Introduction to LIFE Programme
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| LIFE global programme was started
by the UNDP decision in 1992 to promote
local -local dialogue and partnerships between
CBOs, NGOs, local authorities, private sector
and other actors to address environmental
problems of the urban poor and influence
policies for participatory local governance.
Using " upstreaming-downstreaming-upstreaming"
approach, LIFE has been providing small
grants to initiate community-based projects
and promote policy dialogues.
The LIFE global pilot programme consisted
of 12 countries and a few regional and
inter-regional programmes supported by
LIFE. The 12 LIFE countries were spread
over all the regions and these were:
Latin America and the Caribbean : Brazil,
Colombia and Jamaica
Africa : Tanzania, Senegal and South Africa
Asia and the Pacific: Pakistan, Bangladesh
and Thailand
Arab States: Egypt, Lebanon
Eastern Europe and CIS: Kyrgyzstan
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| LIFE'S Philosophy and Principles |
| LIFE is based on the premise
that participation and cooperation by all actors
are the most important factors for bringing sustained
improvement in the environmental conditions and
that "dialogue" and open communication
are powerful ways for achieving effective partnerships
and participation. |
| LIFE's Objective |
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LIFE promotes local - local
dialogue and collaborations between various
stakeholders at all levels to improve urban
environmental conditions which eventually lead
to appropriate changes in policies and functioning
styles.
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| LIFE'S Main Activities |
Providing small scale grants to NGOs,CBOs
and local authorities to improve the environmental
conditions in low income settlements.
Promoting dialogue, cooperation and networking
between various stakeholders at all levels, such
as the neighborhood; community; city; national;
regional; inter-regional and global, to improve
urban environmental conditions.
Developing capacity of stakeholders at all levels
for cooperation, dialogue, networking and resource
mobilization.
Linking project and policy initiatives to institutionalize
LIFE methodology across various sectors.
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| LIFE Methodology: A Three Stage Process |
Upstream: Catalyzing a national dialogue,
developing strategies and gathering wide support
from various stakeholders.
Downstream: Ensuring effective and collaborative
small projects which address priority environmental
problems; promote local -local dialogue, cooperation
between local actors and build local capacity.
Upstream: Exchanging experiences, influencing
policies and institutionalizing LIFE methodology.
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| LIFE institutional framework in Kyrgyzstan |
Institutional framework
includes:
-LIFE National Selection Committee
-UNDP country office focal point
-LIFE National Programme Coordinator
-LIFE office
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| LIFE'S Main Environmental
Areas of Support at the Community Level |
· Increasing drinking
water supply
· Improving solid and liquid waste management
· Decreasing air and water pollution
· Eliminating occupation of or improving living
conditions in hazard prone areas
· Improving environmental health
· Providing environmental education
· Eliminating the use of environmentally damaging
technologies
· Utilizing environmental considerations in urban
planning
· The projects selected for LIFE funding should
address the environmental problem in a way that
would also add value to the social and economic
development of the community.
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| Proposal for Phase IV(2001-2004) |
| (based mainly on "LIFE
Country Report" by Barbar Mumtaz, 1999, Bishkek;
"Mission Report-Kyrgyzstan" by Pratibha
Mehta, 2001; and manual: "INSTITUTIONALIZATION
AND MAINSTREAMING OF LIFE METHODOLOGY FOR STRENGTHENING
PARTICIPATORY LOCAL GOVERNANCE", New York,
2001; results of the first brainstorming meeting
conducted at 26 September 2001 in Bishkek , results
of of the GAC meeting conducted at 29 October-
2 November 2001, Dakar, Senegal; First Session
of National Steering Committee, 13-14 December
2001, Bishkek) |
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LIFE in Kyrgyzstan:Background(1995-2000
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LIFE was instituted
in Kyrgyzystan in a country that was undergoing
major changes in its socio-political and economic
organisation. LIFE was launched in late 1995 following
a National Consultative Seminar in Bishkek attended
by 50 people from Bishkek and 25 people from Osh.
The participants were representatives of the local
state administrations, NGOs, and representatives
of communities from Bishkek and Osh.
The organisations and institutions that are the
usual partners and actors in LIFE programmes were
either absent, nascent or in disarray. LIFE took
upon itself the dual role of both improving the
local environment and also helping civil society
through the establishment of CBOs and NGOs to
take on the responsibility for the management
of their local areas and affairs.
During the first stage, therefore, the main emphasis
was on helping the establishment and operationalisation
of community-based organisations. The small grants
played a major role in this by providing the incentive
for under-employed and under-paid professionals
to initiate local environmental improvement projects.
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| Activities` Statistics |
In the period 1995-1999 Kyrgyzstan
has been implementing the 44 projects for a
total of $278,657.
The LIFE programme in Kyrgyzstan had local,
regional and national components. Until this
time it has been operating at the local and
regional levels. LIFE programme was operating
in Bishkek, Osh, Kara-Balta and Jalal-Abad.
These are the country's largest towns in terms
of population. A total sum of $278,687 was allocated
to these towns from 1995 to 1999 for:
o Clean-up, installation of bins (containers),
greening $64,920
o Construction of public toilets $44,449
o Construction of roads with greening and public
toilets $90,885
o Improvement of water supply $51,553
o Environmental education and study $26,880
LIFE has been the major source of funds.
There has been a direct contribution of $1,
000 from a local authority. Contribution of
the community and the CBO/NGOs have been estimated
at $39,500 have been in kind, made up of time
and labour contributions.
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LIFE Achievements (1995-2000)
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Environmental outcomes |
| Thanks to the LIFE
programme many areas of the towns have been cleared
of garbage, where it was piled up in mountains,
sometimes reaching to people's doorsteps because
garbage was not promptly removed. Owing to their
financial difficulties the local authorities were
unable to deal with this problem, nor could the
residents tackle it for want of the capacity and
the funds. These areas have now been restored
to a normal sight by the project activities.
Also drinking and watering water was provided
in Toloykon district, where they didn't have
water for more than 20 years. At present roads,
side-streets, public toilets have been built,
containers and urns have been set up (which
weren't being set up for the last 5 years) in
the town. Also other projects of this kind were
being implemented by the programme.
Policy and social outcomes
People in the projects implemented sites have
begun to realize that there is no need to wait
on somebody to get problems solved - they must
solve them on their own initiative.
LIFE provided a strong incentive through the
small-grants programme, especially to NGOs and
local communities, which helped put an emphasis
on issues of self-governance and ecology. Largely
as a result of LIFE, there are now a large number
of NGOs working with LIFE. LIFE Kyrgyzstan has
made a particularly strong effort at dissemination.
In recent years Kyrgyzstan has seen as increase
in the numbers of unemployed, who have no work
opportunities and no means of feeding their
families. The small projects implemented under
the LIFE programme have produced jobs for more
than 200 unemployed persons.
During the previous regime, there was little
tradition of dialogue or consultation, most
decisions being taken hierarchically and transmitted
down. Dialogue was one of the innovative aspects
of LIFE and was used by LIFE in their communications
and discussions with State officials, NGOs etc.,
to acquaint and gain acceptability for LIFE,
and with applicants to provide them advice on
project preparation, revision. As with dialogue,
the idea of partnership was something that the
LIFE programme had to pioneer in Kyrgyzstan.
The main partners brought into the programme
were NGOs/CBOs. A variety of partnerships were
formed between them. LIFE helped foster, promote
and stimulate the formation of CBOs/NGOs and
helped create partnerships between them in response
to its offer to provide assistance through small
grants.
As a result of the training and capacity building,
local communities were formed to respond to
LIFE and project request were received. The
main factor responsible for the successful reception
of LIFE SSPs (Small Scale Projects) has been
the visible failure of the state apparatus to
provide community facilities and environmental
improvements.
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Lessons Learned
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In order to simplify
a relation between LIFE's activity in the past
with perspectives proposed in LIFE Phase IV it
was decided to make an analysis through following
sectors and directions:
1. COMMUNITY BASED PROJECTS;
2. MUNICIPAL LEVEL INITIATIVES ;
3. CAPACITY BUILDING AND EMPOWERMENT;
4. DOCUMENTATION, LEARNING NETWORKS AND DISSEMINATION;
5. UPSTREAMING AND INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF PARTICIPATORY
LOCAL GOVERNANCE;
6. MAINSTREAMING IN UNDP COUNTRY PROGRAMMES and
NATIONAL PROGRAMMES;
7. PARTNERSHIPS
8. RESOURCE MOBILIZATION, SUSTAINABILITY AND CONTINUITY.
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| 1. COMMUNITY BASED PROJECTS |
Even though all the projects
were designed in response to the LIFE Programme,
they have all needed extensive support and assistance
from the NC and members of the NSC to improve
and bring the projects into line with the selection
criteria. The major problem was that the projects
were designed by people who had no previous experience
of either designing or implementing projects based
on community involvement and implementation. As
a result most were abstract, highly over-managed
and bureaucratic in their approach. Costing, or
ensuring a firm financial basis to the proposals,
also posed problems for many projects.
The SSPs (Small Scale Projects) were mainly "ecological"
and "greening" projects, designing to
improve the local micro environment of particular
areas. The SSP component reached the urban poor
in only some of the projects. These were mainly
those living in the Manas-Ata Micro-district,
and who were able to have a public toilet facility
as a result. The possibility of incorporating
an income-generating component appears not to
have been explored. |
| 2. MUNICIPAL LEVEL INITIATIVES |
Of the 20 projects that
have been started, only one was implemented by
a local authority, while the rest were implemented
by NGOs, CBOs, unions, clubs and other social
associations, many of them formed expressly in
response to the LIFE programme. The main problem
appears to have been inadequate liaison, lack
of co-operation and at times hostile /response
of local authorities.
Up to now, little direct use has been made of
municipalities in LIFE. To some extent this was
because they saw LIFE as interfering with or usurping
its role (despite that in fact the municipalities
lack the resources to actually carry out their
responsibilities). Some local authorities are
of the opinion that should the grants be given
to them, the work (of SWM, sanitation) could be
done by them more effectively and efficiently.
At the same time, since the NGOs have been given
the grants, the local authorities feel no reason
to help them
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| 3. CAPACITY BUILDING AND EMPOWERMENT; |
As it was mentioned before,
LIFE became to be a strong accelerator for local
NGO's (including their establishment), for intensification
of their organizational facilities, for their
experience, for improvement of their qualification.
On the other hand LIFE didn't influence very much
on powers development of other stakeholders: communities,
local and central authorities, educational and
technical organizations, business.
There are small number of successful examples
that show structuring of population in CBO's,
formulating of purposes, standing upon own interests
in contacts with local authorities: the construction
of public toilet near two dormitories, creation
of greening area on the place of landfill in Osh
can be one of them.
The main direction of capacity building was to
increase the level of environment awareness and
capacity to formulate and to make grant proposals,
to know how to work in groups and how to discuss.
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| 4. DOCUMENTATION, LEARNING NETWORKS
AND DISSEMINATION |
LIFE in Kyrgyzstan initiated significant
efforts on dissemination of methodology. A very
important criteria was to adopt the representative
of mass media as a member of national steering
committee.
Also it was very small number of successful examples
with documentation and replication. If the question
of replication is quite complex, because of funds
and intention of municipalities to replicate someone's
results, than the absence of good examples with
documentation and case study seems to be LIFE
disadvantage in Kyrgyzstan. The absence of documentation
thus made influenced the creation of learning
network both on local and national levels
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| 5. UPSTREAMING AND INSTITUTIONALIZATION
OF PARTICIPATORY LOCAL GOVERNANCE; |
Only the upstream-downstream
components have been implemented. The upstream
has largely been the discussions amongst the NSC,
and the downstream the implementation of the SSPs.
However, until the next "upstream" component
is implemented the success or otherwise of the
approach cannot be ascertained.
At the present moment we can state the lack of
experience to make conclusions from analysis upon
downstream-upstream linkages. Though we can say
that Osh is suitable city to model such processes.
The problem is that frequent changes of municipal
authorities create some obstacles to save such
called "organizational" memory and downstream-upstream
process can rear be implemented by same person
in city municipality.
The main issue that can be possibly connected
to LIFE activity in participatory local governance
- is very weak contact with local authorities.
Though a special national programme on decentralization
and self-governance existed it didn't influence
previous LIFE activity.
Examples of LIFE institutionalization in other
countries (Jamaica, Senegal) show that LIFE organizational
form as proposed by above mentioned countries
(consulting company or public foundation) is more
viable in particular at the level of self governance.
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| 6. MAINSTREAMING IN UNDP COUNTRY PROGRAMMES
and NATIONAL PROGRAMMES |
Generally previous LIFE activity
was mach isolated from UNDP and national government
activities. Mainly it was a result of pioneer
role of LIFE methodology at the end of 90s. When
LIFE started in 1995, it was the only programme
with a small grants component directly targeting
the NGOs and actually didn't aim for partnership
and mainstreaming with other programmes. Thus
it became to be a reason of very low level of
interaction with the UNDP country office, and
as a result little demand for integrating the
methodology within the country office. The same
was for the national programmes.
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| 7. PARTNERSHIPS |
| In this chapter the idea
of partnership is implied partnership of LIFE
Programme with main stakeholders, which was not
mentioned in previous articles. LIFE did a lot
for establishment of NGO's and CBO's and creation
of partnership among them. LIFE was not so active
regards to other stakeholders: private sector,
scientific and educational organizations, national
authorities, women and religious organizations
was not so active. A dialog among all representatives
seemed to be very important. Discussions in the
National Steering Committee were one of the elements
of partnership only was not supporeted other activities. |
| 8. RESOURCE MOBILIZATION, SUSTAINABILITY
AND CONTINUITY |
Cause of absence of private
sector development and recent development of
NGO's it was quite hard to attract any funds
from these sectors. But still, due to local
character of programme activities, private sector
is remains to be a perspective direction. Also
it is hard to measure the attraction of state
and other programme funds. The question is that
these funds have definitive address and, if
this address is the same with LIFE`s target
groups and LIFE`s main areas of support can
this funds (belong to other programmes) be recognized
as resource mobilization ?.
There has been relatively little thought given
in most projects to the sustainability and continuity
of the projects they have undertaken. The message
regarding the LIFE projects has been to stress
their social and public utility nature. Especially
because of the grant component, there has been
a feeling that therefore, there should be no
returns or profits from the projects, even to
enable future maintenance or replication or
extension of the projects. Not enough has been
to date regarding the need for sustainability
of the projects after completion of the projects.
This is probably as much a matter of stressing
the need for sustainability and ensuring that
applicants take this into account. Without
such built-in sustainability, much of the
effort in planting and urban greening is likely
to be wasted.
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