Alain Vidal, Director of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food
A farmer cultivating alfalfa to intensify his dairy production in Nariño, ColombiaPhoto: Programa.InfoAndina
Back from Cali, Colombia, where I spent a few days meeting with the project leaders of our Andes program, I was reflecting upon Robert Chambers’ recent Oxfam blogpost on “Paradigms, lock-ins and liberation”, trying to answer his question in relation to the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems: “Are we disabled by lock-ins to paradigms and mindsets which narrow, focus and frame our vision so that we fail to see and find breakthroughs?”
The CPWF Andes program aims to increase water productivity and reduce water-related conflict through the establishment of equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms. The question may look simple: how can we share the costs and benefits of land and water resource development and conservation between downstream urban water consumers, successful agribusinesses, hydropower companies and upstream rural communities?
After several years of CPWF research in the Andes, however, the answer is much more complex and nuanced.
- In a region like the Andes, there is huge social, political, economic and climatic variability; no ‘one-size fits all’ approach is likely to succeed.
- Policy is key (Andes Project on Benefit Sharing Mechanisms): political support is one of the triggers to success (Cañete in Peru), but political issues can seriously hamper even the best-planned and most participatory benefit sharing mechanisms (Fomeque and Quijos in Ecuador).
- Benefit sharing mechanisms need an engine: markets to close the income gap are an important instrument to fuel such mechanisms, as shown by one CPWF Andes project (AN1) on dairy farming intensification both in Colombia (Nariño) and in Ecuador (Tungurahua).
Results are amazing in most cases, resulting in return on private investment and improvements in household income, and may let us believe our benefit-sharing paradigm works well by helping institutions evolve.
Carmen Candelo Reina (WWF / AN3 project) launching the Conservatorio in Rio Coello, ColombiaPhoto: WWF Colombia/Carlos Anaya
But here comes the unexpected: another CPWF Andes project (AN3) is exploring an alternate way – is it a paradigmatic liberation for the CGIAR? The approach developed by WWF, one of CPWF’s partners, does not start from policies or markets, but from citizens’ rights. Specifically, it focuses on their right to information and to participation in decision making, especially for decisions that concern them and their communities directly. WWF uses this rights-based approach to provide all stakeholders with access to the same type of information. This allows marginalized groups, those far from the decision-making centers, to enter into equitable dialogue. It assumes that providing all stakeholders with the same level of information will ‘level the playing field’ - what AN3 calls hydro-literacy of a variety of stakeholders.
In this context, hydro-literacy facilitates conversations, brings them to a higher level and most importantly of all creates more equity between the parties. Examples from CPWF research are Rio Santa (Peru) and La Paz/El Alto (Bolivia), the most active one being Rio Coello (Colombia), where a conversatorio was launched last week to promote a right-based benefit sharing mechanisms emphasizing the right to access to information for all as key to the success of the initiative.
Much remains to be done, and hydro-literacy is not a blue print for successful sharing mechanisms, since empowering communities, building dialogue and trust and changing policies takes years. Maybe the paradigmatic shift for CGIAR exists in a combination of these various approaches.
Do we have other examples of where and how right-based approaches are used in our research? I would welcome such examples to start exploring these as pathways to social resilience before the WLE working group on ecosystems services and resilience meets in Montpellier this week.
This blog post has received major inputs from Amanda Harding, CPWF Management Team, on rights-based approaches.
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Comments
Most discussions around the inclusion of gender in sharing the costs/benefits/risks of land and water resource development turn to participatory approaches that allow both men and women to be part of the decision-making process. Despite a general increased awareness of gender disparities among the development community, women were often (and still sometimes are) left out of the decision-making process and are not offered access to the same information as men in many cases.
How does the WWF rights-based approach address gender disparities in the right to information? Are women seen as separate stakeholders? Has the rights-based approach helped women enter into "equitable dialog"?
Alain, I think you have put your finger on a fundamental issue. Of course we are "disabled by lock-ins to paradigms and mindsets which narrow, focus and frame our vision so that we fail to see and find breakthroughs". Abby mentions gender, a particular favorite of mine. As done by the CG, gender research is little more than counting (how many women at the meeting, how many women use diesel pumps, etc.). It's boring and it doesn't really tell us much. There needs to be a paradigm shift there. Another area is communications. I'd like to see some exploration of complexity theory and social network analysis to communications, but few people have heard of these. How do we effect paradigm shifts. One way is to read outside your field of study. It should be mandatory that every researcher has to submit a monthly book or article review on a topic outside his/her field.
I like your last suggestion, Terry. I would even go further: being exposed to people outside your field of study might be more effective than reading outside your field of study. And since you mention our CG habit to "count" researchers, we should always remember that CGIAR only represents around 4% of the global agricultural research. And probably think of inviting more – many more - non–CG partners from the research and the development worlds when prioritizing our research if we are serious about achieving CGIAR Strategic Level Outcomes.
The assumption here and the potential risk is that "we" the researchers and development practitioners set women up to fail, i.e. either ignore them or bring them into the conversation only to see them abandoned and at the mercy of entrenched power dynamics. This is indeed a risk and one I can admit to being guilty of myself when insisting women are represented on local community committees (e.g. water - health - education "committees" introduced by the agency from the North!) only further marginalising the one woman representative from groups within her community and reinforcing existing patterns of decision making. Similarly, there are many examples of good intentioned approaches but potential traps when working towards children and youth effective participation in decision effective their lives.
This doesn't have to be the case!
The learning (much documented): inclusive effective participation leading to development impact requires time for change to occur, knowledge and leadership. It requires bringing all groups to the table in an aim to avoid further division, making information accessible and recognising that gender refers to men and women, boys and girls. And, as integral to a rights based approach, the exclusion of women (and other marginalised groups) from accessing information as well as decision making processes must also be rectified through State policy, mechanisms and practice - where the State at all levels has a clear responsibility to ensure rights to information, decision making (water, education, health, etc) are fulfilled.
And we do have some examples...
As researchers tempted by a rights based approach and seeking to go beyond ticking the gender box how far can we go to demonstrating that applying RBA to Agriculture R4D does really bring development outcomes of benefit to the poorest and most marginalized?
Thanks Amanda for introducing the gender dimension in this discussion on rights based approach. Answering some of your questions is below an excerpt of a longer piece recently posted on CPWF blog, 'Facilitating women's participation and impact in Colombia', written by Carmen Candelo Reina of WWF-Colombia and CPWF Andes 3.
‘Liberating the voices’ of women
In the case of the Coello watershed, promotion of a citizen call to action empowered women. Through enhanced recognition of their rights, women were able to “liberate their voice”, which led to a transformation of the state-community relationship in the form of increased social accountability and transparency.
Women, particularly those from rural areas, are generally discriminated against in the area of institutional management. They have found in legal rules, however, support for their statements and demands. The grounds for this social change is based on rights prescribed under the Colombian legal framework. Since 1991 it has allowed citizens to actively participate in the planning, following-up, surveillance and control of public management results. This reduces power asymmetries and, therefore, promotes a better exchange between community and state.
Organizing to demand change
But this type of change requires capacity and social organization, as the women’s group of Hato de Virgen micro-basin has shown. Women have formed citizen oversight groups through which they have achieved important investments for planning, management and inter-institutional participation. The effectiveness of citizen participation has promoted institutional accountability and moved the discussion from words to actions.
Testimonies and experience show that gender equity is key to improving socio-economic conditions, as well as environmental and cultural polices by strengthening democracy and promoting effective governance.
Right on information, or "hydroliteracy" of the different stakeholders is indeed where Andes projects are putting a lot of their efforts in. Which information is the one that really contributes to levelling of the playing field is not always that obvious. Alain already mentions variability of a different aspects (social, political, climatic, ecological, ...) which certainly is huge in the Andes, and easily leads to bad extrapolations based on the few ground truth sites we have information on.
And we have to be honest that the information to fuel the conversations is not always available, or is not available in the right format, and we need research on nicer green, better watered grass, more resilient to the impact of the rude football players on top of it.
I would like to add the research view of Andreea Novak, a CIAT visitor from Romania on the process followed in Coello basin by CPWF Andes project COMPANDES (https://dapa.ciat.cgiar.org/collective-action-through-benefit-sharing-mec...). She adds some other issues in addition to the gender which also fall in the same basket of paradigms: equity and power relationships. These are some of the several that communities face permanently in their daily lives. Even considering their huge expertise in land and water management, an outsider junior professional intimidates their imagination. People from rural areas (kids, women, elders, etc), the ones living in the basins that we pretend to know deserve a place to express their understandings, desires and intentions. Only through an open dialogue, free from hierarchies and protocols, would it be possible to build a new kind of relationships where knowledge will flourish and development can emerge. It is not an easy task, we know in COMPANDES that this is possible, but not without them.
The paradigmatic liberation effect can be moderated with a little due dilegence. Great information. Great job Alain.