A presentation by Khalid El Harizi from the 2009 BASIS Conference on "Escaping Poverty Traps: Connecting the Chronically Poor to the Economic Growth Agenda."
2024: The FAR, Federal Acquisition Regulations, Part 31
Access of Rural People Living in Poverty to Local and National Policy Processes
1. Access of Rural People living in
Poverty to Local and National Policy
Processes
Khalid El Harizi
Presentation at the Conference on Poverty
Washington 26-27 February 2009
2. Why accessing and influencing policy
processes is important?
• Policies can have huge impacts on people’s
livelihoods
- orient, limit or expand choices
- empowering or disempowering effect
• Broad-based stakeholder participation generates
sustainable and equitable policy outcomes
- environmentally, socially and economically
3. Common approaches and instruments
of influence
• Advocacy
• Agency
• Process Facilitation & Mediation
• Modifying the Rules of the Game
4. Limitations of common approaches
Advocating, Bulding Agency Assets, Mediating, Changing rules
• Hardly affordable for the real poor
• Uncertain and delayed results
• Political feasibility
• Dependence on reasonably functional
policy processes
5. What if policy processes are not functional?
Lessons from the Sudan Case
• The majority of the chronic poor live in political contexts
of fragile states and/or non functional policy processes
• In these situations, it is not only difficult for the poor and
their advocates to influence policies, but also it does not
even make much sense to participate
• In fact, in many cases people deliberately chose to avoid
participation, have their own channels and informal
institutions to address their issues while resisting actively
or passively the implementation of official policies.
6. A Decentralized political system…
• Federal, State and local governments
• Native administration
- abolished officially but actually still operating
informally in particular for land issues and political
elections
• Comprehensive Peace Agreement created the
Government of South Sudan
7. …But a centralized and chaotic policy
making practice (Northern Sudan)
• A narrow decision making community
- technicians and politicians
• Prevalence of informal rules within committees
• High level of discretion of enforcement agencies
• Inadequate and restricted information flows
8. Influential coalitions: Grab what you can!
• Security/military apparatus
• Federal Administration
• Gezira irrigation scheme Farmer Unions
• Businessmen and merchants
• Mechanized farming schemes
Small farmers and pastoralists in rainfed agriculture
areas have virtually no clout, let alone the chronic poor
9. The Net Result
Policy outcomes and enforcement are marked
by unpredictability, frequent changes, and
insufficient resources for implementation
A failure to establish an equitable system for
natural resource access and management that
serve the large majority of the population
Escalation of natural resource-based conflicts of
all types including warfare
11. Core problem of policy making in fragile
states: ineffective governance
– lack of strategic vision (Direction)
– democratic deficit (inclusion &alignment)
– patron-client approaches to public
management (commitment)
12. The need for a new approach
The initial challenge: how can people living in
chronic poverty influence policies that affect them?
A new perspective: Chronic Poverty and Policy
failure both result from a Deficit in Citizenship.
Clarifying the Challenge: How to create functional
governance and policy making processes in fragile
states? How to create direction, alignment and
commitment in public action?
13. A Solution: Leadership produces direction,
alignment & commitment (DAC)
Individual
leadership beliefs
Collective
leadership beliefs
Leadership practices
Direction,
Alignment,
Commitment
(DAC)
Longer-term
outcomes
Contextual Moderators
Source: Center of Creative Leadership – by
authorization
14. Examples
• Examples of different beliefs/practices that might
produce DAC:
- One person needs to be in charge: vertical chain of
command
- Everyone is a leader: fluid alternation of the leader
role among various members
- Our purpose will become clear to us as we sit talk
together: dialogue
Source: CCL
15. Leadership Culture: web of beliefs and practices
producing direction, alignment and commitment
• When leadership is viewed as a cultural outcome, the
beliefs and practices of everyone in a collective
constitute leadership: Each individual’s beliefs and
practices make up some part of the web
• Approach opens up the way to defining a variety of
leadership models that are compatible with local
contexts
• Pilot projects in Ghana and India in partnership between
IFAD and CCL
Source: CCL
16. Key Messages
Leadership development produces critical
outcomes for successful governance and policy
processes (direction, alignment and
commitment).
Developing a democratic leadership culture, not
just leaders, is a crucial path out of poverty
towards economic empowerment (micro-
enterprises, value chain development, etc.)
There is a need to create new models of
leadership that are rooted in the diversity of local
contexts
In this brief introduction to a vast subject I will necessarily to focus on a particular policy domain and present an overview of the pathways by which the rural people living in poverty can have access to and influence on policy processes that affect them.
I have chosen to focus on policies related to the governance and management of natural resources for a number of reasons: firstly, the rural poor still depend significantly directly or indirectly on natural resources for making a living. Secondly, this policy domain is one of the richest and more studied policy domains and it furthermore involve decision makers at various levels from the local to the international through the national levels. As a result lessons we can derive from the study of this theme are likely to have broader relevance. Finally, this is a theme in which I have developed an interest and conducted a research in partnership between IFAD and IFPRI on how to empower the rural poor in the volatile policy environments of the Near East and North Africa Region with particular reference to Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia.
Accessing and influencing policy processes is one of the dimensions of getting out of the poverty trap.
Just like poverty has a political dimension, policy making is not (and cannot be) politically neutral.
Advocacy:
Actions that engage influential players by providing credible information and knowledge on specific issues of concern
Agency
Actions aimed at building the assets of the rural poor and their representative organizations so as to make their voice heard
Empowering women for example
Process Facilitation:
Actions aimed at creating mutual recognition and a neutral/safe space of dialogue between stakeholders
Rules
Actions aimed at modifying the rules of the game (political action) towards greater mutual accountability and more even play field of negotiation
In fragile states with dis-functional policy processes, what is most needed is the development of a form of democratic and inclusive leadership that enable effective collective action in the interest of the largest number and that take due account of the inequalities of agency that exist between stakeholders. The crucial concept is not access or influence as much as it is cooperation and collaboration for a common objective that transcend legitimate individual or group interests.
The DAC framework looks at leadership as a cultural system aimed at cooperation.
Basic elements of a cultural system are patterns of beliefs and practices: DAC theory frames leadership as the pattern of beliefs and practices that produce direction, alignment, and commitment in a collective.
Direction, alignment, and commitment are the outcomes of leadership.
Direction = agreement on goals
Alignment = coordination of work
Commitment = giving extra effort
Leadership development is not meant to dismiss the approaches that aims at improving the access of the rural poor to policy processes and to influence them. It provides actually the conditions for this approaches to be more effective. At the same time if focuses the effort of a larger community on creating the conditions of collaboration.