Changing the political economy of poverty and ecological disruption

This publication presents an intervention approach that is designed to help community organisations, civil society groups, government offices and development agencies in their efforts to change the underlying causes of poverty and ecological disruption. Building on a political economy perspective, this approach seeks to change the interactions among social groups, private economic actors and the state as they compete and seek to accumulate wealth and build political power.

This intervention approach was developed, tested and further refined through a range of activities carried out over a four-year period at local, subnational and national levels in five countries - China, El Salvador, Indonesia, South Africa and Zambia. The approach is based on four steps:

• translating socioeconomic analysis into intervention plans
• implementing direct interventions at the local level
• influencing meso or subnational institutional arrangements
• influencing national policies and institutions.

Lessons learned from the experiences made with the approach are:

• it is imperative to work at all levels to bring about fundamental changes in the ability of the rural poor to raise their living standards and improve natural resource management
• it is very difficult, if not impossible, to significantly improve natural resource management over the long term unless a process of economic growth is under way that raises the incomes of the rural poor
• social welfare programmes and safety nets - from modest health and educational programmes to direct financial transfers to local governments for food security and social stabilisation - are very important, particularly during times of economic transition
• despite the importance of welfare supports, however, the financial transfers do little to help the rural poor move out of their current conditions of ecological and social vulnerability. If anything, they maintain the marginal, dependent status of the rural poor without providing incentives and institutional support to break the cycle of marginalisation
• building rural-urban alliances is essential to success.