Date: 2025-05-02 Page is: DBtxt003.php L0913-TVM-MMW-000034
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TrueValueMetrics ... Peter Burgess Manuscript
Making Management Work for Relief and Development |
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Chapter 34
Community |
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Community is the Center of Everything
Where do people live? It is said that “All politics is local”, and I would extend that to say that “All life is local”. People live in communities. If the community is working, being successful and progressing, then people are going to be progressing as well. The community appears to be the best place to put the main focus for development. The idea of community being the center of anything has all but disappeared in the analysis of the modern economy. Everything but community seems to be of importance ... national politics ... national economics ... national security ... the global organization ... all sorts of macro-information ... but nothing much about the community. Community is for ever People live somewhere. That somewhere is the community. The place where one lives, where one has been born, where the ancestors are buried has a unique character in human history. While it is not anymore in the forefront of thinking in the “north” it is still very important in the “south”. One of the questions asked in accounting exams is to identify the reasons for adopting the corporate form of organization. One of the reasons is that the corporation has perpetual existence. But it is not as permanent as a geographic community. Maps that are hundreds of years old, in fact thousands of years old make reference to the same communities that exist today. And historians ask what it is that has changed over the years. My home town in the UK is a good example. Okehampton is a small town in Devon, England. My family moved to Okehampton when I was five, at the end of the Second World War. At that time it had a population of about 4,000 people, slightly up from a pre-war AA book listing that reported around (as I recall) 3,800 people. It was a small farming town. Nothing really special. In fact it was rather less important in 1945 than it has been almost 900 years before. William the Conqueror came to England in the UK, and almost immediately documented what was in England in the Doomsday Book. Information about Okehampton is in the Doomsday Book, and to consolidate the western frontier a Norman castle was built to fortify the village. I learn from this that a geographic community has a near perpetual existence that is very valuable when developing management information. People, organizations, projects, and governments come and go, but the place is for ever. Do powerful people want community focus? Though local people might be delighted to be part of a world that embraces community knowledge ... there are elements of leadership that do not want information to be a freely accessible good but something that is tightly controlled. Many powerful people in the “south” and the “north” do not want community focus ... or at any rate universal application of community focus. Political people the world over favor their own communities rather than ALL communities, and I am not sure that there is an easy solution to this problem. Community focus is a big shift in the balance of power in society, good for a majority of the people, but probably not appreciated as being good for the incumbent elites. Development Strategy Community centric programming Community should be made the focal point of development. Most organizations in the community can benefit from assistance but it should be in a form that translates into tangible help for people and value adding for the community. Community focus is practical. Community focused development is probably the best modality to facilitate development. It is more practical than a single person. A community has a scale that is perhaps optimum for progress. Resources that are available can be used in the best possible way. Local people often know what they need, but don’t have all the resources to do what needs to be done. It is up to the community to lead development and use outside support to facilitate its priority works. But it should be for all communities and not just for a select few. The idea of outsiders selecting communities to support seems to me to be totally inappropriate. I am reminded of a discussion in Ethiopia some years ago with (I think) the UNDP Deputy Resident Representative who was explaining that because of a shortage of development resources that the UNDP was recommending that there be focal points of development, that is the scarce development resources would be concentrated in just a few locations in the country, leaving the rest of the country unserved by the international relief and development community. I was horrified by the idea ... the development experts essentially choosing to play God in terms of who deserved assistance. In a place of chronic resource scarcity, this was a potential death sentence for people in the unserved areas ... but a convenient rationalization. Getting to know about a community It is vital to get to know a lot more about communities. There is nothing particularly difficult about getting to know about a community. Basic information about any community in the world should be reasonably easy to find. But the fact that information about communities is very difficult to find suggests that there are some important constraints. There are several levels of information: (1) data; (2) information; (3) Intel.; (4) knowledge; (5) wisdom. They are all part of a family, and the best results are achieved when all are in play together. Village People Know About Their Communities I learned a long time ago that village people, and especially some of the old people in the village had amazing knowledge about the community, its history, its people, its problems and its opportunities. I made visits to villages over several years and in many countries, and often with a female colleague from Ethiopia. Together, we learned a lot more than I would have on my own, especially about women and the community from their perspective. One thing that became clear was the need to design development initiatives so that they were what the village needed, and not merely to do things that would satisfy our own, the donors', prejudices. Almost everywhere we went there were some modest and very tangible things identified that would have improved the village situation significantly After one visit to a village ... it was in Mali in the late 1980s ... I was able to learn an enormous amount about the history of rainfall in the area, going back to the 1930s. I started saying to myself after this experience that “the fact that I do not know something does not mean that it is not known”. I learned from this that one of the big opportunities to improve the process of relief and development is to incorporate community information into the planning process, and use community priorities to drive the decisions. Information In order to be supportive of community activities, information about local community and country organizations needs to be very good. But information not only needs to be good, it also needs to be accessible, and it needs to be current and reliable. Modern technology would allow community information to be updated in real time. What is happening today in the community, and how can the community do better? When we go about asking this question and insisting on answers that make sense, we will start to see some sustainable progress. U[p to now remote rural communities that are also poor do not have access to much information, and it is a big challenge to bring them into a process that delivers desirable socio-economic development. Much is possible, but it requires a new framework for the management of management. Such a framework is technically feasible, and some organization should commit to making this possible, sooner rather than later. But such a framework also needs people who understand the potential and are also committed to the concept. Good place for performance metrics The community is a good place to see socio-economic progress ... or regression. It is very obvious what is happening, and how it is happening. Sometimes it is less obvious why it is happening. The community is where the measurement of relief and development progress should be taking place, and where incremental resources should being used. I have always enjoyed visiting new places. Within a very short time it is possible to get an impression of what sort of a place it is. This is a function of geography, of people, of history, of culture ... it is a big mix, and almost every place has a different feel to it. This seems to suggest that “progress” is going to be optimized by different approaches and priorities in different places. It suggests that a universal standard “silver bullet” approach is never going to work, and it also suggests that this is a good place to do performance and progress measurements. We also know that the infrastructure to facilitate the free and easy flow of information is a problem in many poor parts of the world, and especially in the global “south”. And we also know that there is some corporate operating information in remote communities in the “south” that is better not easily accessible to the general public and those who want to monitor and assist in community progress. So while community information should be easy ... it is not as easy as all that. The relief and development sector data collectors have done a lot of data collection, but almost none of it is about community nor organized in a useful way for relief and development performance analysis. Sometimes there is a focus on individuals and households, or some aspect of sector activity, such as health, but nothing that is about the performance of the community and the impact therefore on people and families. The leaders of the community probably know what to do to make the socioeconomic conditions better, and they also know the constraints they have to face. Collecting community information A lot of information about communities is known, but it is often in forms that are difficult or impossible to access using any form of modern technology. Old people know lots about their communities, but it is in their heads. It needs to be collected and put into some sort of record. And some of the information then needs to be put into some sort of electronic record. This is easier said than done, but I believe it is both worthwhile and quite possible. Probably the best way to do this is to encourage it to be done by community people for their own information and guidance ... and to get it put into a form that can also be used as a component of a universal system of public accounting. It is worth noting that some of the best information about communities is contained in travel books. The information included in travel books is information that the authors consider will be useful for people who are visiting, mainly for their own amusement and pleasure. Much of this information is also of considerable value for understanding the socioeconomic status of the community and what the community should be doing as a priority to improve its socio-economic situation. Travel books are often improved by feedback from travelers. Community economics information can be improved by anyone with better or more information. Of course, there is a lot of information about communities in various military information systems. This information is not usually easily accessible by the public at large. And there is probably a lot of interesting information compiled in various political party data systems. This information also is not usually easily accessible to the public at large. It is possible to learn about a community, but sadly, in our modern world, more is probably known about communities around the world so that they can be bombed than is known so that they can be helped. This should be changed. The technology to do it is quite easy, but it is not yet organized to be used in this manner. Metrics of community progress But to the extent that powerful people may not want management information that shows performance ... or lack of it ... relief and development performance at the community level has never been on the agenda. The metrics of community progress can be quite simple ... or very detailed and complicated. If the resources and situation in a community are documented at a point in time, and then the same documentation is done a some time later, for example the beginning and the end of a year, then the difference shows what has happened over this time. There is “progress” if a year later the same set of information shows there has been an “improvement”. There is regression if the information shows that there has been a “deterioration”. In most communities to stay the same requires a year of hard work from everyone. If the rains are good, and the harvest is plentiful, then the work for the year may show a situation that is significantly improved over the prior year situation. On the other hand if there is drought, then the crops fail and the situation will deteriorate over the prior year situation. Progress can be measured looking at the change in the status of the community over time, and without having to know very much about the activities of the community in the time. But if there is also some measurement of the activities, it then becomes possible to see why the community has performed in the way it has. When this is understood it is possible to design development interventions that are the least cost way of improving the communities performance. The community has many benefits that make it an ideal entity for planning and tracking development progress. Every community has a unique combination of resources and potentials and constraints. Each community has reached a unique place in the process of development and has a certain unique standard of living and social structure. A community can benefit the most when the planning and development actions are optimized for the specific community and its unique conditions. Establishment of trust Most poor, small or remote communities do not have an incorporated structure and any global visibility that is “trustable” by the “north” ... and this has to be addressed. Without an acceptable level of “trust” it is impossible to get external funding assistance to a community in an efficient way. The issue of trust can be addressed with a combination of information and organization as discussed elsewhere. Financing Types of financing There are smaller informal organizations at the community level that can be used to fund small and very small enterprise activities. Microfinance and self help groups are useful in the community setting, but they are not sufficient on their own for a community to make meaningful progress. There also needs to be financing accessible in the community that will help small and medium sized enterprise of all types to grow and be able to employ more people and pay more wages. I refer to this as mini-finance. There also needs to be financing accessible to the community that will help the community have local contractors supply or build things the community needs. I refer to this as muni-finance. Municipal finance is a very big component of the capital markets in the “north” ... a micro-community version of this is needed for the “south”. Local financing Most poor communities finance themselves. It is the only way. There is usually little money in the community, and there is no formal banking and financial service access. People in communities do the best they can. A lot of communities have self help groups (SHGs) and various traditional ways of mobilizing money to do things together that an individual cannot do on their own. These have been of critical importance over the years, and should probably be a part of future success. Communities impose taxes and levies to raise money for things that are wanted by the community. Some of these are substantial efforts, and can serve as important sources of funds for community needs. The story of Yei in South Sudan is an example of this. Yei is a small agricultural town in South Sudan to the west, about 150 miles from Juba. When I was in Yei in the 1980s there were about (as far as I can remember) 150,000 refugees in the area, all engaged in small scale agriculture, and assisted in the first instance by UNHCR. With decent agricultural land, good weather and hard work, Yei had become a thriving little town with a good surplus of food. I knew the “administrator” of the town of Yei ... a friend of a friend of a friend of my wife's from college days who was interested to find an accountant in the middle of a UN refugee review. He showed me with a lot of pride the “books” of the town that documented all the financial transactions of the town, and showed in summary form the monthly history of the town finances over the past several years. The refugees were generating a lot of agricultural produce and the petty taxes collected at the local level to pay for local needs had increased with the success of the refugees. Now the town had some money for some of its priority needs. The school got a locally paid teacher, and the electric generator got some fuel. All of this carefully recorded in the books, just as it should be. What is the lesson? Local success can be used to generate some local revenue that can be used for some local priorities. Sustainability that is real. Some of the big cities in the “south” have structures so that they are able to raise money through existing formal channels, though not as much as they need. In large part they are constrained from borrowing substantial amounts because they do not have the economic base and the tax revenues to support external formal finance. Small communities do not have formal mechanisms to obtain external finance. Some small communities, like Yei, have potential to be prosperous, while others do not have much potential. A big step forward will be made when fund flows are allocated to places where there is potential, and resources used for value creation rather than wasted on value destruction. Community ... and the municipality The community, and the leadership of the community or municipality are potential links in facilitating end to end relief and development support. They are not the only links with the community that should be active, but they are ones that can be very well suited to the handling of public works activities for the improvement of common property for the benefit of the community. Some top level financial thinking is needed. When New York City was in a financial crisis in the early 1970s, Wall Street was able to create a workable solution. The best of financial brains were pulled into making a viable solution for the crisis. But the communities referred to are not large, nor are they corporate entities. But they do have something in common with New York City back in the 1970s. New York was out of cash, its tax revenues had diminished dramatically as the “Go-Go” years of the late 1960s were replace by Wall Street cut backs, and New York was in dire financial straights. Felix Rohatyn, a senior partner at Lazard Freres, was seconded to the city to help put the fiscal house in order. In a matter of weeks and new structure was created that made it possible to New York City not to go bankrupt, not to disburse money it did not have to its bond holders, and to get a substantial infusion of new cash using a new type of financing through the Municipal Assistance Corporation (MAC). Bottom line, New York City probably did have a future, there was cash in the overall economic system, and what was needed was a way to bridge the gulf without anyone losing and everyone a potential winner. It is possible to do a similar thing for the world's small communities so that nobody loses and everyone is a potential winner. But in order to do this there has to be experienced financial expertise, and not mere political spin and talk. Organizations in the Community Governance A community, no matter how small, is likely to have an organization of some sort that is the governing body. It might be quite informal, or quite organized. In many communities, the organizing body in some ways represents the community, and holds office with the assent of the people. Some of the traditions of these governing units go back a very long time. The organizations have a value in helping with community development. In some places there may be local organizations that are affiliated in some ways with national organizations. Local political organizations can have this characteristic. In some places there may be a revenue department that arranges for taxes to be levied. Taxes can be raised in many different ways, often on trade and the movement of goods. The amounts can be sufficient to provide for many local needs. Religious organizations Religious organizations of some sort exist in communities. They are one of the stronger links between local organization and organization that spreads nationally and internationally. Local religious groups can be a valuable resources for local activities. Business organizations While most economic activity is likely to be in the informal sector, it is possible that there will be activity undertaken by a larger business organization. A larger business organization should be engaged with development activities in the community. The contribution of a larger business entity to the community should be the subject of value analysis so that there is some equity between the value created and the value shared with the community. Self Help Groups (SHGs) The community probably has organized itself to have Self Help Groups (SHGs) that do collectively what individuals cannot do on their own. This applies in the area of microfinance, and also other informal economic activities. Health Organizations Some health organizations are likely to be in the area ... perhaps a health clinic, but perhaps some distance from the community ... perhaps just a nurse who lives in the community. In areas affected by malaria, it would be advantageous to have some local organization coordinating information about malaria and mobilizing all available interventions. Schools Perhaps there are schools in the community ... perhaps there are schools in the area, but some distance from the community. Perhaps the only education is provided by parents. It is possible that a school can cooperate in order to have a telecenter in the community and access to communications through the Internet. Alternatively there can be a single telecenter or more operating independently. Water Committees Perhaps there is water committee to manage and maintain the water supply for the community ... maybe this is done by the community as a whole. Other Elements Networking between communities Communities that are totally on their own and not going to progress in modern terms. Whether or not a community wants to “progress” is a judgment call, and one has to hope that some communities will choose to remain closer to their traditions and old values, rather than “progressing” into a more modern world where crude materialism is the driving value. Communities should have the opportunity to choose, and to do what they want to and when they want to. This is facilitated by a community centric approach. The priorities are driven by dialog and decisions in the local community, subject perhaps to an override where fundamental human rights are at stake. Informal and formal linkages Networking has two dimensions: (1) a rather informal set of linkages that make it possible for people to share knowledge and learn from each other; and (2) a rather more formal way of sharing data so that a management information framework can be established. Neither form of networking on its own can optimize community development progress, but together they are very powerful. The value of informal linkages is that people relate to each other very well when there is common ground and the learning can be very fast and relevant. The value of the more formal data management is that it makes it possible for quite diverse communities to be brought into a global economy where it is the data that derives decisions, and there is nothing personal about anything. |
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