CAPÍTULO 1. SOBRE LAS CONDICIONES HISTÓRICAS QUE POSIBILITARON EL FRENTE
1.2 El triángulo vicioso de la violencia
programme of the Drina Tara area. The Network is set to follow up and engage in a continuous revision of the identified development priorities and actions. The network will have a local component (SG), contacts at the national level (with links to the three countries involved), and access to the international community with the help of SWG-RRD.
Since the ABD methodology lacks an institutional follow up component, experiences from European Territorial Cooperation field (institutional aspects of Interreg and other regional policy programmes) were taken into account in order to inspire the stakeholders. Clearly, the promotion of ABD and most bottom up approaches rely on donor support. Logically, each donor has its own procedures and follows different methods depending on their need to justify their use of resources to their authorities and citizens. This does not necessarily fit with results from participatory exercises. This puts stakeholders in a position where they should bring forward well defined development project. The absence of strong long or medium term stable perspective for financing as well as the probability that financial counterparts will have to express their own priorities, weakens the overall process of programming, in particular the most detailed parts (concrete action plan and their output monitoring).
Questionnaire-based surveys
Two questionnaires were developed
throughout the ABD programme
implementation in the Drina – Tara target region. The first one was developed in October 2010 and the main objective was to gain a general understanding of the development situation as perceived by a wider audience. Open questions were
29 Mainly under the IPA CBC components
then prepared in order to assess what were the most pressing development needs as perceived by the average citizen. The results were particularly useful to the discussions of SG members when deciding on key priority areas. A second questionnaire developed in February 2011 was launched in order to assess whether the proposals made by the SG were compatible and acceptable to a larger group of multi-sector representatives from the target area. The use of community surveys is useful to understand the general public opinion, broadening the input of selected stakeholders. In other words, the point of view of the “average citizen” could be taken into consideration. Similar principles inspired the organization of the local workshop, where the analyses carried out within the stakeholder group were openly discussed and the support of a larger set of the Drina Tara community was ensured.
Besides gaining feedback from community representatives on the general development situation appraisal and on key/strategic development actions identified by the SG in its thematic working groups, the surveys also complemented the baseline assessment exercise of the Drina Tara target area. In contrast to the first questionnaire of October 2010, which aimed at collecting the opinions of the public on priorities regarding local development, the second questionnaire focused on receiving an institutional and expertise feedback from the institutions, which were in charge of addressing the priorities identified by the SG. By having open, semi- structured questions (with precise options to choose), the aim was to see whether the actions proposed were appropriate. The open questions aimed also at collecting some qualitative information in order to have a clearer picture of the socio-economic situation at the local level, considering the lack of available data. Although the first survey followed a snowball sampling technique that allowed reviewing the individual perceptions from all segments of
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society concerning gender, age, municipality and sector of activity, the sample of the second survey was based on interviews to local experts
from all 14 municipalities not involved in the SG30. The latter implied that the participatory approach was further expanded.
Table 26. Advantages and disadvantages related to “Participation Mechanisms”
ADVANTAGE / STRENGTH DISADVANTAGE / WEAKNESSES
Involvement of Stakeholders
The form of the participatory process implemented (externally selected stakeholder group) promote a sense of community and selection of action plans which benefit the entire target area. The resulting sense of social cohesion, inclusiveness and cohabitation, are helpful in bringing together a variety of different ideas. The latter also contributes to the involvement of local leaders present in the stakeholder group. The broad/inclusive selection of participation to the stakeholder groups translates to a non- discriminatory principle which benefits the exchange of ideas and points of view.
The good practice adopted from LEADER experience concerning the composition of public-private partnerships proved to be very useful by putting business sector and NGOs together with municipalities, representing a major improvement of ABD practice (focused on local governments and therefore not appropriately reflecting priorities of the society and focused on institutional support)
The animation team played an important role, thanks to their network in the area. The “cross border” composition of this animation team has also been an asset since it has contributed to overcoming sensitive issues arising from the interactions of heterogeneous participants. For example, in the Drina Tara experience, local coordinators had to ensure that the local language was not defined as “Serb”, “Bosnian” or “Montenegrin”.
Organizing the participation process with selected stakeholders poses the question of its democratic character (which legitimacy in front of elected representatives?) as well as of its openness to outsiders and newcomers.
The diversity of stakeholders involved makes it difficult to come to an arbitration between the different ideas proposed, particularly for the case of action plans, where, even encompassed in a strategy, the list of measures / projects proposed can still look like a kind of “shopping list” with less rationality than the strategy itself. The constant dedication of animation team is something which needs to be ensured in order to support participation. This requires a substantial engagement of resources in terms of skilled personnel and time.
Even with skilled animators, participatory processes require much more time than the one (six months at most) dedicated to the Drina Tara case to achieve a real internalized consensus choice in ranking the priorities of development and the actions to be implemented, on the basis of appropriate analytical tools. The issue is not a need of more resources for training of stakeholders (which repeatedly said they had enough training and externally driven strategy draftings in the recent past), but to provide stakeholders with enough time to apply analytical tools, agree on strategies / action plans and subsequent implementation.
Participatory Events & Data Collection
Community surveys are useful to understand opinion of the general public, broadening the input of selected stakeholders. In other words, the point of view of the “average citizen” could be taken into consideration
At the local workshop, the analyses carried out within the stakeholder group were discussed and supported by a larger set of the Drina Tara community.
Data at the local level tend to be incomplete and cross-border comparisons are also difficult to establish. Again, for ensuring comparability, time is needed for gathering expert knowledge and local data
30 The sampling approach for the selection of respondents was as follows. Four respondents were randomly selected from each of the six categories of representatives (municipalities, branches of central government offices; chambers of commerce, business development organizations; farmers, and representatives of agricultural associations; hotel and restaurant owners and other tourism operators; higher education organisations (universities, technical schools); training providers). Some minor exceptions are possible with regard to small municipalities. The “country” sample is, however, equally distributed amongst the six groups, and age and gender are also equally distributed among the sample.