The World Bank/WBI’s CBNRM Initiative

Case Received: February 18, 1998

Author: Qaim Shah and Tariq Husain

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Email: project@pes.comsats.net.pk

NWFP is the smallest of Pakistan’s provinces in terms of area; its estimated population is over 20 million (more than 80 percent of which is rural), and the area is 74,500 km². Most of its cultivated area is rainfed (or barani). Wheat and maize are the most common crops; rice, sugarcane, gram and various horticultural crops also generate high value in specific parts of the province. Forestry and livestock activities are more important to the rural people than in most other parts of the country. Forest area is 22 percent of the total reported area, and the forests are spread almost evenly between the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush. Grazing lands (five million ha) are spread throughout the province.

While displaying great diversity in physiography, climate and socio-cultural characteristics, common features can be observed throughout the barani districts. First, land holdings are small and dominated by owner-cultivators. Second, livestock raising contributes a major part of the farm output and impacts labor and land use more than in irrigated areas. Third, as the productivity of land and livestock is low, non-agricultural employment and out-migration have always been more important than in irrigated districts. Fourth, as a consequence of the employment patterns of men, women bear a relatively large share of on-farm work, in addition to their household chores. Fifth, rangelands are depleted, and forests have been exploited to the point where both livelihoods and the environment are now seriously threatened.

The people who inhabit this area have, over the centuries, devised ways to make the most of their niggardly environment, and the world beyond it. They retain within their villages a tradition, though weakened, of communal action for the management of the property of the villages, and the joint use of forests and ranges. And they have educated their children and pursued employment in Pakistan and overseas. The large majority who were not fortunate enough to move in these directions, however, remain caught in what is virtually a trap of low incomes and little opportunity. It is these people that the Barani Area Development Project (BADP) and similar initiatives in NWFP aim to mobilize and assist.

The BADP operates in Kohat and Karak Districts, which have low-to-medium rainfall, and in Haripur and Abbottabad Districts, which have medium-to-high rainfall. The community mobilization activities of the project were initiated in Abbottabad and Haripur only in 1997. Project initiatives from which lessons can be shared are in Kohat and Karak, where work started in 1993. It is from these two districts that the data for this paper are taken. The two districts occupy an area of 7,012 km² and have a population estimated to be about 1.3 million; the rural population lives in approximately 900 settlements. The area is basically semi arid, though climatic variations can be considerable even over short distances. The terrain is mainly hilly and covers elevations of 500-1,500 m. The soils are calcareous and loamy in Kohat and sandy in Karak. Forest area is about 60,000 ha, equivalent to three percent of the reported area in Karak and 11 percent in Kohat.

In line with the subject of the workshop, this paper mainly addresses only those aspects of common property management that relate to renewable natural resources such as forests, rangelands and denuded lands. Some examples relating to biodiversity are also given.

Land that is the common property of a village, tribe or kinship group is known locally as the shamilat and includes forests, rangelands and denuded lands. In some villages the shamilat have been divided up among the right-holders, who have developed it for cultivation or other purposes. Elsewhere, the shamilat are still considered common property but the manner in which they are managed varies greatly. The project feasibility study carried out in 1991 found that some villages were still practicing their traditional (tribal) management system, while others were doing little or nothing to protect the shamilat. The most active villages were those whose shamilat were still productive. They practiced nagha (ban or closure) and fined those villagers and outsiders who cut wood or grazed livestock during the nagha. In some villages (in Karak) the ban extended only to the cutting of trees. In line with tribal customs, decisions about nagha, fines and responsibilities for watch-and-ward and enforcement were made either by the jirga (council of elders) or in more widely attended village meetings.

In many villages the resource had degenerated because a large number of people had taken up productive employment outside the village and shown little interest in land over the years. Those who were left behind apparently did not or could not protect the shamilat from neighboring villages or nomadic livestock herders. In some other cases, however, selective controls were still being enforced. For example, the shamilat of one village had been opened up for free use by four neighboring villages, but Afghan refugee families which collected fuelwood were charged Rs 2,000-3,000 per year.

Interest among villagers for investing their own resources in the shamilat was virtually non-existent. Investment by the government was also being inhibited by the absence of an effective local forum for collective decision-making and the top-down approach used by implementing agencies. Documented examples showed that villagers did not have a mechanism for agreeing on the sharing of costs and benefits among the right holders, and between the right holders and other users. For example, several groups of villagers in Kohat were reluctant to press their rights against neighboring villages and herders using their shamilat for grazing. Villagers interviewed in Karak felt that the large number of users made it difficult to arrive at a consensus. Whenever the question of alternative grazing sites came up in relation to the closure that is required when trees and grasses are planted, villagers could not agree how to address it.

Aspects of the top-down approach of implementing agencies that were documented showed, in essence, that the rights and responsibilities of villagers and implementers were decided without understanding the needs and constraints of the villagers. For example, the Forest Department was concerned mainly with obtaining vegetative cover, for which it favored Eucalyptus spp. because it was seen as a fast growing tree with a high survival rate under various soil conditions. The villagers, however, did not see the Department’s approach addressing their needs, especially for fuelwood and fodder. Nor were they party to the deliberations and decisions taking place between government officials and a handful of influential locals considered by the official machinery as "local notables" who represented the community. Not surprisingly, villagers felt that government alone should take responsibility for all the investment and recurrent costs.

The feasibility study sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of NWFP concluded that a meaningful attempt at mobilizing local people had to be central to project design. Its premises included the observation that an institutional vacuum at the local level prevented the villagers from internalizing the costs and benefits of investing in common property and benefiting from the resources available from government and donor agencies. The Government of NWFP at that time was beginning to emerge as a strong supporter of participatory approaches and the involvement of non-government organizations (NGOs) in development projects. The ADB had also by then taken policy decisions in favor of community participation and the involvement of NGOs in its projects. The increasing recurrent cost liability of government programs and their limited payoff relative to the projected level and spread of benefits were key factors in the consideration of the government and the ADB.

Thus, the BADP was conceived as a $42 million multi-sectoral project in which all components except farm-to-market roads had to be implemented with community participation. Community mobilization combined with investment in community-managed schemes was seen as key to organizing villagers and helping them learn or revive collective management at little risk to them. For the first time in NWFP, a non-governmental organization (NGO) called the Sarhad Rural Support Corporation (SRSC) was contracted to motivate and organize villagers, help them plan and implement community schemes, and assist in training local activists in organizational, income-generating and social sector activities. The design explicitly rejected the representative approach to community involvement—the notion that a small number of "local notables" or representatives should be entrusted with decision making over the affairs of the community. The beneficiaries themselves were expected to participate directly in identifying priorities, planning responses, implementing schemes and organizing operation and maintenance (O&M). Broad-based community organizations (COs) were adopted as the model for community participation, instead of the small project committees favored in most other projects.

SRSC was given the responsibility for forming COs, and government agencies were asked to implement all "green sector" activities through the forum of the CO. Coordination among the agencies concerned, including the NGO, was recognized as one of the most important functions of the newly established Barani Development Office (BDO), which is located within the Planning, Environment and Development Department (PE&DD) and whose Director was designated the Project Director of BADP. As is the norm in multi-sectoral projects in NWFP, a board chaired by PE&DD was made responsible for policy decisions and approval of annual work plans and budgets for the project.

The implementation of BADP started in 1993 and will conclude in 1999. Interaction between the project and the villagers was predicated on realistic policies and procedures acceptable to the implementing agencies and the villagers. The policies of interest to both parties were formulated as Terms of Partnership (ToPs) specifying the rights and responsibilities of the project and the villagers. The initial formulation of the ToPs was based on the project design documents, but changes were made during implementation in view of feedback given by villagers and implementers. The current formulation of the ToPs bears little resemblance to the original.

The highest priority was assigned to consultation (or dialogues) with the beneficiaries, and integration of the efforts of NGO social organizers and the government’s technical staff. The project cycle was elaborated in a step-by-step manner as a process of integrated participatory planning and implementation. The BDO facilitated agreement among the agencies concerned on the specific roles and responsibilities of each in the project cycle. This resulted in the formulation of agreed and implementable Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for an integrated approach to community participation. The BDO ensured that annual work plans were made jointly by SRSC and the government departments, and that changes in the ToPs offered to the villagers were made with the agreement of social organizers and technical specialists.

Field work was integrated through monthly coordination meetings and joint village visits by the field staff of all agencies. For this purpose, the project cycle was described in terms of three dialogues between project staff and the villagers. It was agreed that representatives of all the agencies would conclude the first dialogue (identification of village priorities) together, as a team. The second dialogue (project preparation) would be undertaken by each agency in consultation with the beneficiaries. At the third dialogue (appraisal of commitment to equity, O&M arrangements and other aspects of the ToPs), all agencies would once again sit together with the community organization. Thereafter, each agency would individually assist the beneficiaries in undertaking the agreed activities.

Field visits and special surveys by project management and consultants, and regular conferences of CO activists ensure that feedback from the villagers regularly reaches project staff. All project staff attend the conferences of CO activists and respond to their suggestions and criticism. These conferences have also become a forum at which banks and agencies not directly involved in the project introduce their programs and seek cooperation from the villagers. The COs are being seen increasingly by these agencies as useful delivery mechanisms (e.g. for polio campaigns, public health engineering, water management and appropriate technology).

About 500 community and women’s organizations have been formed to date with 17,200 households as members and Rs 8.6 million savings in their CO accounts. The COs have identified 253 small infrastructure and other productive schemes which they can execute and maintain themselves, and completed work on 183 of these. The Forest Department has adopted the participatory approach of the project and undertaken plantation on about 4,900 ha of shamilat by working with COs at 30 major sites owned by about 50 communities. Under the ToPs agreed with the COs, the project provides technical assistance and investment inputs for the shamilat. The CO takes full responsibility for protection from the first year through enforcement of the nagha system, and for watering and replacement of failures from the second year; the CO is also responsible for harvesting and marketing. The concerns of livestock holders and non-members of the CO were incorporated at the planning stage, the requirements for grazing taken into account and the area requiring protection for plantation demarcated with the agreement of all resource users. While there was almost one hundred percent reliance on Eucalyptus spp. in the early days of the project, the emphasis soon shifted to multi-purpose tree species that cater to the local requirements of land, livestock and farmers.

The Forest Department has also helped the COs set up about 200 community nurseries. The project pays the full cost of inputs and labor in the first year, 50 percent in the second and third years, and none thereafter. The project trains a villager nominated by the CO as a forestry worker, and guarantees to purchase plants that are suitable for the Forest Department’s plantation programs. The COs pay land rent and provide all the management.

As COs started enforcing the nagha for protection of newly planted trees, some of them noticed that protection of the shamilat was leading to natural regeneration and an increase in wildlife. They decided to treat the shamilat as game reserves, charging fees for hunting and seeking technical assistance from the Wildlife Department. About 5-6 communities that had constructed small dams in order to increase the quantity of underground drinking water also realized the commercial value of their environment. They stocked the reservoirs with fish, planted trees around it, and advertised the setting as a place for picnics and water sports.

An organizational framework with three important elements is being implemented in BADP. The first and most important element of this framework is that the project depends on broad-based participation rather than representation in order to address the institutional vacuum at the local level. The community’s decisions and interaction with outside agencies take place in open and non-exclusive village assemblies. The project provides technical and financial assistance and insists on the inclusion of the poor in all activities, but it does not interfere in the decision making of the CO. The confidence and willingness with which villagers have accepted responsibility for their collective interests shows that broad-based participation is not only desirable but also possible in a variety of socio-cultural settings.

The second element is that a support mechanism is available in the form of an NGO that specializes in social mobilization, an area of expertise that is not generally found in government departments. The NGO acts as a catalyst by identifying local activists who are committed to serving their communities, and training them to lead their communities and engage outside agencies in the planning and implementation of development activities. As more such activists take over responsibility for leading and serving the COs, the NGO’s role as a support mechanism would tend to diminish (but perhaps not altogether disappear).

Effective linkages between organized communities and development agencies are the third element of the organizational framework. Such linkages generally do not take place unless a policy decision to this effect is taken and mechanisms put in place. In NWFP, the responsibility for coordinating public sector development agencies has been assigned by the government to PE&DD, which discharges this responsibility in the BADP through the Barani Development Office and the inter-agency Project Review Board. These mechanisms help ensure that government agencies as well as the NGO are responsive to the objectives and participatory approach of the project.

Finally, it must be reiterated that flexibility in implementation is recognized as key to the success of participatory projects. The required degree of flexibility is often not observed in government programs. In the case of BADP, however, both the Government of NWFP and the ADB have been highly supportive of the project and have found ways for implementers to be responsive to people’s needs and constraints to a large extent. It is not possible to speak of replicating participatory approaches without allowing for flexibility in implementation.