Learning centres: scaling up community management in Ganjam, Orissa, India

Year of publication: 1999

Ganjam has a population of about 3 million, of which 87% is rural. Administratively, the District is divided into 22 Blocks, each with an average of 120 villages. Over half the population is designated as living below the poverty line.

UNICEF estimates that about 60% of the population has access to safe water - typically a communal tube well. Before the project started, sanitation coverage was measured as 4.7%. In 1999 there was a fundamental shift from top-down, isolated interventions to a demand-driven, community managed process. This fundamental change of approach and attitude has led to significant and sustained improvements.

Lessons learnt

• Community management only becomes a reality if decision-making, including financial control, is devolved to community level. This itself is a political decision, requiring political support.
• Decision-making implies that communities have choices to make throughout the project process. Systems are therefore needed to provide people with an informed choice of options.
• For community management to be effective, it needs quality facilitation. Quality cannot and should not be sacrificed to achieve quantitative targets. Time frames need to be realistic. Once developed, a successful demand driven approach can achieve more in three years than decades of top down service provision.
• Communities do not exist in isolation. Community management requires support, above all, political leadership. The results can overturn a top down attitude to service delivery and bring government on side.
• The capacity of local NGOs to facilitate community processes should not be underestimated. In Ganjam they play a vital role. The role of the private sector in service provision is also important but their current capacity is relatively limited.
• In terms of providing more technical options (for example, piped water supplies) and longer-term support, there is a need to mobilise local government institutions. How this can be achieved within the current framework is unclear.
• Ultimately, scaling up community management needs effective, sustainable partnership with communities, NGOs and government working to achieve common objectives.