Understanding and Supporting the Role of Local Organisations in Sustainable Development

This is the overview paper, which draws on the six case studies described below. It notes that virtually all poverty reduction is local in that it has to produce tangible improvements on the ground and involve local organizations. This is easy to forget given how discussion and debate on development and environmental management are dominated by external researchers, bilateral aid agencies, development banks, national governments and international NGOs. The paper also notes how many barriers to poverty reduction and environmental management are local – local power structures, patterns of land ownership, and anti-poor politicians, bureaucracies and regulations. Much of what the poor require – schools, healthcare, water and sanitation, land, social safety nets, getting onto voter registers – must be obtained from local organizations within this local context.

This paper also stresses how local organizations have a major role in addressing these realities, helping poor groups access entitlements and engaging with government. These may be local NGOs, grassroots organizations of the poor, or even local governments or local branches of higher levels of government. But they function at a local level, have intimate knowledge of the local context and should be accountable to local people. Many operate on very small budgets, outside the main funding flows and frameworks. Yet they are not isolated from larger governance issues; indeed, much pro-poor political change has been catalyzed by local innovations and by political pressure from grassroots organizations and their associations.