A MODEL OF EMPOWERMENT

1. A MODEL OF EMPOWERMENT KHALID EL HARIZI

2. Overview • Background • Research Objectives • Model Discussion Part 1 • Applications • Synthesis Discussion Part 2

3. Background • Failure of Policy Reforms • Volatility • Institutions Matter • Political Processes and Economic Performance

4. What Do We Need to Know? • Central Question: What Policy and Institutional Environment Would Empower the Rural Poor to Get out of Poverty? • Application: Devolution of Natural Resource Management to Territorial Communities • 3 Case Studies: Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia

5. Dealing with Complexity • Change challenges States, Private Sector and Civil Society capacities to redefine or reinvent their respective roles and vision of the future. • Volatility could be understood as a pattern of change in Transition & Developing Countries • Empowerment as an emerging quality of an Inclusive Development Process

6. From Participation to Empowerment • State-driven versus participatory development • Slow adoption and institutionalization of participatory approaches • World Bank Formula of Empowerment: E= Participation + Improved Governance

7. A MODEL OF EMPOWERMENT • Agency • Definition of Empowerment • Proposed Model • Levels of Analysis • Devolution

8. Agency • Agent as an open system of decision-making • Capability to pursue self-defined objectives according to upheld values • Concept of Capability: a measure of freedom of choice

9. Alternative Definition of Empowerment • Empowerment is the capacity of an entity, be it an individual or a group, to act as an agent of change. • Empowerment involves an expansion in an agent’s capabilities

10. How are agent empowered ? • Main hypothesis: Gap between expected and actual achievements or outcomes is the trigger of processes of empowerment and disempowerment

12. Levels of Analysis (Examples) • Agents: Individual; Farming Households; Community-based Organization; State; … • Capabilities: Set of feasible activities; institutional options; policy options;… • Outcomes: Living Standards; Local and National or Global Public Goods; • Framing: Perception& Attitudes; Policy Agenda; Development Narratives;

13. Devolution of Government Power • Delegation of Central Government Executive and Legislative Powers to a Subordinate Territorial Unit • Criteria: • Delegation of both legislative/executive powers of substantial size/magnitude • Devolved unit must be representative/elected body • Substantial Autonomy both political and financial from central government interference

14. Devolution and Empowerment • Political Systems • Federalism • Unitary States • Local Government • Forms of Decentralization • Devolution • Deconcentration • Devolution and Empowerment

15. Devolution of NRM (1) • Complexity due to Multiple Stakeholders • NRM is a source of income • Uncertainty (ecological, Knowledge) • Historical legacy impinge on feasible options for reforms • From Management to Governance of Natural Resources

16. Devolution of NRM (2) Pre-requisites of improved NR Governance • Political Commitment to Democratic Governance at Local Level • Downward Accountability • Application of the Subsidiarity Principle • Secure Property Rights • Long-term Financial support to local administration capacity development

17. Devolution of NRM (3) • Right-based Access to NR • Informal Mechanisms of Access • Bundles of powers: technology; capital; market; knowledge; labor; authority; social identity; • Actual Access versus Rights of Access • Inequality of Agency

18. Provision of Public Goods (1) • Public Goods Are Those that Would Not Be Provided in a Pure Free-Market • Non-Rivalry and Non-Excludability • Typology of Operators (Service Suppliers) • State • Public Corporations • Private Firms • Non-Profit Civil Society Organizations

19. Options for Supply of P. Goods • Criteria of Choice of Operator: • Technology involved • Transaction Costs • Incentives of the Agents • Inequality, Heterogeneity of Stakeholders • Ownership, Property Rights • Partnerships and Coalitions for PG Provision

20. Partnerships and Coalitions for Public Goods Supply • Coalitions are formed of agents that decide to coordinate their actions towards common objectives and against other groups’ objectives • Multi-Stakeholders Intervention Requires a Process, Not Predetermined Solutions • Enabling Policy Environments Will Not Generate Change Unless Enabling Mechanisms Are Also Established

21. Change and Vulnerability (1) • Change from the Agent’s Perspective • Operational Changes Affect Agent’s Capabilities • Network Changes Affect Agent’s Status (position within a network) • Constitutional Changes Affect Agent’s Vision & Expectations

22. Change and Vulnerability (2) • Time Patterns of change • Trends • Shocks and Shifts • Evolutionary Change • Volatility or Chaotic Change • Vulnerability to Change Patterns • Agent’s Responses: • Adapt, Learn, Cope, Cooperate & Network, Exit. • Vulnerability and Empowerment

23. Synthesis: What Have We Got Here? • How Change Occurs? • Enabling Institutional Environments • Determinants of Policy Outcomes • Multi-Level Framework • Let Us Brainstorm…

24. How Change Occurs? • Empowerment Model • Gap between aspirations and achievements • Patterns of Change • Operational, Network & Constitutional • Time Patterns: Trend, Shocks, Evolutions, Chaos • Patterns of Change Provoke Corresponding Responses from Agents

25. Enabling Institutional Environments • Good Governance, a means to Empowerment • Democratic Local Governance & Multiple Stakeholders • Principle of Subsidiarity • Vision and Commitment Matter

26. Determinants of Policy Outcomes • Using the Empowerment Model to Analyze the Policy Environment • Policies as Long-Term Commitments • Political Capital • Development Narratives • Choice of Policy Options

27. MULTI-LEVEL FRAMEWORK

28. Conceptual Framework “Human Civilization Requires Political Leadership for its Organization” Ibn Khaldoun “The Muqaddimah”, 13 th Century

29. Let Us Brainstorm • Revisiting Research Questions in the Light of Proposed Framework • What are our Priorities? Vast Research Domain Calls for Focus • What’s Next?

30. THANK YOU