Dear MaFI members:

Given that most of us are over-worked, MaFI is working to make access to new info easier and faster.

We would also like to kindly ask you all to keep your own messages short and attractive.

MaFI is more about continuous dialogue for problem-solving and learning and less about one-off info exchanges. In order to get such dialogues started, it is very important to keep members asking for more rather than trying to provide all the info in one go.

This is why you will soon receive the re-edited Quick Chats between Linda Jones (ex-MEDA) and Chris Pienaar (NEF) about capacity building of market facilitators. Feedback is welcome.

All the best,
Lucho Osorio

Capacity Building: innovative approaches and experiences from the work of MEDA and New Economics Foundation (NEF).

With Linda Jones (ex-MEDA and consultant) and Chris Pienaar (NEF).

Chris: Over the last four years, in the Plugging the Leaks program, facilitation and coaching have been at the heart of what we do.

A local coach is employed to facilitate economic and environmental literacy events which lead to action driven by passionate local individuals and groups.

The program operates in low-income communities starting from the community outwards and operates across the micro, meso and macro levels.

We invite any frontline workers operating within the area to attend a Coaching For Regeneration workshop which seeks to influence a shift from expert-to-client to peer-to-peer and for a coaching approach to be adopted as opposed to an advisory role.

Linda: What is the rationale behind this?

Chris: Firstly, to allow practitioners to personally experience the way in which this change in approach genuinely shifts the ownership from the “expert” to the client and how much more energy the client then puts into what they are doing.

Secondly, to greatly increase the number of facilitators operating within the area by using effectively what was already there.

Linda: What impacts have you detected?

Chris: Over the couple of years that 9 of these workshops were run 86% of participants noticed a positive impact on their own performance and 66% noticed a positive impact in client response. These programs have now begun to roll out in differing shapes and forms in Brazil, Honduras and Israel and early indications are that the principles and methods are transferable.

Linda: So, how does this relate to pro-poor market development facilitation?

Chris: We have learned that it’s very important to take an asset-based approach to communities. There are a lot more entrepreneurs or at the very least people exhibiting enterprising behavior within these areas than one may have imagined.

Furthermore, there are a lot more local resources (physical, natural and positive or passionate people) available than one may imagine.

Adopting a transformative and networking approach in conjunction with the coach and frontline worker training does reveal pockets of capacity amongst residents to take economic, social and environmental action in these communities.

Linda: What is the role of a facilitator in this approach?

Chris: We are considering what this approach would look like if there wasn’t an actual coach in an area or if the coach started in an area but a local transformative network continued the process.

These networks are rather informal, socially driven through passion for positive change. A movement for positive economic, social and environmental change grows within the community and is interdependent across the community, institutional and policy levels.

Linda: And what about sustainability?

Chris: The community and the frontline workers working in these communities share a vision for the community and an approach to get there. The ownership remains firmly rooted within the community and is only driven by the passion of people within the community.

The facilitators (agencies or frontline workers) support the individuals and groups in removing barriers that these same individuals or groups have identified, in taking their own enterprising ideas, or in dealing with local issues. This also fits well with the idea of promoting a first tier of local “facilitators” – not an unsustainable second tier that ‘we’ hand off to.

Coming soon Part II of this Quick Chat: Linda Jones shares key lessons from MEDA’s Behind the Veil Program in Pakistan.

Feel free to post your questions to Linda and Chris.

Wanna be a Quick Chatter? Send a message to Lucho Osorio at: luis.osorio@practicalaction.or.uk

Part II of Capacity Building: innovative approaches and experiences from the work of MEDA and New Economics Foundation.

With Linda Jones and Chris Pienaar.

Linda: In MEDA’s Behind the Veil program in Pakistan, in which I was involved in for several years, we had formal instruction etc. – but at the intermediary level. The intermediaries became the drivers for change – initially economic but eventually social as well. This led to the formation of an industry association and a range of market channels and outlets. There was a lot of intense coaching at many levels (between international and local NGO, local NGO and intermediaries, intermediaries and producers).

Chris: What was the focus of the program?

Linda: The program operated between 2003 and 2007 and we integrated about 9,000 rural homebound women from three provinces in Pakistan into dynamic embroidered garment markets, at least doubling their incomes. The budget was low for this type of program ($600,000) as we focused on the 100 intermediaries. There was no microfinance so it was all based on local resources and contributed to asset building not debt creation.

Chris: What challenges did you find along the way?

Linda: We had to put measures into place to avoid exploitation/monopolies. We referred to the intermediaries as social entrepreneurs, and one of the keys to preventing monopolies was helping develop community leaders who were of the groups (and often related to many in the groups). Other characteristics of the program are similar to some of the elements you described in part I of this Quick Chat (e.g. voluntary and non-hierarchical).

Other similar programs have been designed in various countries based on this approach. The language is different, but the underlying ideas that make it work seem to be very similar.

Chris: This is really interesting Linda. It seems that a number of tools and approaches we use aren’t new but rather the manner in which they are combined and the approach taken.

In the particular programs we’ve worked on in NEF, a key ingredient has been to create ‘spaces’ in which people can come forward with ideas that they themselves are passionate about but for various reasons might not believe that they can do them. These genuinely owned ideas are never interfered with and always believed in, as tools are used to allow the idea to grow and to be fixed more effectively within the brain – no influence or ‘hocus pocus’ (as one skeptical participant once asked) I might add!

The facilitated events bring the learning on how the local economy works and how financial and other resources are available but often leaking out of the area. They also reveal those who are both willing and keen to take action with the coaching of these individuals/groups allowing (but not influencing or motivating) the idea to move into action. There’s a bit more to it than that but this gives you the general idea.

Linda: So you do not “promote” organizations like cooperatives?

Chris: In general a co-operative would only form naturally amongst a few people who may be passionate about the same thing and only if they chose to work their enterprise as a co-operative or partnership. They would however always be encouraged by coaching questions to work interdependently with other enterprises to maximize their chance of success and to support the development of the community as a whole. The reason for always staying with the passion of the client is that it seems to provide a natural source of sustainable energy and resilience.

Find more about these experiences at:
www.pluggingtheleaks.org (tools)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FP4TEGZEgc (video)

Have questions or criticisms for Linda and Chris? Too good to be true? Post your thoughts!