51405 SO CI AL DEV ELOPMEN T HOW TO S ER IES | n o . 5 January 2009 STRIKING A BALANCE: Integrating Community Priorities and Natural Resource Management in CDD Operations Introduction (2009). The purpose of the note is to provide As environmental issues have been thrust to the task teams with an overview of the challenges forefront of the development agenda in recent associated with implementing NRM activities in years, Community Driven Development (CDD) CDD operations and to present a variety of operations potentially represent an attractive strategies which they can adopt to overcome option for advancing Natural Resource these hurdles. Management (NRM) objectives. There is a growing consensus that governance matters in Understanding the Barriers to NRM at multiple levels, including the local level. Implementing NRM Activities in By utilizing strategies that allow communities to CDD Operations guide the development process, CDD may Though NRM activities may, in many instances, enhance the effectiveness and long-term be public investments that should be done by sustainability of NRM interventions by higher-level government agencies, these providing communities with participation, voice interventions must be consistent with peoples' and ownership over these projects. needs and priorities in order to be successful at the local level. Clients and task teams should However, in order to achieve these objectives, neither assume that communities have NRM task teams must not only ensure that NRM problems without getting communities' goals are consistent with communities' priorities, perspectives on the issue, nor mandate that they but also that they have established incentives undertake specific NRM activities. Instead, that encourage the selection of NRM activities. implementing teams should involve This "how to note" builds upon a PAD analysis communities in the planning process and put of twenty-two CDD projects and interviews incentives in place that increase the likelihood with the task team leaders (TTLs) of nine CDD that communities will voluntarily undertake projects with an NRM component conducted in NRM interventions. 2005 (Ribot and Mearns 2005), and acts as a companion piece to "For the People, By the In order to understand how to incentivize People: Community Participation, Voice and communities to adopt NRM activities, it is Representation in CDD/NRM Operations" important to recognize the reasons why Did You Know? If implemented correctly, CDD represents an attractive option for helping communities adapt to climate change. In addition to environmental consequences, climate change will also result in a number of adverse social consequences including urban migration, loss of livelihoods and the undermining of communities' adaptive capacities. CDD operations with an NRM component can play an important role in helping communities overcome these challenges. For example, the Sustainable Livelihoods Project in Mongolia sought to enable poor pastoralists and other poor households to adopt more secure and sustainable livelihood strategies by building human, social, financial, physical and natural capital. This was to be achieved through three inter-related components: improving pastoral risk management, increasing the outreach of sustainable micro-finance services, and improving basic infrastructure through community-driven approaches. The overall approach was to protect and strengthen the asset base of poor rural households through attention to both private (livelihood diversification through access to sustainable micro- credit) and public goods (pastoral risk management, public infrastructure and social service provision), while investing in local institutions to empower pastoralists and increase their voice and representation in public affairs. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT www.worldbank.org/socialdevelopment 1 SO CI AL DEV ELOPMEN T HOW TO S ER IES | n o . 5 January 2009 communities are hesitant to undertake these against CDD investments in a range, water or interventions in the first place. The fact is forest management. that community members often do not prioritize NRM when they are given a wide Communities' role in driving CDD range of investment options in CDD projects. projects with an NRM component The reasons given for the low priority placed At the same time that challenges exist, it is on NRM were: important to note that while people do not · Communities were focused on immediate prioritize NRM in CDD projects, this does not productive needs; mean they are not engaged in NRM. Indeed, · People were unaware of the possibility of they may be engaged daily in their own multiple requesting funding for investments at a NRM activities or in other donor- or rangeland or watershed scale; government-supported NRM projects or NRM · People felt that the scale of nrm projects measures may already be mainstreamed into was too large to have a clear impact on existing projects. As such, task teams should be their lives; aware of the NRM activities that are occurring · People did not give priority to within communities during the design phase so environmental issues; that they can complement and build on · If nrm were chosen, perceptible benefits communities' ongoing efforts. would take too long to accrue, or might accrue in an unequal or exclusive fashion; CDD operations with an NRM focus (and similarly, NRM projects using a CDD · High transaction costs can also make strategy) allow communities to drive decision encouraging collective action over public making much more than in stand-alone NRM resources difficult; projects. As such, designing strategies aimed · The project expected beneficiaries and/or at providing communities with incentives to residents to volunteer their labor for nrm adopt NRM activities requires an investments, but people would not work understanding of communities' role, or lack until or unless they were paid; thereof, in various stages of the project cycle. · Some investments were rejected because · In the design phase the local target- they reduced the area of land people population participates only in the needs could farm; and assessments. The appraisal team may · Communities may not choose nrm incorporate the knowledge that the target projects because they know that other group provides into the Project Appraisal donors will fund or are funding them. Document (PAD). · The development of the positive and As the reasons listed above highlight, there negative lists which shape how the project are challenges associated with integrating proceeds, however, is driven at times NRM into CDD operations. This is partially largely by experiences that Bank staff and a function of the fact that while the protection consultants have acquired through or collective management of natural resources previous interventions in the area. Indeed, has diffuse, long-term and often collective a variety of factors including national benefits, community members are often far history, national priorities, previous more focused on short-term economic projects, the influence of donors, the returns. Furthermore, environmental beliefs of different actors involved, team management is often called for by outsiders composition and the success of previous who expect local people to work for free. projects impact the formulation of CDD participants' experience with, and positive and negative lists. doubts about, `environmental' projects work SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT www.worldbank.org/socialdevelopment 2 SO CI AL DEV ELOPMEN T HOW TO S ER IES | n o . 5 January 2009 o As the long list of influencing factors o In contrast, negative lists are much presented above highlights, the more specific. For example, the process of list formation is not a QBPRP in China forbade straightforward endeavor and is resettlement activities due to influenced by a wide range of factors. concerns about their environmental o Given that in some instances impacts. It is important to note that communities may be only peripherally negative lists can have environmental involved in the process of generating implications in two ways. First, they the actual lists, task teams must may be constructed to avoid projects recognize these influences in the with negative environmental design phase and take measures to consequences. Second, they can free ensure that the list/menu contains up monies that communities may NRM options which are consistent choose to invest in environmental with peoples' needs and priorities. management endeavors. Otherwise, the CDD operation will · At the stage of sub-project selection target not be able to fulfill its participatory populations engage in systematic mandate. participation by prioritizing potential investments, costing them out and Incorporating Communities' making a final choice of sub-projects the Priorities into List Formation in China community will pursue. It is important to note that sub-project prioritization, which Most projects begin with some form of needs is shaped by the content of the lists or assessment based on interviews or PRA. Needs menus presented to the community, is the assessment and interview results can, and should, play a big role in shaping sub-project menus. For key point where communities can drive example, in the Qinba Mountains Poverty decision making. Therefore, what is on Reduction Project (QBPRP) in China the effort the lists, and why, is very important. to assess local needs was extensive. The TTL · At the implementation stage the form of went to a sample county with his team, and participation changes drastically. Here, "fanned out to villages to ask people what they many projects contract implementation needed." Indirect community influence on list out to third parties (project making was also exerted when the project team implementation units) Local authorities asked practitioners and program personnel who and communities may or may not be had worked or were working on poverty reduction projects what they had learned from represented in, or have control over this their experiences. The principal lesson was that portion of the project lifecycle, though "if farmers don't want it, it will not work." Their they may be involved in monitoring and findings informed the project design. evaluation or other activities. In summary, for CDD projects to be truly · When completed, the PAD presents a driven by communities-however defined-people list/menu of potential projects from which need to be involved in or oversee every stage of target populations can ultimately choose. project development. Sub-project lists drive o Positive lists tend to be very general. community choices. They therefore diminish the For example, in Mali the proposed degree to which communities drive their positive list included: all legal development decisions. Some projects have prerogatives of the commune (elected gotten around this problem by providing block local government), social grants and working with communities to investments, cultural investments and develop detailed investment plans--including natural resource investments. determining who should do the implementing SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT www.worldbank.org/socialdevelopment 3 SO CI AL DEV ELOPMEN T HOW TO S ER IES | n o . 5 January 2009 and how that implementation is overseen. Whatever strategies task teams adopt, it is Advancing NRM Objectives in Niger important to involve communities in all stages of the operation. Through the adoption of a CDD approach, the overarching goals of Niger's National Natural Providing Incentives for Communities to Resources Management Program (NNRMP) were Adopt NRM components to secure sustainable agricultural production and growth, alleviate poverty, and improve rural Though there are a number of challenges livelihoods through a reversal of land and natural associated with promoting NRM in CDD resources degradation. In order to advance NRM operations, task teams have developed a objectives, the project provided communities with variety of successful strategies for providing an incentive to undertake NRM activities by communities with incentives to adopt NRM lowering the amount of the required community activities. contribution. The economic justification for doing so is that natural resources are public goods. In this manner, the CDD principle of choice was It is important to note that while a mix of these maintained as communities could exercise full mechanisms can be used to encourage choice over whether or not to select NRM activities. environmental investments, caution must be The project's ICR states that co-financing (which it taken not to create overwhelming incentives that also called "sweat equity") was not a barrier to override community priorities. This may often participation and that it had a strengthening effect require separating higher-scale public priorities on community "ownership" of sub-projects. of donors and governments (such as biodiversity management or road development) from priorities that are of immediate concern to · Initiating environmental education local communities (such as health, sanitation, campaigns on the benefits of NRM and market infrastructure, etc). Possible incentivizing its links to the strategies include: improvement/reinvigoration of other · Earmarking funds that must be used for sectors. TTLs can conduct education public goods or long-term projects can steer campaigns prior to list making or sub- funds toward NRM investments. For project choice. example, the communities in the Matruh · Choosing project sites where Resource Management Project in Egypt communities are more likely to invest in agreed to earmark a portion of the overall natural resource management. TTLs can funds for projects that address women's select environmentally sensitive areas or needs. In theory, it would be possible to use "hot spots" or choose to locate project a similar mechanism for environmental activities where previously successful purposes. However, it is important to note NRM programs have been implemented. that the earmarking strategy could (and · Paying community members for often does) violate the principles of CDD environmental labor. TTLs can treat unless communities have decided that the environmental work as labor so that earmarks are a good idea. people see an immediate return for the environmental management investments they make. TTLs should not, expect community members to work for free. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT www.worldbank.org/socialdevelopment 4 SO CI AL DEV ELOPMEN T HOW TO S ER IES | n o . 5 January 2009 · Lowering co-payments for NRM. TTLs Conclusion can lower community contributions to If properly incentivized, NRM can be an NRM sub-projects relative to other important component of CDD projects. sectors, to make NRM more immediately However, forcing communities to choose attractive. NRM activities is counter to the principles of · Pairing NRM with non-NRM projects. CDD. While structuring incentives to reflect TTLs can require pairing of NRM real costs and benefits is important, it is investments with non-NRM investments important to ensure that communities are not that may be more popular. being corralled into activities that they would · Piloting successful NRM projects to show not want themselves. Indeed, the larger public surrounding communities that they can values reflected in the incentives a project provide tangible benefits. If this occurs, constructs should include values held by local communities may request to participate in populations and should compliment the program. community members' self-identified needs and priorities. Incentivizing NRM in Morocco Further Reading In the early 1990s, Morocco piloted a national 1. Ribot, Jesse C., and Robin Mearns. 2008. Steering watershed plan in the Oued Lakhdar watershed. Community Driven Development? A Desk Study of CDD approaches were used because previous NRM Choices. World Resources Institute WORKING PAPER NO. 38. attempts at top-down watershed management had not 2. Ribot, Jesse C. 2008. Building Local Government been effective. From the outset, the project worked through Natural Resource Interventions: An with community representatives to identify a local Environmentalist's Responsibility. Washington, DC: agenda comprising investments such as irrigation, World Resources Institute. social investments, and conservation measures. To 3. Post, David. "For the People, By the People: advance these NRM aims, the project combined Community Participation, Voice and "matching" with "pairing" to assure the inclusion of Representation in CDD/NRM Operations." NRM sub-projects. First, lower matching funds were World Bank, 2009. required for NRM projects and, second, the NRM projects were paired with other projects that The Social Development Department presents the communities chose. If, for example, the community "How to Series", a set of occasional papers aimed at wanted to work on lowland projects they would also synthesizing social development research and be required to include "upstream" highland operational best practices in a format which is easily management in their activities accessible to development practitioners. At first, even when upstream investments were For more information about the Series, visit us online required along with the downstream investment, at www.worldbank.org/socialdevelopment or contact people did not want to work upstream. The labor us at socialdevelopment@worldbank.org was voluntary. Later the project introduced cost sharing to encourage more upstream activities. The project team leader also explained that if the This note was adapted from Community Driven investment is skewed among the investment Development? A Desk Study of NRM Choices, Ribot and areas--between downstream and upstream, Mearns (2005). The note was compiled and authored by agriculture, women, infrastructure--the operation David Post. should attempt to achieve a balance. Though communities still tended to select productive activities first, the guidelines were successfully used as an inducement to get investments upstream. Parts of this case are adapted from the AgWater Sourcebook, World Bank (2004) SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT www.worldbank.org/socialdevelopment 5