[Ailist] APA - Community Mobilization Training News from Northern Bhar al-Ghazal - Sudan

[Malcolm Odell]

Hi folks,

Greetings from Aweil, Northern Bhar al-Ghazal - Southern Sudan.

I woke up about 5:30 am the other morning in a UN Peace Keepers camp 
and suddenly things seemed remarkably clear.  What I've been seeing 
as I watch my Sudanese Winrock colleagues conducting Appreciative 
planning and Action (APA) community mobilization meetings in local 
villages is really quite a miracle... (What's more, almost everywhere 
we go we find people young and old wearing Obama T Shirts and 
chanting, "Yes We Can!.")

Something remarkable is happening here in Africa -- as it has been 
happening in Nepal and with women's empowerment there and across half 
a dozen African countries for many years now --  and it has 
everything to do with peace building and the world of sustainable 
development.

Witness:

Up until recently the 'sustainable development' agenda pursued by all 
the big donors, World Bank and top flight international NGOs has just 
been shifting from one form of dependency on external support to 
another -- from pure handouts, to learning how to write proposals to 
get another sort of give-away.  They all talk about 'sustainability,' 
'participation,' 'ownership,' 'community-driven agendas,' and 
'self-help resource mobilization, of course, community contributions 
in land, labor, and/or materials.  But when you get right down to it, 
past the rhetoric, it has mostly been just another way of 
perpetuating the 'dependency syndrome - a sophisticated way of 
turning a village from beggars to professional beggars.

By contrast:

Yesterday I watched enthusiastic local villagers chanting and singing 
their own song "Yes We Can!" in their local Nuur language. Last week 
I witnessed the same in a Dinka village.  Mary Mogga, James Wani, 
Hudson Lugano and their Community Mobilization teams here in Unity 
State were conducting a practice Appreciative Planning and Action 
meeting in Ngop village about half-an-hour outside of Bentui here. 

Within just a few hours the community - including about 100 villagers 
(majority women I might note) went through our streamlined APA 
process built almost exclusively on pictures they drew in groups that 
started with sharing their success stories about things they have 
done together in the village on their own that they are particularly 
proud of.  They went on to draw their vision for what they'd like to 
see their village to be for their children and grandchildren. 
Following this, they outlined their priority projects they would like 
to undertake themselves, choosing one for which they made a detailed 
action plan accompanied by personal commitments. 

Then I watched, admittedly with my jaw dropping, as each group took 
about 10 to 15 minutes to actually start to implement the first step 
of their plans. Women climbed up on the roof of the local mud-brick 
school they have started building and began thatching the roof; youth 
cleared an area for a vegetable garden; old men - including the Chief 
himself - began dragging thorn branches to fence the garden area.

This process, complete with some lengthy speeches by a local 
councilman, the chief and others, plus active presentations by each 
of the groups -- three women's groups, the youth, and the elders -- 
where they shared their APA inspired success maps, dream pictures, 
action plans, personal commitments, and what they had done to begin 
-- took less than 3 hours, beginning to end.  Several other groups 
have done the same in 2 hrs, or even less.

Example: one of the women's group showed their three action plans for 
vegetable, fish, and milk collection projects and how they would 
divide responsibilities, collect the revenues, and put them in a 
special box which would be watched over by 3 women; a fourth woman 
said she would take responsibility for settling any disputes that 
might arise to ensure everything went smoothly.  No where did the 
women ask for anything from Winrock or any other donor.  These, they 
proudly reminded everyone, were projects they would do entirely on 
their own.  One women's group even reported that their commitment was 
to support the government of the new Southern Sudan by paying taxes! 
(Have you ever heard that before, anywhere?)

In a short afternoon, accompanied by numerous breaks for drumming and 
dancing and refrains of "Yes We Can!," the people of Ngop Village, on 
their own, with only modest APA process facilitation from Hudson's 
team, went through the entire assessment, design, delivery, 
organization, and initial implementation of the process that 
community development teams, following established donor guidelines, 
normally complete over a period of at least several weeks, if not 
months.  And the people of Ngop ended up with a bundle of projects 
they are doing entirely on their own.  They went far beyond 
'participation' yesterday afternoon.  They really own these projects. 
They are in charge.  They are implementing the activities, making the 
decisions, allocating the resources.  They will proceed, with or 
without us.  Truly a "Positive Revolution in Change."

(By contrast, the classic CD process still used by too many donors, 
governments, and NGOs ends up with relatively artificially created 
Community Development Committees -- with their proper elections, 
training and technical support around preparing and submitting 
project proposals -- still as deeply imbedded in the 'Dependency 
Syndrome' as the ever were when the World Food Program was handing 
out grain and cooking oil.)

I'm seeing indeed amounts to a positive revolution in change taking 
place on both small and large scale. Village by village, and now in 
country after country.  200,000 women in something like 10,000 
communities in 8 countries of Africa and Asia.  With Appreciative 
Inquiry/ APA as our basic tool, we have been doing this in Sierra 
Leone following their tragic war over diamonds, in Tanzania in 
support of a new hyropower project where the process is used for 
resettlement action planning, in Sri Lanka with Habitat for Humanity 
housing initiatives, and -- of course -- all across Nepal where this 
same APA process has mobilized communities for conservation and 
development, community action, women's empowerment, and peace 
building.


Cheers,

Malcolm
-- 
Malcolm J. Odell, Jr., MS, PhD
Sudan BRIDGE Consultant
Appreciative Planning & Action
Winrock International
Juba, Southern Sudan
Gemtel: +256-(0)477-259-465
Zain: +249-(0)197-290-937
-----------------------------
2712 Poplar St. NW
Washington DC 20007 USA
603-770-6006
<macodell at verizon.net>
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