Sustainability

This describes the level at which a project or program continues to function, provide service and even grow, independent of the initial investment of time and resources provided by the sponsoring agency. “Only when people organize and manage their own efforts, utilize their own resources, and utilize local institutions and local leadership, will long-term development be sustainable”(Mayfield, 112).

The ultimate goal of village development is the establishment of local institutions managed and supported by the community itself. If we leave a village without having established these organizations and nurtured them to autonomy then the projects and programs developed will not be properly maintained, will not provide service in the long term and we have therefore failed in our work.

“Very simply, we have done nothing if nothing lasts. If five years after the program has terminated, nothing is left of our efforts, we have, in fact, done harm. For it will be even more difficult for villagers to become enthusiastic about innovation in the future if their first efforts at innovation have come to naught (Bunch, 194)”.

Five factors proven to be successful in the implementation of effective, sustainable rural development projects: 1. Successful projects were generally much smaller (simple) than unsuccessful projects, and thus structured to reflect the absorptive capacity of the community. 2. The people responsible for the project design and implementation tended to be local people, rather than outside experts and officials. 3. The project tended to use appropriate technology, which could be implemented using local resources, skills and materials. 4. The project was carefully planned to ensure that local leadership and local institutions were strengthened and used. Local institutions were encouraged to develop their own system of local resource mobilization through strategies of networking and building links to outside sources of funding and support. 5. The system of development used was based upon the local culture, social structure and traditions that provided a sense of pride, continuity and self-esteem in the community (Mayfield2, West Hartford)

Sustainability - Expanded Discussion

Simplicity

“Small programs have the flexibility to be creative and respond to changing needs without bureaucratic delays. They also tend to be more sensitive to the people they are serving(Bunch, vi).” The simpler the program or technology, the easier it is to adopt, innovate with and pass on to others. As technologies become more complicated, programs cost more to initiate, are more costly to maintain and promote a sense of dependency.

Simple technologies - Advantages 1. Simple technologies use the villagers empirical knowledge 2. The use of their empirical knowledge fosters self-confidence and human dignity 3. Simple technologies are easier to modify 4. They foster dialog between villager and teacher (Bunch108-109)

Simple technologies - Characteristics 1. It resembles the technology the people already use 2. It involves crops or animals the people already know 3. It is as technically unsophisticated as possible 4. It requires few inputs (Bunch, 110)

Village Driven

Villagers see life as an indivisible whole. They intuitively know that development is more than just productive rice paddies; they know it is social and political as well as economic, female as well as male, educational and vocational as well as agricultural. They see no reason for the artificial barriers set up in academia to separate life into categories. They see no sense in those strange distinctions that cause Westerners to assume that a new variety of potatoes has more to do with a farmer’s agricultural income than whether he can prevent his water supply from being stolen by a local landowner or whether he is cured of the malaria that has been sapping his strength for months.

When villagers’ successes have convinced them that they are capable of solving their own problems, they begin wanting to solve other problems. And they want to solve first the problems they feel are most urgent, regardless of whether Westerners would classify them as economic, educational, industrial, social, or political. An agency that truly wants to help the people must be willing to respond to these needs (Bunch, 224).

Being village-driven means not imposing our programs, technologies and philosophies on a village but allowing them to conduct a self-evaluation to determine and prioritize their own needs.

“Unfortunately, most development organizations are driven by the demands of their donors far more than by the needs of the villagers. Money is given on the assumption that specific schools, health clinics, wells and latrines will be built. Success is defined in terms of such money being spent, failure to implement such projects within the budget year are simply unacceptable (Mayfield p. 269).”

The implementation of many projects and programs requires more than a year to be embraced and acculturated. They therefore do not fit within the convenient structures of time that we want to place on them. If we force these deadlines on the natural course of development then the risk of failure rises dramatically due to the premature conclusions and pull-out of support. A long-term commitment to a community is necessary in order to allow sufficient time for a village to go through the process of development at their own pace based on their own felt needs and using methods that they understand.

Ownership

Ownership is a consequence of the perceived exercise of influence by individuals in a group’s problem-solving effort. Community meetings involve a gathering together of people. Each person is a source of resources that include information, energy, time and material goods. Every meeting is an opportunity for mobilizing these resources. How well the resources are drawn upon depends, among other things, on the leadership, the process and the structure of the meeting. Access to an individual’s time and energy depends largely upon the degree of “ownership” of the group’s decisions, process, or proposed action achieved by that individual. How a meeting is organized, whether equal opportunities to participate are provided, and the extent to which individual ideas are visibly accepted, will determine the access to the resources of participating individuals and thus determine their ownership and commitment to the process (Mayfield, p. 274).

So, imposing our programs, technologies, and resources upon a village without regard to this process robs them of their sense of ownership. In so doing, the project is really owned by the provider, not the villager(s). People feel a strong identity and close affiliation with the program when it reflects values and goals that they have created. When people feel an ownership, when they feel the project is theirs and not something foreign, they will take responsibility. They feel motivated and there is a social energy that stimulates development. No project that violates or ignores the basic principles of the local culture will be sustainable. Only when the project is seen as theirs and not the outsiders, is when they truly develop ownership for the success and the long-term sustainability of the project and can therefore be called a successful rural development program (Mayfield 178).

Appropriate Technology

This refers to the projects that utilize simple technology, simple systems of implementation, and project activities that can be maintained by local resources, local knowledge and local expertise(Mayfield, p. 177). If the technology cannot be maintained by the villagers with inexpensive, locally available resources, then the project will fail.

“In one project, I saw million spent to implement a water pump project in several hundred villages in Indonesia. When I was invited to review the impact of that million, I was appalled to see that nearly 85 percent of the pumps were not working. No one had thought to teach the villagers to repair or maintain these pumps and the resources used had no long-term impact at all (Mayfield p.119).”

Too many projects require a level of technological understanding that simply does not exist at the village household level. Too often it is assumed that villagers would quickly see how the technology should be used, what methods and materials would be needed for its construction, when and how it should be maintained and what the benefits are (Mayfield, 279). History has taught us that these assumptions are almost always false. Only when a new idea responds to a felt need, addresses a limiting factor, observes cultural norms and demonstrates clear, positive and timely results will it have a chance at permanent adoption.

“Technology for small farmers must use the resources they already have. When outside resources are indispensable, they must be easy to obtain on a permanent, reliable basis, and they must be inexpensive (Bunch, 105)”.

Networking

One of the most valuable skills that we can teach villagers is how to find resources beyond their traditional boundaries. “Powerlessness of poor people in isolated rural villages arises through a process whereby valued identities and roles on the one hand and valuable resources on the other are deniedæall of which are prerequisite to the exercise of interpersonal influence and effective social functioning (Mayfield, p. 301).” As long as the outside world remains out-of-reach from the village, the chances of that community collectively breaking the poverty cycle are minimal. Isolated infusions of support will not have a lasting positive impact on the village if they cannot be built upon through the nurturing of future support from the outside world. One of the most important programs that we can develop with any village is a comprehensive system of networking with local and national government, with national and international NGOs as well as with local and international private corporations.

Assuming that these villages have organized themselves based on the principles of sustainable development, they are ready to call upon additional and varied resources from the non-traditional sources. There are two primary steps to teaching networking. The first is teaching village leaders how to research and locate the potential resources. Many times there are programs and funds available but the village is just not aware of it. For example in Mexico, if a community builds a schoolhouse or health post in their village, the government will staff and supply it.

Once resources are identified with local, state or national government, the business community or other NGOs, they next need to approach them for support. Traditionally, villagers may be shut out by the “power brokers” in the cities because of racial discrimination, class discrimination, religious or otherwise. This may be coupled with a lack of perceived importance. Paying attention to or doing a favor for a villager may not, for example, further the popularity of a high-profile politician.

Social capital is a person’s or group’s sympathy toward another person or group that may produce a potential benefit, advantage, and preferential treatment for another person or group beyond that which might be expected in an exchange relationship (Robison, 3). A villager typically has little or no ‘social capital’ with the power brokers of the outside world. However, when accompanied by the director of an American supported NGO who has a well-established reputation in the area and an extensive network of contacts in the city, a power broker will go out of his/her way to accommodate them. In this respect, CHOICE can ‘lend’ its social capital to that village leader. After a few visits, the village leader has established a relationship of his own so that he can make an appointment and be attended to without the accompaniment of the CHOICE director. He has thus accumulated his own social capital.

It is often by chance that an organization stumbles into a particular village. Previous to that, the village may never have had access to non-traditional resources. With this new exposure comes new ideas and technologies that can help them break the cycle of poverty. However, even when these programs and technologies are sustainable, if the village has not been linked with the greater economy, then they remain fighting over the same limited working capital as before. So, when that organization decides to move on, they may leave the village as isolated and entrenched in poverty as before. If we leave a village without a vibrant networking program, we are abandoning them. If we leave the village with good networking in place, we are releasing them to achieve much greater things than our organization could ever offer.