Empowerment of the Community: Key to Project Sustainability
Most of the things I put here are personal opinions based on my experiences while conducting the Community-Based Watershed Project in Talibon, Bohol. As part of the big BSWM group working in the watershed project, I tried to collect the lesson learned and summarized those things gained during the conduct of the project with the intention of sharing the lessons to other doing the same kind of work.
To start with, I want to give a brief background that upland degradation by rapid deforestation and agricultural expansion had become a critical environmental concern in the Philippines. Rapid deforestation and agricultural expansion practices contributed to the ailing problem of soil degradation resulting to soil erosion, low yield and income reduction. The problem rooted from traditional method of cultivating the land without the provision of conservation practices. These happen, primarily, because of the lack of awareness or the lack of knowledge of the developed technologies that can be used. On this premise, concerned agencies fully realized urgent measures should be done to address the issue and a community-based watershed management approach is a key to prevent further ecological imbalance.
Looking back, it is very easy to see that several measures has been done already to address the problem, like for example, various thematic maps (topography, slope, land use, etc.,) are already available to the various stakeholders, information education materials (IEC) were already distributed and several farmers trainings were already conducted.
But quite clearly, there is a pressing need to increase farmer awareness on the depressing effect of conventional farming methods, extra measures need to be done to effectively share and communicate the matured soil and water technologies to the concern groups, encourage them to improve existing technologies and build what they have in terms of soil and water conservation technologies, and provide the farmers livelihood opportunities. All these desire triggered the birth of Community-based Watershed Management Project. Before hand, its worth mentioning that this undertaking is an output of several levels of focused group discussions (FGD).
In Talibon. Bohol, at the very start, I would like to emphasize that we focus on community participation through empowerment (that is authorizing, making them able and allowing them to manage their own resources) and developing the capacity of local people to lead their own development efforts. We believed that empowerment offers technological approaches which address broader natural resource management and household economic concerns – not just pursuing production or yield maximization. It fully addresses identified local priorities and needs, but on one side, it still combines ‘outside’ technical knowledge and practice-based farmer experience (indigenous technical knowledge, or ITK).
Why community participation?
From the knowledge gained from my training at 11RR, we felt that there is pressing need to do something to efficiently share matured soil and water technologies to the stakeholders; because from experience, “previous extension efforts were not responsive to many rural communities, especially in the upland or other marginalized areas.”; because of the “recognition that rural and agricultural development efforts must be based on the needs and priorities of the local people.” We realized that there is “shrinking public sector budget and resource available to support agricultural research & extension”, because of the “changing contexts and opportunities, especially the multiple source of innovations.” And finally, we believe with what James Yen has said, for us to build the gap between “technical people and the farmers” we need to “start with what they know, build on what they have” and we need to “plan with them and work with them”
A unique approach in the community-based project, we did in Bohol is- we threat that the techno-demo site we set up to serve as field laboratory that provides a hands-on ground for the farmers; where everybody including visiting farmers and students can acquire first hand knowledge about conservation farming. It also caters a training ground for additional livelihood opportunities. In terms of partnership, we threat farmers as partners and they assume the lead-role in the implementation, and we as technical people take the role of facilitator. In all the activities we carried out, there is active participation of farmers that we believe is a key to enhance sharing of technologies.
Overall, I think, the community-based watershed project in Talibon, Bohol is in the right track. There are several elements worth sharing for its initial success. One is the good networking, coordination and linkages. Good networking allows dialogue with the different local government units and various stakeholders. It also gives more rooms for discussion and feed backs. One very good example for this is during the time, we drafted the methodology of the project, there were discussions done in different levels, from individual farmers, among farmers, with the community and in the watershed. This was followed by a discussion in the local government unit and then to the national key officials.
Second essential element is the conduct of pparticipatory rural appraisal or PRA’s (Vehn Diagram, SWOT, FGD, etc.,). PRA helps our group, the Technical Team in identifying the problems, existing livelihood, weaknesses, threats and even opportunities in the site. It helps us in prioritizing livelihood activities and selecting appropriate soil and water conservation technologies that we thought worth sharing to the community. The PRA approaches we did in the community also help in breaking the barrier between the community and our group.
Another very important element is the participatory planning. In here, the community participated in a systematic manner thus ensuring the wide acceptance and dissemination of any information we shared. The process also guarantees participation of the concern groups. By participatory planning, we were able to focused on the concerned groups. When I say concerned groups, these are the people in the watershed who can be directly affected by whatever change that will happen in the watershed. Because of participation, the training modules design catered to the farmers’ level of knowledge and trainings conducted are well represented by the various participants bringing the right mix of information’s.
One very critical element in the watershed project initial success in Talibon, Bohol is the sharing of funds by the LGU in the implementation. The LGU fully realized that government fund is rapidly dwindling and sharing or counter parting is inevitable. Their action provides mutual relationship, insure wide participation of the community, and the community by-heart realized conservation farming is necessary. Overall, sharing of funds gears toward smooth implementation of the project.
From the onset of the implementation, we adopted “bottom up approach”. This means that the community decides on their own guided by the set of criteria, rather than relegated as observer, the community relies on their inherent capabilities plus inputs coming from the partner agencies. Farmers appreciate the activity. It helps in the appreciation of topography, soils, water, forest products, property regimes, land use, ecosystem, etc., it helps the community members identify, locate and classify resources and features, revealing their importance and usefulness from their point of view. It also gives them the idea how to monitor changes in resources and pattern and use this idea later to improve resource management strategies or design new system. More importantly, it bridged the gap between the technical people and the community. It sort of removed the “barrier” between our group and the community.
Another element worth mentioning is the periodic community consultation. Through this process, the vision, mission and objectives are clear in all the parties involved. Participating agencies fully realized that the local government unit is ready to assume key role in a partnership. Both parties work together for common good; the agencies providing the technical assistance, while the community provides the role of stewards- the day to day activities. The consultation also gives a clear idea of the counter parting and assurance that no-activities will be left out.
Coupled with the periodic community consultation, we adopted the participatory implementation. Doing this, provided farmers hands-on exercises on the different soil conservation technologies. It gives everybody a good opportunity to monitor the progress of the project. We also provided a short-segment training design that provides the necessary topics which match with whatever activities scheduled in the Project. In so doing, farmers develop deeper interest in all the activities, and the spirits of collaboration within them were maintained rather than when having one-time training. Additionally, all participating unit were provided with the necessary updates and when problems occurred, these were immediately addressed by the concern group or set in the table for further discussion.
The above are the essential elements that help us in attaining the initial success in the implementation of our community-based watershed project in Talibon, Bohol. Still, we dream of forming a monitoring team/watershed committee that will keep track of the progress of the different activities, ensure that information’s and progress will reach the target group more efficiently, Encourage everybody to continue with the collaboration and cooperation started. More importantly technologies can be assessed and monitored at different stages to identify those that “worked well” and “didn’t work” so the succeeding plans could easily be modified.
Looking ahead, community participation is very promising and could be a key element in the sustainability of the project; however, I see a lot of challenges ahead. It involves considerable investment in the development of human resources and local institutions (continuous training, sharing, monitoring) – slow process with delayed impact. Even if human resources and institutional conditions are in place, financial constraints still exist; the local government still needs outside source of funds. It is very difficult to have rigorous assessments (evaluations) of costs and benefits of the scheme. We still observe the reluctance of few farmers to share their knowledge and skills with others.
We see a lot of challenges ahead…
For more info: Call: Dr. Gavino Isagani P. Urriza At: (02) 923-04-59 Or email us a gurriza258@yahoo.com or visit us at: conservationist.wordpress.com
