REACHING THE ASSETLESS POOR : PROJECTS AND STRATEGIES FOR THEIR SELF-RELIANT DEVELOPMENT

This report questions whether restricting the LNL"s participation in development efforts to implementation and reception of benefits without allowing them to participate in the decisionmaking, management, and evaluation processes produces the structural changes needed for long-run, self-reliant development. Because developing country governments often extend only to the district level, lack concrete knowledge of the LNL"s situation, and rely on intermediary institutions which favor local elites, the LNL must form themselves into clientele groups to effectively seek public goods and services. To spur this organizing process, catalyst agencies are needed to motivate, inform, and organize the LNL. Based on the case studies included in this report on selected programs to assist the LNL in Bangladesh, Bolivia, India, Guatemala, the Philippines, El Salvador, Haiti, Mexico, and Upper Volta, those techniques employed by catalysts which have been most successful are: (1) creating community consensus through nonformal adult education; (2) changing people"s views of themselves and their social environment in order to motivate change; (3) building organizations for group action; and (4) generating employment and increasing income through labor-intensive activities. To assist catalyst agencies to expand their efforts in order to effectively meet the demands placed upon them, the report recommends that: (1) catalyst agencies increase the use of networking among themselves to overcome their shortage of technical skills; (2) major assistance agencies assign personnel to their field missions to help small indigenous organizations make assistance proposals; (3) donors make grants available to build up the ability of indigenous consulting firms to conduct feasibility studies; (4) increased support be given to "super-networks" such as Private Agencies Collaborating Together (PACT) and Coordination in Development (CODEL); and (5) donor personnel be immersed into the totality of village life. Criteria for evaluating antipoverty projects are also included.