Filling the ‘Development Gap’

Speaking of LWD’s continued emphasis on service-delivery, its staff from the all the organisational levels thought that LWD’s development work was to fill the ‘development gap’ created by the vast lack of local government social services. The way in which such work was implemented was developmental; namely, not

handout-type activities that could create dependency, and hence LWD enabled PPs not to rely solely on LWD for inputs for their development in both research sites. PPs were encouraged to provide what they could contribute toward particular development activities, and also to augment the initial inputs given by LWD; for instance, regenerating vegetable seeds for the next round of cultivation, using interest from a savings group for repairing a community well, and utilising the fund balance from a particular activity with further local contribution toward another activity. Related to this, LWD encouraged PPs in both research sites not to depend on outside sources of income. One such discourse is to use the development opportunities offered by LWD. For

example, through FFSs, they can learn to grow enough vegetables (Cossar, 2011) or through agricultural cooperatives, they can share in the profits. As a result, they do not have to go outside their villages to earn an income by cutting trees, which would cause deforestation, or by working in factories, through which they could only earn meagre wages. Nevertheless, a dependency attitude was observed among some PPs, as discussed above.

In addition, there seems to be a consensual understanding among LWD staff where people’s basic needs have to be met as RBA is implemented. As mentioned in Chapter four, the extent to which SDA is implemented depends on the economic space of the local context. The areas in which LWD is operating are resource-starved and thus there is considered to be a large economic space for SDA. Harris-Curtis et al. (2005) mention that it might be more beneficial not to bring RBA into the foreground in a context where the notion of human rights is alien and resources are scarce. Good NGO practices have been recently reported from some fields: for example, (a) Save the

Children Fiji (a field office of an international NGO) has a ‘playground van’ for squatter communities through which whilst children learn and parents are trained in health and education—namely, the fulfillment of their needs—parents are also encouraged to discuss child rights (Llewellyn-Fowler & Overton, 2010); (b) CARE Rwanda (a field office of an international NGO) has a project that combines children’s education with income-generation to ensure the sustainable fulfillment of their rights to education (Pells, 2012). Indeed the assessment by the external evaluator of LWD is that:

[LWD’s] Integrated Approach is respectful of the needs of the community by providing hardware (as reportedly some NGOs only provide software) and uses the Rights-Based, Participatory, Community and Empowerment approaches to

achieve more sustainable results. (Cossar, 2011, pp. 17-18, comments in brackets and italics added but comments in parentheses original).

Furthermore, LWD staff in both programme sites claimed that a certain level of economic development was necessary prior to people claiming their rights. One of the CEOs stated:

We want these groups [community-based organisations (CBOs)] to be strong and sustainable. We create and make those groups have incomes. It means it is done through establishing savings groups or bank groups for them to have a better life. When they have a better life, their rights-claiming starts working as well. In other words, if their life is not better, they are not interested in claiming their rights because they [have to] find immediate needs. It means that they have to go to forests and so do not participate [in rights-claiming] (Interview,

Rottanak Kim, comments in brackets added).

LWD’s developmental approach, which is aimed at the PPs’ economic self-reliance mentioned earlier, plays a key role in this regard. According to Heang (2011), there are a few pieces of research indicating that poverty makes citizens spend more time earning a livelihood rather than participating in commune and village meetings for prioritising development activities to gain CSF; that is, engaging with CCs to fulfil their rights to development. Mezirow (2000) identifies the physical-material preconditions for TL, especially reflective discourse, to occur. Such preconditions include health and economic security, and thus, as stated earlier, “[h]ungry, homeless, desperate…adults are less likely to be able to participate effectively in discourse” (Mezirow, 2000, pp. 15-16). From this perspective, it makes sense that before or as people embark on TL in their move toward claiming their rights, their immediate and minimal needs have to be met. In fact, a study on FFS in East Africa by Duveskog et al. (2011) and Duveskog (2013) indicates that in resource-starved rural areas, the transformation of farmers’ perspective of enhanced agency needs to occur simultaneously with their economic and physical improvement through the instrumental learning of new agricultural techniques. In other words, their perspective transformation hinges on their capacity development and resultant improved wellbeing.

There were claims from numerous PPs and LWD staff at the various

organisational levels that people achieved their rights to development through LWD’s service delivery. One of the CEOs said that providing health centre buildings, school buildings and roads was to achieve people’s social rights (Interview, Rottanak Kim).

Similarly, a few LWD staff from the CEF as well as senior management levels claimed that RBA was primarily and ultimately the priority for LWD. As just mentioned, one such logic is that LWD’s service delivery fulfils certain rights of people. The other one is that SDA, by being combined with RBA in a mutually reinforcing manner, can contribute to the fulfilment of people’s rights. For example, one of the LWD’s senior staff stated:

We see it [SDA] as an entry point for rights-based empowerment. Why?

Because for example in our approach, when we have found budget or resource to construct schools, we engage with the government and inform them about that, but we also bind them in the agreement in which they need to provide teachers and teaching materials to run the school, so with that, you can see how you can influence the government to provide services to the people (Interview, Sophat Um 2, comments in brackets added).

Hence LWD accepts “a gradual realisation of rights in accordance with the resources and institutional capacity available” of local government (Friis-Hansen & Kyed, 2009, p. 16). In a similar vein, CARE Rwanda combines its short-term ‘technical’ activities with other efforts designed to enable them to contribute to long-term rights-based goals:

CARE’s rights-based response to HIV/AIDS extends, through community mapping and action planning and the use of popular theatre and radio, to community awareness raising and dialogue on the conditions and expressed demands of PLWHA [people living with HIV/AIDS], widows and orphans and, through strengthening paralegal capacities and outreach, to the provision of legal aid services for those who have suffered abuses. (Jones, 2005, p. 88, comments in brackets added).