1. INTRODUCTION

“… Despite almost paralyzing problems, many people and groups strongly believe that positive new development can happen, but only if the people themselves stay in control of their resources, economies and culture.”1 In many cases, rural energy development efforts have failed to deliver their promises. In fact, the majority of rural energy projects have either failed or produced results that are mixed at best. What has gone wrong? In practice, conventional projects usually aim at meeting the basic needs of rural population by providing them with one or two lighting connections, hoping that gradually the economic development of rural communities would take place. In the past, energy development assistance has, in most cases, utilized a top-down and technology-driven approach, neither of which has achieved local consumer buy-in, or willingness to pay and maintain installed energy delivery systems.

The basic fault of this conventional approach lies in the fact that rural populations are rarely consulted or engaged in their energy needs planning, energy technologies selection, energy systems management and operations, not to mention system ownership. A prime factor for this is that the vast majority of the poor has no organizational structure to represent their interests. Being isolated, undereducated, and often dependent on rural elites, rural populations lack vision and means to play a decisive role in all aspects of rural energy planning and delivery approaches.

The lesson is clear: unless the rural populations are given the means to actively participate in their own development, they will continue to be excluded from its benefits. This realization is provoking great interest in a new approach to rural energy development, that of people’s participation through organizations controlled and co-financed by themselves.

Indigenous Knowledge Systems in SSA: An Overview, IK Notes #1, World Bank, October 1998

This paper focuses on CORE’s experience in designing and developing a bottom-up approach that involves a participatory process in assessing the rural communities’ energy needs, selection of appropriate technologies, and development of local institutional and organizational models for service delivery, bringing our experience and lessons learned primarily from our recent work in South Asia.

2. IMPLEMENTING A BOTTOM-UP STAKEHOLDER PARTICIPATORY APPROACH

During the past five years, CORE has been working in South Asian countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) as part of the USAID SARI/Energy team of contractors. CORE has been primarily responsible for the Rural Energy Services (RES) institutional capacity building and training Program. The following discussion is based on our experience working for SARI/Energy in the South Asia Region. Governments in South Asia and around the world are increasingly recognizing the need to understand and engage local stakeholders in the process of rural energy development in order to build support for change and ensure long-term sustainability. Furthermore, they are becoming increasingly aware that this can only be achieved by enhancing the public sector accountability, transparency, and governance. Throughout our work in South Asia, we have found that the following three major elements are critical to successful design and development of sustainable energy service delivery programs for poverty alleviation and social development of rural populations:

(i) implementation of a bottom-up approach to the participatory process of the assessment of rural communities’ energy needs, selection of appropriate technologies, and development of local institutional and organizational setup for service delivery;

(ii) utilization of energy services primarily for income

increased knowledge of rural environmental conditions and energy-environment linkage,

enhanced local consumers’ capabilities of organizing and decision-making in resource management and rural energy development programs,

enhanced participatory approaches in designing, formulating and implementing plans and programs related to rural energy system development and management, and

increased awareness of the need for participation in rural energy service systems operation, management, and ownership. generating activities; and

(iii) implementation of an integrated approach in rural services delivery by “bundling” energy projects with other rural infrastructure services such as water, health, and education.

There are three primary means by which the public can be engaged in rural energy development–consultation and communication, participation in the decision-making and implementation process, and service delivery management, operation, and ownership.

Consultation is a process through which stakeholders play an active role in shaping and implementing rural energy delivery programs, while communication is a process through which relevant information is shared between stakeholders. Both processes must be interactive, with equal footing among stakeholders. In many cases consultation and communication are linked together, forming an integral part of a government’s stakeholder outreach program.

Participation in the decision-making and rural energy implementation process is the basic element for ensuring local consumer buy-in and willingness to pay for adequately delivered energy services. The role of rural populations in establishing institutions that improve their own economic and social lives is to be seen as a basic human right. If provision of energy for rural economic and social development is to realize its potential, then rural populations have to be organized and actively involved in designing policies and developing and implementing programs, thereby ensuring the sustainability with their decisive role in controlling communities’ social and economic activities.

Public participation in energy service delivery management, operation, and ownership is found to be critical in ensuring the service delivery system viability and sustainability. This can be explained with the impacts caused by this type of participation, which are:

(i) empowerment of rural consumers through participation in management and/or ownership, (ii) local employment generation, (iii) local capacity build in the process of energy system management and operation, (iv) decreased rural to urban migration due to higher rural employment and income generating opportunities, and (v) enhanced economic and social development process and democratization through decentralization and private sector development.

In summary, people’s participation requires organizing and mobilizing communities and their representatives and empowering them by contributing through collective actions to achieve a common goal.

Organization + Empowerment + Contributions = People's Contribution

Therefore, we perceive the people’s participation as the combination of following three elements. This bottom-up participatory approach coincides well and integrates with the South Asian governments’ overall policies on decentralized and integrated rural development. The results of CORE’s work in implementing this participatory approach in several countries of South Asia (under the USAID SARI/E Program), in summary, include:

In 2003, CORE proposed and USAID approved for CORE to design and facilitate two roundtables in Sri Lanka and Nepal that served as a test of all the experience of public participation accumulated in the South Asia Region in almost four years of extensive work with rural populations. CORE proposed Sri Lanka and Nepal roundtables as the initial pilot projects because public participation in rural energy issues in those two countries has (i) many commonalities and (ii) many striking differences, thereby covering a broad range of issues potentially widely applicable to many other situations. As a detailed analysis of these common and different features is not the subject of this paper, we would like instead to briefly describe the lessons learned and insights gained from CORE’s implementation of the above-described bottom-up participatory approach in the two countries. Box 1 and Box 2 summarize CORE’s experience in the two roundtables. Box 1 demonstrates that sustainable results can be achieved by coordinating locally driven and locally facilitated solutions to energy service delivery, which has been the case in the Uva Province of Sri Lanka.

Box 1:
May 30-31, 2003, Bandarawela, UVA Province, Sri Lanka

Roundtable on “Rural Electrification with Focus on Renewable Energy Applicable in Sri Lanka”, This roundtable was designed to focus on the rural consumers’ expectations about rural energy (RE) supply based on renewable energy sources and provide a forum for discussion among local stakeholders. The Energy Forum, Colombo, Sri Lanka was the local partner for conducting the roundtable in local language. Four selected panelists facilitated and moderated discussions among 23 local stakeholder representatives during the roundtable. The use of local language helped in active participation of rural consumers who freely articulated their views and expectations on their role in energy service delivery for sustainable development. The energy minister, the chief secretary, and the energy secretary of the Province were present throughout the roundtable discussions. This provided an added confidence to the stakeholders that there would be adequate follow up and that the government is serious about the rural energy problem in Uva province of Sri Lanka. The stakeholders realized the significance of such type of activities and collectively identified important issues related to their empowerment and involvement in solving their own energy needs for development and arrived at possible methods to address them. The following events were conducted as follow-up activities of CORE’s above Roundtable in the Uva Province: 1. Micro Hydro Provincial Stockholders Meeting, 23 Oct 2003, at the Auditorium of the Uva Provincial Council. The meeting was organized by the Ministry of Energy, Uva Provincial Council, and chaired by the Hon. Minister of Energy of the Provincial Council. Problems and issues related to Financing procedures and technical standards of the stand alone Village hydro schemes were discussed. All stakeholders including Administrative Unit of World Bank funded RERED project, Participatory Credit Institutions, Village Hydro Developers Association, Federation of Electricity Consumer Societies, Energy Forum, provincial officials and consumer organizations were present at the meeting. Provincial Energy Minister agreed to allocate funds from the coming years’ budget to initiate income generating projects utilizing the energy produced by the village hydro schemes. 2. Workshop on Operational & Maintenance of Micro Hydro Project in the Uva Province, 03-04 July 2003, at the Management Training Centre - Passara. Representatives of 14 Electricity Consumer Societies attended. The issues & challenges faced by the ECSs were discussed and recommendations for overcoming the crisis situation were formulated. 3. Workshop on Exploring Opportunities & Potential for Establishing Rural Economic Projects in the Village-Hydro Villages, 8-10 October 2003, at Peessa. This event was planned and implemented by the FECS under the RERED project and formulated 4 business plans to establish income generation activities in 4 villages.”

 

In Nepal’s case, as shown in Box 2, rural stakeholders clearly articulated their needs and will to participate in the RE delivery process. Moreover, they expressed their concern about good governance and transparency in the provision of finance and subsidy to foster investments in new service delivery approaches.

Box 2:
May 27-28, 2003, Kathmandu, Nepal

Roundtable on “Insights on consumer expectations pertinent to a new model of rural energy supply in Nepal”, CORE International designed and conducted a roundtable on “Insights on consumer expectations pertinent to a new model of rural energy supply in Nepal” during the period of May 27 - 28, 2003 in Kathmandu, Nepal. A total of 22 participants including five panelists participated in this roundtable which was conducted in the local language. The discussions focused on various issues involved in the sustainable rural energy access to drive the rural development programs aimed at poverty alleviation and improvement in the quality of life. The importance of administrative, political, and financial decentralizations; linkage with poverty alleviation program for sustainability; and the importance of involving rural consumer at all stages from planning to implementation of rural energy and rural development projects were well acknowledged by the participants. The participants made the following specific recommendations: 1. Need for capacity building of all stakeholders engaged in rural development activities. 2. Integration of all rural programs with the aim of poverty alleviation with energy as the main driving force. 3. Need for rural planning at the local level with active participation of rural consumers. 4. Need for effective coordination among all government departments and stakeholders involved in rural programs including rural energy supply. 5. Need for transparency in the provision of finance and subsidy to foster investments in new service delivery approaches. 6. Need for availability of facility for technical guidance to rural consumers for all different rural development projects. 7. Need for after-sales service and maintenance to be integral part of the planning and implementation process for the projects. The roundtable generated a considerable amount of discussion among the participants. The rural consumer representatives were able to articulate their views without fear and hesitation because it was conducted in Nepalese language. The participants realized the importance of holding such roundtables and expressed the view that they themselves should have organized such roundtables bringing all the stakeholders at one forum to provide them the opportunity to understand and exchange each other’s views. Further, all the stakeholders collectively identified important issues and arrived at possible methods to address them.

 

3. LESSONS LEARNED

Based on our direct and long experience in providing technical assistance capacity building support for public participation in sustainable rural energy service delivery, we have summarized the approaches and lessons learned as follows:

A. Explore the Potential for Participatory Rural Appraisal in the Energy Field

The participatory process is found to be a critical element of success in developing rural energy services approaches. The case of the State of Karnataka, India is CORE’s most recent successful project example supporting this finding. The involvement of grass root level stakeholders (who are also end-users of energy) in their energy needs assessment, technology selection, and energy service providers’ institutional organization ensures buy-in, willingness to pay for the services received, and overall sustainability of commercial rural energy supply. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and related techniques must be used after being explained to and agreed by local community and private sector representatives. They have been described to the communities as “a family of approaches and methods to enable rural populations to share, enhance, and analyze their knowledge of life and conditions, to plan and to act”2 for improving their living conditions and poverty alleviation.

2 Chambers, R.; 1994; “The Origins and Practice of Participatory Rural Appraisal”. World Development. Vol. 22, No. 7. Elsevier Science Ltd., UK

Involving the local stakeholders in assessing their needs for energy has two major advantages of (i) enabling the identification of social barriers to potential solutions, and (ii) developing relationships among stakeholders that facilitate the environment for addressing these barriers. It must be noted that in almost all cases of rural energy supply approaches, the likelihood of success is greatly increased by follow-up and continuous monitoring that involves the local community.

B. Implement a Holistic, Effective and Efficient Technical Assistance Approach

CORE’s approach is holistic in that it uses a multi-disciplinary research by expat and local joint teams to develop an understanding of community life from the villagers’ perspective. As a result, a range of issues such as cooperative culture, leadership and management capacity, labor patterns and income generation opportunities, existing credit facilities, as well as immediate capacity building needs are assessed at village/local community levels, which allows for the design of custom-made sustainable rural energy approaches and programs. Our approach is:

implemented on both a formal and an informal basis,

designed as iterative and flexible,

shaped on a case-by-case basis to encourage the local community to take the lead in defining the most pressing issues that they face, and

focused on identifying and discussing a range of potential solutions and options with the local stakeholders.

Another dimension of stakeholder participation in preparing for the launch or expansion of modern rural energy service delivery is related to the cost of delivery of technical assistance. In almost every project, CORE International, Inc. mobilizes local consultants from the very region the assistance is to be delivered. This not only raises local levels of responsibility and commitment, but also substantially reduces cost to our client while ensuring reasonable accommodation of followup activities within approved budgets. CORE’s project in Karnataka, India under the SARI/E Program and the Global Village Energy Partnership (GVEP) projects in Sri Lanka and Zambia are examples where local consultants were mobilized to enhance local acceptance.

Box 3 summarizes our work under the GVEP Project in Sri Lanka, which involved extensive local participation and dialogue to enhance local buy-in and commitment.

Global Village Energy Partnership (GVEP) Support in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka is one of the initial nations that joined GVEP at the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa in August 2003. To move forward with its participation in GVEP, the Government has designated the Ministry of Power and Energy (MPE) as its lead ministry for coordinating development of its initial rural development program under GVEP. CORE International, Inc. is providing assistance to the MPE to facilitate stakeholder participation and development of near-term actions to enhance Sri Lanka’s process of active participation in GVEP. Key objectives of this intervention are to: (i) conduct a review and assessment of the current rural electrification (RE) and rural energy services (RES) setting and the role of various entities and institutions in adapting a multi-sector approach to rural development, (ii) initiate in-country consultations among all major RE/RES stakeholders at the national level, and assist in the establishment of a multi-sector GVEP Working Group, and (iii) assist Sri Lanka in the development of an action plan for donors and private sector participation in increasing energy service delivery by primarily increasing public and local stakeholder participation in designing, development, operation, management and ownership.

C. Learn from the Recent Past and Improve and Development

form of electricity. The question arises – why is electricity availability and use are so much lower than the potential access of electricity (70%). The problem is that until recent years Indian authorities have been unable to effectively mobilize public participation in the rural electrification development process. The Electricity Act of 2003 has provided for comprehensive power sector reforms in every state in India. It addresses specifically the issue of decentralizing rural energy service delivery and requires wide stakeholder and public participation in this process. In this context, states in India are required to prepare and enforce new legislations and regulatory frameworks to facilitate this process. CORE’s direct experience in this area relates to the State of Karnataka, which is implementing a new legislation that requires the involvement of local communities and organizations in rural energy service delivery operation, management, and ownership.

CORE has been continuously advocating that it is not enough simply for the public to participate in the process of rural energy policy and program design and development. An important second step must be taken, that of involving the rural population and consumers in the rural energy delivery management, operations, and ownership. This approach has been successfully implemented in the case of Karnataka, India.

The State of Karnataka has launched a program — Participation in Rural Electricity Service of Karnataka (PRESK) — for the capacity building of Gram Panchayats (GPs – the elected local village level governments in rural areas) to take over rural electricity distribution in a phased manner. GPs would initially take over the billing and collection and later graduate to taking over other activities involved in electricity distribution. In the context of PRESK, CORE has completed a project in the State of Karnataka entitled “Building Capacity Energy In the excitement of bringing modern energy services to the consumers, it is easy to forget that there are many longstanding lessons that can contribute to the long-term sustainability of interventions meant to benefit rural communities. An example from South Asia is the noble effort of the Indian Government to electrify all villages by year 2012. In this effort, a transmission or high tension line goes through or close by about 70% of villages and rural areas of India, thereby offering access to electricity to 70% of the population. The fact is that only about 30-40% of rural Indians use some

in Grama Panchayats to Implement the Government of Karnataka MOU Process Pilot Project in Karnataka, India”. Box 4 demonstrates CORE’s participatory approach to building capacity among rural stakeholders and preparing them for taking over the entire process of rural energy services delivery – design, development, implementation, operation, management, and ownership of the systems.

Box 4: “Building Capacity in Grama Panchayats to Implement the Government of Karnataka MOU Process Pilot Project in Karnataka, India” (PRESK) At project start, CORE International, Inc. held two workshops to present proposed Grama Panchayats (GPs) capacity building techniques and materials for the Capacity Building “Understanding and Decision Options for Implementing the Model MOU”, and received feedback form local stakeholders, and then the capacity program was finalized and delivered. In all, 89 GP members representing 21 GPs from Doddaballpura, Gubbi, and Molkalmur Taluks in Karnataka, India participated in this activity. The GP capacity building participants were extremely positive about assessing opportunities for direct participation in rural electricity distribution along the lines proposed by the Government of Karnataka (GOK) in their Draft Model MOU. This interest is, in part, driven by a growing realization among the GPs that without their proactive participation in addressing the rural electricity supply problem, rural distribution network conditions will continue to deteriorate and adversely impact rural economic development and their living conditions. In addition to introducing the GOK’s proposed Model MOU to GP members, CORE also began the process of creating awareness among GP members of the critical linkages between solutions to rural groundwater problems and electricity supply problems – the water-electricity nexus. The overall response of the GP members to this project can probably be best expressed by the following development. The Participant GPs discussed the capacity building event with other GPs on return to their Taluks, and actively encouraged attendance in the two routine deliveries of the project. Consequently, the GPs’ communication amongst them resulted in the GP member participants coming to the second routine delivery of the project with considerable knowledge of background information and specific questions and issues for discussion. This allowed for a more in-depth treatment of some topics. An encouraging sign of GP interaction in the project was the ability of GP members with different capabilities to work together. An example was the literate members communicating with the illiterate members in role-playing exercises and group activities that involved written scenarios and the development of GP group’s presentations chart/posters (18% of the GP member participants were illiterate). The PRESK capacity building activities under South Asia Regional Initiative/Energy project funded by USAID and implemented by CORE International, Inc. trained a total of 383 participants, of which 107, or 27.9 percent, were women.

D. Benefit from Community Upfront Involvement Traditional thinking in many utilities is often oblivious to the importance of local community involvement. Rural energy and electrification is seen simply as a technical matter of stringing lines to grateful consumers. The experience worldwide clearly shows that rural electrification programs can benefit greatly from the involvement of local communities – or suffer because of its absence. Setting up a rural electrification committee to represent the local community can do much to smooth the implementation of the program. The committee can play a crucial role in helping assess the level of demand, educating consumers in advance, encouraging them to sign up for a supply, and promoting wider use of electricity.

For example in Bangladesh, consumer meetings are held before the arrival of the electricity supply, helping to avoid costly and time-consuming disputes over rights of way and construction damage. Community contributions, in cash or kind, have been often the decisive factor in bringing areas within the scope of the rural electrification program in Sri Lanka through electricity consumer societies. The efforts to recruit customers made by parish rural electrification committees in Ireland ensured that the utility received an adequate return on its investment and contributed to the rapid implementation of the country’s rural electrification program.

4. CONCLUSIONS AND WAY FORWARD

Effective and sustained public participation is a critical element for sustained rural energy service delivery planning and implementation. Incorporation of participatory elements in community-based rural energy development programs constitutes an effective and proven approach for ensuring consumer buy-in and their willingness to pay for the services received, thereby maximizing the prospects for the overall viability, reliability, and sustainability of rural energy delivery institutions and systems. Therefore, stakeholders have to continuously reshape and enhance their approaches, policies, and interventions in the area of rural energy service delivery by making the public participatory process a “must” and a conditionality of any future intervention. Here are a few tips:

1. Policy makers should encourage policy dialogues that involve public opinion and direct participation in the policy decision process. New policies need to encourage appropriate legislations that promote rural organizations, including freedom of association as well as reorientation of the service delivery systems towards the needs of the rural poor. In addition, the systems should, to the maximum extent be operated, managed, and owned by local communities themselves. Full integration of women in the rural energy development process; decentralization of decision-making, planning, and resource allocation; and increased agricultural production by utilization of energy and expansion of non-agricultural employment opportunities are other areas for change.

2. Development planners should identify needs and address priorities by involving local NGOs and other stakeholder groups’ representatives in the rural development and energy planning process. This approach needs to be mandated in rural development planning and budgeting process.

3. Rural consumers and local rural energy providers are naturally inclined to embrace any participatory approach and process that aims to enhance their role in energy service delivery because they are the first to be positively impacted by the increased provision of reliable and affordable energy services. They need only to be well informed and trained on their expected roles and responsibilities. Appropriate public awareness campaign and dedicated capacity building and training programs are the best “medicine” for timely involvement of grassroots stakeholders in the mainstream of rural energy service development process.

4. Some international donors and other development agencies involved in the implementation of large-scale rural energy programs may not fully appreciate the full value of local level participatory rural energy development approaches. This can be overcome through introducing specific participation components in future program designs. In some cases, it may be useful demonstrate the achievements of participatory projects through effective monitoring and evaluation systems, and case studies on their benefits and cost-effectiveness.

5. Last but not least is the local leaders’ need to become important players in the participatory process for rural energy development. The support of village leaders is often crucial to a participatory project. This support should be obtained through meetings and project initiation workshops aimed at convincing local traditional and administrative leaders that the project is in their interest as well as in the interest of the community at large.

In summary, rural development and poverty alleviation can only be achieved through the provision of reliable and affordable services – healthcare, agriculture development, education, infrastructure, etc. This requires the provision of reliable and affordable energy services. Experience shows that the engagement of the rural consumer through a participatory process offers an attractive opportunity to cause rural development.