Co-management
a strategy for self-sustainability
More self-sustainability means having more autonomy and less reliance on external funding, expertise or decisions. It means having a larger capacity to choose and negotiate with other initiatives what’s best for your project and what’s not. It means an increasingly equitable participation, which will lead to development models that are more comprehensive and relevant for all, that is, more sustainable. Know more
One strategy used by several development initiatives to become more self-sustainable is sharing decision-making and project responsibilities with the communities they work with.
When the design, implementation or adaptation processes of development projects are shared among different stakeholders –beneficiaries included– everyone’s different interests and priorities can be better addressed, which helps tailor more systemic interventions that are relevant to the context at hand because they offer comprehensive solutions to the problems of a region or population. In addition, by gathering local perspectives and sharing responsibilities with community members equitably, a development initiative diversifies its sources of support and becomes less dependent on external resources and their terms of engagement.
In addition, many initiatives have found that equitable participation and sharing of responsibilities helps more people learn what the project is about, why the problems it addresses are important, how and why decisions are being made, how resources are being allocated and what is being achieved. In other words, their processes become more transparent and convey more trustworthiness, which helps attract cooperation and support.
To foster co-management, several projects still rely on their headquarters but decentralize or distribute many decisions and responsibilities among local individuals or organizations because they will contribute to the project or represent groups that are significant to the initiative. And if current circumstances make it difficult to distribute functions, some projects train local leaders, build local organizations (such as civil associations, cooperatives, parent-teacher associations, etc.) or train, institutionalize or professionalize members of existing groups. The idea is that these organizations and leaders will gradually assume responsibility for the projects and help root them in their communities so that they can be carried out in the long term in a more self-sustainable way: with more local resources and commitment, and less dependence on external aid.
There are many different ways to implement co-management and make development projects more self-sustainable. Take a look at how these initiatives have done it!
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