Knowledge and Innovation

Jambo, habari gani?

Today,  I wish to address or at least introduce two key components which I believe are important to help the very broad approach of community participation and management appear less romanticised and more aware of the micro politics inherent to project development. 

I realised I never really developed the (grossly) different forms of community participation which are generally modelled. Shame on me. 

My other posts illustrated how often communities were left after a few months to deal with their newly implemented water schemes, which lead to either poor sustainability or a deepening inequality in most instances. 

This is nicely represented with the below diagram, showing how the Evaluation and Management operations in community participation are integrated according to various development agendas. Grossly, and to paraphrase Peter Jones, the right of the diagram represents where "the pendulum swung too far on the other side, obliterating the state". The left, on the other hand represents strong intervention, abstracting communities from programmes concerning then. And then we have the middle, a sort of mix, where community participation is backed by development agencies, corporations and / or localised state agents. 

Figure 1 

I - The Power of Knowledge 

Resources from the University of Sussex highlight how important inclusion through education is to generate successful and inclusive projects, especially in the context of sanitation. Their successes seem to come from the fact the approach they adopt, where individuals are empowered to reflect about the implications of open defecation and sanitation, and lead the pre, during and post implementation phase, rather than usually just in the 'post' (management) one. 

This is further enhanced by a study in Nicaragua, which highlighted issues at a participatory level, addressing them as they implemented participation projects and to ensure they were monitored properly. 

The key, then, is to promote the development of a toolkit through field staff supporting communities with various projects. Interestingly, in this case, preliminary analyses are conducted to understand local skills and knowledge, and thus to outline and plan which expertise must be transmitted. Attitudes were also looked at, via various qualitative research, to determine communication, leadership and relationship building abilities amongst individuals. The concept of 'participatory learning' becomes inherent to being able to negotiate and be equipped with adequate knowledge. 

II - Social Entrepreneurship and Knowledge 

CLTS (Community Led Total Sanitation) can essentially facilitate the development of social entrepreneurship though what Chambers designates as Natural Leaders, who, in the social entrepreneurship paradigm, would be the innovators from below. Then, through the process of “triggering” come up with brilliant ideas to support individuals from the same community. Although in this approach, the objective is for communities to decide by themselves to be "ODF" (Open-Defecation Free). What I like with this approach is that it is continuously learning from its critiques, evolving and reflecting on misperceptions, biases and judgements occurring at microlevels. Further, it does not adopt a 'patronising' view in that knowledge is generated through training, sharing (democratising GIS for example) eventually leading to that "triggering" phase described by chambers, where Natural Leaders (NL) come up with innovations that bring social value, with the highest level of ownership. 

Taylor (2007) argues that communities are forcefully incorporated into government agendas, which results in communities being responsible for their own deprivation.

Kummitha provides interesting insights in defining a new approach towards addressing power dynamics. Indeed, after outlining how various participation programmes usually consult the community in the later phase of the development process, and highlighting the fact that developmental partners select community members for representation rather than holding elections, the author then proceeds to highlight the importance of 'innovative interventions'. These are described as triggering creativity through inexistent spaces and addressing those considered unworthy / who were marginalised. The idea is to get the social entrepreneur, or 'Natural Leader' and their knowledge to use their embeddedness so as to gain a higher understanding of the livelihoods they seek to empower. The social entrepreneur can be backed up by agencies, or bigger actors, especially for funding and/or resources. 

The definition of embeddedness by Granowetter (1995) as a notion taking into account overall structures in a social system imply various projects must be embedded in a context where micro to national politics, history, technological, physical, scalable elements are at play as explained by Ben Page in today’s lecture on community participation). It is a mechanism to build trust so achieve social value (like well-being, through health or responding to basic needs affordably).

Of course, the same form of criticism applies, in that we must not be quick to romanticise community management or participation, or that local elites can end up capturing the main revenue despite the 'good will' emerging from the start of the project. CLTS could also face the critique that ownership does not necessarily equate sustainability or maintenance, because it's not always the majority's choice to assume responsibility (see my previous posts).

However, I believe it becomes interesting to understand how community participation can benefit and constantly evolve from its critiques and current faults, which is what the CLTS highlight in the context of sanitation. If we view participation as a constantly evolving process which can learn and adapt, progressively scaling up, enabling different capabilities through duration and triggering the 'Natural Leaders'in a context where the state governance is weak or corrupt as a basis to start, then we may be able to go forward.

Asnate sana!