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Rural Development Policy in Paraguay A summary of 7 year experience in policy making process. Rural Development Plan for small Producers in the eastern region of Paraguay Andres Molina. Presentation Objectives.
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Rural Development Policy in Paraguay A summary of 7 year experience in policy making process. Rural Development Plan for small Producers in the eastern region of Paraguay Andres Molina
Presentation Objectives • To describe the path followed by policy makers in order to tackle a very relevant issue in Paraguay with a different mechanism. • To describe how a negotiation, consensus and priority mechanism can be used to add people’s utilities. • To Introduce you to the Non Recipe Type cooperation that was tried to implement by the project.
First Part • To describe the path followed by policy makers in order to tackle a very relevant issue in Paraguay with a different mechanism.
Paraguayan Rural Sector at a glance • +/- 56% of the population. • +/- 29% of the GDP (direct) and around of 50% (indirect) • In 2008 the drought causes 8% decrement of the GDP and the financial crisis 0%.
Rural problem definition • Uncoordinated actions in different sectors acting in rural areas are producing negative impacts in country’s development, generating insecurity, uncertainty and low efficiency in public expenditures. • The lack of trust is a constant in all the Paraguayan citizen’s activities and mainly for the ones who lives in a rural environment. • Citizen and constituency participation is perceived as a perverse way to validate what the strongest members of the society wants.
Project Triggers – backgroundWhy the GoP requested the project? • Crisis: Peasants without land, repeatedly invaded high productive lands. (81% of the land is in 10 % of the population hands). Government acted as a fireman, not as a state policy developer. • Adverse evidence raised by constituents: 800,000,000 USD available for rural development projects with low impact (coordination failure, market failure government failure). • Opportunity: Strong personal relation between JICA (Japanese culture is respected), Private Sector and Vice President of Paraguay. Trust in each other.
Initial Project Features:Main enforcing ideas – 2003 to 2008 Rigth-Center GoP • Develop the rural area of the eastern side of Paraguay in order to reach governance in this sector. • Make this statement clear for everyone: “Agriculture Development, land reform is just a portion of Rural Development. Land is only capital, land is not income” • Territorial and Inclusive approach as a mechanism to achieve consensus, participation and empowerment. • Systemic changes to achieve collaborative behavior between government institutions. • Prioritize objectives, describe how to reach them. • Coordinate efforts and budget to reach the objectives and Increase the efficiency of International Cooperation in the Rural Environment.
Process Summary JICA bidding process Official request 開発調査 Design Q&A from JICA 調査団 End of the project 2009 The project started 2006 2012 Sectorial Projects Started 2007 2008 Bimonthly, high level meetings Two international seminars 4 Donor Coordination meetings More than 1000 people involve in 5 time meetings along 2 prefectures (18 municipalities) 2005 Approval Elections The government changed First contact JICA-GoP
Constraints at March 2008 The government changed, … and ideology as well. Before: 2003 – 2008: Rigth-Center wing • Acceptable degree of coordination between the government and the private sector. • Against subsidies. • Pro market • Efficiency oriented • Top-Down / Bottom-Up type approach After 2008-2009: Left wing • Less chances to get a consensus: Message spread by the new president: “Rich people is bad people, soybean was blamed as a main responsible for pollution, migration and health respiratory diseases.” • Land reform is the only way to bring justice to the rural poor population • Social oriented (Subsidy ok, market forces not ok • Apparent Bottom-Up type approach Changes Did not change • In the past, too many projects fail to achieve their objectives. From the beneficiaries point of view No trust in projects anymore. • Low quality professionals in public institutions. • Low implementation capacity in all levels. • Low institutionalism (internal fights). • No coordination between international cooperation actors. • JICA’s slow motion behavior and excessively afraid of failure. • New president request: “The project must be participative, should be built from the bottom to the top, and must be focus on poor people”
Project Features • JAPAN AOD Project requested by the Government of Paraguay. Development Study type (Master Plan) • 2 years implementation (April 2009 – March 2011) got a 6 month extension financed by the GoJ (JICA). • 8 Pilot Projects at the community level • Japanese experts team: 12 • Paraguayan counterparts: 16 • 4 Prefectures were targeted by the Government of Paraguay and 2 were selected bilaterally to start PP in order to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis. (Evaluation will be done after the development study type ends) • JICA Budget 2,7 million USD • Paraguayan budget around 500,000 USD.
Stakeholders • GoJapan • JICA and Japanese Consultant Company hired by JICA. • GoParaguay: • Leaders: Presidency and Ministry of Finance. • Members: • Central Government: Planning Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Small Farmers Credit Institution, Land and Rural Welfare Institute Environment Secretariat, Ministry of Infrastructure. • Local Government: Prefectures and Municipalities • Private Sector: Paraguayan Agriculture Association, Paraguayan Industrial Union. Donors (USAID, IADB, WB, IICA, UNDP, FAO) participated as observers and consultative board.
MINDSET CHANGE = MECHANISM CHANGEIncentives were the keystone Integral (TA) look vs. Sectorial Look REQUEST: “The project must be participative, should be built from the bottom to the top, and must be focus on poor people” RESPONSE: We will develop a tool in order to let the Paraguayans to find their own path for their own territories. • Which means: • Planning work is based on the big picture, direct and indirect connections and impacts. • Implement the plan based on sectorial tactics.
What is a Territory • Area that faces the same problems to achieve development. • The borders can or can not matches the municipalities borders, which means two or more municipalities can work together to achieve their goals.
Why TA is necessary to achieve a Sustainable Rural Development in Paraguay? First Axiom: Achieving rural development requires overcoming the constraints (causes) that impedes it Second Axiom: Overcoming the constraint requires identifying the linkages and hierarchy among the causes. to properly prioritize actions Third Axiom: Properly identifying the linkages and hierarchy among the causes that impede rural development requires rising over the sectorial approach, which tend mislead the priorities by ignoring significant aspects of the reality. Sectoral Approach Since 1950 until now TA Approach Since 2010 Based on - People's will - Trust - Hope VS. • The sectors are the objective instead the person. • The power is in the hands of few and the goals have owners. • The powerful sectors or goal's owners have not the will to coordinate between them because this decrease the personal power to control and manipulate the situation. • The lack of connections keeps the status quo and the situation never evolves. • The objectives are focused to solve human problems with human (integrated) perspective. • The tools to coordinate the popular will keeps the neutrality and reasonability of the process • The balance of power between the sectors is obligatory and the sectors which are not participating are out of “the game” • To establish connections between dimensions, sectors and objectives promotes an impartial and balanced development because of a successful coordination mechanism. Furthermore, the inequity is basically produced because of the divergences between dynamics The dynamics depends on the trigger factor which normally in Paraguay is pulled by the government with the support of International Cooperation.
Second Part • To describe how a negotiation, consensus and priority mechanism can be used to add people’s utilities.
Causal StructureBargain, priorities and consensus. Rural Development Economic Dimension Social Dimension Institutional Dimension Environment Dimension Human Dimension Objectives Objectives Objectives Objectives Objectives Direct Causes Scarcity issues Indirect Causes Negotiation issues Strategic Lines Action Lines (Projects)
Now then, how to proceed on properly identifying the linkages…? The approach taken by JICA Paraguay, there are four steps • Start with people's perceptions (what do they think are the constraints that impede achieving their objectives) • Learn from previous experiences of development projects in the territory • Assess and advance the understanding from the two previous steps by using statistical information generated by base line surveys and other sources. • Establish a feedback mechanism that allows making decisions to achieve the rural developments goals based on the information generated by the monitoring and evaluation information system. 1 Meetings. 2 Evaluations. 3 Contrasting 1 and 2. Database creation. 4 Feedback mechanisms .
Third Part • To Introduce you to the Non Recipe Type cooperation that was tried to implement by the project.
Negotiation, Consensus and Priorities This is the methodology that we used to negotiate, get a consensus and set up the priorities between institutions, politicians, technicians, small farmers, merchants, priests …
This is an example of the obtained priorities for the territory of ABAI
Process Results • Mechanisms has been designed and are operative. • Beneficiaries increase their self-confidence and feel the started projects (financed or not by JICA) as their own. • New projects to be accepted by the community has to fit in the causal structure and priorities frame. • Central Government officials started to coordinate activities with the local authorities.
Project Results • Final Report was presented and delivered to the GoP. • Methodology and database (organized following the causal structure) • 2 New projects based on peoples utilities were approved and already started (5 years projects).
