5

DISTRICT INSTITUTIONAL AND
POLICY INNOVATIONS

Joseph Tanui, Pascal Sanginga, Laura German,
Kenneth Masuki, Hussein Mansoor, and Shenkut Ayele

Context and rationale

In eastern Africa and indeed across much of the developing world, local government is increasingly being seen as a crucial nexus for rural development planning and implementation (IULA, 1993; Perret, 2004). While the move toward local government reforms and decentralized governance is strongly supported by multilateral development agencies (Khan, 2006), the structural adjustment programs of the 1980s also generated greater awareness among government officials of the potentially productive role of local government in development (Smoke, 1993). Being the arm of government closest to the people, it is argued that local government is best positioned to support democratization of political processes and enhance the quality and efficiency of rural development through grassroots participation.

Yet local governments face a host of challenges in meeting these expectations. Some of these are related to limited capacity and skills. These include limited experience with financial and human resource management, coordination, and planning; limited downward accountability; and lack of capacity to foster local participation (Perret, 2004). Other challenges are political and financial in nature, such as limited funding, high levels of dependence on central governments for resources, lack of motivation and political interference by central governments unwilling to relinquish control (Khan, 2006; Ribot, 2003). The need for institutional development and institution building is often acknowledged, but underfunded (Galvin, 1999). Khan (2006) argues that in order for local government to be an effective instrument of change, it must be supported financially and “backed up by consistent political will (by the state) and active society (people's participation)”—including the ability to serve heterogeneous village demands. Thus, institution building must be about both enhancing the capacity of local government to support democratic process, and the capacity of the grassroots to penetrate political and deliberative spaces and demand greater accountability.

Such challenges are compounded by historical antecedents. In most African countries, colonial governments strengthened their control over local populations through one of two means of domination: direct and indirect rule (Mamdani, 1996). With indirect rule, widespread in the governance of rural areas, the District Commissioner or “chief” served as the sole local authority, customary leadership and institutions were co-opted to serve the needs of the colonial rulers, and “local systems through which people were able to take collective action were neglected, distorted and sometimes destroyed” (Wunsch and Olowu, 1990: 27, cited in Galvin, 1999). Ironically, in the system of indirect rule, the district (in British colonies) and the cercle (in French colonies) was the seat of “customary” authority through which the centralized “civil” power of the state was leveraged. Thus, “decentralized” governance and district level government were tools of the central state to control its subjects (Mamdani, 1996). Newly independent governments maintained these systems for a short period, and then re-centralized government at the national level as a means to enhance central control.

Decentralization in Africa is therefore not new; however, the democratic principles driving the recent wave of decentralization represent a significant break from both the “decentralized despotism” of the colonial era (Mamdani, 1996) and the centralized control of early post-colonial states. Motives behind the current wave of decentralization include the desire to achieve administrative efficiency (owing to local decision making and coordination), enhance procedural and distributional equity, improve service delivery, deepen participation, and consolidate national unity (Ribot, 2003).¹ By placing decisions within the local sphere, it is argued that decision making will be faster and more responsive to local needs, transaction costs will be reduced by making decisions locally, and service delivery will be improved through better matching of supply and demand. These laudable goals create real challenges for operationalizing decentralized governance, as the very nature of the state must be transformed. Furthermore, as with South Africa, “the primary level of rural local government has not existed previously and thus requires support in the form of training, technical assistance and additional funding to begin to function effectively” (Galvin, 1999: 99).

Despite these challenges, the district does perform critical functions in the development agendas of nations in the eastern African region. It is usually the hub for commercial activity and social services such as hospitals and courts of law. The role of the district in providing social services, infrastructure, and other amenities is appreciated by community members who have in a number of cases petitioned their governments to create more districts, with the premise that it would bring services closer to the people. This suggests that district-level institutions and functions hold enormous potential as an engine for rural development. One of the key challenges that currently undermines more effective manifestation of this potential is the poor coordination among development initiatives and agencies, leading to duplication of efforts, missed opportunity for synergy and lack of sustainability. Various development actors (including government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector) working in the same locale often lack a consultative culture, and rarely discuss possible collaboration or coordination of efforts to capitalize upon their comparative advantage. Other challenges include weak planning processes; limited accountability; limited capacity and incentives to support participatory processes; and inefficient use of limited resources.

AHI's work at district level consisted of the design and testing of district institutional and policy innovations to explore means to capitalize upon the district's potential as a nexus for development planning and implementation and decentralized governance. This work centered around three core functions of local government in rural development: policy formulation and implementation; service delivery; and fostering democratic process or political representation (see also Galvin, 1999; Perret, 2004).

Democratic process

Democracies are characterized by transparent decision-making and open, inclusive policy-reform processes. They provide for strong state-society links—the essence of democracy—at all tiers of government, and multiple communication channels between government leaders and citizens, affording opportunities for people to share their concerns with officials and to influence government decisions and actions. In well-functioning democracies ... the availability and use of multiple forms of inclusion help ensure that citizen voices reach decision-makers and are acted on by government. These channels help citizens realize their rights and support the institutionalization of fundamental democratic principles such as transparency, responsiveness, and accountability.

Veit et al., 2008

With the move toward decentralized governance, districts have become a key to democratic process. Via democratically elected local leaders, people gain a voice in policy matters—a voice that should be enhanced through the transfer of powers to decentralized local government. Through the proximity of local government and civil society, people can voice their development concerns directly to those charged with representing their interests. Where decentralization has increased the financial resources and discretionary powers of local government, the government should be more empowered to respond.

This is not to say that decentralization has always enhanced downward accountability or representative decision making. In decentralization of natural resource management, inequitable local decision-making and benefit distribution are frequently observed (Ribot, 2002a,b). Weak governance creates opportunities for local elites and vested interest groups to manipulate the opportunities created by decentralization for their own benefit (Tacconi, 2007). Local elites may be prejudiced toward the poor and dominant ethnic groups can use their new powers to take advantage of weaker ones (Ribot, 2002a,b). Therefore, choosing representative and accountable local institutions is a key for both equity and efficiency.

It is important to note that participation, an informal form of popular representation, also has its pitfalls. According to Veit and colleagues,

[While] providing opportunities to directly engage in government matters, promoting the will of the people and giving voice to minorities while reinforcing majority positions, it can be time-consuming and expensive; is susceptible to rushed, uninformed decision-making; and often favours the most organized and powerful groups in society.

Veit et al., 2008

The difference between democratic and undemocratic process—whether formal or informal—has a lot to do with accountability. Accountability refers to both the obligation to provide information and explanations concerning decisions and actions taken on behalf of others, and the ability to enforce rules and apply sanctions (Brinkerhoff, 2001, cited by Ribot, 2003). Accountability may be either upward or downward. While the latter is the essence of more democratic institutions, examples are rife of both unaccountable and upwardly accountable local institutions leading to misappropriation of funds intended for local communities (Brockington, 2007; Oyono, 2005).

Two issues related to democratic process were explored within AHI. The first concerns the development or strengthening of social infrastructure through which to articulate local development priorities. A number of authors warn against the creation of parallel local institutions for the implementation of development programs, given its effect on weakening democratically elected authorities and its potential to favor the most organized and powerful groups over majority interests (Ribot, 2002a). Yet some form of hybrid may be needed where government actors are too weak to fulfill their functions. The second concerns the development of social and institutional processes through which local voices are to be heard in setting local development priorities and enhancing rural governance.

Policy formulation and implementation

New approaches to natural resource management such as integrated natural resource management (INRM), integrated agricultural research for development (IAR4D) and sustainable livelihood approaches have emphasized the need to move beyond technologies to getting social and institutional innovations to work synergistically with technological innovations in addressing natural resource management challenges (Sanginga, 2004). Recent experience with more integrated approaches to natural resource management have illustrated the fundamental role participatory governance (and particularly the development of collective choice rules) has to play in addressing natural resource management concerns of local communities (German et al., 2008, 2010).

Districts have a fundamental role to play in policy formulation and implementation. Historically, this role was largely restricted to implementation of state-mandated policies. A system of local by-laws was first implemented by the British as a means to control the rural population, and utilized to enforce land management practices believed to be essential to environmental protection (soil conservation, forest protection, bans on burning, etc.). Imposed from without rather than developed through collective choice, these by-laws served to further the interests of colonial powers—creating a situation of resentment toward “modern” laws and the natural resource management practices enforced by them. By-laws have also been implemented as mechanisms for central state control in the post-colonial era, as illustrated by the use of agricultural by-laws during Nyerere's rule in Tanzania as a means to coerce farmers to produce more food (Sheridan, 2004). Until recently, by-laws were largely drafted by district or national governments and used as a means to promote national interests (Wily and Dewees, 2008).

While districts continue to have a fundamental role to play in the implementation and enforcement of principal laws formulated at national level, in many places they are also increasingly playing a role in fostering more participatory forms of rural governance. With the move toward decentralized governance, by-laws have been increasingly recognized as a means for rural self-governance. Today, registered villages in Tanzania and Uganda have the right to make by-laws in respect to any village matter,² provided they are consistent with the provisions of national laws. Ironically, the system of local by-laws established during the colonial era to further central government control may now offer an opportunity for more empowering forms of governance through the presence and political legitimacy of local collective choice rules. AHI work in this area involved the generation of approaches for mobilizing the latent potential of local government to bridge technological and governance innovations in addressing NRM concerns of local communities through participatory by-law reforms.

Service delivery

The district has a fundamental role to play in the delivery of public services, including health care, agricultural extension, infrastructure, education and—increasingly—information. Public service providers throughout the region have faced increasing pressure to demonstrate their relevance. This is largely owing to the predominant tendency toward supply- rather than demand-driven approaches. Agricultural extension, for example, has come under increased scrutiny owing to a host of institutional weaknesses that have limited its effectiveness, among these its highly centralized and bureaucratic structure; exogenous, donor-driven, non-participatory planning; lack of efficiency and accountability of financing and service delivery mechanisms; lack of motivated service providers responsive to farmers’ needs; and decreasing public sector funding (Nahdy, 2004; Rivera and Alex, 2004). Key rationales behind resulting reforms have been the need to strengthen client demand for services through participatory approaches, and to enhance the role of the private sector in service delivery (Nahdy, 2004; Rivera and Alex, 2004).

One of the newer services to be delivered to rural populations is information. Ever since the concept of “information society” came to the fore in the 1970s, the correlation between access to information and poverty alleviation has been widely acknowledged (Flor, 2001). The main proposition was that information leads to resources and to opportunities to generate resources (ibid.). “Leaders in the World Bank, European Union, United Nations, and G-8 have highlighted the problem of exclusion from the knowledge economy, where know-how replaces land and capital as the basic building blocks of growth” (Norris, 2001: 6). While a few large-scale, commercial farmers on the continent have used some of the decision support tools that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are providing, relatively little attention has been paid to the potential benefits of the broader use of ICTs in the (largely informal) agricultural sector, one of the few in which women often predominate (ACACIA, 2006). The National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty and the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (2004/5–2007/8) of Uganda (Government of Uganda, 2004, 2005) assert that reasons for limited access to ICTs include low literacy rates, low incomes, and the limited number of ICT service providers.

At the district level, access to information by various actors continues to be a challenge and a deficit area. Any coordination among R&D actors is ad hoc, and coherent communications strategies at district level are lacking throughout the region. Information which is either highly specialized (and therefore found only in isolated pockets) or not readily available at district level often includes: market prices, seasonality and traders; the location of expert farmers and service providers; and agronomic information for non-traditional crops. Given limited coordination, the act of seeking information by R&D practitioners and providing it in usable forms to stakeholders is inefficiently handled on a case-by-case basis, as each entity is doing its own thing in its own location and according to its own sectoral interests. Such high transaction costs for limited returns (e.g., delivery to few farmers) could be addressed through a system of coordinated information access and delivery at district level. AHI took up this challenge by employing an action research approach to methodological innovation in information delivery.

This chapter summarizes experiences gained by AHI in evolving district level institutional and policy innovations for natural resource management in each of the arenas mentioned earlier. Through specific case studies, the chapter highlights lessons on systems for democratic decision making in NRM, district level governance of natural resources, and demand-driven service delivery.

Methods to foster democratic process and vertical stakeholder collaboration

The implementation and sustainability of landscape level natural resource management interventions require the participation and support from a variety of stakeholders at various levels, and ability to accommodate various points of view. Achieving effective representation of local level actors in decision making about development and natural resource management issues that affect them is a challenging task, given the number of actors and interests at the local level in any given district. For each of these reasons, effective approaches for achieving democratic decision making in efforts to link development actors at multiple levels are sorely needed.

The establishment of linkages between actors at different levels is required to address many problems given their unique and potentially complementary mandates and contributions in identifying constraints, implementing solutions, and in ensuring feedback from the grassroots to relevant government actors and service providers. In this regard there is need for an institutional arrangement at the district level that can: (i) systematically support the articulation of multiple local “voices” in development planning, (ii) help to reconcile alternative visions of land use and development, and (iii) foster local self-sufficiency while prioritizing issues requiring external support, and ensuring the responsiveness of the relevant actors through their integration into district-level planning. While many arguments have been put forward on the merits and demerits of “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches to development, there is a dearth of information on effective processes for linking levels of decision making and action in rural development and NRM.

Approach development

Two basic approaches for linking levels of decision making and action have been tested in AHI. The first is more “ad hoc” in nature, and seeks to minimize the transaction costs of vertical linkages through the application of the “subsidiarity” principle—namely, that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized competent authority. Only when approaches fail at this level are linkages with outside actors forged to help resolve conflicts or bring in resources required to unlock the potential for change. The second approach is more systematic in nature, establishing an institutional infrastructure for representative democracy in district-level development planning and implementation.

Approach 1—Vertical integration on demand

The more ad hoc approach to vertical stakeholder collaboration consists of the following basic steps:

1.    During the participatory diagnosis and planning process, an institutional mapping is done of stakeholders at district and lower levels (the research and extension system, other government ministries, NGOs, farmer associations, government leaders at diverse levels, local courts and faith-based organizations, among others). All relevant³ stakeholders are listed and their interests and mandates noted.

2.    Initial consultative meetings are held to familiarize different actors with the initiative. This early involvement of other stakeholders can be vital for the targeting of actions, mobilization of resources and—importantly—for mobilizing their support at a later stage.

3.    The project is implemented as planned through support to local level action planning and mobilization.

4.    When a problem arises, communities and project representatives first discuss possible means to address the problem with existing stakeholders and using local resources.

5.    If the problem cannot be resolved effectively at this level (either after agreeing that higher level intervention is required or after testing local level solutions and failing to find a solution), agreements are made on the nature of outside support that can help to address the problem and how to mobilize those actors to assist (Box 5.1).

Approach 2—A systematic approach to farmer representation in district-level development planning and decision making

The second approach to vertical stakeholder collaboration involves working through an (existing or new) institutional infrastructure for representation in district-level development planning and implementation. The limited institutional and financial resources for supporting rural development make such coordination an important part of any government-funded or exogenous development effort by ensuring that service delivery supports the most important concerns of communities throughout the district, and refocuses disconnected development or NRM efforts by leveraging synergies between actors and interventions. The following are generic steps in the process of ensuring representative decision making in district development planning:

1.    Create awareness around the topic of concern (e.g., integrated development and conservation).

2.    Develop a team of “champions” on the topic who are willing to volunteer during subsequent steps in planning, including farmers and other community members as well as local government officials at various levels.

3.    Carry out a facilitators’ training, during which skills in facilitating participatory processes are covered and a methodology for facilitating subsequent steps in participatory planning at diverse levels is agreed upon.

4.    Carry out representative planning processes building upon the appreciative inquiry approach (to embed this planning in local level skills and resources), starting at the local level (villages or farmer groups) (Box 5.2).

5.    For NRM interventions, carry out a middle level of planning at the landscape level together with village representatives. This process builds upon local level action plans but incorporates new activities that require landscape-level action.

6.    Facilitate the identification of local-level innovations (including farmer learning processes and forms of indigenous knowledge-in-use) that can be built upon in addressing farmers’ articulated needs.

7.    Collate lower-level action plans from the appreciative inquiry process and the identified local innovations at district level, and hold a planning meeting with local government and different service providers to agree on how priorities articulated at the local level can be best supported with limited human and financial resources. Plans for mobilizing the recently trained facilitators in supporting development actions at various levels are developed at this time.

Lessons learned

The following lessons were learned from AHI's experience in fostering democratic process and vertical stakeholder collaboration:

•    Ensuring effective representation in district development processes requires both bottom-up efforts to mobilize latent potential at community level and articulate demand, and efforts by district-level institutions to respond to this demand. Such an approach is therefore highly complementary to approaches highlighted in the upcoming section on multi-institutional partnerships at district level.

•    Ad hoc approaches to vertical integration may be effective in addressing specific problems with limited transaction costs (e.g., without needing to invest in social structures and processes for demand-driven development at local and district levels). However, solutions will remain isolated in the absence of more systematic approaches. Therefore, while such ad hoc approaches may be effective in fostering vertical stakeholder collaboration, they are less effective in ensuring effective representation.

•    A more systematic approach to farmer representation in district-level development planning and decision making requires significant up-front investment in institution building, which in turn requires a source of financing. However, costs are minimized and sustainability enhanced when building on the spirit of volunteerism and mobilizing local facilitators from communities or government agencies.

Responsive governance: The district role in participatory by-law reforms⁴

With recent decentralization efforts and the mainstreaming of participatory approaches in policy and development, considerable attention is now given to devolving decision making to the lowest level, and to refining participatory techniques by creating more inclusive spaces for hearing the voices of all (James et al., 2001; Ribot, 2002a,b; Scoones and Thompson, 2003). However, there is concern that decentralization has not resulted in improvements in NRM, nor has it affected the capacities and decision-making powers of local communities. It is only to a limited extent that policy makers seek the participation of local stakeholders in designing and formulating policies or by-laws. Yet, it is recognized that rural communities and local stakeholders would be more likely to see by-laws as addressing their own needs and constraints and more likely to implement them, if they had participated in their formulation (Nkonya et al., 2005).

Previous chapters of this book indicate that local NRM practices are shaped by a range of both formal and informal institutions. These chapters illustrate how AHI attempts to build “adaptive manager communities” (Fabricius et al., 2007)—communities empowered to formulate their own by-laws, and develop, adapt, and mobilize collective action and local innovations—have helped them better manage their landscape resources and even increase land productivity. The emphasis on local institutions and local innovations is based on literature suggesting that communities are more efficient than state structures in the management of natural resources (Agrawal and Gibson, 1999; Ostrom, 2000). While these and other studies have focused attention on the role of local institutions (formal and informal), little has been done to illustrate the benefits of linking these local institutions to higher, local government structures, nor how to go about it in practice. The role of local government in shaping, formalizing, and legitimizing these local by-laws has often been neglected. A critical component of INRM and of scaling INRM innovations is building capacity in the “middle,” and particularly strengthening the institutions in local government that translate policy into action. There is therefore need for a better understanding of approaches and techniques for integrating local institutions and aspirations into formal policy objectives and processes, and for making government policies more responsive to, and representative of, local people's concerns and experiences.

In the natural resource management arena, by-laws are negotiated rules, social norms, and agreed behaviors that exist within communities to manage natural resources, and prevent and manage conflicts. They are a tool for managing natural resources in a way that places community interests above those of individuals (Bowles and Gintis, 2002; Coleman, 1988). They also give individuals confidence to invest in community activities, knowing that others will do so too (Pretty, 2003). In legal and policy terms, by-laws are a body of local laws and customs of a village, town, or city, or rules made by lower local government councils which provide the local guidelines to be followed in implementing sectoral policies and preventing agricultural and NRM practices that could be detrimental to the common good. This form of by-law is formulated at lower levels of decentralized government (villages, wards, districts) and often help to operationalize national policies.

This section draws from experience with participatory by-law reform in Uganda that involved moving beyond local communities and linking with higher levels of local government. Participatory by-law reforms are described in a logical and structured way to enable development practitioners and NRM researchers to consider how insights gained from AHI's work on participatory by-law reform, linking local communities with local government, might be relevant to their own practices and situations. The next section provides a simple description of legislated processes for formulating and enacting by-laws.

Historical and institutional frameworks for by-law reform in Uganda⁵

In Uganda and East Africa more broadly, many existing by-laws were inherited from the colonial administration and are thus seen as repressive and top-down (Okoth-Ogendo and Tumushabe, 1999). The majority were formulated before independence by British colonial administrators without local participation, with strict enforcement mechanisms—including force and coercion. In the colonial period, local chiefs and administrators strictly enforced by-laws as this was used as an indicator of their performance. There were also clear enforcement structures and coercive penalties for non-compliance. Enforcement of by-laws faded after independence, as most by-laws were regarded as instruments of colonial repression. Such top-down and centralized policies often resulted in disempowerment of local communities, the weakening of customary forms of governance, power imbalances, and the exclusion of vulnerable groups, and failed to provide appropriate incentives for community-based NRM (Means et al., 2002). Often locally unacceptable, many of the by-laws were left unenforced.

The Ugandan Constitution of 1995 and the 1997 Local Government Act sought to change this system and guarantee a process of consultation and participation at village, ward, community, and district levels for environmental plans and policies. Bottom-up involvement in policy formulation occurs within an overall context of administrative and political decentralization, which has the structure of a five-tier system of local councils and local government structures (Table 5.1). It includes the devolution of powers for development planning and the development and implementation of by-laws for land use, environmental management and agricultural production.

Within this structure, the village or LC 1 is the basic level of decentralization and of community participation in by-law formulation and implementation (see Box 5.3). The sub-county also has important political and administrative powers to develop by-laws and implement development plans, and is the lowest unit where policy reform can be effectively initiated. The district (LC 5) is the highest level of local government and therefore has important political and administrative powers to enact by-laws, consolidate development plans, and allocate budgets. It is also the most effective level for linking with the central government.

TABLE 5.1 Decentralized structures in Uganda: Levels and main functions

Local Council level	Composition	Functions
Local Council 1: Village (around 50 to 100 households)	9 members, at least 4 women	• Assist in maintaining law, order, and security • Initiate, support, and participate in self-help projects • Recommend persons for local defense units • Serve as communication channels with government services • Monitor the administration of projects • Impose service fees • Collect taxes • Resolve problems and disputes • Make by-laws
LC 2: Parish (composed of 3–10 villages)	Depends on the number of villages electing representatives, but must include at least 4 women	• Assist in maintaining law, order, and security • Serves as communication channels with government services • Initiate, support, and participate in self help projects • Monitor the administration of projects • Resolve problems and disputes
LC 3: Sub-county (Composed of 2–10 parishes)	Depends on the number of parishes, but must include at least: • 1/3 women • 2 youth • persons with disabilities • elected councilors from parishes	• Enact by-laws • Approve sub-county budget • Levy, charge, and collect fees and taxes • Monitor performance of government employees • Formulate, approve, and execute sub-county budgets • Resolve problems and disputes
LC 4: County (composed of 3–5 sub-counties)	5 members, including chairpersons or vice- chairperson from each sub-county	• Advise district officers and area Members of Parliament • Resolve problems and disputes • Monitor delivery of services
LC 5: District (composed of 3–5 counties)	36 members, including: • 12 women councilors • 2 youth • 2 people with disabilities • 19 elected councilors	• Exercise all political and executive powers • Provide services • Ensure implementation of and compliance with government policies • Plan for the District • Enact district laws and ordinances • Monitor performance of government policies • Levy, charge, and collect fees and taxes • Formulate, approve, and execute district budgets

Despite such clear guidelines, there are few available records on the formulation or revision of by-laws. Where there have been some attempts, the process has been far from participatory and has tended to be restricted to small editorials to existing by-laws and updated penalties. AHI's action research efforts were aimed at developing mechanisms for strengthening local participation in by-law reforms as a means to support improved NRM and more equitable development.

Approach development

This section reports on a single approach tested in south-western Uganda to strengthen the linkages between local-level by-law reform processes and higher levels of government.

Multilevel policy reforms emanating from the grassroots

The participatory by-law reform process tested in Kabale District, Uganda, consisted of the following iterative and complementary steps:

•    participatory diagnostics

•    district buy-in and goal setting

•    bottom-up community learning and experimentation

•    horizontal and vertical policy dialogue at the sub-county level

•    district policy dialogues

•     participatory monitoring and evaluation, feedback and reflection.

Implemented as a participatory action research process (Reason and Bradbury, 2001), the process of developing and testing these steps consisted of iterative series of action learning loops at diverse levels of policy innovation (Figure 5.1). The process was supported by a skilled action research team that motivated and facilitated people to participate in the process of action learning, while supporting platforms for policy dialogue and negotiation. The team created the conditions in which local people were able to participate, analyze and review existing by-laws, formulate appropriate by-laws, and monitor their implementation.

The above steps, each of which generated lessons on processes to be utilized within that step and on subsequent steps required to help achieve overall objectives, merit additional attention. This is done below, with particular emphasis on the linkages between levels and the role of local government in the process.

Step 1: Participatory diagnostics

Similar to participatory by-law processes profiled in Chapter 3, the first step of the participatory by-law reform processes carried out in Kabale was an intensive and iterative process of participatory diagnosis and community visioning (Sanginga and Chitsike, 2005). This was fundamental in stimulating collective learning and the articulation of desired future conditions. Communities identified governance and institutional failures as critical aspects of community-based natural resources management. The lack of strong enforcement mechanisms of existing by-laws was seen as the main reason for the ineffectiveness of most prior NRM interventions. The community visioning and planning process encouraged farmers to think creatively about potential means to enhance compliance with and equitable implementation of by-laws. It was recognized that actions at the community level would not yield results unless they were linked with, supported, and legitimized by higher levels of governance and government institutions, given the latter's power to enact by-laws and impose sanctions for their enforcement. This required buy-in and support from district authorities.

FIGURE 5.1 Operational framework for participatory policy action research

Step 2: District buy-in and goal setting

The second step in participatory by-law reforms involved bringing together a number of stakeholders at the district level to begin to analyze the problem. A series of policy stakeholder workshops and learning events (seminars, field visits) were organized to catalyze local political support for sustainable NRM. These workshops revealed that the majority of policy makers and local leaders have a limited understanding of the policy and by-law formulation process, the existing policies and by-laws they are charged with implementing, and the implementation process itself. There was no systematic guidance on the processes and mechanisms for formulating and enforcing by-laws. In the first district NRM policy stakeholder workshop, three major recommendations were made: (i) to conduct an empirical study to provide evidence of people's awareness and level of compliance with existing by-laws, and constraints to their enforcement; (ii) pilot a participatory by-law reform project in selected communities; and (iii) establish a district Policy Task Force to provide oversight to the process of enhancing NRM governance.

An empirical study was then conducted to assess people's awareness, the effectiveness of existing by-laws, implementation constraints and strategies for improving their enforcement. Survey results showed that farmers often have high levels of awareness of existing regulations. For example, over 75 percent of farmers interviewed were aware of the regulation that requires farmers to construct soil bunds and other soil conservation structures along the contour. Over 60 percent of farmers were also familiar with the regulation requiring farmers to plant appropriate vegetation on these structures. Similarly, the majority of farmers (68 percent) knew about the tree planting by-law, which requires that any person who cuts a tree plants two and ensures they are protected. However, despite these high levels of awareness, by-law enforcement and implementation was weak. It was noted that the decentralization process had introduced multiple overlapping systems of governance and regulations (legal pluralism), as well as increased political interference, nepotism, confusion, and conflicts between different levels and structures of government. By introducing local councils at village level where local political and administrative powers are now concentrated, the decentralization process had weakened existing authorities and institutions for managing and regulating the use of natural resources. A combination of social, economic, and political factors had undermined the ability of local mechanisms, clan elders, and community organizations to manage conflicts (Means et al., 2002). This led to factionalism, with the more educated and wealthier farmers often not willing to accept decisions made by local communities and clan elders and preferring to take their cases to government institutions at higher levels for arbitration. Clan leaders were also found to exhibit biases in by-law enforcement and engage in corrupt behaviors.

Step 3: Bottom-up action learning processes

The second recommendation of the district policy stakeholder workshop was to pilot a participatory by-law reform process in select villages (LC1) in one sub-county. Four villages were selected in Rubaya Sub-County, where AHI was already established. The entry point was through existing farmers groups involved in participatory NRM activities and with high levels of social capital. The project's strategy was to build on existing social capital and to strengthen it through facilitating participatory social learning and policy dialogue processes. This approach contrasts with approaches highlighted in Chapter 4, in which processes for landscape governance were grounded in village-level fora or stakeholder-based negotiations. The approach presented here has the benefit of initiating with local level institutions with strong social capital and thus possessing many of the skills required to take on new challenges and sustain their engagement. However, it may be less effective in ensuring widespread buy-in by ensuring widespread representation or explicitly addressing conflicting interests. An effort was made by facilitators to explore multiple perspectives of resources users, with the aim of gaining credibility and support of different categories of farmers through more inclusive and consultative processes. Building on participatory diagnostics and community visioning, the next step involved the collective analysis of NRM issues and existing by-laws and participatory community action planning. As a result of this process, pilot communities reviewed and reformulated a number of informal by-laws—namely, those that exist outside the formal legislative structure but are addressing specific problems in the communities. At this time, technologies that could be implemented in conjunction with certain by-laws were also identified. Over time, participatory by-law reform processes were progressively institutionalized, in order to strengthen the capacity of village members to effectively engage with higher levels of governance (Box 5.4).

Step 4: Horizontal and vertical linkages at the sub-county level

Despite progress made at the village level, it was recognized that the strengthening of community-level governance processes would be insufficient in the absence of higher level reforms. Linkages to local government structures are a critical element to any policy process, particularly under decentralization—where the sub-county and district have important political and administrative powers in by-law formulation, the preparation of development plans, and budgeting. As the basic political and administrative unit of local government and with by-law formulation and dispute resolution functions, the sub-county was seen as an important nexus for stimulating democratic processes for the deliberation and influence of policies from the bottom up. A key component of participatory by-law reforms was therefore facilitating policy learning and dialogue between villages and the sub-county government.

It was particularly useful to sequence PTF meetings with farmer exposure visits and horizontal linkages between different communities, where farmers had the opportunity to harmonize their demands, share experiences, and rehearse the presentations they would make at sub-county level. These visits and deliberations centered on analyzing existing by-laws and identifying opportunities and needs for reviewing and reformulating existing by-laws or formulating new ones (Box 5.5). In addition to fostering experience sharing, these dialogues were a first step in by-law formalization. The different by-laws initiated at village level were then presented and debated at the sub-county level for harmonization and better coordination before they were enacted as formal by-laws, to be applied in all villages and parishes of the sub-county.

Step 5: Facilitating district-level policy dialogue

As noted earlier, the district is the highest level of local government that has powers to enact and formalize by-laws, and establish linkages with other sub-counties and the central government. In addition to the focused work at village and sub-county level, policy dialogues were facilitated at the district level to ensure coherence between policies at all three levels and to reach a wider consensus on by-law reform processes and outcomes. District-level policy workshops were usually high profile events aimed at re-focusing the policy dialogue and building a network of actors who could influence the policy process. Five policy stakeholder workshops were held over the course of three years, bringing together a large number of participants (80–100)—from district leaders and councilors to members of parliament, sub-county councilors, and representatives of local government technical services, research and development organizations, and farmers’ organizations.

One strategy was to organize and facilitate field visits to showcase examples of successful village level by-law reforms. These visits had a profound effect in convincing policy makers, local leaders, and farmers alike of the benefits of participatory policy reforms, allowing them to see things with their own eyes and to share experiences with innovative farmers. Another important tool to stimulate learning at district level was the use of policy narratives and NRM scenarios—which help to simplify complex problems and enable more informed decision making (Keeley, 2001).

Recognizing that power relations are pervasive and always affect the quality and process of participation (Chambers, 2005), targeted efforts were necessary to empower the weakest stakeholders (farmers) and at the same time to enable policy makers and local leaders to acknowledge their own power, be aware of how they may habitually disempower others, learn to use power to empower those with less power, and avoid being inhibited by the learning process. A range of participatory techniques and other adult learning methods were used for engaging and empowering local communities directly in the articulation of their policy needs, and in the analysis, design, and implementation of policies and NRM innovations. This involved coaching and mentoring farmers’ representatives to increase their assertiveness and confidence in articulating their policy needs and collective NRM visions. As a result, some of the most interesting moments during the stakeholder workshops were when farmers articulated their own visions and experiences with the participatory by-law review, formulation, and implementation process.

Out of the multilevel sharing processes emerged a genuine interest and willingness among stakeholders in Rubaya Sub-County to disseminate the approach to other villages and sub-counties and to the district at large. At the same time, other villages, sub-counties and districts (Kisoro, Kanungu, and Rukungiri) expressed interest in the process. NGOs such as CARE, Africare, and Landcare and government agencies such as NAADS took an interest in the process and began supporting selected communities. A series of sensitization meetings was held for farmer groups and development organizations in pilot communities to disseminate the participatory process of formulating and implementing local by-laws and NRM practices.

Step 6: Participatory monitoring and evaluation, feedback and reflection

At the end of each policy learning event and policy dialogue workshop, the research team facilitated a process of structured reflection using a tool called “After Action Review (AAR)” to help communities to reflect, analyze, and learn by talking, thinking, sharing, and capturing the lessons learned about the dialogues and workshops before these are forgotten (CIDA, 2003). AAR is usually facilitated using the following six questions: (i) What was supposed to happen and why? (ii) What actually happened and why? (iii) What accounts for the observed differences? (iv) What went well and why? (v) What could have gone better and why? and (vi) What lessons can we learn?

An important aspect of the participatory by-law reform process was to facilitate community-based participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) to monitor progress, track outcomes, and enhance learning through critical reflection and feedback. To complement the PM&E system, systematic studies and process documentation were carried out to understand the outcomes of project interventions for equity, NRM, and sustainability. Boxes 5.6 and 5.7 illustrate some of the positive outcomes of the participatory by-law reform process. Box 5.8 illustrates what might go wrong with the process, and the importance of active monitoring to identify and address negative outcomes such as inequities in the flow of benefits and costs.

Lessons learned

The main thrust of action research was to support and facilitate the integration of participatory approaches in policy decision-making at district level, and to strengthen local-level processes and capacity for developing, implementing, and enforcing by-laws to improve natural resource management. Some of the lessons learned from the participatory by-law reform process are summarized below:

1.    The understanding and analysis of existing by-laws and policy processes is an important first step in participatory by-law reforms, as it enables innovations to target key gaps in both the content and process of these reforms.

2.    While by-laws can be effectively formulated at village level, their enforcement may require involvement of a higher level authority with the power to sanction the by-laws and enforce their implementation, such as the local government.

3.    Participatory by-law reforms must involve capacity building for both local communities and decentralized local government structures. The inadequacy of human capital at different levels of local government is a key constraint to by-law formulation and implementation. Building capacity in local government structures linking communities to higher level authorities is critical for effective by-law reforms.

4.    Linking local communities with local government requires an “honest broker” from the research or NGO community, or from the community itself, with the capacity and skills to provide evidence-based analysis and to facilitate policy dialogue.

5.    As observed in Chapter 4, participatory by-law reforms involve both institutional and technical innovations. Not only are technologies important for by-law implementation by providing alternative livelihood options for activities curtailed by by-laws. By-laws are also important for technology adoption, by enhancing their uptake and/or effectiveness.

6.    Mature social capital can help in the establishment of local institutions for environmental governance, and in ensuring the effectiveness and continued participation in such institutions. Participatory by-law reforms require the ability of farmer groups and local communities to self-organize and to engage with and influence NRM governance processes. With an appropriate catalyst (external facilitator, strongly felt need), rural communities have the capacity to develop their own institutions, skills and networks for improved NRM governance. External agents can play a critical role in building social capital for by-law reforms and for the pursuit of other long-term development efforts.

7.    Piloting is important. Many policies and by-laws have failed because they tried to do too much too soon, with little time to learn by doing and build upon these successes in taking on new challenges. Piloting the bylaw reform process and particular by-laws in selected communities offers policy makers, development agents and other stakeholders the opportunity to test an approach and its effectiveness in addressing NRM challenges before expanding to other areas.

8.    There are some “dark sides” of participatory by-law reforms. Enforcement of by-laws does not always ensure fairness, especially to women, the elderly, and others endowed with fewer human, financial, social, and political resources. Caution must be used to ensure that participatory processes do not reproduce existing patterns of social exclusion by ignoring those who are less able to negotiate their rights and shape social relationships to their advantage (see also Cleaver, 2005; German and Stroud, 2007).

9.    In order for participatory by-law reforms to become part of the formal policymaking process, mechanisms are needed to institutionalize the approach. Decentralization policies now prevalent in many eastern African countries offer an opportunity for achieving this, as districts and other decentralized local government bodies have received legislative and executive powers to formulate and implement their own policies and by-laws in NRM. However, support from research and development organizations is required to ensure reforms are accompanied by effective means of engaging local communities in by-law formulation and implementation.

10.  Given the policy resistance, implementation failures, and defensive routines (Sterman, 2006) common in local government structures, R&D professionals may need to stay close to the policy process and exploit opportunities that come along to get political buy-in to participatory processes. This may require opportunism in diagnosing the policy environment, identifying points of leverage, and recognizing short-term opportunities associated with legislative calendars, planning, and budgeting activities, and changes in political leadership and government personnel.

Systems for demand-driven information provision

With the support of IDRC's ACACIA initiative,⁶ AHI embarked on an action research experiment to develop and field test a system for demand-driven information provision at district level. The experience was piloted in Kabale District, Uganda, with the aim of learning lessons that could be scaled up to other districts and countries. While information is needed for all realms of human well-being, the pilot experience focused on the areas of agricultural production, marketing, and natural resource management. One of the first activities was to assess the challenges associated with current patterns of information access and sharing (Box 5.9)—which suggests the strong need for a coordinated approach to information and communication.

Approach development

Approach 1—Demand-driven information provision at district level

The approach for demand-driven information provision required both effective articulation of information needs from farmers, and the development of a system for information gathering, packaging, and delivery. Figure 5.3 illustrates the key steps in this process and how information needs to flow in order to link farmer needs with information sources and their ultimate dissemination and application among target groups.

FIGURE 5.3 Information flow in demand-driven information provision

These steps may be summarized as follows:

1.    Farmers articulate their information needs. Farmer groups at the village level meet with community-based facilitators (CBFs) to identify issues of concern in their farming, marketing, or natural resource management practices. The CBFs may use tools such as “needs trees” to generate an open-ended discussion on current information needs. A more formal Information Needs Protocol (Box 5.10) is then applied to categorize identified needs into three main subject matters (agriculture, natural resources management, and markets), to improve gender equity in information needs articulation and to identify preferred information sources and channels.

2.    Farmer information needs are collated at parish and sub-county levels. Following the articulation of information needs at village level, CBFs deliver the results to parish level committees or village information centers (VICE), who then compile the information to distil priority needs throughout the parish. Priorities at the parish level are then submitted to the sub-county telecenter, where priorities at sub-county are distilled (see Table 5.3 for an example). The telecenter collates all the information received from the six parishes and responds by: (i) distributing existing information available at the telecenter, and/or (ii) sending information needs to the district level telecenter for identification and packaging.

3.    Information is gathered from selected sources. While the original idea was to source information through the sub-county telecenters, language barriers and problems with internet connectivity made this difficult. Therefore, an evaluation is made on whether the information sources preferred by farmers is feasible, based on information availability. Decisions on information sources are then made and the information is gathered. This often includes the sourcing of information on the internet through the Kabale telecenter. A checklist was developed to guide the service provider in gathering information from various sources (Box 5.11). Information may also be gathered by community members working on behalf of the larger community, as illustrated by the efforts made by parish-level marketing committees to source weekly market information at various local markets within the district.

TABLE 5.3  Categories of information needs articulated by groups in different parishes of Rubaya Sub-County (N= 55 groups)

4.    Information is packaged at the Kabale telecenter through various uses of ICTs. The district telecenter serves as a hub where information acquired from diverse sources is organized and scrutinized for its clarity, quality, and relevance. Based on the communication medium preferred by farmers, the budget and the nature of the information itself, decisions are also made at this stage on the means of dissemination—as it influences how information is packaged for end users. This evolved from a heavy reliance on paper-based products to posters and radio broadcasts, and eventually, to the piloting of collectively managed mobile phones as parallel means to enhance information access at parish level (Box 5.12). The information is then prepared for the identified dissemination medium and translated into the local language for dissemination.

5.    Information products are reviewed by a Quality Assurance Committee. The Quality Assurance Committee (QAC) was established to oversee district-level efforts to respond to farmer information demands, and to ensure that products are effectively disseminated and utilized. Members of the Committee were selected by farmer representatives at sub-county and district levels based on jointly agreed selection criteria. Members of the QAC consisted of representatives from sub-county and district-level farmer organizations, NGOs serving as active information providers, representatives of district line ministries (District Veterinary, Agriculture and Fisheries Officers, District Secretary of Production), and agricultural research. Formal terms of reference were drafted to help orient the QAC in its responsibilities related to the production and dissemination of information products and to ensure adequate representation of the views and needs of communities.

6.    Information products are disseminated to farmers and evaluated for their effectiveness. After adjusting information products based on feedback from the QAC, they were either aired on the radio or printed and taken to the sub-county telecenter and VICE for dissemination. Participatory monitoring and evaluation was then carried out with farmer groups in six parishes, with a focus on product content (relevance, intelligibility), means of dissemination, and usefulness in decision making.

7.    Feedback from farmers is integrated into new product development. Over time, farmers’ feedback is a means through which general qualities of effective information products and delivery are distilled. Lessons learned through this feedback can then become mainstreamed within future approaches to information sourcing, packaging and dissemination.

Lessons learned

The AHI–ACACIA project generated a number of lessons that may be of more widespread interest, which include the following:

•    Developing a system for demand-driven information provision utilizing ICTs is a challenge in contexts where the ability to pay for services is limited. It requires the concerted efforts of multiple actors (government, civil society, farmers, and research), close attention to mid-term outcomes (to enable the introduction of corrective changes), and ability to identify and capture opportunities.

•    The technical challenges associated with effective systems of ICT-for development are not just related to hardware and connectivity. They have to do with the development of human skills in the areas of information needs assessment, information capture, information processing and packaging, monitoring and evaluation, and adaptive learning.

•    Use of ICTs for development is not simply a technical matter; a host of institutional and governance challenges must also be addressed to get it to work effectively. Institutional challenges include developing and sustaining farmer institutions capable of and motivated to work in the collective interest; a transition in the role of ender users from receivers of advice to active seekers of information; and multi-institutional collaboration at district level to achieve synergies and economies of scale. Governance challenges may be identified in the equitable articulation of information needs; the management of resources owned or managed collectively (e.g., services, ICT infrastructure); and clear mechanisms (decision processes, terms of reference, incentives) to govern interactions among stakeholders.

•    Developing user friendly and cost-effective ways of linking rural communities to information sources is an ongoing challenge, requiring additional commitments to action-based learning and experimentation.

Fostering multi-institutional partnerships at district level

Each of the above district-level approaches, and indeed many of the methodological innovations in this entire volume, requires some form of collaboration among organizations with complementary mandates, skills, and resources to be effectively implemented. This raises significant challenges, given the tendency for development and conservation initiatives to be conceived and often implemented by specific government agencies or non-governmental organizations. These organizations tend to specialize in production or conservation, research or development, livelihoods or governance, with minimal collaboration among institutions with complementary mandates. At the district level, rural development and natural resource management initiatives have not lived up to their potential as a result of lost opportunities for joint planning and resource sharing. Poor structural and functional linkages among different organizations and poorly coordinated planning have led to inefficiencies and opportunities lost in fostering synergies in resources and mandates. These constraints have clearly hindered innovation, undermined impact, and reduced opportunities for fostering more integrated, “win–win” solutions.

There is a need for a holistic approach that facilitates decision making at landscape and district levels as a substitute for isolated efforts. This approach to NRM necessitates a functional and well organized partnership. To achieve this goal, the spirit of collective action endemic in many societies in eastern Africa needs to be drawn upon in development and conservation activities. At the district level, partnerships among research, development, and conservation agencies can play a crucial role in ensuring more inclusive decision making at all levels and in exploiting synergies that enable multiple goals to be met simultaneously (e.g., livelihood improvements and conservation).

Approach development

AHI has experimented with two approaches to district-level institutional partnerships: multi-stakeholder platforms and informal partnerships. The latter largely emerged as a natural step in the implementation of other NRM innovations, whereas the former was intentionally designed as a district-level institutional innovation to be tested and improved upon through action research. We present both, owing to the lessons that may be learned through drawing comparisons between them.

Approach 1—Multi-stakeholder platforms

The approach is based on the development of an alliance of institutions with a shared vision and coordinated actions, in this case a vision for integrated natural resource management. That vision should encompass multiple objectives (e.g., development and conservation), as well as a set of core values that help to sustain the partnership and enhance its relevance (for example, local ownership, flexibility, shared credit, and a spirit of voluntarism). As the platform derives its legitimacy from a demand-driven approach to development, its members must be diverse so as to enhance the ability to respond effectively to articulated needs. Ideally, partners should include local government, NGOs, CBOs, and farmer groups, research and conservation institutions, and individual community members (Box 5.13). Given the relationship between good governance and good environmental practices, involvement of government agencies responsible for by-law formulation and enforcement may also be useful. The private sector may also be called in to explore opportunities to link local livelihood needs to market opportunities. Such a platform provides a mechanism for negotiation and decision-making in the articulation of strategic development plans and in the sharing of responsibility for their implementation.

The formation of such a platform is likely to involve the following steps:

1.    Hold individual consultations (person to person and organization to organization) to identify the weaknesses of the current way of doing business and bolster commitment for a new approach.

2.    Conduct consultations with farmers, farmer groups, and other intended beneficiaries of development efforts on their concerns related to livelihoods, natural resources, and the quality of governance and service provision.

3.    Host a workshop with potential platform members to develop a joint understanding of the deficiencies in current (disconnected) development and conservation initiatives, explore goals and desired functionalities of the platform, articulate the core strengths of different partner organizations in supporting the effort, solicit commitments from partner organizations, and agree on next steps in a collaborative planning process.

4.    Initiate a bottom-up diagnostic, visioning, and planning process starting at the farmer group level to ensure adequate coverage of diverse sub-counties, parishes, and villages in the district. Collate plans at parish, sub-county, and district levels, distil the forms of support requested from outside actors and discuss how to effectively support these plans at each level.

5.    Hold a meeting of the platform to agree how to support the action plans and reflect on what needs to be done by the platform to steward the initiative into action.

6.    Hold a facilitators’ training with volunteer facilitators from different levels, to impart the necessary skills for facilitating participatory and deliberative reflection and planning processes.⁷

7.    Formulate a constitution and strategic plan to guide the operations of the platform.

8.    Establish a Secretariat to guide the implementation of the platform's business plan.

9.    Carry out periodic evaluations of the effectiveness of the platform through consultations with partners and beneficiaries, and replanning to improve the platform's effectiveness and responsiveness to feedback.

Approach 2—Informal partnerships in INRM

Informal approaches to collaboration at district level are the norm, and generally emerge on an as-needed basis. Such a need may arise from community- or project-level needs that cannot be met through the community's efforts or a single support institution, the desire to exploit an opportunity that is conditional upon partnership (for example, funding streams), or commitments to donors. Such partnerships are largely ad hoc in nature, ephemeral (lasting for as long as the specific activity or need lasts), and carry limited transaction costs given the limited investments in partnership building (relative to actual implementation). Common steps in the development of informal partnerships in AHI have involved the following:

1.    A challenge or opportunity arises that calls for linkages to new organizations with the required skill base, mandate, or resources.

2.    Constituent-building to seek buy-in, often from individuals who come to represent the wider organization—but at times through a formal agreement with the partner organization.

3.    Planning workshop to agree on the division of roles and responsibilities and budgets for supporting partner activities.

4.    Implementation (including any number of steps associated with engaging the beneficiaries in planning and/or implementing activities for which partners have assumed co-responsibility).

5.    Joint monitoring and evaluation (largely focused on the work plan, but at times including a reflection on the partnership itself), and adjustment as needed to address challenges that have emerged through implementation.

Lessons learned

The following lessons were derived from a comparative analysis of the two approaches to multi-institutional partnerships:

•    The transaction costs of more formal partnerships are higher than informal approaches, and the benefits gained from the former must be worth the effort. Achieving such benefits will often require the development of rather ambitious goals supported by significant buy-in from partner organizations.

•    Success, particularly with the more formal institutional platform approach to partnership, is more likely where there is a strong spirit and practice of voluntarism. This generally comes from the establishment of trust and rapport among group members, and from a sense of accomplishment that goes beyond what individual member institutions have achieved in isolation. Success of the multi-institutional platform also rests on building the capacity of volunteer facilitators, for whom a set of “soft skills” can go a long way in sustaining community engagement.

•    To support truly bottom-up approaches to development at district level with wide geographical coverage, more formal approaches to district level partnership are likely to be required—given the limitations in the skill base, mandate, and resources of any given organization, and the need to match local expectations with a firm commitment by district-level service providers.

•    Strong complementarities exist between local government and civil society, owing to their unique skill sets and institutional mandates. One key function of local government is lending legitimacy to the platform as a mainstream (rather than marginal) mechanism for the coordination of development activities in the district. Efforts should therefore be made to ensure district-level partnerships include these two sets of actors.

•    Start-up activities often require an external source of funding, to sustain activities until partners have bought into the idea and begin contributing their own resources (often in the form of staff time and operations) to ensure the platform's financial viability.

•    The effectiveness of district-level institutional partnerships is constrained by staff turnover or shifts in the focus of partner organizations, a problem which is likely to be more acute in informal partnerships than in established platforms where continuity is more likely due to institutional level rather than individualized commitments.

Missing links

While significant progress has been made in understanding the elements of effective approaches to district institutional and policy innovations, a number of methodological gaps remain. These gaps suggest a number of priorities for future research and methodological innovation on the topic:

1.    Sustainability of district-level institutional and policy innovations. The experiences shared in this chapter derived from project-based experiences lasting a number of years (3 to 6) and supported by external funding. Lessons are needed on how to sustain such innovations with existing financial resources once human resources and institutions are strengthened. Lessons on how to sustain such innovations have begun to emerge with the ACACIA experience (through efforts to institutionalize demand-driven information provision within NAADS, to be discussed in Chapter 6) and with the Landcare experience (through efforts to build self-sustaining district platforms and farmer reflect cycles). However, exit strategies require time to implement and financial resources—both to ensure the sustainability of initiatives and to learn lessons on how approaches change as they are institutionalized.⁸ It is these lessons that are perhaps most useful when scaling out district-level innovations to new districts.

2.    Linking methods for farm- and landscape-level innovation to district institutional innovations. The host of approaches described in earlier chapters needs a home if they are to be applied on a wider scale. That institutional home could be within district-led innovations, as suggested in this chapter, or within national-level institutions, as suggested in Chapter 6. With the exception of participatory by-law reforms, AHI has yet to make a systematic effort to scale up specific proven methodological innovations (e.g., watershed management) through district-level institutions or initiatives. Efforts have instead largely focused on piloting novel innovations at this level.

3.    Scaling out. With the exception of our work with ACACIA/NAADS and Landcare, little effort has been made to scale out proven district-level innovations to new districts (where a set of institutional and political conditions similar to the pilot district is more likely to prevail) or countries (where a unique set of contextual factors is likely to affect an approach's feasibility). Even where these efforts have been made, they have in some cases been ephemeral owing to limited funding horizons. Both experiences are urgently needed if we are to capitalize upon the investments made to date in pilot experiences in AHI.

Conclusions

This chapter illustrates a set of methodological innovations designed to enhance the potential of districts as engines of rural development and sustainable natural resource management. Our experiences point to the fundamental role of institutional innovations at multiple levels (particularly village, sub-county, and district) to enable cross-scale communication, exploit synergies in the human and financial resources found at diverse levels, and tap the latent potential that exists at each level of socio-political organization. It also points to the fundamental role of institutional innovations in getting technological innovations to work and in supporting improved natural resource management at a meaningful scale. Thus, findings also suggest that it is high time that meaningful investments be made in the “soft skills” (such as facilitation and institutional strengthening) required to revitalize public institutions and the modus operandi of the agricultural and NRM sector.

Notes

1  More critical reviews suggest that decentralization is simply a means for central governments to transfer their fiscal and administrative burdens to decentralized actors (Nsibambi, 1998).

2  The Tanzanian Local Government (District) Authorities Act of 1982 empowered district councils to pass by-laws and the 1997 Local Government Act of Uganda provides the legal framework for the participation of local communities in policymaking (Sanginga, 2003; see also www.leat.or.tz/publications/decentralization/4.3.district.authorities.php).

3  Please note that at this stage, the team may not know which stakeholders are relevant to the kind of problems that may emerge later on. Thus, if the research and development team has little familiarity with actors in the district, it is best that this activity be more comprehensive than what is thought to be needed.

4  This section draws heavily from Sanginga et al. (2010a).

5  For details see Sanginga et al. (2010b).

6  ACACIA works with African partners to help countries in Africa apply information and communication technologies (ICTs) to social and economic development. ACACIA's mission is to support research on ICTs that improve livelihood opportunities, enhance social service delivery, and empower citizens while building the capacity of African researchers and research networks. For more information, visit: www.idrc.ca/acacia/.

7  Please note that this step was introduced here owing to feedback received from participants. However, it may be useful to have this step come earlier, prior to Step 4.

8  In recognition of the fact that changes must occur as an approach moves from an independent initiative with external funding to its institutionalization within government structures and programs, as illustrated by the NAADS experience.

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