Decentralization

A self-sustainability strategy used by several development projects is decentralizing their work processes, decision making or resource management and allocation.

Decentralizing means distributing roles and responsibilities among different members of a community rather than having all decisions come from an initiative’s headquarters. This has helped many projects foster community engagement so that, with the help of people’s points of view, they can better identify how problems manifest themselves locally and implement solutions to solve them in a more holistic way that is relevant to all. Delegating responsibilities also helps clarify what and how much material, labor, time, money and knowledge can be contributed by each person, which fosters a better use of local resources and a more diverse network of sources of support, increasing a project’s self-sustainability.

In addition, when more people are involved in decision making and resource management and allocation, their proximity and vigilance may make initiatives more transparent and, therefore, trustworthy to existing or future donors and volunteers. Therefore, this strategy also helps to diversify, maintain and expand sources of support.

Depending on their type, some development projects create structures to decentralize, such as cooperatives, local offices, school governments or commissions. Others collaborate with local organizations and leaders so that decisions are reached collectively, experience and credibility with target communities is leveraged, efforts are not duplicated and resources are maximized. Others train and empower local communities to gradually take on roles within the project. Still others create dynamics to distribute responsibilities such as rotating management, for instance, where each participant is in charge of managing an area of the project for a while, and then exchanges responsibilities with somebody else.