Preventive Measures

Several development initiatives and projects care for the conditions that foster their self-sustainability by taking preventive measures.

Some initiatives devote time and create spaces to consider self-sustainability threats that might arise over time. This is important because identifying potential problems in advance and taking actions to minimize their negative impact often leads to a better use of project resources and to more effective interventions in the long term.

Some initiatives systematize and evaluate their project’s know-how in order to identify or design preventive measures that protect and increase self-sustainability. Others achieve the same purpose by forming workgroups that analyze and adapt projects as they go along; others seek consultancies from experts or initiatives with more experience; and still others organize forums or meetings that help them identify opportunities and obstacles and get valuable feedback. In addition, some other development projects decide to create or use participatory structures or dynamics (local stakeholder organizations, festivals, participatory diagnoses, rotating administrations) to gather diverse knowledge that can help prevent possible negative scenarios in terms of self-sustainability. 

Once preventive measures have been identified, many initiatives go on to implement them. Having realized that a large part of its annual resources is spent on buying pipes to supply drinking water to a community, for instance, an initiative would be better off investing in cleaning local water wells –by tending to the source of the problem the project will avoid a constant investment of time, money and effort. Some other initiative might create a stability fund that allows it to continue working even if funds cannot be raised for a period of time because of, say, an economic crisis or any other reason. Another initiative may decide to implement a pilot project in one school to test new ideas and see how best to leverage resources before scaling up its educational program throughout a given region. Yet another project might choose to train beneficiaries to manage and use the solar technology it has installed in the community so that people can take charge when the project is no longer operating in the region. Still another initiative might decide to raise awareness of the problem it is working on so that, in the upcoming elections, the population will support the decision-makers whose public policy proposals positively affect its programs.