Insights and Experiences in Institution Building and Decentralization

Facilitators: Mattia Prayer Galletti and Atsuko Toda (2 Nov 2010 – 11:00am)

There were 4 speakers who represented the various issues faced in decentralization in Vietnam, China, India and Pakistan, what makes it work, and how to plan for development in the future.

The main challenges highlighted during the discussion included the following:

• The gap between the Central Province and the district Village
• District Village have very little capacity and resources
• The villages have to start from the scratch with the designing
• The formal system mostly focus in the central
• Not enough resources and support received
• The formal system recognition of farmers and knowledge, value and their right is very much low
• Difficult to find people who can lead
• In the rural areas, there are more over the women, children, old people or youth who doesn't give much attention for farming
• Lack of capacity of record keeping, handle fund, manage organizations
• Lack of capacity in the members of the board of directors
• Some of the NGOs do not want the community organizations to work independently
• Forming Coorporatives are difficult due to the legal issues like registration
• Time is an issue as whether starting from scratch or strengthening the existing one
• Mismatch between the government policy and what really is happening in the field
• The requirement of the head of the departments and district level varies

The following suggestions were generated in response to some of the challenges outlined above:

• Limit the input on infrastructure and focus more on capacity building
• Focus on developing horizontal interactions than vertical
• Services have improved with regard to the peoples need therefore participate the people in prioritizing them
• Empower the communities
• IFAD should establish community supervision board
• Build farmer cooperatives
• Provide training and hire consultants to provide assistance
• Avoid getting frustrated even when things don't appear to be working so well. There will be some people who are benefiting and the result can be seen in time
• The more the transparency, the more we involve the beneficiary, the less corruption
• Involve the beneficiaries in decision making. Unless people are given authority, they cannot learn.