Lesson Learnt: Social cohesion and community involvement in project implementation

The implementation of social projects such as those in the field of informal economy often implies to significantly consider the human dimension, both at individual and community level, while designing, planning and implementing a project. Thus, social action must be carefully prepared and based on a thorough and practical knowledge of power relations within involved communities. These power relations cannot be ignored, as they cannot be neither avoided nor thwarted and should sometimes not even be reinforced.

The project Community Engagement and Sustainable Development (ECDD 2008-2013) implemented in the Comoros aimed at improving the living standards of the population through agricultural development and sustainable management of natural resources. It consisted in supporting and counselling farmers through training in farmer field schools and individual monitoring in the villages on relevant techniques (seedlings under vegetal cover, micro-irrigation, ox-park with proximity fodder …). Regarding sustainable management of natural resources, the project focussed on community water management based on collective voluntary work.

In order to gain the trust from the villagers to facilitate the inclusion of youth, women and elderly, and keep corruption and other adverse behaviours at bay, the project officers needed to clearly identify the role of the actors in the communities and to promote the sense of responsibilities to initiate reforestation around catchments, collection of funds from communities, etc.

However, in the absence of social cohesion and leadership as well as decentralised governance, the project objectives turned out to be difficult to achieve. Building of trust could not be achieved: community hen houses or vegetable gardens had to stop because individualism was taking precedence over collective behaviour: all collective income generating works were abandoned, except for water management.

Project staff should be trained and supported for social experimentation. Actions that involve communities and leaders must be prepared and accompanied by social scientists, especially where work is mobilised without cash.

More detailed information on this good practice is available at the page 59 of the volume 4.3 “Good Practices and Lessons Learned – Case studies of 15 EC-funded projects”