Principles into Practice - Handicap International

Principles into PracticeANNEX 2CASE SUMMARIES2.1 A ‘TRADITION’ BROKEN –A ‘STRENGTH’ EMERGESSHAHAR PROJECTCARE BangladeshContext: One of the poorest, most denselypopulated and most corrupt countries in the world,Bangladesh has a substantial number of householdsthat have left their rural homes to earn athreadbare existence in the cities. This trend hasled to urban low-income settlements in which wholecommunities are vulnerable to inhumane andbarbaric evictions. SHAHAR (Supporting HouseholdActivities for Hygiene, Assets and Revenue) is oneof CARE’s integrated food security projects whichseeks to promote and protect food and livelihoodsecurity for vulnerable groups in four municipalitieswith a reach of 35,000 households.The initiative and its application: Two years intothe project, a new project co-ordinator led a seriesof in-depth reflective exercises with staff andpartners to understand how well the project wasprogressing, with a view to maximising itssustainable impact. These reflections showed thatSHAHAR had been conceived and designed asprimarily operational in its approach, focusing onknowledge transfer and developing infrastructurewithout paying attention to gross rightsviolations, the lack of good governance and theabsence of a safety net for a largely un-servedpopulation of urban poor.Internally, CARE’s staffing structure was adaptedto afford flexibility in working with both hard andsoft components (e.g. community mobilization).This replaced a more traditional project approach.Teams were formed that were able to approach therange of a community’s needs. Field managementbegan regularly convening the different teams toshare ideas and lessons learnt. At a strategic level,the co-ordination unit began linking with otherorganisations and policy-makers and formed acommittee of 15 major urban development anddonor agencies, known as the Bangladesh UrbanRound Table.SHAHAR then developed the Pressure Plates Model(PPM), based on the premise that any developmentachieved by an external project slowly erodes andeventually disappears unless the communities takescharge of their own lives. The model promotes andenables a process whereby the community identifiesits issues, organises itself, and mobilises forchange. Critical steps include establishing specialinterest groups by social and economic distinction,for example women-headed households, setting upCommunity Resource Management Committees(CRMC) with representation from each interestgroup, and forming Local Support Structures, knownas LSPs, who are responsible to the urban poor.Pressure is then exerted from interest groups whotake their issues to the CRMC who in turn applypressure on the LSPs with the aim of making localinstitutions and actors more responsive tocommunities for resolving issues sustainably.Results to date: Over the course of one and ahalf years, numerous examples of communityempowerment and mobilisation have been achieved.One of the most notable successes in increasing theaccountability of state and non-state actors was theChachra Check Post, a 20-year-old low-incomesettlement of 77 households evicted by thegovernment and left homeless. With the evictionand the subsequent death of one of its members,the community marched to the municipality todemand relocation. The two land-related claimsmade to local government resulted in the transferof permanent land and the government assumingresponsibility for land-filling and construction ofbasic infrastructure. This obviated the need forSHAHAR to invest further. A large part of thesuccess was a true partnership with the stateand service providers.Innovation: SHAHAR’s management succeeded inconverting a traditional project approach andstaffing structure to one more oriented towardscommunity empowerment and focused on therights of the vulnerable. The pilot arose after theproject team began assessing the effects of itstools and discussing the information collectedwith all levels of staff and external experts. Thiscatalyzed a series of fairly dramatic changes.These were carried forward despite the lack ofinterest from the donor in engaging policy-makersthrough the formation of the urban round table.Suggestions for building on the learning:The PPM model systematizes how a communityshould organise, recognise problems and buildnetworks with local support structures tocontinually address emerging issues. Thus, it isrelevant to most projects, rural or urban. Stafffacilitation skills are critical and the processrequires considerable time, owing to thesignificant behavioural change required.Page 19