Integrated Modalities for Atolls
and Outer Islands with Focus on
Participatory Grassroots for Marginal Communities

By: Nestor M. Pestelos

1.0 Background

More than 60% of the total Pacific population eke out an existence from fragile ecosystem in atolls, in widely dispersed and resource-poor outer islands and in the marginal rural fringes of the regions rapidly urbanizing main islands.

Atoll Countries. Around 200,000 people inhabit the region’s predominantly atoll countries (Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Tokelau and Tuvaalu) under conditions of marked distress brought about by the shift from subsistence to cash economy and requirements imposed by an expanding population on the severely limited resource base.

Remote Outer Islands. More than a million people live under the same harsh conditions in 584 remote islands, a significant number of which are atolls, located in the relatively larger Pacific islands countries (Fiji, Papua New Genuea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Western Samoa).

Marginal Rural Communities in Urban Centers. Close to 2 million Pacific islanders live in the outlying rural villages of each country’s mains island. These crowded settlements, gradually losing ties with traditional sources of values and moral accountability, have become pockets of discontent and social unrest. In these enclaves of the rural poor, composed mostly of the unemployed and culturally dislocated, idle outer island labor force, mostly young, have come to settle in vain attempts to find work. The main island which, in most Pacific countries, unfailingly showcases development and serves as growth model to the outer islands, has become virtually a strong magnet for migrates escaping the perceived stagnation and decay of traditional outer island societies.

Tremendous efforts have been exerted at national and regional levels over the pervious two decades or so to check the foregoing trends. National governments have given considerable attention and project sites. Indeed UNDP’s poverty-focused initiatives in the region have yielded the rich IADP experience in the replication of improved technologies and capability-building approaches suitable to atolls and other resource-poor small islands.

This experience has been the basis in formulating a systematic outer island capability enhancement process, a participatory methodology through which the rural poor are first enabled, through an intensive mobilization and learning process, to regard themselves ultimately as the principle agent of their own emancipation from the constraints of underdevelopment.

2.0 Problem to be Addressed

The proposed programme seeks to address the lack of target and participatory approaches in sectoral programmes and projects designed to reach marginal rural communities.

2.1 Major Programme Components

PROGRAMME DESIGN

Specifically, the programmes will provide technical assistance, training, financial support, and field workers as required at various level to enhance existing capabilities and ensure complementary planning, implementation and management of the integrated development approach.

Policy level. The programme will implement advocacy activities to generate relevant policy support for the participatory needs assessment and planning process. Assistance will be provided to enable policymakers to formulate the policy framework for the close integration of development planning and implementation as cornerstone of the evolving poverty-focused rural development strategy. Likewise, specific policies will be recommended to guide both the planning, implementation and post-implementation phases of the programme’s skills building process among the rural poor.

Planning and programming level. The programme will reorient the government’s planning, programming and funding bureaucracy to the unique requirements of a community-based planning-approach. Inter-agency teams of trainers and rural programme managers will be intensively trained in their role as both catalyst and initial implementer of participatory activities at the island level. Performance of such role will provide them greater intimacy with the inherent logic of atoll and small island life and, thus, lead hopefully to more pertinent plans and administrative procedures. The programme, in addition, will encourage national agencies to create formal or ad hoc bodies, as appropriate, with mandate to improve the planning, implementation and coordination of programmes and projects designed for outer island development.

Project implementation level. The programme will provide intensive inputs with specific focus on enhancing the resources on bringing about development in the outer islands. Agencies have been created to administer government services more effectively towards this end. They are complemented by NGOs, both local and international, all seeking to extend much-needed services to each country’s remote areas.

Major regional organizations have undertaken development initiatives aimed at improving the quality of life in the atolls, outer islands and other marginal rural communities. The South Pacific Commission (SPC) has implemented integrated rural development programmes in an outer island in the Cook Islands and a rural community in Kiribati. Its Community Education Training Centre (CETC) continues to train Pacific rural women basically in community development skills. The University of the South Pacific (USP), through its extension centers in the various member countries, the Institute of Rural Development in Tonga and the Atoll Research Development Unit, has sought primarily to provide skills to rural manpower and improve technologies in atolls.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), through its various sectoral projects, has also directed assistance to the atolls, outer islands and rural communities throughout the region. UNDP assistance at the regional has included the following areas: rural training, rural youth development, water supply for the outer islands, artisanal fisheries, fruit trees and nuts for atolls, etc. Moreover, aside from these sectoral projects, UNDP has supported the region’s most comprehensive application of the integrated approach, the Integrated Atoll Development Project (IADP), which covers Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu. The project has also extended technical assistance to outer island initiatives in Melanesia and to countries outside its current coverage in Polynesia and Micronesia upon request of their respective governments or through a regional organization or project.

IADP has field-tested and further refined proven methodologies which bring together island communities, government agencies, traditional institutions and no-government organizations in participatory processes designed to build skills and local confidence formulate, formulate and deliver to marginal communities relevant programmes, technologies and services in concerted efforts ensure the comprehensive planning, implementation and management of local-level development.

UNDP now seeks to extend these methodologies to other atolls and outer islands.

The Fifth Inter-Country Programme provides the excellent opportunity to replicate the IADP methodologies and thus benefit more countries in the region, during and extensive consultative process among UNDP, national governments and regional organizations; special emphasis was given the needs of atolls and the outer islands. There was the resolve to allocate more resources to poor areas and institutionalize approaches to addressing poverty. Hence, through ICP 5, the IADP could extend its impact beyond current effectiveness of existing government bodies, non-government organizations, and traditional institutions involved in development planning and management at the island level. Small-scale projects will be supported to provide opportunities for community groups to refine newly acquired skills. The programme will assess the development management and implementation roles of government functionaries, such as the Island Clerks, Chief Administrative Officers, Island Executive Officers, etc. and the government and NGO field workers and implement measures to deepen their commitment to development goals and assist them make institutional arrangements and community organizations more responsive to participatory processes.

Community-based planning as focus for service delivery programming concerns and policy formulation. The programme will make the island-based participatory planning process as the central activity around which all levels, sectors and the various entities, organizations and institutions are mobilized to provide direction to individual programmes and projects. The process provides a tool for effecting the convergence of much-needed programme inputs in a particular inputs in a particular area to reach specific social groups. The community plan document itself becomes a key link between individual agency inputs and the sectoral targets in a given area. Assessment of service delivery efficiency, determination of programming goals and activities and the review of policies will be done in the context of an actual integrated process carried out to achieve maximum impact of programme inputs to the overall situation of a marginal island community.

Strengthening development management as overall concern. The programme will promote inter-agency cooperation, community-government cooperation and the imaginative use of traditional institutions to pursue the overall concern of further strengthening development management. It will utilize cost-effective approaches suited to a situation characterized by severe lack of manpower and other resources at agency level, the constraints resulting from the vast distances between islands, as well as between the outer islands and the main island.

Provision of regional support. The programme will facilitate the establishment of a viable mechanism to further institutionalize the integrated development planning, implementation and management processes at country level. The mechanism will involve existing regional organizations in providing expertise and assistance to the individual countries for the refinement of programme methodologies,policy formulation, fielding of trained field workers and volunteers, administrative reforms, innovative approaches to the design of income generating projects and awareness-building activities to sensitize specific target groups on the need to support participatory process in poverty-focused programmes.

AREAS OF PROGRAMMES FOCUS

A. Integrated Atoll and Outer Island Development

Replication and expansion. The programme will continue to implement the activities which have been initiated to replicate and expand the IADP methodologies in the six participating countries. The project atoll within each country will continue to serve as training and demonstration area for the integrated approach. In turn, the countries, from a regional perspective, will function as initial programme concentration areas and will later be transformed as focal points of expansion within the sub-regions of Polynesia and Micronesia. The extent of programme expansion to Melanesia will depend on available resources.

Major thrust. The key activities will revolve around these methodologies: Participatory island profiling and development planning; small-scale high impact projects; consolidation of an integrated institutional framework for sustainable development with focus on the roles of traditional institutions; social preparation for the adoption of improved technologies in atoll and small island agriculture, and other aspects of the mixed subsistence and cash economy with strong relevance to ecological and cash generation objectives; and the intensive training and fielding national core team of trainers as the main vehicle for skills and technology transfer.

Support system/mechanism. A pool of experts from existing regional institutions will be mobilized to facilitate support to national capability-building efforts vis-à-vis the requirements of the participatory integrated atoll and outer island development process. Linkages to regional programmes and projects will also be utilized as source expertise to further enable national governments and country-based NGOs implement the poverty-focused rural development programme with a comprehensive policy framework, responsive project inputs, and supportive administrative reforms which will hasten, rather than impede, the dynamics of community mobilization towards the self-liberation of the rural poor.

B. Technical assistance for strengthening NGO support to local initiatives in the atolls and outer islands of participating countries

The programme will provide required technical assistance to enable existing non-governmental organizations in the participating countries to refocus their mission and development activities towards the specific needs of socially disadvantaged groups in the atolls, outer islands and marginal rural communities in the main island.

National NGOs will be encouraged to explore participatory processes in linking with community-based organizations and to provide technical advice and guidance on project planning and management. Thus the central task for national NGOs will be to establish a complementary implementation base for the island development plan.

Technical assistance will include looking into the possibility of forming new NGOs within the participatory grassroots development framework, indicating potential areas for innovativeness where NGO flexibility can best fit.

C. Building national and local capability for mobilizing support to participatory grassroots development

The programme will train and field community organizers, volunteers and mobilizers in relevant sectors or existing organizations at national and local levels to further enhance the capabilities of community organizations to carry out projects generated through participatory processes.

Their main task will be to provide much-needed motivational and other inputs to enable specific sectors or organizations to carry out critical activities in the context of the island development profile and plan.

In addition to organizational inputs, the yield workers will impart other specialized skills as required by the host organizations, institutions or the particular sectors where they are based. The field workers will be intensively trained prior to their assignment.

Both as participant and observer of the evolving process, the field worker will be, in effect, the key implementer of a participatory research component which will ensure in-depth process documentation.

PROGRAMME EMPHASIS

The programme will basically enhance community, national and regional capabilities for the planning, implementation and management of participatory grassroots development as core strategy for the integrated and poverty-focused development of atolls, outer islands and marginal rural communities.

LINKAGES WITH REGIONAL INSTITUTIONS, DONORS AND OTHER REGIONAL PROGRAMMES

The programme will provide the atoll and outer island focus to regional initiatives. It will perform an advocacy role to direct donor’s attention to the special needs and problems of marginal communities. In turn, donors can use the programme’s institutional network to channel assistance to specific target groups.

A regular consultative process among all the regional organizations and programmes focused on atolls and other marginal rural communities will be initiated.

Aware of the unique problems and challenges posed by atolls and the outer islands in the region, the programme will explore with regional institutions, governments and donor agencies the feasibility of establishing a Pacific Centre for Integrated Rural and Island Development, modeled after the UN-assisted Center for Integrated Rural Development (CIRDAP) based in Bangladesh.

The programme will explore with the USP Continuing Education Centre the possibility of setting up within existing extension centers an Island and Atoll Life Centre which will serve as repository of technologies and skills needed both to improve community livelihood and to enhance ecological resources.

The programme will conduct regular assessment and experiences sharing sessions, at regional and country levels, with the staff and implementers of the European Commission-funded Pacific Regional Rural Development Programme (PRRDP). The PRRDP is a three-year programme due for implementation starting 1992 in eight countries: Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Kingdom of Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Western Samoa.

Other programme activities will include:

- provision of technical assistance to USP Institute of Rural Development, USP Atoll Research Development Unit, and the SPC Community Education Training Centre for development of curricula for participatory development and technology promotion;

- active collaboration with SPC, Forum Secretariat and European Commission to facilitate the use of programme networks for relevant projects; share project implementation experiences; and extend mutual assistance in the application and monitoring of participatory methodologies for IRD;

- provision of technical assistance, including training inputs for trainers, field workers and programme planners of development-oriented NGOs with a regional mandate or network, i.e. the Pacific YWCA.

EXPECTED IMPACT/TARGET BENEFICIARIES

The primary beneficiaries/participants will be the people of the atolls, other outer islands and the marginal rural communities of participating countries in the Pacific. The concentration of programme inputs is expected to maximize the effectivity of projects and programmes designed primarily to generate the sustained involvement and well-being of the rural population. The planning and administration of development at all levels will be improved and thus, better targeting of atoll and outer island communities both for service delivery and participation can be undertaken by all entities pursuing rural development objectives.

SUSTAINABILITY

Programme sustainability will be ensured by:

- the consolidation of island-level government bodies and functionaries (island councils, island development committees, development coordinating committees, island clerks, chief administrative officers, island executive officers, etc.)and indigenous institutions and traditional leaders (maneaba/maneapa,Unimane, toweina, tikina, aumaga, aliki/ariki, turuga ni koro,iroij,etc.) into active and collegial entities able to plan, implement and manage local development initiatives;

- the programme-motivated responsiveness of government and NGO workers, as well as their planners and other officials, to the requirements of participatory processes, and their commitment to flexibility and pertinence as touchstone of policy and plan formulation and execution in support of the sustained involvement of the rural poor in projects that the latter themselves have identified for their own welfare;

- a programme framework evolved with the active participation and consent of communities and development entities which seeks to generate community-based projects and ideas, taking into account the impact of activities and innovations on the fragile island environment;

- a viable regional mechanism, backstopped by a network of training centers and other programme support institutions, able to further build on national capabilities to guide and support a truly participatory grassroots process as the self-propelling dynamic force which will determine the specific goals, strategies and content of a poverty-focused atoll and outer island development programme.

3 March 1991

Suva, Fiji