Growing the Wealth of the Poor - World Resources Institute

BOX 2.1 LESSONS FROM THE EQUATOR INITIATIVE:BEST PRACTICE IN LOCAL ECOSYSTEM-BASEDT H E E Q U AT O R I N I T I AT I V E O F T H E U N I T E D NationsDevelopment Programme (UNDP) champions community effortsto link socioeconomic development and income generation withthe conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. TheInitiative’s name comes from the observation that the mostbiologically diverse ecosystems and the most acute levels ofpoverty overlap within the equatorial belt. Bringing together theUnited Nations, local communities, civil society, businesses, andgovernments, the Initiative supports community-based organizationsand local ecosystem-based enterprises (EBEs) by providingknowledge management services, documenting best practices,and expanding access to policymaking processes that have beenrecognized as integral to achieving the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (Hooper et al. 2005:142).Since its launch in 2002, the Equator Initiative has accumulateda wealth of knowledge on local best practices through theEquator Prize, an international award that recognizes outstandinglocal efforts within the equatorial region to reduce povertythrough improved environmental stewardship. The selectionprocess is by design a mechanism to identify best practice.Nominations are evaluated by an experienced technical advisorycommittee whose members have diverse areas of expertise.Winners, which have ranged between five and seven organizationsin the past, are selected by a jury of preeminent individualsin the fields of conservation and development.To distill lessons learned from the process, an ongoing researchprogram reports on Equator Prize finalists and winners.Researchers from the University of Manitoba and the InternationalDevelopment Research Centre have worked firsthand with EquatorPrize finalist communities to document and analyze their experiences.They have identified a number of necessary conditions andbest practices for successful community-based EBEs (NRI 2007).Honey Care Africa, Ltd. in Kenya, 2002 Equator Prize FinalistPreconditions for SuccessIn order for EBEs to begin to grow and flourish, the stakeholdersinvolved must recognize the economic value of ecosystemderivedresources and also be knowledgeable about how to usethese resources to improve local livelihoods. Then EBEs requirefirm rights to the resource or need to have land (or water) tenureover its use. Without well-established and defensible rights,EBEs cannot make and enforce resource use rules. This is abasic defining principle for success: EBEs must have access toa secure natural resource base and the right to benefit from itsuse. This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for EBEsuccess (Berkes and Davidson-Hunt 2007:219).Another major precondition for success is the availability ofsufficient start-up capital and access to financial services, withthe amounts needed dependent on the scale and ambition ofthose involved in the early stages of a project. This “seedmoney” is often in the form of grants. The Equator Initiativeexperience has indicated that small grants with few or no conditions(no strings attached) may show better results than largegrants during the start-up phase. Large grants create the needfor a higher level of financial management capacity to meetmany bureaucratic requirements (UNDP 2005:13).Increasing Access to Marketsand Overcoming Barriers to EntryEBEs are most successful when they engage in innovativestrategies to increase access to markets, finding ways toovercome the obstacles they face in the form of local andnational regulations, international trade laws, lack of productdemand, and channels of distribution (UNDP 2005:24). Theseobstacles also include physical barriers to getting products tomarket, such as a lack of roads, bridges, or means of transportation,as well as barriers to knowledge and insight, such asthe value of marketing and the need to limit the number ofindividuals in a value chain in order to capture as much profitas possible for the local community.56Alimentos Nutri-Naturales, an Equator Prize 2006 winner fromGuatemala, was founded by 56 women from nine communities inthe buffer zone of the Maya Biosphere Reserve. It is completelyowned and managed by women. It has successfully overcomebarriers to market access through local product sourcing andselling. The women have created a local niche market for theMaya nut, a traditional staple food, whose use had become infrequentand which was becoming threatened by habitatdestruction. Sustainable local production and sales, which are