International Institute for Environment and Development - Participation

Learning how to adapt to climate change: advocacy, training and capacity building

nick.turner@iied.org (nickt) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:22:31 +0000

IIED works to help support southern countries as they adapt to climate change and the extreme weather events it brings. We do this by supporting partner organisations and experts that offer climate change adaptation training, advocacy and capacity building.

Climate change adaptation training

IIED helped set up the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), an organisation providing world class training on climate change and development, with a focus on adaptation to climate change. Based at the Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), and established in 2010, it is the first such specialist training institution working in a developing country. ICCAD provides training that draws on local experience, knowledge and research into climate change adaptation in Bangladesh — one of the countries worst affected by climate change.

ICCCAD runs regular short courses for NGOs, donors, the media, government staff and the private sector. In 2013 it plans to launch a Masters programme in Climate Change and Development at the Independent University, Bangladesh.

Advocacy, networking and capacity building

Southern civil society organisations and networks are crucial for generating stronger public attention and influencing climate negotiations and policies – at the international level and increasingly also nationally. IIED is supporting a network of experts working to do this.

Capacity Strengthening of Least Developed Countries for Adaptation to Climate Change (CLACC) is a network of fellows and international experts from Africa and Asia. They work under IIED auspices to support Least Developed Countries (LDCs) as they adapt to climate change impacts. As part of the broader Southern Voices Programme, which aims to strengthen climate policy networks in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific, CLACC is conducting advocacy work, policy monitoring and activities that raise public awareness about climate change in particularly vulnerable countries.

Empowering communities to adapt to climate change

nick.turner@iied.org (nickt) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:14:42 +0000

Many communities that are vulnerable to climate change impacts have been dealing with climate variability for decades and have a wealth of knowledge about how to adapt. Community-based adaptation to climate change focuses on empowering communities to use their own knowledge and decision-making processes to take action.

IIED has often led the way on learning about and sharing effective community-based adaptation (CBA) by:

partnering with key institutions and research programmes that examine how local communities are adapting to climate change (such as the Action Research on Community Adaptation in Bangladesh ARCAB), and
creating spaces for practitioners to share lessons learned by running conferences on CBA.

Learning about and sharing Community-based Adaptation

IIED supports Action Research on Community Adaptation in Bangladesh (ARCAB), a collaborative platform for learning-by-doing action-research on CBA. Based in Bangladesh, which is particularly hard hit by climate change, ARCAB's research programme aims to build knowledge around how to do successful CBA. The research will span decades and cover a range of themes from economics, to children's roles in responding to emergencies and will build an evidence base for CBA that can inform policy, practice and future research elsewhere.

IIED has provided learning and sharing spaces to explore the challenges and opportunities and share experience and knowledge from CBA activities amongst practitioners, policymakers, researchers, funders and the communities at risk. IIED has held annual international CBA conferences over the past few years in various vulnerable countries. The 6th and most recent CBA conference was held in Vietnam with over 320 people from 61 different countries attending, and over 30 co-sponsors and other contributing organisations provided support. The next 7th conference will be in Dhaka, Bangladesh in April 2013.

Other learning and sharing activities include the Community-based Adaptation Exchange web network, and CBA sessions at the annual Development and Climate Days events at the Conferences of the Parties (COP) held to assess progress in dealing with climate change through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Scaling up CBA

Just because CBA is ‘community-based’ doesn’t mean that it should operate solely at the community level. IIED’s work with the government of Nepal to bring Local Adaptation Plans of Action into national adaptation planning frameworks shows how this process can work. The theme of the Fifth International Conference on CBA (CBA5) in 2011 was ‘upscaling’. The theme of CBA7 in April 2013, is ‘mainstreaming into government’, and will explore this issue further.

Find out more our upcoming CBA conference in Bangladesh or about the CBA conferences we have previously held.

Participatory Learning and Action

nicole.kenton@iied.org (Nicole Kenton) — Wed, 3 Oct 2012 02:39:27 +0100

Keep up to date with the latest participation news from Participatory Learning and Action – a leading informal journal on participatory methods and approaches that strengthen rights, voice and governance and promote social justice. The series is published in English, with some issues translated into other languages, and some issues available in multimedia formats.

Announcement on the future of the PLA series

The Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) series is 25 years old this year. At this important milestone, IIED is taking stock of PLA to look at its legacy and its future direction. The series will be put on hold after the next issue, no. 66 (due in Spring 2013), pending this review. For more information read the future of the series.

Latest issue

After the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, India, IIED Senior Researcher, Krystyna Swiderska, explores how communities can get a share of the benefits from biodiversity and traditional knowledge they preserve.

See also her blog which looks at some of the difficulties facing people who live in biodiversity-rich areas, reflecting on why two different communities have developed community protocols. For more information please also visit our biocultural heritage website.

Read other IIED blogs and articles focusing on participatory approaches.

Read the latest issue: PLA 65: Biodiversity and culture: exploring community protocols, rights and consent Guest edited by Krystyna Swiderska with Angela Milligan, Kanchi Kohli, Harry Jonas, Holly Shrumm, Wim Hiemstra, Maria Julia Oliva

Also available in Spanish: Biodiversidad y cultura: exploración de protocolos comunitarios, derechos y consentimiento

Many rural communities – including some 370 million indigenous peoples – are directly dependent on biodiversity and related traditional knowledge for their livelihoods, food security, healthcare and well-being. But with the loss of biodiversity, valuable resources such as climate-resilient crops, medicinal plants and wild foods are being lost. Cultural diversity is being eroded at an unprecedented rate and with it, ancestral knowledge of how to use and conserve biodiversity.

This special issue of Participatory Learning and Action explores two important participatory tools that indigenous peoples and local communities can use to help defend their customary rights to biocultural heritage: i) Community protocols – or charters of rules and responsibilities – in which communities set out their customary rights to natural resources and land, as recognised in customary, national and international laws; and ii) Free, prior informed consent (FPIC) processes, in which communities decide whether or not to allow projects affecting their land or resources to go ahead, and on what terms.

Experiences of communities in Asia, Latin America and Africa in developing and using these tools in a range of contexts are reviewed, including: developing mechanisms for access and benefit-sharing (ABS) for genetic resources and traditional knowledge; confronting threats from mining and protected areas; and improving forestry partnerships.

Government experiences of establishing institutional processes for FPIC and benefit-sharing are also included. The issue identifies practical lessons and guidance based on these experiences and aims to strengthen the capacity of a range of actors to support these rights-based tools effectively in practice.

This special issue of PLA provides guidance for those implementing the Nagoya Protocol in particular, as well as for other natural resource and development practitioners, raising awareness of the importance of community designed and controlled participatory processes.

Our next issue, PLA 66, will be a general issue, with a focus on the use of participatory tools and processes in natural resource management for sustainable development. This will be published in Spring 2013.

Recent issues:

PLA 64: Young citizens: youth and participatory governance in Africa

All over the world we are seeing exciting experiments in participatory governance. But are they working for the young? What spaces are most promising for the participation of children and young people in governance? Across Africa youth (particularly boys and young men) are often seen as a ‘lost generation’: frustrated, excluded and marginalised from decision-making processes. But contributors to this special issue demonstrate how this is changing.

This issue of PLA highlights how young Africans are driving change in creative and unexpected ways, challenging the norms and structures that exclude them by engaging with the state and demanding accountability. This issue will enable other participatory practitioners – young and old – to learn from their experiences.

Also available in French: Jeunes citoyens : les jeunes et la gouvernance participative en Afrique

Forthcoming January 2013: A multimedia DVD Rom of PLA 64 in English and French. Please email pla.notes@iied.org for more details.

How communities are protecting their biocultural resources with community protocols

krystyna.swiderska@iied.org (Krystyna Swiderska) — Tue, 2 Oct 2012 11:24:58 +0100

As delegates gather for the 11^th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, in Hyderabad India (8-19 October), this photostory remembers some of the difficulties facing people who live in biodiversity-rich areas and looks at why two different communities have developed community protocols.

Although they have conserved important biodiversity of the regions where they have lived for generations, many communities are struggling to safeguard their biodiverse resources in the face of development threats from, for example, mining, logging and dam projects. Ironically, conservation efforts can also threaten livelihoods by creating strictly protected areas that force groups out of areas that they might have once sustainably managed or used to sustain biodiversity (such as hardy livestock breeds). Whether they are pastoralists in South Asia, or forest-dwellers in Borneo, these threats can seriously threaten the way of life and livelihoods of people who are already poor and vulnerable.

In response, some communities have developed Community Protocols to assert their rights and negotiate with others. Governments are required by the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources to the Convention on Biological Diversity, to support indigenous and local communities in developing these community protocols to ensure that external actors respect community rules for access to their traditional knowledge and genetic resources and for sharing the benefits that result from that access.

A recent review carried out by IIED and partners has shown that community protocols are not just about indigenous rights: they can also strengthen biodiversity conservation efforts by communities, support climate change adaptation, and help to establish long-term partnerships between communities and others. But experience has shown that to get these benefits, the community must lead the process of developing the protocol.

This photostory looks at why groups living in two different areas of the world – India and Malaysia – have developed these protocols.

The Raika are the largest pastoral community of western Rajasthan in north-west India. They have developed many unique and hardy livestock breeds adapted to their dry environment, including camels, Nari cattle, Botic sheep and Sirohi and Marwari goats. But over the last 60 years, the Raika have suffered as land they previously used to graze their livestock has diminished and been restricted by various developments. Most recently the establishment of a new wildlife sanctuary on land which they have grazed their livestock on for generations, has made access to important grazing land illegal. If the Raika now use the land they risk getting fined or arrested.

In 2009, the Raika developed a Biocultural Community Protocol, to document their:

role in conserving animal genetic diversity and forest and rangeland ecosystems and
rights under national and international laws and policies.

The Raika have used this document when interacting with government officials, especially the Forest Department. It has put them ‘on the map’ and become a source of information for young people about their traditional values. However, in the current struggle for grazing rights, it has become evident that internationally binding agreements like the CBD severely lack local awareness and implementation, even though India is a signatory to the convention. Overall, the BCP is just one of many tools in the arsenal required by the Raika to claim their rights under the Indian Forest Rights Act.

In Ulu Papar, a remote area of Sabah on the island of Borneo, Malaysia, about 1000 indigenous Dusun people depend on the forest, which they have managed communally for generations.

A large portion of Ulu Papar’s customary lands were incorporated into the Crocker Range Park in 1984, making many livelihood activities such as shifting cultivation , hunting, fishing and gathering products from the forest unlawful. More recently, a proposed UNESCO Biosphere Reserve threatens to engulf the entire Crocker Park for strict conservation; while a proposed dam, which threatens to submerge 4 of the 9 villages, is vehemently opposed by the community. In response, the communities initiated a participatory research process which yielded a significant amount of data on how they use their resources, and how they have shaped and used the landscape (referred to as cultural landscapes) . They used this as the basis for developing a Biocultural Community Protocol in 2010 [PDF], to address their lack of tenure security, and to try to find solutions to conflicts between them and the state-driven conservation and development initiatives.

The participatory resource mapping process enriched the community’s capacity to engage in conservation dialogue and action, and to take the lead in developing the Community Protocol, which was facilitated by researchers from the community.

The process to develop the community protocol involved several community workshops and discussions, and travelling road shows to visit each of the Dusun people’s dispersed settlements and engage them in the process. The participatory process helped the community articulate a common vision for their wellbeing and fostered a sense of solidarity amongst the community, giving them hope for the future.

The protocol forms part of the backbone of the Ulu Papar Community and Conservation Campaign launched in 2011 to disseminate information about the importance of Ulu Papar as a biocultural heritage site. This campaign has involved dialogues with the government to raise awareness about the heritage value of Ulu Papar, the role of the community in conserving this heritage, and about the desire and commitment of the Ulu Papar community to work together in preserving Sabah’s biocultural heritage. How state actors will respond remains to be seen.

The Raika and Ulu Papar cases are just two of the fourteen community protocol and free prior informed consent processes reviewed in IIED’s latest edition of Participatory Learning and Action (also available in Spanish).

In some cases, community protocols have resulted in some concrete gains, such as the postponement of mining in a community in Northern Ghana. In other cases, the development of community protocols has led to strong partnerships between communities and others, whether companies or NGOs.They have also improved the conservation of biodiversity by communities, such as potato crop diversity in the Andes, medicinal plants in South Africa and traditional crops in Ghana, by strengthening cultural values and traditional practices, particularly where communities have taken the lead in designing and facilitating the process. Conversely, where processes of prior informed consent and benefit-sharing have been designed by governments, this has undermined traditional institutions. This suggests that top-down or pre-defined processes should be avoided.

Find out more

Consent and conservation: getting the most from community protocols

Biodiversity and culture: exploring community protocols, rights and consent (PLA 65)

IIED's biocultural heritage website

Natural Justice's community protocols website

Making the Nagoya Protocol work at the community level

krystyna.swiderska@iied.org (Krystyna Swiderska) — Wed, 4 Jul 2012 16:24:29 +0100

Two safeguards for communities' rights to resources can help implement the Nagoya Protocol.

As the recent UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) showed, intergovernmental negotiations on the environment and development can be slow processes that lack ambition. But that is nothing new.

One of the outcomes of the original Rio Earth Summit in 1992 was the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. It was hailed at the time as a major step in promoting the conservation and wise use of the Earth's living resources.

But it has taken 18 years for governments to establish a system for achieving one of its three goals: the fair and equitable sharing of benefits that arise from genetic resources, such as when companies develop commercial medicines from plants or other life-forms.

The result, agreed in Japan in 2010, was the legally-binding Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing. The hope is that when it enters into force in a year or so, it will create new incentives for countries to protect their natural capital while enabling businesses to develop useful new products from biological resources in a sustainable way.

Implementing this agreement will be the next challenge. Community protocols and free, prior informed consent can be powerful tools for putting the Nagoya Protocol into practice — linking economic, social and ecological objectives, while supporting marginalised communities as they defend their rights to land and resources.

Benefits for communities

The Nagoya Protocol is mainly concerned with benefit-sharing between states. But it includes two potential safeguards for protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. They are often the best custodians of nature in rural areas, and their traditional knowledge can be important in identifying new products.

First, it requires countries to support the development of community protocols. These are charters of rules and responsibilities in which communities can set out their procedures for access and benefit-sharing, and their legally-recognised and customary rights to natural resources and land.

Second, it requires countries to take measures to ensure that communities can control access to their traditional knowledge by giving their free, prior informed consent. This means that communities decide whether to permit use of their knowledge or genetic resources, and on what terms.

The Inter-governmental Committee of the Nagoya Protocol is meeting this week (2–6 July, 2012) in New Delhi, India, to discuss guidance for implementing the protocol. Fourteen case studies published ahead of this meeting show how these tools have been developed and used in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and provide guidance on how policymakers, donors and nongovernmental organisations can support them in practice. [1]

For example, biocultural community protocols developed by farmers in Peru's Potato Park have helped to conserve traditional crops and share the benefits from their use equitably among six communities. Healers in Bushbuckbridge, South Africa, have done the same to conserve medicinal plants, gain access to plants in a protected area, and negotiate more effectively with a cosmetics company.

In northern Ghana, a community protocol resulted in mining being postponed to protect religiously significant areas of forest and streams, known as sacred groves. And in India, Kenya and Pakistan, pastoralists are using protocols to help secure their assets and get more recognition for their role in biodiversity conservation.

Community protocols recognised

A dialogue between the Convention on Biological Diversity secretariat and stakeholders, held in Montpellier, France on 24 May 2012, concluded that community protocols have an important role to play in implementing the Nagoya Protocol.

They can protect communities from exploitation, channel benefits to the local level to incentivise conservation, and enhance legal certainty and clarity for both users and providers of genetic resources. But they can also help create equitable partnerships between communities and other groups, such as scientific organisations or companies that seek to develop new products based on natural resources.

The case studies show that community protocols must start from the bottom-up, secure wide participation, and receive flexible support to maximise their potential to defend rights, conserve biodiversity and reduce poverty.

According to a report summarising the workshop, when emphasis is placed on the process of developing community protocols — rather than just the product — these protocols are more likely to strengthen community values and institutions that conserve biodiversity and traditional knowledge. [2]

It also points out that countries and donors must ensure communities receive the support they need to develop their protocols.

Simple, national changes

At this week's meeting of the Inter-governmental Committee of the Nagoya Protocol, negotiators should urge governments to recognise the critical role that community protocols can play at a local level.

This would mean including, in national legislation, provisions to recognise the rights of communities, and provisions for government support so communities can develop the necessary protocols. Governments should also ensure that laws requiring prior informed consent for the use of traditional knowledge and biodiversity are in place, and implemented in practice.

Rio+20 was a reminder that while politicians falter, the real action and leadership comes at a local level. To make a major outcome of the original Earth Summit work in practice, governments need to make these simple changes to allow communities to support and benefit from the conservation objectives their states committed to 20 years ago.

This was first published on SciDev.Net.

References

[1] International Institute for Environment and Development. Biodiversity and culture: exploring community protocols, rights and consent (June 2012)

[2] International Institute for Environment and Development. Using Biocultural Community Protocols to Implement MEAs and UNDRIP at the Local Level for Sustainable Development (May 2012)

Community protocols can bring real benefits to communities and combat biodiversity loss

krystyna.swiderska@iied.org (Krystyna Swiderska) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:39:06 +0000

Community Protocols are a vital way forward for negotiating agreements that are equitable, and conserve their local biodiversity and traditional knowledge.

Indigenous people and local communities have received few benefits from the commercial use of the wealth of traditional crops and medicinal knowledge they have developed. Where agreements have been established, the benefits are insignificant compared to the huge profits derived by companies. At the same time, biodiversity and traditional knowledge are being lost at an unprecedented rate.

Community Protocols provide communities with a vital way forward for negotiating agreements that are equitable, and for conserving their local biodiversity and traditional knowledge.

They set out a community’s rights and responsibilities relating to natural resources, to help communities defend these rights and negotiate with others on an equal footing. They can also establish internal community rules for the equitable sharing of benefits and for sustainable management of natural resources.

High up in the Peruvian Andes, such an agreement to equitably share benefits and conserve the Potato Park’s unique bio-cultural system has been developed (Read the summary and detailed case study).

Quechua communities are communally farming hundreds of potato varieties in the Park, which are vital for their food security and resilience to climate change. Having signed an agreement with a gene bank (the International Potato Centre) for the repatriation of lost potato varieties, the six communities needed to establish internal rules for the fair sharing of potatoes and financial benefits amongst them.

Community agreement helps conserve potato diversity and reduce potential conflict

The 6 communities carried out an in-depth participatory process over 2 to 3 years to develop an inter-community agreement. This agreement established new inter-community governance structures and a framework for equitably sharing the benefits from a number of economic collectives in the park, including collectives benefiting from gastronomy and ecotourism initiatives, and the production and selling of medicinal plants, potatoes and crafts. The agreement is rooted in conservation and equity values enshrined in customary laws, which now shape all the activities of the park, and is regulated by the community and inter-community authorities.

The agreement minimises the risk of conflicts over resources and of elites unfairly benefiting from revenues as the park’s revenues increase. A percentage of the revenues is reinvested into a communal fund which is used to sustain and manage the park’s agro-ecosystem where the potatoes are grown. It also provides a safety net for the poorest people in the park communities, such as widows and orphans.

At the same time, the agreement acts as a Community Protocol for Access to genetic resources and Benefit-Sharing (ABS), which countries are required to support under the Nagoya Protocol. It sets out the rules for access to the Park’s genetic resources and traditional knowledge and for equitable benefit-sharing by outsiders. The resulting protocol, and the process to develop it, has strengthened the capacity of the communities to negotiate equitable ABS agreements with more powerful external actors, helping to level the playing field.

As one of the few examples of a working ABS model that stems directly from customary laws and norms, this Protocol may serve as a best practice example for implementing the Nagoya Protocol on Access to genetic resources and Benefit-Sharing. Existing ABS models treat traditional knowledge as separate from the biodiversity resources, land and culture which sustain it (referred to as bio-cultural systems), and as a commodity which can be sold off. Rooting community protocols in customary laws is vital so that alternative ABS models can be developed which strengthen the linkages between the biodiversity and cultural systems. This is essential for strengthening community livelihoods and resilience.

Community Protocols have also been used to address external threats to land and resource rights and enable communities to negotiate more effectively in a variety of contexts, such as with mining or forestry companies. They typically set out:

the communities’ cultural values, customary rights and responsibilities for resource management;
the provisions in national and international law that recognise their rights and responsibilities to those resources

Maximising the impact of community protocols

In some cases, Protocols have been successful in securing community resource rights. For example, the Bushbuckbridge healers are a group of 80 healers in South Africa who developed a protocol which resulted in them being granted access to a UNESCO biosphere reserve [PDF], in order to secure their access to medicinal plants. The Tanchara community protocol in northern Ghana has helped to postpone a mining operation, which threatened the community’s sacred sites and drinking water, until 2013.

Although the support of a local organisation is important, the impact of protocols has been greatest where the process to develop them has been driven and led by communities themselves, rather than external organisations. (PLA 65: Biodiversity and Culture: Exploring community protocols, rights and consent. IIED. Forthcoming June 2012).

Where in-depth participatory processes are followed to develop them, protocols can bring communities together and strengthen collective identity, goals and organisational capacity and develop a strong sense of self-empowerment.

As the Potato Park case shows, Community Protocols can also serve as instruments by which responsibilities for implementing global environmental agreements can be formally adopted by communities. This makes them a vital way forward for conserving biodiversity and bio-cultural systems.

Find out more

Building Mechanisms for Access and Benefit Sharing among the Communities of the Potato Park based on Quechua Customary Norms

Browse our website on biocultural heritage

What makes a citizen?

nicole.kenton@iied.org (Nicole Kenton) — Mon, 9 Jan 2012 14:04:05 +0000

"No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts off from its youth severs its lifeline." - Kofi Annan

Citizenship is a topical issue in the UK: it’s a compulsory school curriculum subject and immigrants are required to sit a Citizenship exam to show their knowledge of their adoptive country. But what does `being a citizen’ really mean?

As we welcome in 2012 and look back at 2011, one significant event stands out for those of us in the UK: the English summer riots. These started in Tottenham, London, sparked off by a young man killed by police officers, and then spread to other parts of London and other towns in England. It shocked the nation and gave politicians a huge wake-up call. The government set up an Independent Riots Communities and Victims Panel and, at the end of 2011, it published its interim report, which outlined its findings relating to some of the underlying causes of the unrest and anger. Those affected by the riots, as well as those directly involved in rioting, were interviewed as part of the consultation process. The majority of rioters brought before the courts were aged between 18 and 24. One question put to these young people was, “Why did you attack your own community?” The response was: “What community?”

There is a link between being part of a community and being a citizen. A citizen belongs somewhere, and has responsibilities and rights. It could be said that those young rioters had no sense of responsibility, and a perverse expectation of their own rights. Since the riots, there have been numerous initiatives aimed at greater community cohesion in affected areas, and many of these have been community-led and have challenged prevailing institutional structures. They have opened up spaces for community members to engage. At the same time, we are seeing instances around the globe of people demanding accountability from those in power. The Arab Spring is still unfolding. The Occupy campaign has grabbed the world’s attention. But are young people really being listened to in a constructive way and are they finding spaces to participate in as citizens?

The digital arena is one space which has opened up for them. Social networking sites, such as Facebook, and mobile technology, are particularly popular with young people. The platforms provide them with the opportunity to develop new communication skills to get their messages across to a wide audience in powerful but non-violent ways, using their own voices and talents. Of course many young people using social networking sites are focused firmly on less lofty ideas – such as which party to go to – and have used them to incite others in less positive ways, such as during the English riots. But some are using social media to inspire and motivate others to demand their rights as citizens.

Looking towards sub-Saharan Africa, which has the world’s largest youth population, the latest issue of Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) shows how its young people are rising up to the challenge of engaging in policy and governance processes. Entitled Young Citizens: youth and participatory governance in Africa, it gives examples of the creativity, energy and enthusiasm that young people can bring to these processes, challenging perceptions of passive youth disinterested in changing their society for the better. As well as finding new spaces, such as the internet, these young citizens are redefining other spaces – and engaging directly with government. In Lesotho, a first-ever simulation of a real parliament sitting was held in the national parliament buildings and included 100 children who called for the speedy enactment of the country’s Children’s Protection and Welfare Bill.

Drawing a parallel with the violent scenes in London in August 2011, the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya was a classic example of how young people can be caught up in destructive behaviour. Incited and abetted by politicians and local leaders, gangs of armed youth engaged in looting, rioting, and killing in parts of Kenya. Overall, there was a sense of powerlessness felt by many young people, particularly boys, and engaging in violence was a way that made them feel empowered. They, like their English counterparts, were also very critical of the negative attitudes of law enforcement agencies towards them.

But, as another case study in this issue of PLA shows, some young Kenyans are challenging the negative stereotypes imposed upon them. They have developed a participatory rights-based youth situation analysis, which examines the underlying issues facing young people in the country’s different provinces. This emphasises the positive aspects and focuses on what is needed to fulfil their dreams – not only for themselves, but also their communities and Kenya as a whole. The analysis prioritised key issues and showed how much young people can achieve when given the right opportunities. It was presented at a national workshop and to the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

Whatever the media or format, the strong message that comes out of this publication is that if young people develop good governance skills at an early age, they can play an important role in shaping their own future and remain engaged citizens in adulthood. This message is as relevant to the citizens of Nairobi, as it is to those living in Nottingham or Nobeoka, Japan.

Read Young citizens: youth and participatory governance in Africa

Young citizens: African youth step up to governance challenges

webmaster@iied.org (drupmaster) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:59:49 +0000

All over the world citizens are starting to demand accountability from those in power. We are seeing exciting experiments in participatory governance. But are they working for young people? And what spaces are most promising for the participation of children and youth?

Across Africa, youth (particularly boys and young men) are often seen as a ‘lost generation’: frustrated, excluded and marginalised from decision-making processes. Young Africans make up more than half of the continent’s population. Yet for decades – even generations – governments have been ignoring and silencing young voices.

But a new book published today from IIED demonstrates how this is changing.

It examines why it is so important that young Africans are beginning to step up to the challenges of engaging in governance and policy making processes – and claiming their rights as young citizens.

According to editors McGee and Greenhalf, “If policies, plans and budgets are to be relevant to youth, they also need to be informed by their realities, priorities and perspectives.”

“Yet – until now – little documentation focuses on young people’s perspectives and roles in governance processes. But young people are starting to drive change in creative and unexpected ways. There is much to learn from the ways that they are challenging norms and structures that exclude them, engaging with the state and demanding accountability.”

Participating in policy making and governance is starting to re-shape the way young Africans perceive and exercise citizenship in powerful ways. This book examines how young people in Africa are starting to exercise their right to participate – and developing the knowledge, skills and confidence to affect to change.

Emerging participatory processes such as social accountability do offer young people new openings to engage in governance processes. But as guest editors Rosemary McGee and Jessica Greenhalf also caution, “Exciting as these new approaches are, we need to look harder at them. Some voices, including those of young people, often get left out, just as they do from formal, electoral and political processes.”

McGee and Greenhalf argue that we need to know more about why this is and how it can be overcome. “As young people move from childhood to adulthood, it has implications for the ways young people’s needs and interests are represented and pursued. It also affects the opportunities they have to exercise citizenship and realise their rights.”

Ultimately, young people’s participation in governance needs to be seen not just as an end in itself, but as a means to bring about more sustainable, progressive change – for young and old alike.

Young citizens: youth and participatory governance in Africa is the latest issue of IIED’s Participatory Learning and Action series. And it demonstrates the persistence, passion and enthusiasm that young people bring to governance processes.

The issue was developed and written by and with young people and reflects on successes, questions and challenges. It includes 19 case studies about young people’s engagement in participatory governance across Africa. The articles were developed during a week-long writeshop in Nairobi, Kenya in March 2011 and cover 4 broad themes:

From youth presence and voice to youth influence and rights
Rejuvenating spaces for engagement
Learning citizenship young
Power to young people

To mark the launch of the book – Young citizens: youth and participatory governance in Africa – the IIED PLA series co-editors, Plan UK and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) invite bloggers to share their blog posts about the book.

Once you have posted a blog on your own site please send the link to: holly.ashley@iied.org

We will then profile the best posts via Twitter with the hashtag #pla64

Downloads and links
Issue 64: Young citizens: youth and participatory governance in Africa
Participatory Learning and Action series, IIED, 2011
Guest editors: Rosemary McGee and Jessica Greenhalf
Series editors: Holly Ashley, Nicole Kenton and Angela Milligan
Price: USD $32.00 Paperback, 232 pages
Order number: 14607IIED ISBN: 978-1-84369-829-6

Download the complete issue
Table of contents
Abstracts
African youth in participatory politics - article
Download the flyer

Telling stories: the uses and misuses of communicating for change

nicole.kenton@iied.org (Nicole Kenton) — Tue, 6 Dec 2011 15:56:18 +0000

Tell me a fact and I'll learn. Tell me a truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever. Indian Proverb

Stories matter. The first session of the Climate Communications Day for journalists and media specialists at the UN Climate talks in Durban focused on the importance of telling stories to get the right messages out. A good story has accurate information, but – crucially – it also has a personal angle. The trick, to quote Randy Olson, is getting fact and emotion together to tell an engaging story. How the story gets told depends on what needs to be communicated, who we are talking to, and what medium we are using.

Men practice an oral testimony interview during workshops in Karachi, Pakistan (see Article 4 of PLA 63) Photo credit: Panos, London

I was reminded about how our stories change depending on who we’re talking to when watching a play put on by teenagers at my local youth club on Friday night. If they were speaking to their parents, then they were more economical with the truth, and more cautious about how much information they gave away. If it was to their friends and they needed advice and support, they were likely to be more truthful. Sometimes they exaggerated aspects of the story for dramatic effect. Sometimes they got caught up in fantasy.

If the storyteller can distort their own story, as those teenagers did, then telling other people’s stories is open to even more misrepresentation. We bring our own subjectivity, our own cultural perspective and our own agenda to what we are trying to convey.

When we are telling stories to inspire social change, we need to go back one step and ask some questions. Whose stories are we telling? Whose voices are we hearing? And how have these stories been generated? Good communication is a two-way process.

To engage the public and have an impact on those who are involved in policy decisions, we need real stories, told by people in their own words. Participatory communication opens spaces for different ideas, stories and experiences to be told and heard, and for different realities to be shaped. It generates information that is complex, nuanced and context-specific. It recognises, values, and elevates local knowledge and can empower people to bring about lasting social change. Through participatory processes, information which favours the interests of the powerful is challenged.

But even when participatory processes are considered to have been carefully followed and have had an empowering impact locally, the messages coming out from those processes can still be misinterpreted and misused. Our own biases, personal or organisational, guide what we hear, what we decide is relevant and how we understand and convey the message. The demand for results-based evidence, for example, can determine how stories are selected, interpreted and even chosen to re-emphasise an organisation’s strategy or policy messages.

A process which involves people’s engagement and enables their voices to be heard has participation at its core, whereas one that is concerned with the quality and packaging of the final product will prioritise this over the methodology used to make it. There is an inherent tension between these two communications objectives.

Some key questions we might want to ask before telling other people’s stories are:

Whose stories and perspectives are we using when we take that information to a different audience and put it in a different context?
How can we decide whose experiences and analysis should have influence?
How do we know that we really understand the meaning of what they say?

These are some of the themes examined in the recently published issue of Participatory Learning and Action: How wide are the ripples? From local participation to international organisational learning, guest-edited by Kate Newman and Hannah Beardon.

When a pebble is thrown in the water, it has a visible impact - or splash - and then the ripples spread out, getting less defined as they lose momentum. Equally, local knowledge generated through participatory processes can have a strong local impact, but this may dissipate the further away from the source it goes.

Contributors to this special issue of PLA relate their experiences of working for international non-governmental organisations and explore the challenges and opportunities for knowledge generated through participatory processes at the grassroots level to influence learning in these organisations. The issue gives insights into how this information can and should be used to inform good development practice and policy going forward. We hope that you will share your reflections on how widely the ripples of your own participatory practice flow.

Nicole Kenton is the co-editor of the Participatory Learning and Action series.

About Participatory Learning and Action

david.sankar@iied.org (znnng) — Wed, 9 Nov 2011 12:06:12 +0000

Aimed at newcomers and experienced practitioners alike, Participatory Learning and Action is the world's leading series on participatory learning and action approaches and methods.

Announcement on the future of PLA

Vital resource

PLA is a vital resource for those working to enhance the participation of ordinary people in local, regional, national and international decision-making. It provides a forum for all those engaged in participatory work – community workers, activists and researchers – to share their experiences, conceptual reflections and methodological innovations with others.

Many issues of PLA are based around a particular theme. The PLA co-editors work with guest editors who are particularly knowledgeable about the theme. Guest editors provide up-to-the minute accounts of the development and use of participatory methods in specific fields. This means that our readers benefits from their expertise.

Participatory Learning and Action is a wonderful source of practical ideas and experience about participatory learning, action, approaches and methods. It manages brilliantly to be at once serious, critical, readable, practical and accessible. For participation, I know of no other periodical in the world to touch it

Robert Chambers, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK

PLA is published twice a year and available by subscription.The series is an informal peer-reviewed journal and has over 50 international editorial advisory board members. Each member is an experienced participatory development practitioner.

We seek to publish frank accounts, address issues of practical and immediate value, encourage innovation and act as a ‘voice from the field’. We particularly welcome contributions from practitioners in the South.

Team and contacts

For more information about the Participatory Learning and Action series or to discuss possible contributions and marketing opportunities, please contact:

The Editors
Participatory Learning and Action
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
80-86 Gray’s Inn Road, London, WC1X 8NH, UK.
Tel: +44 (0)20 3463 7399
Fax: +44 (0)20 3514 9055
Email: pla.notes@iied.org

Editorial board

Co-editors: Holly Ashley, Nicole Kenton and Angela Milligan.

Strategic Editorial Board: Nazneen Kanji, Jethro Pettit, Michel Pimbert, Krystyna Swiderska and David Satterthwaite.

International Editorial Advisory Board: Oga Steve Abah, Jo Abbot, Jordi Surkin Beneria, L. David Brown, Andy Catley, Robert Chambers, Louise Chawla, Andrea Cornwall, Bhola Dahal, Qasim Deiri, John Devavaram, Charlotte Flower, FORCE Nepal, Ian Goldman, Bara Guèye, Irene Guijt, Marcia Hills, Enamul Huda, Vicky Johnson, Caren Levy, Sarah Levy, Zhang Linyang, PJ Lolichen, Ilya M. Moeliono, Humera Malik, Marjorie Jane Mbilinyi, Ali Mokhtar, Seyed Babak Moosavi, Trilok Neupane, Esse Nilsson, Zakariya Odeh, Peter Park, Bardolf Paul, Bimal Kumar Phnuyal, Giacomo Rambaldi, Peter Reason, Joel Rocamora, Jayatissa Samaranayake, Madhu Sarin, Daniel Selener, Meera Kaul Shah, Jasber Singh, Marja Liisa Swantz, Cecilia Tacoli, Peter Taylor, Tom Wakeford, Eliud Wakwabubi and Alice Welbourn.

Spread the word

PLA is published using a Creative Commons license – please share our material widely (for not-for-profit purposes only). Please credit the authors and the PLA series.

About IIED

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) is committed to promoting social justice and the empowerment of the poor and marginalised. It also supports democracy and full participation in decision-making and governance. We strive to reflect these values in Participatory Learning and Action.

The PLA team are grateful to the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the UK Department for International Development (DfID), Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and Irish Aid for their continued financial support of PLA.

The future of the Participatory Learning and Action series

david.sankar@iied.org (znnng) — Wed, 9 Nov 2011 11:53:23 +0000

The Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) series is 25 years old this year. At this important milestone, IIED is taking stock of PLA to look at its legacy and its future direction.

Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) has been at the forefront, and has led, the discussion and development on participatory learning and action. The series started in 1988 as RRA notes as a result of an exciting and dynamic collaboration between the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and IIED. Over the years, with the concepts of participatory learning and action becoming more mainstream, PLA has continued to be a highly valued and well-respected publication. Our capacity-building process for authors is unique. PLA has looked at a range of topical themes and issues over the years, and continues to be in high demand on paper and online – with significant downloads.

Through readership surveys and ongoing support and advice from its international editorial board, PLA has gone through changes in name and format over time – from the first issues of RRA notes to PLA notes to PLA, as it is known today. It moved away from simply sharing tips and tools, to publishing articles on participatory processes and methods that strengthen rights, voices and governance, and promote social justice in a range of different thematic contexts. The special themed issues have been in high demand and have built new communities of practice. The commitment of those who have supported and worked with us, in particular the guest editors, has ensured the quality and relevance of the content.

After 25 years, IIED is taking stock of PLA. Although evaluations of individual issues of PLA have taken place, as well as more general readership surveys, it has never been fully and independently evaluated for its relevance, effectiveness and impact. Given its reputation and the high level of commitment that people have to PLA, as well as IIED's long history and investment, IIED is undertaking an independent evaluation this year. This will look at PLA's legacy, impact and effectiveness and, it will map out possible future options.

This forward-looking assessment will explore strategic options to include contemporary discourse and provisions on participation in the wider context – and also on fairness, inclusion, ‘open and green’ society and good governance in relation to IIED's strategy. A potential new focus, such as methodologies for transformational change, will be explored. The review will also present views on appropriate publication models – including online and print options – going forward. While a follow-on exercise may be needed to design any new product and process, the evaluation team may recommend that PLA is discontinued.

In the short term, pending this review, further issues of PLA will be put on hold, beyond the production of PLA 66, which has a focus on the use of participatory tools and processes in natural resource management for sustainable development, and is due to be published in June 2013.

The editors would like to thank all our editorial board members, guest editors, authors, donors, subscribers, designers, translators and printers – and everyone else who has been involved in making PLA such a success over the past 25 years. We will keep you updated on future decisions.

Why survivors should lead responses to disasters

info@iied.org (Guest Author) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:56:07 +0100

When a large disaster hits – like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami – it receives international media coverage, aid is mobilised and aid agencies rush to respond. While survivors of smaller disasters might wish for such attention, there are some serious negative side-effects to these responses. Survivors are often sidelined with little influence on the responses chosen and with little control over how the external funding is used or prioritised, as these decisions rest mostly with external funders. But responses that don’t consult with them risk not only failing, but potentially weakening the communities they’re working with. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Survivors have successfully taken the lead and influenced responses before. After the devastating 2004 tsunami struck the coast of Thailand, a large camp – called Bang Muang camp – was set up along the Andaman coast of southern Thailand to provide shelter to 850 families who had lost their homes. The camp was managed by the survivors. They set up working groups to address their different needs – namely for housing (mapping where they used to live to help plan rebuilding efforts), livelihoods, welfare, children’s activities, food supplies and cooking, camp hygiene, water supply and medical care.

This was orchestrated through a collective management system. Tents were set up in groups of ten families and in three group zones, each with its own leader. Meetings were held every evening and anyone could attend. This system - in addition to helping them run the camp efficiently – also helped prepare survivors for the longer-term tasks of negotiating with the state and external agencies to obtain secure land and for rebuilding and livelihoods.

In May 2008, a coastal tidal surge caused by Cyclone Nargis wreaked devastation along Myanmar’s Irawaddy delta killing over 100,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands of families homeless.

Many survivors received assistance from international agencies to reconstruct their destroyed homes. Community leaders, when questioned, said that they were very pleased that these agencies gave houses to the people. However, they said that they preferred to retain control over the spending and construction themselves. In one group of 18 villages with houses damaged by the cyclone, the financial support available appeared insufficient for the 700 affected homes. So the settlement committees worked together to examine the scale of housing need, to prioritize the most urgent cases and agree who would get what kind of support. All construction work was done by the residents, who bought materials and built collectively, keeping costs so low that they were able to repair or rebuild all homes. Local communities such as this showed that they could build better houses for one-seventh of what it cost the external agencies. In doing so, they also strengthened themselves.

These examples highlight the importance of placing survivors at the centre of emergency response planning and reconstruction. Survivors need to be able to meet regularly and discuss what they need with each other. This helps develop their confidence in what they can do.

As in development, the effectiveness of external funding depends on the quality and orientation of the intermediary (mostly local) institutions through which external funding is channelled. And often these institutions do not facilitate the participation of survivors in the process. For example, the disaster response in Banda Aceh after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami hit was referred to as the “second tsunami” that hit communities there. Among the many international agencies, each had their own budgets and priorities – and survivors found it very difficult to influence what was done and to get their priorities supported.

Post-disaster responses can be a positive opportunity for change if survivors are the agents for change at all stages from immediate relief to planning, reconstruction and implementing effective disaster prevention processes for the future. The benefits are clear:

Community-led responses ultimately prove more effective and long-lasting, as those who are affected know best what they need
Properly supported, survivors can end up in a better position, particularly if they are able to negotiate land tenure and build better homes.

This blog was written by Somsook Boonyabancha and Diane Archer at the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights.

Find out more

Read Seeing a disaster as an opportunity in the October 2011 issue of Environment and Urbanization.

Just how inclusive is ‘inclusive business’?

david.sankar@iied.org (znnng) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:56:47 +0100

The growing effort to make markets work for the poor has seen several initiatives and practices emerge, which claim to be more inclusive of smallholders and poor workers. But how far such initiatives genuinely reduce poverty and empower small-scale producers remains open for debate.

Discussion at the latest of the IIED-Hivos ‘provocations’ in Brussels last week (22 June) suggests that the first step in assessing how ‘pro-poor’ business contributes to development and smallholder empowerment, is to understand what we mean by the word ‘inclusive’.

There does seem to be an authentic appetite from the private sector to build relationships with small-scale farmers, as seen at last month’s provocation in Manchester and through initiatives such as the Alliance for Inclusive Business.

But are these relationships truly ‘inclusive’? At the provocation, which was hosted by Richard Howitt MEP in association with Vredeseilanden and the UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), participants asked inclusive for whom and in what way? Miguel Mendez, the SNV Country Representative for Nicaragua, defined ‘inclusive business’ as a model where a business with a profit motive includes poor farmers in a fair way.

“Not all relationships between businesses and producers are inclusive,” he said. He shared a set of criteria for his understanding of inclusive business. For a start, it has a strong business focus. “It’s not philanthropy or self-promotion,” said Mendez . It is part of a company’s core business strategy and responds to a genuine market opportunity. “Trust (between companies and smallholders) is vital too”, said Mendez. As is capital investment — investment for technical assistance, improved productivity and access to credit.

For Mendez, this type of business leads to empowerment by building the capacity of small-scale farmers to produce a better quality product at a better price. And from improving coffee in Nicaragua to boosting domestic maize production in Ecuador, he cited many examples of inclusive business in action.

Beyond quality and price

But many participants at the Brussels provocation felt that real inclusiveness is about enabling smallholders to make their own choices and tackle their own problems — that is, it is also a political term. Karen Bahr from the Catholic University of Leuven argued that inclusive business also means allowing small-scale farmers to participate in building the model and how it works, rather than simply allowing them to operate within it.

Peter Utting, deputy director of the UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), told participants that as early as the 1970s his organisation defined ‘empowerment’ as increasing bargaining power and gaining control and exerting claims. “Empowerment means being better able to negotiate our products and have a better position in the market,” agreed Merlin Preza, coordinator of Fairtrade Small Producers in Latin America and the Caribbean.

And for many at the provocation this idea of empowerment — improving the capacity of small-scale farmers to negotiate with the private sector — is a defining characteristic of inclusive business.

How do you achieve it? As in previous provocations, participants seemed to agree that the key lies in supporting organisation. “If you don’t have organisation, you won’t get very far,” said Preza.

Sanjeev Asthana, from the National Skills Foundation for India, agreed with the importance of organisation, adding that “creating the institutional structure where [small-scale farmers] can stand on their own two feet will be the most sustainable solution to this whole debate.”

No miracle cure

Some participants argued that strategies claiming to be inclusive often do little to address this problem. Johan Declerq from Max Havelaar Belgium, for example, complained that under the banner of ‘inclusive business’, Dutch strategies for international cooperation are redirecting support from smallholders to big farmers and industry.

Preza agreed, saying it is not only the Netherlands that is to blame. “Over the past two years, models for support and cooperation have changed and they are supporting big companies.” And Chris Bacon, professor of environmental politics and policy at Santa Clara University, asked whether the new donor focus on inclusive business was in fact “subsidising inequality”.

Other participants questioned who it is who is doing the ‘including’. Alberto Monterrosso, who has long worked with connecting smallholders to markets in Guatemala, said that the biggest problem for his farmers is the delay in payment, which can take up to 60 days. In this scenario, it is the producer who bears all the risks, not the multinational. “We (small-scale producers) are the ones who are including big companies and supermarkets... because we are the ones financing the trade,” he argued.

At the end of the day, as Utting said in summing up the discussion, development is very complex and very multi-faceted. “It’s about empowerment, finance, price, environment, social services, health and education, and many other things”. This means that making a long-lasting impact through the private sector is not easy: it requires a long-term perspective, real engagement with all stakeholders and the flexibility to respond to local and regional context. It may be cliché, but in the world of pro-poor business, there’s no miracle cure and one size most definitely does not fit all.

Medio Ambiente y Urbanizacion- Oct 10 issue now online

stephanie.ray@iied.org (Steph Ray) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:38:54 +0000

The new issue of the Spanish language journal, Medio Ambiente y Urbanizacion, published by our sister organisation 'iied américa latina' is now out and available to download free of charge.

'Desarollo territorial, redes y alianzas'

Presentacion
María Isabel Bertolotto

La relación del Estado y la sociedad civil en la configuración de la economía social: políticas, sentidos y prácticas en relación a la pobreza.
Silvia Fernández Soto, Jorge Tripiana.

Gestión de la Colaboración en Redes de Organizaciones Sociales. Experiencias para fortalecer el trabajo conjunto y mejorar las prácticas.
Mercedes Jones.

Territorio, actores y desarrollo socioproductivo. El Programa de Fortalecimiento de Alianzas Socioproductivas en Cuatro Municipalidades de la Argentina.
María Isabel Bertolotto, Julieta Del Valle y Claudio Lesnichevsky.

Fortalecimiento Institucional en el norte de Chaco.
María Virginia Lombardo.

Cooperativistas y el café nuestro de cada mañana.
Charles de Weck, Clever La Torre, Enma Cárdenas y Luis García Calderón.

Exclusión financiera en América Latina o el costo social de no bancarizar a la población urbana pobre.
Tova Solo.

Situar, ampliar y relacionar: aportes para la intervención con jóvenes pobres.
Cecilia Casablanca.

www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iieal/meda

Local Organizations - Partners and links

david.sankar@iied.org (znnng) — Thu, 1 Apr 2010 13:29:39 +0100

The publications featured in these pages have been developed in collaboration with the local organizations they profile.

Association Andes
Casa Pueblo
IIED-América Latina
ORAP
Pastoral Women’s Council
The Urban Resource Centre
The Urban Poor Development Fund
Uplink/UPC
The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights
Orangi Pilot Project (with TTRC and Zobu Goth)
Hamyaran, Iran
Self Employed Women’s Association
Community Integrated Development, Cairo

IIED and its partners are grateful to Irish Aid, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS), the Department for International Development (DFID), and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) for their support for this work on local organizations.