Access of Rural People Living in Poverty to Local and National Policy Processes
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A presentation by Khalid El Harizi from the 2009 BASIS Conference on "Escaping Poverty Traps: Connecting the Chronically Poor to the Economic Growth Agenda."
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Access of Rural People Living in Poverty to Local and National Policy Processes
- 1. Access of Rural People living in Poverty to Local and National Policy Processes Khalid El Harizi Presentation at the Conference on Poverty Washington 26-27 February 2009
- 2. Why accessing and influencing policy processes is important? • Policies can have huge impacts on people’s livelihoods - orient, limit or expand choices - empowering or disempowering effect • Broad-based stakeholder participation generates sustainable and equitable policy outcomes - environmentally, socially and economically
- 3. Common approaches and instruments of influence • Advocacy • Agency • Process Facilitation & Mediation • Modifying the Rules of the Game
- 4. Limitations of common approaches Advocating, Bulding Agency Assets, Mediating, Changing rules • Hardly affordable for the real poor • Uncertain and delayed results • Political feasibility • Dependence on reasonably functional policy processes
- 5. What if policy processes are not functional? Lessons from the Sudan Case • The majority of the chronic poor live in political contexts of fragile states and/or non functional policy processes • In these situations, it is not only difficult for the poor and their advocates to influence policies, but also it does not even make much sense to participate • In fact, in many cases people deliberately chose to avoid participation, have their own channels and informal institutions to address their issues while resisting actively or passively the implementation of official policies.
- 6. A Decentralized political system… • Federal, State and local governments • Native administration - abolished officially but actually still operating informally in particular for land issues and political elections • Comprehensive Peace Agreement created the Government of South Sudan
- 7. …But a centralized and chaotic policy making practice (Northern Sudan) • A narrow decision making community - technicians and politicians • Prevalence of informal rules within committees • High level of discretion of enforcement agencies • Inadequate and restricted information flows
- 8. Influential coalitions: Grab what you can! • Security/military apparatus • Federal Administration • Gezira irrigation scheme Farmer Unions • Businessmen and merchants • Mechanized farming schemes Small farmers and pastoralists in rainfed agriculture areas have virtually no clout, let alone the chronic poor
- 9. The Net Result Policy outcomes and enforcement are marked by unpredictability, frequent changes, and insufficient resources for implementation A failure to establish an equitable system for natural resource access and management that serve the large majority of the population Escalation of natural resource-based conflicts of all types including warfare
- 10. So What?
- 11. Core problem of policy making in fragile states: ineffective governance – lack of strategic vision (Direction) – democratic deficit (inclusion &alignment) – patron-client approaches to public management (commitment)
- 12. The need for a new approach The initial challenge: how can people living in chronic poverty influence policies that affect them? A new perspective: Chronic Poverty and Policy failure both result from a Deficit in Citizenship. Clarifying the Challenge: How to create functional governance and policy making processes in fragile states? How to create direction, alignment and commitment in public action?
- 13. A Solution: Leadership produces direction, alignment & commitment (DAC) Individual leadership beliefs Collective leadership beliefs Leadership practices Direction, Alignment, Commitment (DAC) Longer-term outcomes Contextual Moderators Source: Center of Creative Leadership – by authorization
- 14. Examples • Examples of different beliefs/practices that might produce DAC: - One person needs to be in charge: vertical chain of command - Everyone is a leader: fluid alternation of the leader role among various members - Our purpose will become clear to us as we sit talk together: dialogue Source: CCL
- 15. Leadership Culture: web of beliefs and practices producing direction, alignment and commitment • When leadership is viewed as a cultural outcome, the beliefs and practices of everyone in a collective constitute leadership: Each individual’s beliefs and practices make up some part of the web • Approach opens up the way to defining a variety of leadership models that are compatible with local contexts • Pilot projects in Ghana and India in partnership between IFAD and CCL Source: CCL
- 16. Key Messages Leadership development produces critical outcomes for successful governance and policy processes (direction, alignment and commitment). Developing a democratic leadership culture, not just leaders, is a crucial path out of poverty towards economic empowerment (micro- enterprises, value chain development, etc.) There is a need to create new models of leadership that are rooted in the diversity of local contexts
- 17. THANK YOU
Editor's Notes
- In this brief introduction to a vast subject I will necessarily to focus on a particular policy domain and present an overview of the pathways by which the rural people living in poverty can have access to and influence on policy processes that affect them. I have chosen to focus on policies related to the governance and management of natural resources for a number of reasons: firstly, the rural poor still depend significantly directly or indirectly on natural resources for making a living. Secondly, this policy domain is one of the richest and more studied policy domains and it furthermore involve decision makers at various levels from the local to the international through the national levels. As a result lessons we can derive from the study of this theme are likely to have broader relevance. Finally, this is a theme in which I have developed an interest and conducted a research in partnership between IFAD and IFPRI on how to empower the rural poor in the volatile policy environments of the Near East and North Africa Region with particular reference to Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia.
- Accessing and influencing policy processes is one of the dimensions of getting out of the poverty trap. Just like poverty has a political dimension, policy making is not (and cannot be) politically neutral.
- Advocacy: Actions that engage influential players by providing credible information and knowledge on specific issues of concern Agency Actions aimed at building the assets of the rural poor and their representative organizations so as to make their voice heard Empowering women for example Process Facilitation: Actions aimed at creating mutual recognition and a neutral/safe space of dialogue between stakeholders Rules Actions aimed at modifying the rules of the game (political action) towards greater mutual accountability and more even play field of negotiation
- In fragile states with dis-functional policy processes, what is most needed is the development of a form of democratic and inclusive leadership that enable effective collective action in the interest of the largest number and that take due account of the inequalities of agency that exist between stakeholders. The crucial concept is not access or influence as much as it is cooperation and collaboration for a common objective that transcend legitimate individual or group interests.
- The DAC framework looks at leadership as a cultural system aimed at cooperation. Basic elements of a cultural system are patterns of beliefs and practices: DAC theory frames leadership as the pattern of beliefs and practices that produce direction, alignment, and commitment in a collective. Direction, alignment, and commitment are the outcomes of leadership. Direction = agreement on goals Alignment = coordination of work Commitment = giving extra effort
- Leadership development is not meant to dismiss the approaches that aims at improving the access of the rural poor to policy processes and to influence them. It provides actually the conditions for this approaches to be more effective. At the same time if focuses the effort of a larger community on creating the conditions of collaboration.