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About ILN-Africa
LIIS Project Information Localizing the MDGs One of the critical capacity needs towards the attainment of the MDGs is the availability and ready access to information at the local level; one might add the application of the knowledge based on this information. This aspect of 'capacity' cuts across the development effort. However, and unfortunately, it does not get adequate attention and resource allocation. It is often stated that "information needs to be disaggregated". Yet governments (and development partners) consistently allocate no resources to this critical aspect of local-level development in Africa. The simple fact is that for most of the continent this "disaggregated information" does not exist in the form, level of detail, or coverage (extent) for which it is required. The development community has recognized that local communities and the knowledge they collectively hold are a vital driving force for sustainable development. The efforts of local people to use natural resource assets available to them to improve their livelihoods are recognised and supported. Very innovative participatory approaches, such the assets-based community development, sustainable livelihood approach, and participatory development management, to name but a few, have been pioneered and developed over the past decade in several countries on this basis. As stakeholders in the development process communities also need information, albeit of a different kind. However, without such information, collected essentially from the perspective of the beneficiary of development, or made available in simple and useful formats, it will be difficult to effectively measure progress since "official" information and indicators tends to characterise achievements towards 'development' differently, even on the basis of the MDGs. On the other hand, if the flow of information within local government institutions, and between those institutions and the beneficiaries of their services is poor, the institutions remain inefficient and are more likely to make policies and implement programmes that do not address real concerns of the local communities and marginalized groups. Cognitive gap A major challenge of the local development process is what might be termed the "cognitive gap". A person cannot aspire to be 'something', or do things in a particular way, which he/she does not know anything about. Therefore, local communities need to be assisted with knowledge that opens up new vistas, and enable them to "make sense" of their circumstances and opportunities, and use available assets efficiently to tackle development challenges. As one local elder in Uganda puts it succinctly, "information is very important because it opens our eyes to a better world"2. The information that communities need address immediate needs, such as the availability or status of land for cultivation and grazing; wood stock for firewood and building material; market prices; or financial services; etc. Although very basic, this information is very critical for empowerment and self-emancipation. If farming communities, for instance, lack information about crop prices, new farming techniques, new markets or even weather forecast, they remain dependent on middlemen. They are thus unable to adapt to environmental and market changes which would enable them derive optimal benefits from their labour. Communities therefore need to be enabled and supported to identify and properly characterize their assets, explore and recognise the economic and social development opportunities that may be available to them, and chart appropriate courses of action. There is also need to facilitate engagement among members of communities, and with the global information society from which they can learn and derive value from the experiences of others, in order for them to explore and construct new realities out of the environment in which they live, as well as highlight their own achievements. At the same time, it is also necessary to provide a platform for communities to have a voice, and to be able to engage with the structures of governance on a variety of issues, including service delivery and expressing their opinion on matters that affect them. Thus, the availability of, access to, and ability to use information and knowledge effectively by local communities represent empowerment, and socio-economic independence. Ensuring this is a powerful way for communities to be able to participate effectively towards their own development, and the achievement of the MDGs at their level, as perceived and internalized by them. Monitoring Localizing the MDGs also requires that information for monitoring would be available at sub-national or localised levels. This would ensure that there is sufficient detail to highlight the heterogeneity and variation of under-development that occur within countries - at the level of localities, municipalities, districts, provinces, and national (e.g. income inequality, access to primary education, access to health, gender imbalances, etc.), and which needs to be addressed in order to achieve the Goals. This requirement, in turn, calls for a framework for the systematic collection and sharing local MDGs-related information and experiences that reflect community-level aspirations. Given the scope and complexity of capacity requirements in Africa and the need to address them in an integrated manner, monitoring and reporting on progress towards the MDGs requires an integrated assessments approach that would track issues and opportunities for intervention, interactions (e.g., policy conflicts), as well as outcomes. Again, this would require more detailed local-level data than is currently generally available. Very often assessments of the development effort and the information generated, reflect the "official view" and rarely involve the beneficiaries, because the prevailing development paradigm have seen local communities as "objects" at which development was targeted, and about which information is collected for planning and decision-making. The net result of this development paradigm has been that detailed local-level information is not routinely collected because no resources are allocated for it. Apart from isolated project-based data, local-level data is not routinely collected by national statistics and planning organizations. Even where data is collected, for instance, as part of household surveys, detailed information is very quickly lost through the processes of filtering and aggregation to obtain "policy-relevant" information. The information thus loses its resolution, spatial variation, and relevance for local action. Although they do have long-term aspirations, the poor and the disadvantaged often focus on 'localized', short-term priorities that reflect on their immediate needs. Thus, the key questions with respect to localizing the MDGs are: What do the targets translate to, directly or indirectly, at the local level? What local realities and processes do they relate to? What constitutes progress? Who measures this progress? Localizing implies that information for monitoring must of necessity be based on information that is responsive and reflect community-level needs, in order to avoid the risk of disconnecting the 'progress' indicators from the issues of relevance to the people who are supposed to benefit directly from the development interventions. Specific objectives The core objectives of LIIS are:
Development and implementation LIIS is not intended to be a monolithic 'system'. National implementation takes into account respective policy frameworks, while addressing specific, locality-based needs of communities. While remaining within the same conceptual framework and having the same 'core functionality', implementations may be adapted to national priorities and "sense-making" processes of end-users in the respective communities. The national implementation plans also provide for the establishment of appropriate institutional and partnership arrangements, including private-sector service providers, for effective functioning of LIIS in the country. The strategy outline how LIIS feeds into the national MDGs reporting process, ways to engender synergy through closer cooperation among various stakeholders, and link to the regional ILN. An implementation guide has been prepared to assist national partners wishing to implement LIIS. ILN-Africa/LIIS knowledge value propositions Information or a knowledge asset must be seen to have an intrinsic value in order for it to be relevant and useful to the receiver. Since sustainable development has many interacting dimensions knowledge resources will be varied, and will come from a variety of sources. It is therefore necessary to specify what constitutes 'valuable information and knowledge' within ILN-Africa/LIIS. In this regards a set of knowledge value propositions have been adopted as 'relevance filters'. Since the overarching principle underlying LIIS implementation is to empower communities to access and apply valuable information and knowledge to improve their well-being, the following general criteria will apply to information and knowledge resources (content)3:
The relevance and appropriateness of information and knowledge resources are also contextual, and depend on various factors, such as culture and political exigencies. National moderators will therefore be identified to "moderate" contextual information as necessary, and ensure that only relevant content is presented at each level. Footnote:
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