Governance and Development
Project Report
Prepared By Bardolf Paul, Project Coordinator and
Rosanna Hille and Virginia Thomas for Susila Dharma International Association
Click here for complete report in PDF format
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(The complete report is quite long and is not presented online. The text here does not include information about specific SD Project nor the Appendices. To read the complete report, you can download it as a PDF file.)
A. Background
In 2007, under the auspices of ‘WSA Forum’, a proposal was prepared for a project to explore the understanding and experience within Subud of Governance and Development. In order to make progress towards poverty reduction and sustainable development practitioners must understand how local, regional and international decision-making about priorities and the use of human and natural resources serves the people best. The purpose of this Governance and Development project has been to explore how grassroots development initiatives can help generate more inclusive and participatory decision-making processes and governance structures and mechanisms. These in themselves lead to more transparency, accountability and better use of common resources.
This is a joint project by the International Subud Committee (ISC) and Susila Dharma International1 (SDIA). It is funded by Guerrand Hermes Foundation for Peace. The project is coordinated by Bardolf Paul and the team includes Frederic Richard, Rosanna Hille and Virginia Thomas. This report of the outcomes of these surveys and the workshop will contribute to the Guerrand Hermes Foundation for Peace, and provide potential ideas for a public conference on Governance and Development planned for 2009.
What is Governance?
Governance is a concept that has developed considerably since it emerged in discussions of development issues in the late 1980s. As we shall see below, a difficulty for our research has been overall unfamiliarity with the meaning of the concept. The first classic political science essays on the subject talked about the concept of “governability”, which made the rule of law the core of development. With the end of the Cold War, “governability” gave way to the concept of “governance,” defined as re-inventing public administration to meet the new challenges of development in the era of globalization. Governance currently deals with issues relating to the mechanisms needed to negotiate various interests in society. It is increasingly seen as a concept that encompasses a series of mechanisms and processes designed to maintain and manage the collective/public sphere, to provide accountability, to empower the population and to ensure that society owns the process.
Hence, in the context of this research project, governance is not seen as the exclusive responsibility of governments. Governments play a central role, but are only one of many governance actors, including communities, local and international civil society organizations, national private sector, transnationals and multilateral institutions among others. However complex the web of governance actors, for the purposes of this study a simple definition of governance is used: governance is defined as ‘how collective resources are used and collective decisions are made,’ at either the local, regional, national or international levels.
B. Research Questions and Methodology
The main focus of this project has been on learning from the experiences of social, educational and development projects which have succeeded in bringing about changes on behalf of the wider community, in how collective decisions are made and collective resources used.
The research project set out to identify the activities and projects of individuals and organisations in Subud that are actively engaged in governance issues, focused directly or indirectly on community development.
The primary research question was to what extent have projects of Subud members succeeded in affecting the way:
- communities plan, utilise and manage local resources;
- public policy is defined and executed; and
- decision-making is carried out at local and other jurisdictional levels.
The research methodology was two-fold: a survey and follow-up telephone interviews were conducted with project leaders between January 2008 and August 2008. Survey participants were asked to consider noticeable benchmarks of governance changes such as:
- Citizen participation in local, regional decision-making processes has increased.
- Greater inclusiveness and equitable access to services and benefits is achieved.
- Those controlling and managing financial and other resources demonstrate greater accountability.
- Information is more openly available and transparent to those who need it.
- Governments or agencies have been able to deliver better or more services in response to needs, requests and demands.
- There have been improvements in efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery.
- Greater implementation of and adherence to the rule of law.
Surveys and telephone interviews were then analysed to systematically indentify how projects were working to shape governance outcomes. SDIA plans to make the information collected from this survey available to other development practitioners and this will become part of the body of knowledge emerging from practitioners in the Susila Dharma Network.
On July 23, 2008 in Amanecer, Colombia, SD project leaders who took part in the survey were invited to listen to the analysis and participate in the validation of preliminary survey findings and conclusions with the research team. (See Validation and Learning Workshop page 17)
Project Selection and Survey Development
SDIA staff selected nine projects for the survey, based on prior knowledge of the activities of each project. The individuals interviewed had each held a prominent leadership position in their project since its inception. Some projects turned down the opportunity to participate in the survey for lack of time or from their assessment that their activities did not fall within the Governance and Development Project scope.
Bardolf Paul Virginia Thomas and Rosanna Hille developed the survey questions. Rosanna, Virginia, Daisy MacDonald and Solen Lees Gratiet conducted the interviews by telephone or in person, and wrote up the interviews. Bella Rosario, Executive Director and co-founder of Mithra Foundation in India completed their survey by email.
Validation and Learning Workshop
During the SDIA Conference held near Armenia, Colombia July 23-30, 2008, a workshop on Governance and Development was held to validate research findings and to launch a creative discussion with project leaders as to how they might enhance their governance impact in the future. Attended by some 45 participants, the purpose of the workshop was to present the preliminary findings of the survey and to gather additional information on this subject.
Garrett Thomson introduced the Governance and Development Project and explained its origins. Bardolf Paul presented the framework for considering the topic, and Rosanna Hille presented the results of the analysis to date, based on the information gathered from the surveys. Project leaders present who had participated in the survey were given an opportunity to comment on the accuracy of the analysis and to provide additional information to the researchers.
SDIA organised the workshop and subsequent activities to ensure that the Governance and Development Workshop would have an impact on the way SD project leaders think about and plan their activities. The Governance and Development Workshop led into SDIA’s three day Capacity Building Workshop, which focused on project planning and design. Project leaders were asked to consider the community needs and problems that their projects are trying to address, taking into consideration the ‘governance context’ - factors such as how existing government policies, programs and decision-making processes impact their activities. How might their project work to influence these? The workshop helped project leaders identify governance issues as part of their ‘problem analysis’ and to build governance related activities and advocacy into their project design.
C. Framework for Analysis
Governance Focus
The survey considered the project activities that affected and were affected by the quality of governance both inside and outside of the communities where they worked. The idea was to see how the projects are dealing with the current state of governance; if projects were taking specific actions to improve the quality of governance; and, also, to understand how the state of governance impacted the functioning of project activities.
Two of the most important aspects of governance are voice and access. For society to function in an equitable manner, people need to be able to express their views and to have their views listened to and responded to. Moreover, people need equal access to the opportunities, resources, and institutions that are normally available in society.
Relationships are a key ingredient in the governance equation. How people interact with one another determines to a large extent the quality of governance practice. If there are discrimination and repressive practices in society, some people will be denied an equal voice to express their opinions, and will be denied access to the opportunities and facilities available in their society. Development projects working with the poor, children and youth, women or racially, ethnically and socially marginalised (such as the Dalits in India, indigenous people, or poor incarcerated mothers, for example) need to focus all the more on ensuring both voice and access to governance processes, as these have historically been denied to these groups.
In analysing the results of the surveys and interviews, the situation within each community was identified as one field for analysis, and the situation outside of the community was seen as a second field for analysis. The analysis looked at these situations after the project had been active for several years. In fact, few Susila Dharma projects can be said to have had a significant governance impact after only a very short time.
1. Within the Community
The survey and interviews looked at various factors affecting people’s voice and access within communities served. The following questions were considered in the analysis:
COMMUNITY INSTITUTIONS:
Were institutions available or created that provided people an opportunity to easily express their views, and that could take effective action as a result of these inputs?
PARTICIPATION:
Did all members of the community, especially those disadvantaged or marginalised, have equal opportunity to become involved in planning and decision-making making processes, and were their views well-represented in these processes and their outcomes?
EMPOWERMENT:
Did the project work in a way that empowers people to take control of their own development processes and resources, reducing or eliminating dependencies?
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION:
Was there an equitable sharing of resources and inputs, and what was being done to ensure this?
CAPACITY BUILDING:
Did the project work in a way to build or strengthen local capacities, either with individuals or local institutions, resulting in a greater ability for local people to take greater control of their lives?
2. Outside the Community
When considering the involvement of projects outside of communities served, the following factors were examined:
RESPONSIVENESS OF GOVERNMENT:
How responsive government is to the needs of its citizens, and how this translates into changes in policy and implementation of policy.
APPROPRIATENESS OF POLICIES, PROGRAMS, SERVICES:
How appropriate existing policies, programs and services of government are in supporting the aims of the project.
ACCESS TO PROGRAMS AND SERVICES:
How accessible existing programs and services from government are, and how equitable their distribution is.
PARTICIPATION:
The ability of people to participate in processes of policy-setting and decision-making that directly affect them.
3. Project Actions
Each project in the survey addressed some or all of the above governance factors and did so in various ways.
ADVOCACY:
Many projects took an active role in lobbying government, advocating on behalf of their constituencies for policy change or for better access to government programs and services.
CAPACITY-BUILDING:
Most projects engaged in some form of capacity development, either through direct training activities or by facilitating extended learning processes.
INSTITUTIONAL STRENGTHENING:
To achieve their goals most projects created and/or worked with existing community organisations to strengthen institutional capacity within the community.
NETWORKING:
Building networks amongst stakeholders was another key action that projects took to access or mobilise additional resources on behalf of the communities they were working with.
USE OF MEDIA:
Some projects used public or other media to document and communicate what they were doing, and to galvanise support for their cause.
4. Governance Matrix
The following matrix provides a quick snapshot of how each project fits within the above analytical framework, and which areas of governance it concentrates on.
Project Governance Matrix
| Inside Community | Outside Community |
| Community Institutions | Government Responsiveness |
| Community Participation | Appropriateness of Policies, etc. |
| Empowerment | Access to Programs & Services |
| Resource Distribution | Citizen Participation |
| Capacity Building |
In analysing how the projects surveyed have addressed issues of governance, this matrix is a general reflection of the elements in the overall framework they have touched upon. No evaluation or grading was applied in the analysis.
(Information on the specific projects is not included in this online version. To read it, download the full report by clicking here.)
E. Conclusions and Recommendations
This survey has provided an interesting and useful insight into how some projects in the Susila Dharma network have been addressing issues of governance in the context of their project activities.
It is useful to note the eventual recognition that most projects give to the importance of governance conditions both inside and outside of the communities they work with. Two projects in particular, Asociación Vivir and ICDP, have used their community-based activities to achieve a major expansion through advocacy, lobbying, and the promotion of their work with national and multilateral agencies. In both cases, recognition from UN agencies had a major impact on their ability to achieve widespread adoption of their approach, methodology, and development models.
It appears that governance per se is a secondary concern with most projects concerned mainly about implementing their programs and activities, and therefore their engagement with governance factors is often an unwanted task.
Significance of Governance Impact: The significance of the impact of SD projects on governance is that it has enabled projects to touch and improve the lives of far more people than if the projects were strictly focused on providing stop-gap services and activities within on or two local communities.
Think Big: What is common to all projects studied is that to have an impact on governance, project leaders must have a clear vision of what is not working within the status quo, and how to put it right. Without a bigger vision that applies beyond just a small number of communities, project activities may be reduced simply to filling existing gaps in services, rather than transforming power relationships.
For example, Asociacion Vivir’s community health and nutrition model makes a compelling argument for a radically new understanding of community health, based on a model of empowerment and revitalisation of traditional health knowledge, as opposed to the over-medicalised and disempowering practices of modern medicine. Similarly, Inka Samana School worked to transform governance of the educational system in Ecuador after first rejecting both the form and content of the ‘colonial’ education system that prevailed for indigenous learners. Inka Samana first needed to identify and demonstrate an appropriate alternative, in order to convince Ecuadorian authorities to support and extend this model.
Need to identify the governance dimension of social and community work: What is the role of the state and other governance partners in the problems we are trying to solve? Without a clear analysis of how the governance context affects the communities and constituencies with which practitioners are working, projects will not likely have much impact on it. For example, one of the reasons for the rapid success of Tierraviva in transforming the administration of the penitentiary system for incarcerated mothers in some provinces was that the project quickly identified the key stakeholders, which were limited in number but had great power to change the situation once they were convinced the project would work. Similarly, Mithra’s clear focus on the human rights of Dalits, within a context of centuries old social exclusion, provides their work with a clear human rights focus that connects them directly with the authorities who are often responsible for perpetuating these abuses of rights.
Building on common interests: The impact on governance seems highest in cases where project leaders are able to bring together the interests of government with those of communities. As demonstrated by the case of YTS, ICDP Colombia, and other projects, local government often lacks the tools, resources and capacities to do its job effectively. By working to enhance governance processes, SD projects can and should emphasize that they are not only helping communities, but also are helping government provide greater accessibility to its programs and services. This should be of interest to most government bodies.
Understanding how government works and the importance of establishing collaborative relations with government was another common experience, as was the importance of building networks and collaborative relations with other development organisations.
Cross-sectoral cooperation between agencies within government was another key element, as most government agencies tend to operate in isolation from one another. Because of that, intra-agency cooperation let alone collaboration, is a rare commodity in the civil service. Yet, particularly in health and education, it very often is essential for government agencies to cooperate in order to achieve effective and long lasting results.
Local participation seems to be the logical first step for most projects. Garnering support and inputs from local people appears to be an essential ingredient to achieve some measure of program integrity and success. Training and empowerment often follow initial participatory activities, as most projects wish to see the communities they work with stand on their own feet and take control of their own development needs.
Making an impact on governance can take time: Most projects need to demonstrate their credibility and the validity of the models they are proposing before these will be embraced and taken up by governance partners.
Advocacy with government is a role that some projects choose to take on, either directly from the project organisation or by empowering project participants to pursue their own issues directly with government officials.
In terms of the question of how effective projects have been in facilitating ‘voice’ and ‘access’, some projects have been very successful, particularly at community level. Reaching out to government is always a much greater challenge, and only a few projects have empowered local people to do this. In most cases the project itself is the main ‘voice’ talking to government or intergovernmental agencies. Although this is the best or fastest way to catch the attention of higher levels of government and bring about the changes desired, it would be desirable to include local people in the process.
It is heartening to see the natural desire from projects to collaborate and engage in a wider effort to address development challenges. This engagement with the larger development community and relevant government authorities is bound eventually to have a positive impact on improving the climate of governance in most localities.
Recommendations:
While each SD projects is unique, there is much that can be learned from the experiences of practitioners who have succeeded in having an impact on governance that brings about positive and irreversible changes to relationships between the ‘governors’ and the ‘governed’ - in the areas of enhanced participation in decision-making, transparency, relevance and accountability. At the same time, we have learned that there is a risk that Subud projects may shy away from full engagement on governance issues, for fear of ‘losing their way’.
We recommend that in the future, SDIA, Guerrand Hermes Foundation for Peace, and others who want to support the positive relationship between governance and development continue to create opportunities for dialogue, shared learning, and capacity building for Subud projects. For SDIA, we must focus on strengthening projects to analyse and direct their efforts to impact the governance context, supporting them to help enhance the ‘voice’ of communities’ in decision-making processes that directly affect them, and their ability to ‘access’ common/public resources that will help them.
Download the full report here.