Journal of the Inter-American Foundation
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Grassroots Development Journal of the Inter-American Foundation Challenging Assumptions, Changing Metaphors VOLUME 25 NUMBER 1 2 0 0 4 c4 Grassroots Development 2004 25/1 Contents Letters to the Readers FEATURES Thinking Outside Newton’s Box: Metaphors for Grassroots Development Patrick Breslin Corporate Social Responsibility Brazilian Style Striking a Balance Questions and Answers: Miguel Krigsner Paula Durbin Developmental Abilities Eduardo Rodríguez-Frías SOLUTIONS AND STRATEGIES AT THE IAF Remittance Forum: Technology Transfer through Development Notes Mexican Migration Grantees in the News Sandra Nichols Review Grassroots Development on the Border Construyendo Capacidades Colectivas Mark Caicedo William F. Waters Local Development: An Interview with David Valenzuela Book Excerpt: “Lessons for the Promotion Patrick Breslin and Paula Durbin of Organizational Capacity” The Road to Pucarita Thomas Carroll Percy Bazán Salas Resources c4 Grassroots Development 2004 25/1 The Inter-American Foundation (IAF), an independent agency of the United States government, was created in 1969 as an experimental foreign assistance program. The IAF works to promote equitable, responsive and participatory self-help development by awarding grants directly to organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean. It also enters into partnerships with public and private sector entities to mobilize local, national and international resources for The Inter-American Foundation grassroots development. The IAF’s operating budget consists of congressional Frank Yturria, Chair, Board of Directors appropriations and funds derived through the Social Progress Trust Fund. Patricia Hill Williams, Vice Chair, Board of Directors David Valenzuela, IAF President Grassroots Development is published in English and Spanish by the IAF’s Office of External Affairs. It appears on the IAF’s Web site at www.iaf.gov in English, Spanish and Portuguese versions accessible in graphic or text format. Original Grassroots Development material produced by the IAF and published in Grassroots Development is in the Journal of the Inter-American Foundation public domain and may be freely reproduced. Certain material in this jour- nal, however, has been provided by other sources and might be copyrighted. Publication Editor: Paula Durbin Reproduction of such material may require prior permission from the copyright Photo Editor: Mark Caicedo holder. The editor requests source acknowledgement and a copy of any repro- duction. Grassroots Development is indexed in the Standard Periodical Directory, Foreign Language Editions: Leyda Appel the Public Affairs Service Bulletin, the Hispanic American Periodical Index (HAPI) Design and Printing: U.S. Government Printing Office and the Agricultural Online Access (WORLD) database. Back issues are available on microfilm from University Microfilms International, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. To receive the journal, e-mail [email protected] or write to Cover and opposite page photos: Patrick Breslin. the following address: Lais, on the cover, along with her mother, Rute Ribeiro Grassroots Development de Souza, and Maria Conceição N. Brito, center and Inter-American Foundation right on the opposite page, represented a recycling 901 North Stuart St. 10th Floor cooperative from Formosa, Goias, Brazil, at the Arlington, VA 22203 Second Festival of Trash and Citizenship hosted in Belo Horizonte by IAF grantee ASMARE. For the opening march, Lais and Brito wore dresses crocheted The purpose of this journal is to share grassroots development experiences with tabs from aluminum cans, two of many creations with a variety of readers. The editor encourages submissions on relevant fashioned from recyclables on display during the topics including, but not limited to, the following: Festival. The material in the background awaits transformation in ASMARE’s workshops. For more • how the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean organize and work to on the event, see pages 47-50. improve their lives; • issues and trends in the development community; • how institutions cooperate to further the development of the region. Please direct query letters to Paula Durbin at the above address or e-mail [email protected]. c2 Grassroots Development 20042002 23/1 25/1 Printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink. VOLUME 25 Grassroots Development NUMBER 1 Journal of the Inter-American Foundation 2 0 0 4 Contents Letter to the Readers....................................................................... ii Features Thinking Outside Newton’s Box: Metaphors for Grassroots Development Patrick Breslin.............................................................................. 1 Corporate Social Responsibility Brazilian Style Striking a Balance Paula Durbin............................................................................. 10 Recyclables in fashion. Questions and Answers: Miguel Krigsner Paula Durbin............................................................................. 16 Developmental Abilities Eduardo Rodríguez-Frías ................................................................. 19 Solutions and Strategies Remittance Forum Technology Transfer through Mexican Migration Sandra Nichols ................................................................................................ 27 Grassroots Development on the Border Mark Caicedo .................................................................................................. 35 Local Development: An Interview with David Valenzuela Patrick Breslin and Paula Durbin ..................................................................... 39 The Road to Pucarita Percy Bazán Salas ............................................................................................ 43 At the IAF Development Notes........................................................................................... 45 Grantees in the News......................................................................................... 47 Review Construyendo Capacidades Colectivas William F. Waters............................................................................................ 52 Book Excerpt: “Lessons for the Promotion of Organizational Capacity” Thomas Carroll ............................................................................................... 54 Resources............................................................................................................ 60 c2 Grassroots Development 2004 25/1 Grassroots Development 2004 25/1 i A Letter to the Readers or many years Patrick Breslin, IAF’s vice president professionals more than their discovery of the sheer for external affairs, and David Bray, formerly volume of hard cash sent home by migrant workers. F an IAF representative, have been engaged in a Presumptions persist about the possibilities for putting conversation, at times intense, on how scientific para- this resource to “productive” use, despite cautions that digms affect the way we order the world around us. This we know very little about all the elements that make animated discussion of some heady concepts — classical up the remittance complex. Nichols’ article is our first linear thinking, complexity and chaos — began at the look at nonmonetary remittances, here advances in IAF and continued via e-mail when Bray left to assume agricultural technology that flow across the U.S.-Mexico the chairmanship of the department of environmental border without any official assistance. The expectations studies at Florida International University. Eventually, that sustain the movement seem anchored in logic and the exchange led Breslin to organize the points he experience, but enter complexity and the inevitable, was making into “Thinking outside Newton’s Box: unanticipated effects of multiple variables, including the Metaphors for Grassroots Development,” our lead article weather, ensue. Nonetheless the phenomenon is thriv- and a perspective that challenges us to consider where ing. Is the appropriate metaphor the “self-organizing our assumptions come from and how valid they are. flock of birds” of Breslin’s article? Is the development Breslin insists that the Inter-American Foundation, community prepared to frame the issue in those terms as an institution intent on trying new things, neces- when considering whether it has a role to play in these sarily veers away from linear analysis and its decep- kinds of transfers? tive implications of predictability. As we put this issue In self-help development, complexity cannot be of Grassroots Development together, it struck us that a avoided. David Valenzuela, IAF’s president, confirms this thread picked up often in this journal has to do with very point in his interview (page 39) with a reference to defying the facile expectations that sometimes flow a grant he approved only reluctantly. The beneficiaries from linear thinking. To begin with, our cover prob- were farmers who wanted computers when the experts ably doesn’t conform to conventional notions about thought they should want tractors. Their community our projects and their beneficiaries. Neither does had no reliable source of electric power and no tele- “Developmental Abilities,” Eduardo Rodríguez-Frías’ phone service, but, to everyone’s surprise, the farmers debut feature (page 19) on grantee organizations run by had hit upon the right idea. Young lives changed dra- and for disabled individuals, a class certainly burdened matically, most obviously because of their parents’ fore- by commonly held assumptions.