Submission to Local Government Amendment Bill about Community Driven Development

1. Submission to Local Government Amendment Bill about Community Driven Development Empowering communities Strengthening local government Promoting livelihoods 9th October 2007

2. Khanya-aicdd • Not-for-profit Institute focusing on community-driven development and sustainable livelihoods • Works through multistakeholder partnerships in learning processes across countries, especially SA, Lesotho, Uganda, kenya, Mozambique • Did presentation to this committee in 2003 on community-based planning

3. What is community-driven development • An emerging approach worldwide focusing on empowering communities to be active and involved in managing their own development (claiming their rights and exercising their responsibilities) • Very large projects in many countries up to R25bn • Not tried in SA, but some ingredients eg community-based planning

4. Approaches to CDD • Experience shows that given clear rules of the game, access to info and support, poor people can organise to provide own services and activities • More capacity than recognised, most to gain • Do have organising skills to take forward projects in own community (eg building churches) • Most services found at local level provided by poor people for each other eg home-based carers, community health workers, paravets, voluntary savings and loan groups, farmer extensionists

5. Support for communities • Service delivery model – communities consulted but gov provide services – expensive • Intermediary model – gov agencies/ NGOs work with communities but play strong role • Empowerment model- gov agencies/ NGOs primarily facilitators and communities provide services, manage projects directly – this is example of CDD models

6. Examples worldwide of funding communities • Mexico – 1990-2000 >0.5m projects in rehab classrooms, potable water, rural roads. Poverty targeting much better. This was despite entrenched corruption • Brazil - $1.43bn, 37592 communities benefiting, 2.5m households. Resources reaching communities risen from 45-90%, project quality high • Indonesia – 28 000 communities, benefiting 25 million people • Zambia Social Investment Fund – R280 million over 5 years, reached • What about SA? Some very limited experience to draw from, although generally the environment has not been top-down using the service delivery approach and not very favourable to CDD, despite a policy intent to promote participatory approaches

7. SA - people active and involved in managing their own development • Ward committees key structures for representation and local action – but very weak. SGBs examples of communities acting locally, churches, CPFs etc • SA promoted community-based planning as systematic approach to participatory planning, being rolled out although not very effectively – communities able to influence plans and allocation of resources • Tested out approaches to funding communities using discretionary funds to wards in Mangaung. Used R50k per ward and funded activities to support voluntary action, eg meals for clean-ups, visits to other housing projects, very small infrastructure – these were not project funds but more for support for activities • Proposes projects to IDP • Vote created in municipal account for each ward, and they could draw on that for activities approved in the ward plan. • Piloted in SA, Ghana, Uganda and Zimbabwe, expanded to 8 pilots in SA

8. Lessons from CBP (p21) • Mangaung evaluated and successful in promoting involvement of disadvantaged, 98% of funds spent correctly. Over 10 000 people involved in planning, many others in ward action • Funds were used effectively • Large political capital as a result from involvement of so many people, promotion of voluntary activity • Other munic since tried similar approaches. Stage 2 CBP pilots included Tzaneen, eThekwini, Nkonkobe, Mbombela etc and this was evaluated in 2005 • Scale-up suggested R25-50k per ward – with ward making the decisions – and the municipality only saying whether there is a problem (a negative list) – ie discretionary for wards. • Also suggested that 2% of municipal capital budget be allocated to wards, for discretionary funds and then potrentially for larger project funds • now national policy in SA and Uganda

9. Lessons from Funding Communities research • But municipalities have struggled to find these funds – how much of a priority is supporting collective action at local level? • Khanya undertaken research in Africa on models of funding communities • 4 key models • Community investment fund (CIF) as with CBP, ZamSIF, Mexico, Brazil • Foundations – income from endowments used to fund activities – eg GRCF • Trusts – where communities use this CBO structure to undertake activities • Community-based natural resource management – revenue from natural resources partly accrues to local communities, partly to local gov – eg CAMPFIRE in Zimbabwe

10. Lessons (2) • workshop 27-28 August at Ekhurhuleni co-organised with dplg - participants from all over SA including municipalities, NGOs etc. • All of these models seen to be relevant • Community Investment Funds can be applied at scale viz Zambia, Brazil etc, institutionalised with link to local government • Recommendation that should be done in SA linked to ward system, communities plan for their ward (CBP), then funded to implement • Builds the social contract between municipalities and communities • Nothing contradictory in legislation eg MSA, MFMA, but nor is it explicitly promoted, and great fear of handing over powers to communities (always fear in decentralisation processes that lower levels don’t have capacity) • Evaluations show that communities usually better at handling small scale projects than local governments, more transparency and accountability, basic skills are there, but do need support • Hence proposal to change legislation to create a presumption that local governments should directly support wards to undertake own activities

11. Proposed Submission for Funding Communities • Khanya’s submission is a product of the 40 or so participants from the workshop with dplg inc national, local, NGOs etc • “In order to promote active involvement of communities in development • municipalities should make allocations of at least 2% of the municipal budget to ward committees or any project committee appointed by the ward committee as discretionary ward funds • for community economic and social development, • subject to a ward plan being developed which has broad public ownership, and which is linked to the IDP. • These funds should be utilised by the ward committee or any of its project sub-committees and are the responsibility of the ward committee. • The ward committee will be accountable for implementation and funds spent to the population of the ward and the municipality and the municipal manager would be accountable to ward committees.”

13. Key Findings • Extensive community participation is central to disbursing funds but participation is often limited to the just consultation and leads to dependency syndrome especially where lack of exit strategy • No trust between communities and government to create win-win situations – need active citizenship and not just consultation • The target groups in most projects were marginalised communities, but not always reaching the target groups • The accountability mechanisms are often highly skewed in favour of funders and can be highly bureaucratic and time consuming, often reducing capacity of government institutions and accountability to them; • Efficient delivery - bueauracratic processes in government can delay projects… • Funding is still centralised and focused on the activities rather than overall purpose and process; • The funding is also influenced by the funder and their developmental agenda and can be reactive, interventionist or compensatory • Community-based structures often experience acute human and financial resource problems; • Appraisal and approval process are long drawn-out processes during which time the objective of funding would have little relevance to problems that are exacerbated by conditions beyond the control of communities; • Measuring impact is still uncharted territory. In the case studies there is very little evidence of extensive monitoring and evaluation and results about impact; and