Capacity Building and Empowerment

ADB Conference on Water & Poverty, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 22 – 26th September 2002

Moderator: Jennifer Francis, GWA. Reported by: Jasveen Jairath

• The discussion was initiated by recognition of the changed context in which there was a change of role of the state from that of a provider to that of a facilitator.
• this raised the issue of greater reliance of communities on their own abilities to develop according to their own priorities
• this led to the need for an articulation of their voice and facility to make their choices
• this raised the issue of defining the rights and duties of the community and how to enable their realization
• in operational terms it meant developing the control over resources such as water and negotiating capacities of the weakest women and men
• examples were cited of places like Gujrat where water guzzling cash crops encouraged by subsidized electricity dislodged the water security and increased poverty in the region of the resource poor
• the policy response was to lay pipe lines and to supply water through tankers
• this increased corruption and entailed poor delivery service – and that too to the well off
• it was the initiative of a local NGO that led to the mobilization of the local community for harnessing rain water through collection and storage for later use
• here was an illustration of the process of women acquiring their VOICE and making their CHOICE
• such processes require to be institutionalized for empowering women through their control over water
• this requires awareness generation about their immanent power ,, social mobilization and information dissemination about best practice technologies
• Next question was raised about what do we understand by the word “EMPOWERMNT’
• After prolonged discussion it was agreed that empowerment refers to the ability of a community to assert its will and represent its interest in a situation of conflict
• Effective Participation in decision making was critical for empowerment – political empowerment was fundamental to any form of empowerment
• Voting – education , information etc. were also sources of empowerment provided they could be effectively implemented
• Their has to be a freedom to make choices that reflect the community’s pressing concerns in their order of priority
• CAPACITYBUILDING for empowerment was essentially the ability to negotiate for their demands
• There is a need to institutionalizes the ability to express and assert the community requirements
• Building local capacities may create conditions for expression of their interest but would not guarantee the realization unless backed by political ability to assert against opposition or contending interest
• This needs conscious effort to build up and does not happen automatically
• In this context – a note of warning was sounded about handing over of water systems to community its for self management in the name empowerment
• Very often there is a role for the state for large-scale water resource creating and management, allocation and regulation. If the state abdicates its role then the act of transferring management to the community in fact becomes more of increasing the burden of the community in the name of participation and absolving the state of its responsibilities. Such actions therefore should not be romanticized

What is Capacity Building?

• Mention was made of CB through skill, information, knowledge, financial credit, communication skills etc.
• But another track that was essential to operationalise the above was developing the NEGOTIATING skills
• What Capacities do we need to Build of the “top Hierarchy”??
• There was need to have the policy makers, donors, governments to listen to the grass root voice and develop the capacity to be more transparent and implement programs for WRM with good governance principles
• Gaps in capacity building – need to be identified , but imposition of experts and expectation of voluntarism should be avoided
• It is important to focus on Policy Implementation and not5 keep repeating policy formulation
• Need for capacity building for future generation of WRM professionals to give support to the community at grass roots and through government
• All stakeholders should be involved in policy formulation and implementation
• There is strong need to do ASSESSMENT studies before launching an action plan – based on that strategies need to evolve and then an action plan
• There should be a budget allocation for such activity
• Need for advocacy for water issues that emerge from community