CAPÍTULO 1. SOBRE LAS CONDICIONES HISTÓRICAS QUE POSIBILITARON EL FRENTE
1.3 Las facciones políticas como expresiones de violencia en el sistema de partidos en Colombia
1.3.2 El gobierno de Rojas Pinilla y la amenaza a los partidos políticos tradicionales
The present case study has provided some basic guidelines on how to adapt the ABD approach to the particular circumstances of a rural cross-border target area. The ABD experience in the Drina Valley – Tara Mountain region has in fact illustrated how specific participatory mechanisms may be adjusted in order to address context specific challenges and potentially increase success rates. Likewise, theoretical and practical insights (integrating experiences from other related approaches, such as LEADER and the Interreg Table 29. Advantages/strengths and disadvantages/weaknesses related to the organizational and financial
aspects of the ABD programme in the Drina-Tara area
ADVANTAGE / STRENGTH DISADVANTAGE / WEAKNESSES
The 14 municipalities of the Drina – Tara region are thinking of entering in a light but permanent commitment in the form of cross-border Drina-Tara Network supported by a Memorandum of Understanding
Stakeholders also expressed their wish to continue collaborating under the format of an informal network.
There are some existing financial sources to explore, in particular the IPA Cross Border Cooperation component. SWG-RRD could serve as an institutional umbrella to facilitate funding and promote execution of the different action plans envisaged in the ABD programme of the Drina Tara area.
ABD methodology lacks an institutional follow up component in the long term. Experiences from European Territorial Cooperation field (institutional aspects of Interreg and other regional policy programmes) might be taken into account.
Clearly, the promotion of ABD and most bottom up approaches relies on donor support. Logically, each donor has its own procedures and follow different methods depending on their need to justify their use of money to their authorities / citizens. This does not necessarily fit with results from participatory exercises.
Despite the dependency on donors being acknowledged locally, the stakeholders had difficulties to come with proposals for self- financed action, with the notable exception of a wish to continue discussing local development issues even without external donors intervening.
The long term perspective for funding local development plans relies on the perspective of accession to the EU. However, these perspectives are still far away (and with different time horizons for the different countries involved).
Given the short time frame for the identification of activities and although the specified action plans are complete, they deserve fine tuning and further improvement. Moreover, some activities are not well integrated into the ABD programme (e.g. forestry,…) and further reflection should be carried out. In addition, output monitoring mechanisms and indicators are accordingly still very weak and incomplete.
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programmes) were used in the Drina Tara pilot area and actual improvements were related to data collection processes (via community survey and local expert knowledge), introduction of dynamic participatory events (local workshop and frequent SG debates), and the connection to a Delphi group of local/international experts (which included government officials) in order to promote synergies between local, national and international measures. Overall, implementation of the ABD approach in the particular context of the rural and cross- border Drina-Tara target area has required inventive solutions and a high degree of flexibility.
Recommendations from the implementation of the ABD approach in the Drina Valley – Tara Mountain target area can be found from both the geographical level of the case study and by extension/extrapolation for possible implementation in similar contexts in the wider Western Balkans region. Such lessons are useful both to cope with (and reduce the effect of) ABD- related disadvantages as well as to further exploit advantages as identified by Vrbensky (2008). These can be summarized into the following aspects:
(i) the area delineation process needs to be well defined in order to cover all similar sub-regions in terms of development problematic without reaching a size where participatory process would be impossible to implement nor excluding areas with similar characteristics and, therefore, key players;
(ii) the bottom-up process and its good progress – guidance should be offered to both DG and SG members so that they understand the nature of their roles and how they are inter-related. Development proposals should be prepared in detail for which technical assistance and sufficient time are required. Although proposals which cannot be addressed at the area level and deal with major changes of legal frameworks related to border/custom/trade laws and migration should be made at and clearly referred to higher political-administrative
levels; stakeholders should not refrain from expressing clearly their needs in these issues and should be sufficiently motivated in order to continue interacting after the official end of the ABD intervention.
(iii) the top-down accompanying framework of the participatory process must be openly discussed. Information flows should be improved and, for this purpose, further support and coordination efforts should be dedicated to the well functioning of tools allowing contact with national administrations and/or academic representatives; possibly with an increase in the physical interaction with local level stakeholders.
(iv) the efforts to reach a truly multi-sectorial approach must be increased. One way is to provide technical assistance during SG discussions concerning the identification of development needs and potential. Another is to devote more time to the analysis and prioritising of action plans as well as the development of an interlinked and comprehensive target area strategy.
(v) the institutional and legal framework needed to ensure the sustainability of a cross border approach of this kind should be reinforced. This may be partly achieved through the institutionalisation of SG and the support of international organizations, such as SWG- RRD. The latter also implies the consolidation of a mid- and long-term vision and mission.
Previous ABD programmes developed in the wider Balkan region often had a strong focus on the strengthening of local governance; in the Drina Tara a clear effort was made to reach other segments (i.e. private sector and CSO’s). The latter has been considered to enhance the development strategy and action plan for the Drina-Tara area. However, the time frame foreseen for this process in the Drina- Tara area has been very short and this remains the major shortcoming / weakness of the whole case study exercise. Despite this limitation, collaboration