Sustainable Development Policy Institute

Community Development

• Building Social Capital: The Case of Human Development Foundation

In the area of community development, the objective of this completed research was to outline an alternative vision of development focussing on poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

Introduction

SDPI became a research and monitoring partner in a multi-partner initiative coordinated by the Human Development Foundation North America (HDFNA). Project Pakistan was an initiative of a community of North American-Pakistani physicians who desired to do something for the cause of human development and empowerment among the poor in their country of origin. Since, among the poor, the women are the most deprived, there is a particular focus on women health and their empowerment.

In this regard, the HDFNA Pakistan project extended the work earlier began by one of its supporting organizations APPNA (Association of Pakistani Physicians in North America). The country strategy report commissioned by HDFNA for its future human development interventions, made several suggestions, three of which stand out. First, it recommended a multi-sectoral intervention to ensure an overall increase in the human development indicators. Recommending this approach now has solid foundations in Pakistan starting with the work of the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) which initiated the work of other Rural Support Programs and development support organisations.

Second, to build on the sectoral work already initiated by the supporting organizations of HDFNA, it suggested a multi-partner initiate. An important part of the initiative is for HDFNA to work with various partners. In this regard, the Human Development Partnership was founded to learn social mobilization skills from the National Rural Support Program (NRSP). The other two field partners were the Tameer-I-Millat (TM) that has vast experience in basic schooling and APPNA Sehat which has extensive experience in health initiatives. SDPI was the fourth partner assigned to do research and monitoring. SDPI was entrusted with evolving a research method and communications strategy which would engage both the local communities and the partner organizations.

Under thsi project SDPI sought to study process rather than just change over time and the causes of that change. Thus, benchmarks were established and return visits made to indicate progress. It was even possible to go beyond this and attempt, within the limitations posed by social science research, to identify the causes of the progress. However, what is not normally captured by such research is the process of social change i.e., the mechanisms via which the change occurred.

A trained and sensitized anthropologist observed and reported on both the process of social change and human development and on the inter-linkages between the various health, education and income generation interventions. This synthesis report primarily focuses on these two aspects of the project both of which we felt were vital to understand the process of human development but are generally neglected in most social science research. This approach also provided the unique opportunity to track interventions and individuals over a period of time, which made the information and analysis much richer than the usual one-shot sample survey or the limited time participatory rural appraisal.

Apart from process and linkages as cross cutting themes, SDPI focused on several specific research areas. This study haD four components. An institutional analysis was designed to ascertain the incipient ‘social capital’ in the community (by which we mean the willingness and ability to act in the collective community interest), the state of natural resource conservation and how this has been transformed as a result of the project intervention. Gender analysis was designed to ascertain the state of women in development and how this changed over time. Education and health analyses were designed to ascertain progress in these sectors and the determinants of this progress.

Progress

The first project area was Mardan (several villages), in which APPNA already had several health initiatives, and in which it had done some social mobilization. TM very rapidly set up numerous schools. HDP staff was trained by the NRSP in social mobilization.

For more details regarding this project, please contact Sajid Kazmi (sajid@sdpi.org).

Please see SDPI’s List of Publications to find out more about SDPI’s research findings on community development.