Growing the Wealth of the Poor - World Resources Institute

CAPACITYW O R L D R E S O U R C E S 2 0 0 8ANATOMY OF AN ISO: THE SELF-EMPLOYED WOMEN’S ORGANIZATION (SEWA), INDIAINCREASED EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIESHIGHER WAGESMORE SECURE AND RESILIENT LIVELIHOODSCOOPERATIVES(Artisans, Vendors, Service Providers, Agriculturalists)■ Markets■ Raw Material Inputs■ Skills and Management Training■ ContractsTRADE GROUP UNIONS(Carpenters, Scrap Collectors, Garment Stitchers )■ Social Security■ Protective Legislation, Lobbying■ Protests, RalliesFINANCIAL SERVICES■ Savings■ Credit■ Life Insurance■ Mortgage Recovery & Asset TitlesBASIC SERVICES■ Child Care■ Literacy/Numeracy Education■ Legal Aid■ Community Health Care■ HousingMore than one million poor women are involved in SEWA, an Indian ISO that combines elements of more traditional trade unions andcooperatives to assist small-scale sellers, producers, and laborers.Source: Uphoff et al. 1998: ii.88bring lessons learned back to their own communities), build thecapacity of local organizations to evaluate and solve technical andmanagement issues on their own, and motivate communities to ahigher level of performance. Furthermore, all these interactionsstrengthen the network of peer groups tackling the same resourceand governance issues in a region, opening channels for furtherlearning and collaboration in the future.Vertical NetworkingBy virtue of their position of operating between local organizationsand higher-level actors, intermediary support organizationsare inherently suited to the task of strengthening verticallinkages—connections between local groups and the state orcentral government, donors, and various international organizations.In some cases, strengthening such linkages can be asstraightforward as facilitating access of local groups to funding,or it can be as delicate as improving relationships between stateagencies and the poor and paving the way for government tobetter support local natural resource management. Improvingcommunication and exchanges of learning can also be as importanthere as in horizontal networking, potentially contributing togreater transparency as well as greater adaptability and responsivenessof actors at different levels.Capacity-building at the local level plays an importantcomplimentary role in this process, since grassroots organizationsinteracting with government agencies need confidence, negotiatingskills, and credibility. An important part of an ISO’s verticalnetworking ability is its familiarity with the government systemand its skill in transferring to grassroots groups the ability to dealwith external actors and negotiate unfamiliar procedures (Carroll1992:122–125; Brown 1991:826; Hooper et al. 2004:136).In some cases, ISOs are able to use their role as an independentand respected party to create opportunities for equalexchanges between grassroots and government actors. A study ofnominees of UNDP’s Equator Prize found that one advantage ofthe program was that it facilitated situations that put community,national, regional, and global leaders all on equal footing, facilitatingthe rate of political scaling-up for many of the communitygroups recognized in the process (Hooper et al. 2004:142).Another example of this process is the Carchi Consortium,an initiative that originated as a roundtable for NGOs and universitiesto share information on watershed management in northernEcuador. It soon expanded to involve local stakeholders andgovernment representatives. As it began to gain recognition as alegitimate actor in the region, the consortium evolved into a forumfor local and non-local stakeholders to exchange ideas and address