Submitted to International Development Research Center Grant Number: 102430 Amount of Grant: $ 349,590CAD Period covered by this report: March 16 2005 – May 15, 2009 Promotion of Sustainable Rural Development by Scaling up CBNRM Approach in Guizhou Province Final Technical Report Integrated Rural Development Center Guizhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences May 13, 2009 Summary This project aims to scale up and institutionalize the Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) approach into government spheres and among local communities for sound natural resource management and sustainable rural development in Guizhou Province. Based on the experience of Phase I of CBNRM up scaling, this phase continues taking vertical and horizontal scaling up strategy to integrate CBNRM principals into government policies and interventions in natural resource management and poverty alleviation, and to institutionalize CBNRM at community level and in Kaizuo Township of Changshun County, Guizhou Province. In other words, “Horizontally,” the project focuses on community-to-community interactions to build a strong social base (e.g., farmer-to-farmer extension). “Vertically,” it aims to promote government-community cooperation and multi-stakeholder partnership development to facilitate practice and promotion of community-based natural resource management. The horizontal scaling up through the implementation of small grant projects provided an opportunity for the township government to take the leading role in expanding CBNRM practice to more communities in Kaizuo, by which the local government officials had a better understanding of CBNRM approach and their capacities were greatly enhanced. Most of the township officials had been involved in the small grant implementation. Their performance in CBNRM practice was evaluated and rewarded by the township government. Moreover, beside the small grants, the other government projects such as poverty alleviation, construction and management irrigation system or tap drinking water system, forest conservation etc, which implemented in Kaizuo, follow CBNRM principles. For the project team, gradual withdraw from main project implementer to facilitator through role orientation or adjustment give more space and opportunity for the local government to practice CBNRM approach. Several years’ experience has showed that it is very successful strategic choice for the team and also for the CBNRM scaling up. Developing and enhancing local organization (CBO) and community-based institution (CBI) was an important strategy to institutionalize CBNRM at local level. Local communities were empowered to manage natural resources on which their livelihoods heavily depend through collective actions. Years experience shows that CBO and CBI are critical precondition for effective collective action. But these local organizations and institutions are challenged by both internal and external factors. Therefore, partnership building among farmers within community and between local communities and other stakeholders from outside (i.e. business people and government agencies) for supporting local institutions has been becoming a new focus of the scaling up process. Platforms for interaction among stakeholders at different levels have been developed that has promoted communication and understanding in natural resource use and management. Social analysis and gender analysis (SA/GA) as a new perspective was introduced into CBNRM action research. SA/GA provided an analytical framework to analyze social and gender issues in natural resource management. It also helped the team to critically reflect why same institutional innovation had various performances and how different factors affected effectiveness of the local institutions. The vertical scaling up was focused on integrating CBNRM elements into government poverty reduction police. We closely cooperated with the Poverty Alleviation Office of 2 Changshun County (CPRO) to practice CBNRM all over the county through Participatory poverty alleviation program (called zhengcuntuijin)1. Efforts have also made to integrate CBNRM elements into New Countryside Construction of Socialism2 in the other counties. Other vertical scaling up activities undertaken include providing policy recommendations and convictive evidence to adopt CBNRM approach for the government through a joint action research and case studies of successful CBNRM practices, providing mass media successful stories for reporting, inviting high-rank government officials to visit project sites, and opening participatory rural development course in Economics and Finance College of Guizhou Province, to scaling up CBNRM in the education system. Great efforts have made to build capacity of local communities and township and county governments for CBNRM practice and scaling up. Trainings, cross-farm visits, workshops, joint action research etc have been carried out. The farmers and government officials that involved in the project have come to understand CBNRM and begun to adopt CBNRM principles in natural resource management, rural poverty alleviation, new countryside construction and also their daily work. I Objective The overall goal of the project was to scale up and institutionalize the Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) approach into government spheres and among local communities for sound natural resource management and sustainable rural development in Guizhou Province. The specific objectives were: (1) to expand effective and gender-sensitive CBNRM practice in Guizhou and beyond; (2) to strengthen local inputs in the policy making process; (3) to enhance stakeholders’ capacities to scale up CBNRM; (4) to bridge gaps and strengthen partnerships in natural resource management among key stakeholders, namely, government, local community and research institute; (5) to promote the use and adaptation of CBNRM training materials by universities, NGOs, and other research organizations across China. II Methodology Basically the strategy for scaling up combined “vertical and horizontal” approaches, which were adopted in Phase I. The vertical scaling up referred to integrating CBNRM into government system/program/activities and promoting effective CBNRM practice through advocacy, joint action research with provincial and county line ministries, networking and providing trainings and consultancy. While, the horizontal scaling up referred to involving more people in larger area to practice CBNRM and benefit from it through farmer-to-farmer extension and promotion of CBNRM institutionalization within township government and 1Zhengcuntuijin is a new poverty reduction strategy, that is to, address all issues and solve the problems (transportation, communication, income generation, irrigation etc) of a poor village that faces through integration of all kind of resources such as financial, personnel/human resources and policy incentives available to help the village get rid of poverty. 2 “New Countryside Construction of Socialism” is a political champion to improve sustainable livelihood and to reconstruct harmonious rural communities. It emphases five aspects: quick and great productivity development, better livelihood, better civilization, neat and beautiful countryside, and democratic management. 3 project involved line agencies. These two-direction scaling up processes interrelated and supported each other. Figure 1 presents the original strategy framework. VERTICAL APPROACH Scaling up within government system L To cooperate with the poverty alleviation office of Changshun County to integrate CBNRM elements into government policy/ programs/projects To joint advocate CBNRM with local governments to higher level governments for policy change and mechanism development for effective policy implementation To provide trainings and consultations to government at all levels Methods: Joint action research with government agencies Networking Advocacy Training and consultancy HORIZONTAL APPROACH Scaling out through grassroots and area expansion To enhance community building and local institution development for CBNRM promotion in Kaizuo To facilitate farmer and farmer-led technology extension and CBNRM promotion To facilitate local government to practice CBNRM approach through small grant projects Area expansion by local governments and county government to more communities Methods: Farmer and farmer-led extension Village networking Institutionalization within local government and involved line agencies Figure 1: Strategy for CBNRM scaling-up But this strategy framework put more emphasis on the role of the local government and local communities in the practice of CBNRM scaling up, without clearly defined role of the project team as facilitator. This in practice resulted in the conflict of the roles among the stakeholders. In the light of this situation, we redefined the strategy of CBNRM scaling up (See Figure 2). New strategy continued taking vertical and horizontal scaling up strategy. The major difference was that the new strategy further defined the relationship among the three main stakeholders, namely, the local government, the local community and the project team, especially the role of the team as facilitator in CBNRM scaling up process. PM&E and social analysis and gender analysis (SA/GA) as a new perspective was integrated into the CBNRM scaling up to strengthen the capacity building and partnership building of three main stakeholders. Also SA/GA was introduced to identify social and gender issues and to