some aspects of community life in many Pacific villages. The promotion of participatory approaches by specific government ministries and NGOs will have to take this fact into account.

4.3.2 NGOs and Individual Ministries

In those countries that have attempted to develop a working relationship with NGOs, it has been common to establish an NGO desk. While this has proved to be useful in terms of providing a forum for NGOs to express concerns over specific government policies, it has not always produced an effective working relationship. The development of such a relationship requires specific agreements between NGOs and government departments operating in the relevant sector (e.g. health, education). In this respect, the relationship that has been formalized between the Youth to Youth group and the Ministry of Health in the Marshall Islands represents a new development in the Pacific in managing an on-going programme. (Box 16).

Contracting to NGOs also relies on an adequate system of accountability. Government departments need to be able to assess the capabilities of NGOs and to monitor their performance. NGOs need to establish internal systems of accountability for funds and project achievements. Many NGOs and government departments will require significant training to carry out these functions effectively. Moreover, it is clear that effective accountability can only be assessed by those departments that are specialized in the service being delivered by the NGO. At the same time, recognizing the comparative strengths and weaknesses of NGOs, there is a need to streamline the process of funding and reporting to allow for the use of innovative approaches.

These proposals by no means represent universal solutions to human development in the Pacific. Developing effective working relationships will require substantial training and initial coverage will be selective. Nevertheless, effective use of the complementary skills of communities, NGOs and the government must be a central component of a human development strategy in the Pacific.

4.4 The Dilemma of Decentralization

Decentralization of government activity has popular appeal in the Pacific where many countries encompass different cultural groups and where the wide dispersion of islands creates major problems of access to government services. With a strong community base, there is thus a valid reason for harnessing the potential that decentralized development offers. On the other hand, however, the constraints faced by PICs encourage the centralization of service delivery. A shortage of skilled personnel, the isolation of outlying island and rural communities, and the lack of income generating capacity in these areas hamper the ability of either central or local governments, or the communities themselves, to staff decentralized services or to finance economic development at the local level.

A number of PICs have implemented decentralization programmes mostly after gaining Independence. That these programmes are being planned and implemented despite tremendous problems shows that Pacific governments are aware that alternatives must be found to the highly centralized, bureaucratic organizations inherited from colonial rule to broaden people’s participation and improve their access to services.

The experience of PNG highlights key constraints to the decentralization process. (Box 17). A narrow base of skilled personnel, together with unclear approaches to allocating and controlling the use of public funds, demonstrates the difficulties of establishing complex multi-level bureaucracies answerable to different political power structures. It also emphasis the need to establish national systems for allocating funds to the different sectors and for ensuring that implementation follows national priorities. The PNG experience has relevance to many PICs which are in search of ways to fine-tune government structures and procedures to improve service delivery and maximize the participation of local communities.

4.5 Task Ahead for Pacific Governments: Formulating Participatory Development as Mainstream Policy

There seems to be an ambivalent attitude prevailing amongst Pacific governments about participatory development. While national development plans do not fail to highlight its significance, there seems to be a severe lack of enthusiasm in lending it enough prominence to become the leading force for policy formulation, development planning and implementation.

Lessons from project experiences in many PICs show that benefits from participatory approaches far outweigh the risks imagined or anticipated by planners. Against the fear that participation will lead to an avalanche of demands and expectations that the central government will find hard to fulfill, it has been cited by the experience of many projects that the people’s willing and substantive involvement often makes up for the scarcity of financial resources and manpower. Participation allows projects to tap the creative energy and resources of local communities and thus significantly reduce project costs and investments. With greater project relevance achieved through participation, costs for correcting mistakes are avoided, as well as the unquantifiable social costs of ill will and mistrust due to severe loss of community confidence.

There is a prevailing notion that participative strategies do not suit most projects that they are unnecessarily tedious, and that in a government bureaucracy divided into sectors they will lead only to chaos in the planning and implementation of projects. The technical component of a project will, in fact, affect the scope, extent and degree of popular participation at each step of the project development process. But participation is still possible as in infrastructure building. Some ill designed causeways, roads, bridges and wharves found in the region could have been avoided with minimal consultation with local communities on the movement of the tides and fish, for example. Participation may be tedious in relation to the quick-fix orientation of some projects, but it is necessary. Projects are for people and, hence, enough time should be given to allow them to invest their own ideas and skills in undertaking the benefits or harm effects of which may affect them all their lives, long after development workers and planners have left the scene.

It is true that participatory approaches are hard to implement if there are many sectors linking up with a community. It is difficult, but not impossible; sectors do cooperate with each other on behalf of popular participation, which can affect the success or failure of a given project. All the benefits accruing from participatory strategies are themselves are themselves strong reasons for making participatory development a core mainstream policy, rather than merely a token strategy, principle or a cluster of project activities in a sectoral plan.

Participatory development ensures that projects will always be attuned to the existing capabilities of people and local communities, to local beliefs and aspirations, to environmental requirements that traditional knowledge knows so well. It will lend greater pertinence to inputs: training, credit schemes, service delivery. The structures, strategies and processes required to make it happen are all here in the region at the disposal of Pacific governments. What seems to be needed is for policymakers and planners to find the resolve to counter the prevailing ambivalence about participatory development, to find the conviction that it is the people alone, guided by their own plans and projects, who can make development truly sustainable.