People power
Digging deep - the people of a small community in Zimbabwe have pulled together and are digging their own well. These people are poor and the village is not big but they have realised that by working together they can pool their efforts and work to improve water availability so that they can grow and market their own vegetables. Through a process of community-based planning, the communities have begun to recognise their own strengths and to focus on what they can achieve rather than the problems that constrain them.
Traditionally, local planning has involved identifying what a community
should have; a new school, a bigger clinic, a better road to the local
market. But these involve large expenditure and, even if the district
council has sufficient funds, the local communities are rarely consulted.
Research
conducted in Southern Africa in 1999 has shown that if livelihoods of
poor people are to improve, it is critical to improve the dialogue between
the community and local government and service providers. To respond to
this, government and non-government partners in South Africa, Ghana, Zimbabwe
and Uganda have come together in a DFID-funded project to learn from best
practice and develop and implement participatory planning systems that
can link effectively with the local government planning system. This should
ensure that the poor really can influence resource allocation.
Although decentralisation is being advocated in all four countries, a top down approach is still all too common. As a result, projects are imposed on people and few are able to identify with the outcome and the benefits remain unrealised. But with participatory planning systems, communities are given the opportunity to envisage an outcome, and to move beyond "problems" to build on their strengths to achieve the outcomes they desire. Using a vision-based planning process, strategies are developed to determine what is required to bring the outcome to fruition. In Zimbabwe, for instance, in a ward of perhaps six thousand people there may be up to eight hundred HIV/AIDS orphans. This could be seen as a burden. However, in Chimanimani, as a result of community-based planning (CBP), a group of women have started to respond to the needs of the orphans and by identifying existing resources within the community, many of the children are now being educated and have improved access to health services.
Of the four countries Uganda has progressed particularly well in the process of decentralisation, in that it has integrated all development service departments into the local government, which provides a very helpful enabling environment for CBP. The pilot project for CBP is in Bushenyi District, in the south-west of the country where community-based planning is being targeted at the parish level so that villagers can identify their needs, with plans then being incorporated in sub-county and district plans. Allowing different sectors of the community, such as the women; the disabled; and the youth; to speak separately allows them to express themselves freely. National guidelines for participation in planning to complement the decentralisation process have drawn heavily on this model.
To review progress and lessons learnt from the project so far, partners from the four participating countries of the Community-Based Planning Project came together in Uganda during July 2002. In sharing experiences, Charles Kiberu, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for Bushenyi District Local Government felt that this approach enabled strengths and weaknesses of different groups in the community to be identified but most importantly, it had shown that for any programme to succeed, political as well as technical support was required.
CBP has also been carried out in Mangaung Local Municipality in South Africa, and in two districts in each of Ghana and Zimbabwe. Mangaung has provided $5000 to each of its 43 wards, to assist in community action once the plans have been approved which has helped to stimulate local action. With the impact of CBP evident in Bushenyi District, Teboho Maine of Mangaung Municipality in South Africa observed that the accountability and transparency demonstrated in Uganda was an important message to take home to South Africa. For Absolom Masendeke of Intermediate Technology in Zimbabwe, the level of structures developed beyond the sub-district level proved interesting, particularly as he felt that institutions beyond the district level in Zimbabwe are often not very strong. In addition, both Teboho and Absolom felt that there was a clear communication pathway between communities, local and national government. As Absolom said, "You can see that voices from the village can actually go all the way up to the national level. I think this is what we need if this process is to move forward."
CBP has now been carried out in areas covering 1.5-2 million
people in South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Ghana.
For further information contact the Project Manager, Ian Goldman at goldman@khanya-mrc.co.za
or visit www.khanya-mrc.co.za/cbp.
