The World Bank/WBI’s CBNRM Initiative
Case Received: January 23, 1998
Author: Mary Ellen Chatwin,
Tel: +995 32 29 0058
Fax: +995 32 22 19 65
Email: me@chat.kheta.ge
Traditional bases for innovation have been shown as providing the most solid frameworks for the introduction of local and community management schemes. The following project integrates a centuries-old type of gardening management into a new program which began in Georgia in spring, 1997. It is presently being considered for expansion from the original pilot project that started in Rustavi, 25 kilometers from Tbilisi, the capital.
Georgia was, until the middle of this century, a predominantly agricultural and rural country. With the collectivization of agriculture under the Soviet regime and a world-wide movement towards industrialization, the face of the country and its natural resources began to change rapidly. The City of Rustavi was founded during the zenith of Soviet industrial development, an industrial center whose main vocation was a giant metallurgy factory (one of two largest in the Soviet Union) and related industries, as well as agricultural fertilizer production plants. Workers for this gigantic new city, founded in the 1950s and expanded in the 60s, arrived from all over Georgia; many were forced to move from rural areas to work in the factories. Whole villages in the lower areas of the Caucasus were informed and moved within two days, by truck and train, the inhabitants suddenly crowded into makeshift transportation and forced to leave behind most of their belongings. Remains of these villages can still be found in many areas of Georgia, and since independence some citizens of Rustavi have attempted to reclaim their ancestral village homes. Yet most have remained, with their descendents, in the city, now dominated by "ghost factories" and industrial ruin. Rustavi numbers 158,000 inhabitants. The unemployment rate is officially 40% but is probably closer to 80% since many workers remain on the employed lists, while de facto the factories no longer function. It goes without saying that the shadow economy in Georgia is high, and especially in such former industrial centers as Rustavi where it may be close to 90%. Some initiatives for reviving industry in the area include fertilizer production and some metallurgy on a much smaller scale than previously.
The climate, though temperate, is dry and windy in summer, with little forest cover. The newly founded city depended on extensive electrical supplies for industries and pumping water. Today the region counts several villages that have no water supplies at all, especially now that Georgia has little or no electricity. (At present Tbilisi, which uses 1/3 of the country’s total electric power, has an average of 6 hours electricity per day.) The public, municipal-owned lands surrounding the vast neighborhoods of high-rise apartment buildings, some located not far from the Mtkvari (Kura) River, are used as grazing lands for migrating sheep or cattle herds, or left unused except for occasional isolated private initiatives. These enormous tracts were originally intended for expansion of habitation as the industrial centre grew.
In quite another context, the present author of the family allotment garden project in Georgia had lived in Switzerland 20 years. I had studied at the Institute of Development in Geneva before specialising in sociocultural anthropology. One of the themes I explored in depth in the 1980s was the European model for "worker’s gardens", or—as they are termed in England—"family allotments". Beginning in the Middle Ages in Europe, small family gardens outside of the city walls were tolerated by city officials, as the poorer strata of town dwellers depended heavily on these extra means of food security. Such initiatives as that of Abbe Pierre in France, and in Switzerland church-related welfare groups in the last century, meant that the long tradition by municipal governments of loaning municipal lands to the poorer groups became institutionalized. During and after the Second World War Switzerland attempted to increase the autonomy of its food base, and all municipalities were instructed to adhere to the "Wahlen Plan" wherein potatoes and vegetables were planted in all municipal gardens, parks and flowerbeds, unused or abandoned lots, and along sidewalks, roads, etc. It was calculated that such surfaces sufficed in making the politically isolated country largely self-sufficient during this critical period. Following this era, user’s organisations were formed in most small or large cities.
Today local community-based NGOs, or CBOs, in most European countries defend the users’ collective rights and act as the voice and negotiators of contracts and conditions for the use of these public lands by the unemployed, the poor and/or the elderly. These categories of users were all represented in my studies of workers’ gardens in the industrial city of Yverdon, Switzerland; many migrant families from southern Europe grew tomatoes and eggplant, next to the gardens of cabbage and potatoes that the elderly or retired Swiss families were cultivating. All were in need of increased food security, even in one of the wealthiest countries in Europe. Users were always enthusiastic about the social contacts gained in the context of the gardens, and most respected the often-stringent regulations imposed on this type of land use in the urban context.
Asked to draw up a small-budget project for the British Know-How Fund I saw it as a chance to integrate this institutional "tool" for urban food security found in Western Europe into the former Soviet Union country where I live. I was, at the time, Coordinator of the Biodiversity Country Study for Georgia, financed by UNEP (1995-1997), and a subsequent World Bank/GEF project for the establishment of the Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan was to follow its completion. The family allotment program, I believed, could serve as a pilot project for sustainable development in areas of denser population.
It was most important to situate this West European model within the Georgian context, however. Under the Soviet system a similar program had been available to many city dwellers. However, the recipients of these allotments were often apparatchiks or employees who were rewarded for good service. They received large (sometimes 1ha) tracts of land in areas not necessarily under direct municipal authority. These ‘government lands’ could be used as a secondary residence, and electricity, gas or other amenities were provided. Trees could be planted, and buildings could be constructed. After Perestroika and privatization legislation was passed in Georgia in the 1990s, these tracts passed into the ownership of their users, though many are too difficult to attain without public transportation, which no longer exists to many areas.
My former contacts with Georgian municipal authorities in several cities had proved fruitful when they perceived a direct or indirect personal gain to be had in a project’s inception. Rustavi, however, a traditionally worker-oriented city, proved to be headed by future-oriented officials conscious of the acute problems faced by the local population. The Head of Social Affairs was to become an ardent supporter of the project, and through him, the Mayor. This important base of authority was to prove important in the project inception phase, as territorial claims by various departments of the City were made and abandoned. Different officials perceived potential gain to be had either through water supply for the project (from a former irrigation system department) or land-use fees (from the department of lands and parks). Both of these and others were thwarted by the Social Affairs Department who had direct access to the Mayor, appointed by the Head of State, Edward Shevardnadze himself.
The neighborhood that was finally chosen for implementing the project was a high-rise district with a majority of unemployed and poor families. It was near the river, where a city sub-district office was located. This building was put at our disposal for meetings with the families who would participate in the scheme. The Department of Social Affairs of the sub-district presented a list of names of the unemployed and most needy and the first 40 families who would be allotted a plot on 1 hectare of land between the buildings and the river were chosen. These families thus received an area of 250m2 each (the same as most Swiss allotments in fact). Most were neighbors in a sub-district. This proved important for the project when conflict had to be managed.
From the beginning it became clear that this group of poor worker families, most aged from 40-60, who had never participated at any level of democratic or local institutions, and who had borne the brunt of the breakdown of the Soviet system, were at a loss when it came to making group decisions, planning, accepting responsibility, etc. There were, from the beginning, jealousies, accusations, suspicions and theft in the place of the qualities needed for building a local users’ organisation, sharing and cooperating to share water, land, services, tools and seeds. Democratic institution building to form a community-based organisation was, however, the second principal objective of the workers’ gardens scheme.
After several attempts at assigning simple tasks to specific activists in the group, the problems continued as persons with stronger personalities hoisted themselves, without group consent, into places of responsibility. The response from the group was, expectedly, one of disinterest in group activities and meetings.
In Georgia, the third sector has taken great strides forward, especially in the "center of power", Tbilisi, and certain other main cities, encouraged by the numerous active foundations that have inaugurated small grants and capacity building programmes. International foundations such as Eurasia, Soros (Georgia Open Society), ISAR and others have small-grants programs to encourage the creation and development of local NGOs. The strength of the third sector is also due to the strong environmental movement that was at the root of the independence movement before the 1990s. These factors proved important and very significant for the formation of a local users’ organisation in Rustavi.
I approached Varketili, a CBO located in a worker’s district of Tbilisi, with a track record of local community involvement. The activists in Varketili corresponded in age with the family garden family group, and had experience in resolving social issues at a local level. Two committee members were experienced in transmitting their solid knowledge of founding an NGO, with its implications and responsibilities. A capacity-building seminar was substituted for the second consultancy visit by an agricultural expert. (Flexibility in budget lines for such small projects should be tolerated by the funding agencies, as I point out in the last section.) The facilitator of Varketili proved very much in touch with the group, and even the most reluctant became active participants in role-play, organisational analysis on a small scale and other activities during the seminar.
The seminar was extremely successful in that it produced information and enthusiasm that was transformed into action at a local level. It also produced a conflict whose resolution resulted in the formation of two different local NGOs. One, formed of those members who were concerned with child welfare, is now an organisation that seeks resources to help families with handicapped children. The other remained closely linked to the original group of family allotment users: Bostane Kalaki or "garden city" was created and has recently (January 1998) drawn up its statutes and expects to register officially by February. It is interesting to note that before the City of Rustavi was founded by Stalin, the small city on its present location was called by the same name, Garden City.
The crucial moment of assessing and adapting the model to other urban areas of Georgia and the Caucasus region, if possible (Armenia and Azerbaijan), has arrived. The linkages in this case will depend, again, on grassroots activism as well as commitment by municipal authorities. In Georgia at least, a movement can be considered successful when it has been implemented in both the eastern and western areas of the country. For a local initiative to become a ‘movement’ it needs the publicity and coverage of media. Evaluation of the program needs to include not only an assessment of vegetable types and quantities per family (which was done in the present project), but a regard towards the institutional capacities formed, and their relationship with the authorities who, in the end, are providers of the basic resource: land.
We are presently drawing up a model contract for NGO-Municipal understanding of resource use: land and all-important water. This key document must be applicable to Georgian municipal legislation in general. It must also allow local NGO formation along the same lines in other regions. This is one of the points that we would like to raise within the workshop context.
Electrical power is also a resource issue, and such materials as fencing and a metal hut for the watchmen, tools and seeds should all be taken into account. Perhaps surprisingly, the Municipality required that only organic fertilizers and pest-control methods be used, which indeed matched the means of the users and one of the goals of the project which was resource protection.
Municipalities must not feel threatened by a potential de facto takeover or other type of privatization of their lands in the present legislative flux of the transition period. The NGO must, however, feel a medium-term commitment on the part of the authorities in order to interest its members to build and organise personal efforts by those who have little experience within democratic institutions. The regulation of potential conflicts will mean institutional safe-guards, such as a larger, nation-wide information base, media contacts, and perhaps a council of advisors from both the public, private and third sector. This is the point that we hope to discuss and analyse as a case study within the context of the workshop on natural resource management.
Already it appears that at the level of international funding for such types of grassroots development, a high level of coordination flexibility must be not only be tolerated, but actually built in as a necessary part of the programme. This might include, as in our scheme, important budget-line adaptations, which could be earmarked in advance as "negotiable". It might also mean longer-term assignments for on-the-ground coordination. It will also necessarily include an important part of local human resource development and training and on-going monitoring of developments at institutional and personal levels. Although a perfect knowledge of the local language is not essential, some knowledge is necessary to build confidence, and excellent translation resources should lead to immediate training of local actors and organisations who will be "sub-contracted" to execute important modules of such projects. Experienced local organisations—NGOs or CBOs—should be considered for partnerships if their level of expertise permits.
It is very likely that such approaches to implementing the development of equitable natural resource management will prove very cost-effective. The input of outside experts and consultants is comparatively minimal, while carefully chosen polyvalent coordinators with targeted training in several fields, will sufficiently fill the role of initiator/facilitator on the ground, during a year or two per chosen city. This means that one person could, within a year’s assignment, facilitate the formation of such resource use in several cities, and within two years for an entire country. It also means that continuing in-country institutional support for the program will accompany development, most likely sustaining and transforming the initiative for resource management to adapt it to the local context in the longer term.
The submission of the present case study for consideration within the workshop is motivated by a need for wider analysis of these seemingly local problems. Similar models from the developed, developing and transition countries are potentially extremely rich in information which can provide input to solve to some of the key institutional issues.