Facilitating Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration: Impact and Lessons Learned.
Clive Lightfoot, Annemarie Groot, Ricardo Ramírez, Reg Noble, Isaac Bekalo[1], Francis Shao and Grace Muro[2].
ABSTRACT
There are a growing number of accounts of multi-stakeholder participatory processes aimed at improving the management of natural resources and community livelihoods. However, little is known about the impacts of these efforts in terms of poverty alleviation, gender equity, empowerment, good governance and democracy. In this paper we describe a case where, after a five-day capacity building workshop in multi-stakeholder collaborative learning, participants went back to their village in Tanzania and facilitated the emergence of multi-stakeholder collaboration in natural resources management and infrastructure development. Using the transcript of an interview with one of the villagers, we review the impact of multi-stakeholder collaborative learning in terms of: enhancing democracy (open public workshops, collective action), citizen empowerment (self realization and organization, self confidence to demand, outward looking), good governance (open collective decisions, countervailing power, conflict resolution), poverty alleviation (income and savings opportunities, natural resource rehabilitation for common good) and gender equity (representation, reduce drudgery, target women’s concerns). We draw from this experience lessons in terms the enabling environment and enabling processes vital to the success of collaborative learning. Among the challenges for the future, in conclusion, we highlight up-scaling, and the potential of the media and information and communication technology to enhance the learning process.
INTRODUCTION
‘Collaborative management’, ‘Adaptive management’, ‘Co-management’, Community-based management, call it what you will, they all use participatory processes to assist multiple stakeholders work together towards some common end (Borrini-Feyerabend et al., 2000; Daniels and Walker, 1997; Hendrickson, 1997; Lightfoot, et al., 2001; Ramírez, 2001). There are a growing number of accounts of multi-stakeholder participatory processes aimed at improving the management of watersheds, forests, wildlife reserves and community based development projects. However, we do not know very much about how these efforts contribute to basic development goals of poverty alleviation, gender equity, empowerment, good governance and democracy. We know little about the indicators on which impact in these basic development goals can be measured. We know little about the context outside of projects in which multi-stakeholder collaboration can be sustained. Much of our experience is within the framework of donor or government funded projects or programmes. There are few accounts of what communities have been able to do entirely on their own, without benefit of project or donor assistance or external facilitation.
In this paper we focus on a case of how after a five-day capacity building workshop in multi-stakeholder collaborative learning, participants went back to their village and facilitated the emergence of multi-stakeholder collaboration in natural resources management and infrastructure development. Our case shows how a ‘learning team’ of four community members formed and facilitated a multi-stakeholder collaborative learning process in their village of Vidunda in Tanzania (Shao et al., 2000). We share an interview with one of the learning team as she recounts that process. This interview is the ‘data’ on which we base our analysis of impact or contributions to basic development goals. This is not a formal evaluation; it is one person’s story of what they did after acquiring the skills to facilitate a multi-stakeholder collaborative learning process. We have confidence in this story because it is so much like others we have heard over the last three years, not just from other villages in Tanzania, but also from farmers and others after they attended similar capacity building workshops in Kenya and Uganda (Lightfoot, Alders and Dolberg. 2001; Lightfoot et al., 2001).
EXPERIENCE FROM VIDUNDA, TANZANIA
Between the 12th and 16th June 2000 the Tanzania Multi-Sector Learning Coalition (TMLC) with the support of the International Support Group (ISG) conducted a five-day capacity building workshop in Mikumi, Kilosa District. The gathering brought together farmers, service providers (private and public) and local government officials, forty six participants in all, to practice, reflect and record in their own learning resource kits how to facilitate multi-stakeholder collaborative learning sessions. Sessions covered empowering farmers through future vision planning and generation of service demands, finding and negotiating service partnerships, assessing partnership performance and examination of institutional consequences of new partnerships.
Immediately after this workshop the three participants from Vidunda with the support of their village leadership formed a learning team and engaged their community in a multi-stakeholder learning process. They addressed key questions of where the community is now, where they want to be, and how they expect to get there. As a result of the future ‘visions’ and the commitments to realize the visions, a new road into the village is underway and conflicts over farming around water sources and burning in forest areas have been resolved. Those farming around springs agreed to move down to the valleys. Those who were burning the forest agreed to stop. To formalize the agreements they had made to each other in public, by-laws were established against farming near springs and burning forests for clearing land. Groups of farmers have planted trees around denuded springs, have built terraces to stop soil erosion on slopes, and have constructed furrows to improve irrigation systems to accommodate more farmers. All this and more is better presented by Marietha Makeeyo, a member of the Vidunda village learning team, in her interview with Grace Muro, a member of TMLC. Excerpts from this interview follow:
Muro: “If you can remember you were the one who attended the Mikumi Multi-stakeholder learning workshop, and now it is about a year since the workshop. Will you tell me what changes have you brought in your village regarding local learning?”
Makeeyo: “After the workshop when I went back I started first to introduce what I have been trained to do during the Mikumi workshop. So, I first sensitised the village government on what we were taught in the multi-stakeholder learning workshop. The aim was to mobilize the village government to know this concept of improving natural resource management and how to go about telling all villagers.”
Muro: “Can you tell me what changes you brought regarding good governance at your village concerning natural resources management?”
Makeeyo: “As I have said, luckily enough I am a member of the village government committee. It is easier for me to mobilize and tell them about good governance in relation to local learning. Also in the village government committee other village members who attended the Mikumi workshop were also invited to village meetings to talk about local learning.”
Muro: “OK. As you are telling me that you have already sensitised this local learning through your village government meeting and it is now penetrated to the whole community because you are helping each other. Can you tell me how have you brought changes on environmental conservation?”
Makeeyo: “Because, as I have said, the village government committee all know about local learning work we have agreed to establish by-laws on environmental conservation. The by-laws that were agreed in the general meetings it is wanting to conserve the water sources and trees. Another interesting change regarding the by-laws is that we agreed to maintain the road and change the road because it was passing at the hill crest so it was difficult for vehicles to come to the village; maybe to help carrying the sick to the hospital!”
Muro: “It has been very interesting to hear you talk about roads.”
Makeeyo: “It was through the village local learning team, those who went to Mikumi workshop. They sat down and saw one of the major problems was the road. We started to tell the community and link with the other stakeholder to seek their support. So to start with the road the local learning team first they were looking for a technician to try to show them where the road can be diverted. After that the community together with the support of local learning group we started to excavate the road by using our local equipment – hand hoes, spades. As the community were going on making the road, the local learning team was looking for more support from the District council and the Catholic Mission to support for blasting and culverts. Also they are trying to negotiate with another partner who is the Illovo Sugar Company. But the most successful change is the tree planting. The participation of the village leaders and the councillors to link with the District council and the village local learning team.”
Muro: “I am very much impressed that earlier the issue of road was not seen as a problem in your village until the local learning team came to realize that. Now, Marietha can you tell me why the village government realized this problem only when you as the local learning team came to realize that. What did you do to realize this and make the village participate in this?”
Makeeyo: “In one way or another it is not that the village government did not realize this problem. The village government thought that this is a hard task that the community itself cannot do it. But we as local learning team sat down and said it is a problem, but who will come to do it for us? It is how we tried to elaborate this during our meeting. So the local learning team succeeded to mobilize the people because the people came to realize that this would reduce our poverty. And particularly we are ferrying lots on our heads, which for the women is a very hard and tedious work. So the community agreed to make the new road, which we have now started. One of the tricks we used during our mobilization was to look at past problems. For example on the old former road nobody could even come to our village on a bicycle. It was only by foot or with government vehicles. But with this new road other kinds of vehicles can pass through our village. That will be to our benefit and people know it. For the former road the major stakeholder who supported it was the catholic mission, which is in our village. They gave caterpillar machines, but the problem was that there was no technician for proper survey of the road, and that was why we made our own survey and put the road on the hillcrest.”
Muro: “You are telling us that for this former road you got support from the Catholic mission. Do you know how the money from the mission was being managed or who was keeping the money?”
Makeeyo: “Yes, we got the support from the Catholic mission, but we did not know how much was the money. Everything was with the mission itself. But at this time the mission now, as I have said earlier, is more interested in this linked local learning. So now we can sit together and plan together, as the mission has an interest in this local learning. So now there will be change in fund management for the stakeholders.”
Muro: “It is great that you are telling a lot of achievement about environment about bringing more stakeholders from outside, about roads. What strategies have you set with the village government and the community regarding this road you are making to ensure the quality of the road that it will be maintained so that the same problem will not be repeated?”
Makeeyo: “We will use the same learning procedure from before. That is, we the village together with the local learning team, will evaluate the road from time to time and make maintenance accordingly, for example, on the drainage system. Except for major maintenance, here we can seek support from the District council or any stakeholder to support trucks to ferry sand because the sand is coming from far.”
Muro: “Can you tell me what are the strategies for the coming days?”
Makeeyo: “The strategy for our local learning team is, now we are going down to the sub village, to ensure that each sub village has to draw the maps like what we did at the Mikumi workshop by visioning. And also this is to go down to each household, as the environment action has to start from the household level. So now we as local learning team are facilitating the drawing of the maps at this sub-village level. And also we as local learning team, we are trying to animate and facilitate the sub-village level that each household has to ask the questions on food consumption and on household food security. That’s our next strategy, this issue of household food security. It has come to our mind because there are some households that are old and they cannot support themselves. Now we will try together with the village government on how they can be supported.”
Muro: “Thank you Marietha for your good explanation and for your achievements that you have in your village. It is great.”
IMPACT ANALYSIS
Before starting on the analysis of contributions to basic development goals, we first explain how we understand these goals.
1) Democracy is about getting all the people of a village involved in the decision making about access and use of natural resources, and the planning of their development.
2) Empowerment is about people's competence to take charge of their own futures and act accordingly.
3) Good governance is about accountability, transparency and support to the decisions and actions of the governed.
4) Poverty alleviation is about actions taken first by stakeholders in the village that make a positive difference to poor people’s lives either directly or indirectly.