SCALING UP IN AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, AND NUTRITION


Empowering Local Communities in the Highlands of Peru BARBARA MASSLER


Focus 19 • brIeF 4 • June 2012


Highlands region, where poverty levels are severe. Using local community development models, they have built systematically on lessons learned and expanded both the area covered and the scope of interventions. The programs were supported initially and principally by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), although over time other development partners joined the efforts. IFAD’s FEAS, MARENASS, CORREDOR, and SIERRA SUR project


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loans to Peru totaling US$124 million have targeted 120,000 households in over 1,600 poor communities in the Southern Highlands. According to IFAD project evaluation reports, around 30 percent of the target households have shifted out of extreme poverty, and 35 percent moved out of poverty altogether. These sequenced projects represent a pathway for a complex but overall successful scaling-up process.


Scaled-up innovations


Through these projects the government of Peru and IFAD introduced a series of interrelated innovations that included (i) transfers of public funds directly to community organizations, allowing them to hire technical assistance locally; (ii) competitions following the Pacha Mama Raymi (Festival of Mother Earth) methodology to disseminate and replicate technological innovations; (iii) Local Resource Allocation Committees (LRACs), the setting for a democratic process that forms the backbone of local empowerment and citizenship building; (iv) Local Talents, an effort to use local service providers hired directly by beneficiaries; and (v) women’s savings accounts as rural finance instruments for inclusion of women in development. At the core of this scaling-up process were approaches, actions,


and instruments designed to empower local, poor communities. Empowerment was defined as the expansion of assets and capabilities of poor people to participate in, negotiate with, influence, control, and hold accountable institutions that affect their lives. Leadership of these change processes was vested in the local population and to a lesser degree in an informal country learning group. Several assessments have underlined the centrality of


citizenship building and empowerment in areas of the country where years of violence and social conflict have affected the rural poor.


Scaling up pathways: A multidimensional approach


IFAD’s Peru country program involved a multidimensional approach to scaling up over time, within and across sectors, within and beyond geographical areas, across stakeholders, and with multiple institutions. The starting point was the agriculture sector. MARENASS


(Management of Natural Resources in the Southern Highlands) addressed communal rangeland and smallholder irrigation. Follow- up projects covered a broader range of rural development issues


ver the past thirty years, successive Peruvian governments have pursued development programs in the country’s


and culminated in fostering rural-urban linkages formalized through strengthening rural entrepreneurship. The savings account approach piloted in the 1998 CORREDOR project (Development of the Puno-Cusco Corridor) is scaled up in the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme (JUNTOS). SIERRA NORTE (Project for Strengthening Assets, Markets and Rural Development Policies in the Northern Highlands), currently under implementation, seeks to combine a rural development approach with an inclusive territorial development approach. Geographically, IFAD focused first on selected poor rural areas


of the Southern Highlands, and over time expanded coverage within this region. Currently, projects also cover the Northern Highlands. Phasing of these interventions was not deliberate but resulted from an organic process determined by opportunities as they arose. The main targeted actors and stakeholders are the campesinos


(farmers) as rural “citizens.” Their local government and communal institutions were strengthened by an open investment menu leveraging people’s own resources. AGRORURAL, set up in 2009 as the rural development agency


within the Ministry of Agriculture, mainstreamed the innovations and knowledge gained from IFAD projects into its routine operations throughout the country. Furthermore, KfW and the World Bank replicated and scaled up successful innovations: competitions in the Agro-Environmental Program and the Local Resource Allocation Committees in ALIADOS, respectively.


Scaling-up pathways: The drivers


Among the external drivers that helped shape the Peruvian approach to rural development were (i) the economic crisis and structural reforms in the 1990s that had undermined the capacity of the state to pursue top-down, centrally led rural development programs and (ii) the impact of the battle against the Shining Path movement and its aftermath. Both factors encouraged a community-based strategy with a unique approach of bottom- up championship and leadership, rooted in a trust of campesino community-led development. An internal programmatic driver was the development of a


permanent learning and networking group constituted by national project management staff, the IFAD country program manager, and academics backed by experienced consultants. The group used regional grants and research programs in their critical reflections of pathways out of poverty and modifications of the developed innovations. A double-learning loop (group reflection, application) involving feedback from the farmer communities achieved consistency and coherence in approaches. Innovations were thus adjusted and enhanced during implementation. Another critical driver of the long-term process of scaling up


was a well-aligned and comprehensive system of incentives and accountabilities for and between multiple stakeholders (for example, ministries, municipalities, communities, and campesinos). These focused on the articulation and transmission of community demand as a key factor pushing the scaling-up process forward.


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