Growing the Wealth of the Poor - World Resources Institute

Intermediaries Help Build Necessary SkillsGiven that most EFC members were poorly educated and fewhad either organizational or business management experience,outside assistance was critical. This role was filled by local andinternational NGOs funded by donors, primarily USAID butalso the UK Department for International Development andothers. In the early years, international environmental NGOsincluding Conservation International, Centro AgrónomicoTropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE), The NatureConservancy, CARE, Rodale Institute, and the Wildlife ConservationSociety provided technical assistance geared mainly toforest protection (Saito 2008). These organizations had lobbiedstrongly for the creation of the Maya Biosphere Reserve andwere heavily invested in its success.Working on the basis of Cooperative Agreements andLetters of Implementation with USAID, these NGOs developedmonitoring tools, performed environmental impact assessments,fostered conservation awareness, and helped enterprises achieveforest certification. Each international group also workedthrough local NGOs, whose personnel helped the fledglingenterprises establish basic self-governance procedures andprovided basic training for elected officers in organizationalmanagement, record-keeping, accounting, and strategicplanning (Chemonics and IRG 2000:II-8-9).Three entirely new local environmental NGOs—ProPetén,Centro Mayo, and Nature for Life—were created to implementUSAID-funded activities across the Maya Biosphere Reserve, initself a major achievement (Chemonics and IRG 2000:II-9).Only one of these, Nature for Life, worked directly with thecommunity enterprises, under the direction of CATIE and withsupport from The Nature Conservancy (Chemonics and IRG2000:A-VI-1-2). Yet all three groups have flourished, providingadditional representation for the Petén’s isolated forest communitiesand increasing their social resilience.The efforts of these early intermediaries, both internationaland local, were essential in making the concessions a reality.Working with farmers and loggers for whom forestry simplymeant felling trees, their expertise in conservation policy andsustainable land management helped to foster conservationawareness and pride among local populations as well as to teachsustainable forestry practices. As a result, the young EFCsexceeded expectations in making the transition to sustainableforestry management. In December 2000, a review of USAID’sefforts to preserve the Maya Biosphere Reserve by the developmentconsultancy Chemonics International described theconcessions in the multiple use zone as a “stroke of genius” thathad “provided the most sustainable aspects of the program”(Chemonics and IRG 2000:III-5).However, the same review highlighted the urgent need forthe EFCs to become viable businesses in addition to successfulforestry stewards. Generous subsidies by USAID and others hadenabled the enterprises to make profits from timber sales in theirfirst few years without putting sound business practices in place.But this state of affairs was not sustainable over the long term,and the review authors advised USAID that the conservationNGOs assisting the EFCs lacked the business, marketing, andmanagement capabilities that were now required (Chemonicsand IRG 2000:A-IV-24).The consultants also raised two other red flags. Theywarned that governance failings of enterprises and turf warsamong the many NGOs advising them were delaying progressand preventing lessons from being shared (Chemonics and IRG2000:III-5-6). And they concluded that the free technical assistanceto EFCs had “served to develop an unsustainabledependency of the communities on the subsidy and a specificNGO” (Chemonics and IRG 2000:A-IV-24).131