Growing the Wealth of the Poor - World Resources Institute

through consensus-oriented planning within the village organizationsbefore being approved (Khan 2005:5–7).Yet even as it has stressed local empowerment and the gradualmaturing of local institutions, AKRSP has always understoodthe inescapable role of government in its work. In its early yearsof operation, AKRSP focused on earning legitimacy and makinggains in natural resource management and renewable energyprojects in one region of the country. Its primary concernregarding the provincial and federal government was toconvince officials not to actively deter its efforts (Najam 2003:2).As AKRSP became more established, it began to shift its strategyto explicitly target line agencies and government officialswith training sessions and field visits. These efforts began topay off in the form of new attitudes and approaches to ruraldevelopment policy in the early 1990s. As a result, the NGObegan to have opportunities to collaborate directly with governmenton education, health, and forestry projects. Leery of thedangers of becoming too closely associated with government,AKRSP’s leadership made a conscious effort to avoid overrelianceon government funding. It reserved governmentcollaboration for one portion of its portfolio and treated it as anopportunity for upward capacity-building, particularly in termsof improving social-organizing capacity within governmentagencies (Najam 2003:2-3).Finally, after it had been working for more than 20 years, theorganization found itself collaborating with officials who hadgrown up in the villages where AKRSP programs were in place.As it garnered success in the field and earned recognitionnationally and internationally, AKRSP found its role withgovernment shifting to that of a respected advisor (Najam2003:2). The results of this work are visible on the ground. Forexample, in the late 1990s federal and provincial governmentsagreed, under guidance from AKRSP, to give 80 percent of allhunting license fees to local conservation funds. These fundsare now used by the villages for projects ranging from schoolconstruction to compensation for shepherds who sustain lossesfrom snow leopard predation (Zehra 2005:32). AKRSP illustratesthat ISOs that are able to attain this level ofrespectability within government and still retain their flexibilityand connections at the grassroots level can become a potentforce for change.AKRSP’s successes have inspired a burst of successful imitatorNGOs across the region as well as a new government focus onproviding support at the local level. This has made what was oncea services and governance vacuum a crowded and competitiveworkspace (Najam 2003:4). By 2000, at least eight rural supportprograms were modeled on AKRSP’s approach, and theseprograms had catalyzed the formation of 20,000 additionalcommunity organizations (Zehra 2005:29). Intermediary organizations are often in a position toengage with government in a number of different capacitiesand hence can play an important role in building the capacityof government to further grassroots development. “Upward”capacity-building refers to the efforts of ISOs to improve theskills, adaptability, and receptiveness of government to moreparticipatory approaches and its active engagement withemerging institutions at the local level (Carroll 1992:122–125).At first, ISO dealings with government often concentrate onmitigating the immediate dysfunctions of government, minimizingharmful interference and neutralizing the often hostile viewthat official agencies take of local resource management. One ofthe most effective ways to do this is to act early on to get supportfrom highly placed government officials, based on a compellingvision for the work as well as the solid reputation of the ISO. Thiscan earn the organization some maneuvering room at lowerlevels of the bureaucracy, and it is one reason that politicallysavvy leadership can be an important advantage for an ISO.ISOs may also directly intervene at the policy level onbehalf of their local clients. For example, in 2001 ANSABconvinced Nepali forestry authorities to lift their ban on theharvesting of yarsagumba, a valuable medicinal fungus. Earlier,unregulated harvesting had badly depleted the fungus; in spite ofa total ban on local use, rampant illegal harvesting continued.ANSAB argued that legalizing the harvest and trade ofyarsagumba by Community Forest User Groups under carefulguidelines would give these groups the incentive to protect theresource. ANSAB’s proposal was taken seriously by forestofficials since they had worked productively with ANSAB formany years to help local user groups establish sustainableregimes for harvesting other forest products (ANSAB 2005b).In addition to direct intervention and advocacy, ISOs use avariety of training and engagement strategies, profiled below, todrive positive change in government agencies and build governmentcapacity.Training and Dialogue. Organizations that are engaged inprojects on the ground have a wealth of information and projectexperience that could inform government activities, but there arefew channels to effectively communicate all this to those in governmentwho could use it. One method for reaching policymakersand line-agency officials directly is simply to offer training servicesthat they find worthwhile. These may be technical courses or fielddemonstrations, or they may involve more dialogue and interactivetraining in social and policy matters. When carried outskillfully, such training contributes to a wider communication andinfluence strategy that ISOs use to create the “institutional space”for local programs to succeed. Organizations such as WOTR,Sadguru, and MYRADA—all of which facilitate communitybasedwatershed restoration in India—train government officialsat their training centers and organize demonstration visits andworkshops for officials (Sharma et al. 2005:10).ISO-instigated workshops or other public meetings canbecome a setting in which policymakers and practitioners interactCAPACITY85