Bringing out the best

The writer argues for the need to reverse the trend of how natural assets or community-based resources like knowledge and forests are being devalued by our economic systems.

A remarkable feature of the Vanuatu Population Policy launched in Port Vila last week is its explicit recognition of the concept of subsidiarity decentralising implementation responsibility closer to community level.

The principle of subsidiarity argues that if a smaller unit can perform better than a bigger one, then the latter can simply play a co-ordination role. The word comes from the logic that central authorities like our governments can play, in certain situations, a subsidiary role intervening only when absolutely necessary.

No policy will ever reach beyond the proverbial dust-gathering stage without community awareness and herein lay the great potential of empowering the family to apply its capabilities of being the most effective production unit in society.

While the concept of subsidiarity was introduced in the European Union (in the Treaty of Maastricht) it is very much relevant in the Pacific region where our communal units have yet to have its strengths recognised and fully utilised in the development sector.

Most of our island nationals must exist in duality to survive in the modern world: one has to be "educated" in the Western sense and be savvy of dynamics that make the world spin while maintaining one's traditional identity, within traditional structures, rules and norms.

These existing structures have been acknowledged. The question is how best we can integrate development concepts or programs within these structures to reverse the fragmentation people are experiencing. Today's world for example creates individualism (by default) as opposed to solesolevaki (a Fijian practice of communal effort towards specific goals like building village schools or weddings), as the economics of today systematically devalues communal aspects of existence.

But it doesn't have to be so and this is where it may be useful to consider the concept of Integrated Household Resource Management (IHRM): when we combine (introduced) concepts that will contribute to the attainment of a high quality of life without sacrificing ('positive') cultural practices.

Culture has without doubt influenced and continues to mould the way people see each other and the outside world; it is what informs people's perspective on development approaches which makes cultural knowledge indispensable for understanding local dynamics like power relations which in turn has implications on our development programs.

Cultures evolve and can adapt to changing circumstances but it is the ability to integrate development according to the speed of this evolution which is key to making development effective at community level.

The right of people to have their cultural knowledge and interests included in the development policies and programmes that concern them is the greatest catalyst to sustainable development. Communities are then more confident to consider issues like adolescent information and services needs and/or decision-making on fertility from a more informed and carefully considered perch rather than seeing development as a rushed-through intrusion.

While the catalyst for change may be external, real change will not occur unless it is a sincere desire from within; this fragile but all-important metamorphosis process can be facilitated through a timely, sincere and well thought-out effort at integration.

IHRM is an approach which seeks to avoid the depletion of natural resources; the neglect of indigenous knowledge, wasting money; and seeks to avoid processes which undervalue age-old communal self-reliance (because of fragmented decision-making) and sectoral-based programmes.

Historically, processes of integration constitute a main force in achieving individual wellbeing and societal development.

Households is the preferred word when discussing rural development as family connotes kinship rather than the friends, relatives and workers who live within these households.

The idea of resources has been narrowed down to assets valuable only in the context of national economies and international financial markets, neglecting the inter-generational importance and social perception communities attach to resources that support their livelihood.

Everyone in household units manage resources to a certain extent; rural women, men and youth make decisions daily on resources around them knowledge, labour, money, livestock, crops, fish, forests, land, water, social networks, machinery and more. A comprehensive conceptualisation is important because efficient management of household resources often depends upon access to other resources such as markets, transport, credit, education and health care

This integrated approach to attain an improved quality of life is achievable. Acknowledgement must firstly be made of the intricate organisations of traditional extended family roles and functions in resource planning and its implications on security and changing family and individual needs.

We can then collectively improve our: physical resources of families (eg natural assets like forests and the reef and adopting family planning); social resources (eg spiritual development, inter-personal relationships and access to family, maternal and child health services); economic resources (eg family budgets and income, acquiring business management skills and sharing resources to reduce expenditure); and community resources through family action (initiating small-scale development projects, employment opportunities and community environment like water supply.

The fast-changing world and related challenges needs out-of-the-box thinking and planning. We may well have to look for ways and means to reintegrate what we have fragmented; we must reverse the propensity to ignore social value-added aspects of our communities.

A high quality of life is not necessarily reflected by gross domestic product (GNP) calculations for it ignores in its calculations those who are not integrated into this economic system.

Subsidiarity could bring out the best that is yet to be discovered in development as participation of our communities has yet to be fully harnessed. Integrated household resource management offer that all important first step.

Dirk Jena is the United Nations Population Fund Pacific sub-regional office director and representative.