On Tuesday this week I wrote about the need for resilience in the face of trade tensions raised by the need to account for the carbon impacts of economic activity. On Wednesday I expanded on the related issue of adaptation that needs to take place as the effects of climate change start to hit home. A common thread here is empowerment. Whether it's negotiating a deal at the UN table, or ensuring that agricultural development is sustainable, individuals need to be willing and able to make decisions that are right for themselves and their community within the constraints imposed by limited physical resources and political realities. International agreements and national policies will come to nought if they fly in the face of what local communities are willing to accept.
So how to align the three perspectives of local needs, national interpretation of community aspirations, and global thinking on sustainability? Two examples are instructive.
Example one: Transport planning in many countries is now focused on redressing the imbalances that have developed over decades, and on mitigating climate change. Perhaps in most places, but certainly in developing countries, the issues of equitable access to transport and reduction of carbon emissions suggest the need for a shift away from private transport towards greater use of public and non-motorised transport. The question is how to achieve this when the overwhelming aspiration of most people seems to be to own a car as soon as it is financially feasible. People don't want to walk or ride the bus, we are told. But WHY? People used to walk places. The real challenge is in providing systems that are comfortable, pleasant, convenient, affordable and reliable; and that treat people with dignity. So instead of trying to force people to change, we should be providing facilities and services that will induce them to do so willingly. This requires an understanding of their underlying motivations, and policy that supports aspirations.
Example two: Crime is a significant and growing concern in many parts of the world, and it is one symptom of disempowerment. I recently read in Business Report about the NOW Project, developed by Cape Town based Consumer Insight Agency, which establishes a fascinating link between branding and empowerment. The idea is that brands could be using socially empowering strategies, to stand for substance over bling so that people don't rely so much on using brands as a way to hide their socio-economic positions. There seems to be a perception, in South Africa at least, that brand image can help you get ahead, get respect - and this encourages crime, since the desirable brands aren't affordable. I can buy branded products from street sellers at a fraction of the normal cost, and these are almost certainly either stolen or counterfeit goods. To break this behaviour, the argument goes, branding should work to reduce the stigma of class or social positions, and make working to get ahead a trait to be admired.
Both of these examples are about encouraging change in a way that doesn't contradict personal needs and aspirations, while recognising that behaviour we see today is not necessarily a reflection of true aspirations. Crime should not be seen as socially acceptable, and similarly a heavy carbon footprint should be recognised as disrespectful of nature and humanity. Often, behaviour is modified by deliberately cultivated images and imposed constraints: how we design city systems, how we channel resources, and how information is made available. Government priorities are coloured by political objectives that might have little to do with social welfare. It has been said that someone always benefits from keeping some communities in a state of poverty.
Change is needed, but it should be based on planning from the bottom up so that it is sensitive to local context within national and international frameworks, and acknowledgeslocal capabilities. To be a truly empowering force, this process not only should reflect where local communities are right now, but should build on local skills and resources. The Stockholm Environmental Institute, one of the partners in the weADAPT initiative, has published a number of papers on their experience in the role that research plays in community empowerment. Their perspective is that stakeholder engagement can help develop social capital, and where the process is one of participation and two-way learning (as opposed to traditional consultation processes), community capacity can be built by demonstrating that the solutions to problems do not always require external experts.
Conversely, traditional research methods are often focused on the goal of developing technological interventions to improve the situation of the target community but often only affecting one aspect of community life. The biases of the researchers - and the policy makers who use the outputs of the research - are rarely questioned. Research becomes a process of collecting data that may, or may not, be useful for developing policy and plans that will improve resilience in the face of change.
Participatory research, if its goal is to facilitate learning rather than simply to obtain buy-in to a proposed strategy, can overcome the false sense of trust that planners and designers often place in theories of rational and predictable behaviour. It can also begin the process of ensuring that communities are receptive to change and capable of adapting to it.
Genuine participation trumps hard data because it can serve multiple purposes, and ultimately its benefit is in building relationships (institutional and personal) that allow and support adaptation processes. Climate change is a complex process that we will never fully understand or accurately predict. The same is true of social and economic processes. First prize, then, is not the ability to predict or direct change, but to allow the emergence of new solutions in the midst of uncertainty.
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