LESSONS LEARNED AND CONCLUSIONS
Educational courses and capacity building events often have a fixed time period and only a hope that graduates will put their learning in to practice. The African Learning Institute on Local and Indigenous Knowledges for Community Resilience tried to be different. Organizers recognized that participants were coming to the course with a wealth of knowledge already and so built this into the curriculum and methodology of the two-week course. More importantly, organizers wanted to monitor and encourage participants to put their learning into practice and to determine what, if any, impact applying this new learning might have in communities.
This was not a funded program, however, but simply a network of committed community-based organizations and small local NGOs in 9 African countries who wanted to make a difference in their communities. As the preceding pages have shown there has been significant impact in communities. Not all of this impact can be attributed to the ALI, but graduates did report that the work of their organizations was enhanced by their learning from the ALI. What are some of the lessons ALI partners learned from this experience?
LESSONS ABOUT BUILDING RESILIENT COMMUNITIES
Revitalizing a “sense of community" is important in BRC
Many organizations demonstrated that revitalizing a “sense of community” and a pride in one’s community and indigenous identity is an important first step in building community resilience.
Technical solutions and power analysis are both important in BRC.
Building resilient communities can never be simply a technical fix. Power is always at play in communities and indigenous cosmovisions and world views influence the very meaning of what community resilience is (ideological power). Communities need to see the complexities of building community resilience (visible and hidden powers), and also to appreciate there have been activities for generations that have maintained the resilience of their communities.
​
Learning one’s rights must be combined with preventing those rights from being violated.
Awareness raising about one’s rights is fundamental. That new consciousness on its own will not prevent the violation of those rights. Communities need to consider the kinds of actions they will take to create alternatives and do advocacy for or against policies or practices that will see the realization of those rights.
Preventing one’s rights from being violated must be combined with seeking justice and/or compensation when those rights have been stepped upon
Often communities find themselves in situation not where they are trying to prevent the violation of their rights, but where their rights have already been systematically ignored or abused, and where power-over is at play by other actors.
Field visits to other communities that have had successes can be very inspiring
Community people speaking to other community people is often the best way to learn. Facilitating opportunities for communities to learn of the struggles and successes of others builds BRC.
LESSONS ABOUT DEVELOPING A COMMUNITY OF LEARNING AND PRACTICE
Action planning is a useful end of course activity for participants. Plans must be extremely flexible to respond to changing contexts.
For most partners the activities implemented were somewhat different than their original action plans. The need to change the originally planned activities was based on consultations with communities, considering target area specific issues and time factors; not replicating work being done by others (eg. capacity building on the concept of BCP); and due to hectic schedules to produce project deliverables. Since the action plans were not directly funded implementation of documentation activities was left to the discretion of organizations. This worked well.
Simple Learning Materials that can easily be adapted are extremely useful.
Participants at the ALI highly rated the relevance and appropriateness of the course and course materials. In sharing their learning at the community level, however, many partners noted the lack of appropriate materials. Simplifying materials and translating them into local languages is time consuming and demands resources. Simple materials that introduce the basic concepts, tools and questions in building community resilience would be welcomed. At the local level staff can always translate these into local languages, add to these materials and embellish them when needed. A basic package of materials that can be easily adapted is needed.
Support organizations that combine on-the-ground implementation and policy research / advocacy.
Some activities implemented by partner organizations are encouraging people to use organic manure, while others are contributing to national level agricultural policy review. In many ways it is the combination of these two different kinds of activities that makes a difference. Organizations that aspire to do both are often the strongest and can have the most impact.
Coordinating Learning Networks demands resources
The coordination of a learning network, especially at beginning of a process, demands resources and was much more time consuming than originally envisioned. The coordination of the ALI Community of Learning and Practice (COLP) was considered as a voluntary add-on to the full time work of the co-coordinators, that was to be supported part-time by a Project Officer. Unfortunately, the Project Officer was not funded so that also had to be a voluntary activity and with competing demands for planning and supervision the ongoing contact needed for developing a strong COLP was very limited.
Creative means need to be experimented with to develop an active COLP
Partners are extremely busy. Many are forced to work on a project cycle with specific deliverables and short timeframes that demand different reporting. Developing a COLP, especially one that is not funded, therefore has to compete with all these other demands. It is easy to let one’s reflection, sharing and solidarity fall by the wayside. Creative means need to be experimented with that are short, direct, useful and inspiring as part of a COLP. The Coady Institute is in the process of developing some tools for this, but there have been delays. A whats app platform was established and planned webinars will still be held in the future. The virtual showcase was postponed due to technological issues and the challenges of working in various time zones.
​
​
This report captures what happened after the African Learning Institute on Local and Indigenous Knowledges for Community Resilience course concluded in July 2016.
Short case stories from 8 different African countries capture the environment of risks and threats organizations and communities were experiencing, how they responded using local and indigenous knowledge and assets and an endogenous development approach, and the impact that was felt in their communities. This ongoing process of community resilience building was inspiring to see and demonstrates the ongoing commitment and perseverance people have to create positive change. People realize the struggle continues, and each story concludes with some ideas of what the communities and their partner organizations intend for the future.
The stories are introduced with a summary section and a concluding section of lessons learned. The intention is this document will further the development of a Community of Learning and Practice on Local and Indigenous Knowledges for Community Resilience.
Compiled and edited by David Fletcher and Bernard Guri with input from African partners: PROMETRA Uganda, MELCA Ethiopia, Muonde Trust Zimbabwe, NACOFAG The Gambia, Kivulini Trust Kenya, ICE Kenya, SAEDP Lesotho / South Africa / Zimbabwe, ABOFAP Ghana and CIKOD Ghana.