Message-ID: <Pine.A41.3.95q.970316112126.49918E-100000@paris.NMSU.Edu> Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 11:24:48 -0700 From: JC WANDEMBERG <mailto:juwandem@NMSU.EDU> Subject: Sustainability? To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
I'm not sure whether I've said this before or not . In any case the focus of my research is analogous to that of a person who wants to determine the best conditions for some seeds to grow and how to provide this conditions. In my case I want to determine what are the critical factors contributing to the success or failure of development initiatives not only in terms of attaining and maintaining the desired outcomes, but perhaps more importantly, in terms of eliminating or at least reducing uncompensated negative effects known by economists as negative externalities.What do people mean when they speak of "sustainability"? There may be as many definitions of sustainability as there a people and yet these definitions will surely have at least two things in common: 1) They are all anthropocentric (can't be otherwise) and 2) They all speak of an ideal process or state (just like economists speak of perfect use and allocation of resources such that nobody can be made better of without making someone else worse off -Pareto optimality).
My starting point is a working definition for SUSTAINABILITY as:
A continued process characterized by purposeful behavior.
PURPOSEFUL BEHAVIOR is more than just goal-seeking behavior. This definition is critical since a machine can be goal-seeking, an animal can be conditioned or trained to be goal-seeking BUT only humans *can* be purposeful and ideal-seeking in the *right* environment.
So, the crucial question now becomes: What is the *right* environment that will allow and enhance purposeful behavior, i.e., sustainability?
Here, I've drawn on the seminal work of Lippitt and White on Organizational Theory who demonstrated that *all* human organizations make a conscious or unconscious choice between two and *only* two organizational structures: 1) Bureaucratic; and 2) Participative Democratic (not to be confused with political stuff).
Based on the characteristics of each one of these two structures (please refer to http://www.nmsu.edu/~iirm) it's not hard to realized that we must design development initiatives under a Participative Democractic ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE. But here we must be very cautious since according to Pretty et al.(1994) there are at least seven levels of "participation". The first four level are clearly goal-seeking thus not purposeful. The fifth begins to approach purposeful behavior but is not quite yet. The sixth and seventh are purposeful thus more than just goal-seeking.
There are nowadays vary many schemes to design, redesign or re-engineer "participative" organizational structures (e.g.,participatory rural appraisal PAR, rapid rural appraisal RRA, planeamiento Andino Comunitario PAC, TQM, total quality management, etc.,etc.) but quite unfortunately all these schemes address nothing but the symptoms leaving the malady (i.e., the bureaucratic structure) intact! Fred and Merrelyn Emery developed, over a period of about 30 years, a methodology aim precisely at addressing this problem, namely, how to change or design an organizational structure from bureaucratic to participative democratic. Their *proven* method is composed of two stages. The first is called the Search Conference SC and the second Participative Design Workshop PDW.
I truly believe that if there is any hope for making development initiatives sustainable (according to the above definition) the SC and PDW can ensure the hope becomes a reality. In Australia the Emerys have carried out more than 300 SC & PDWs. Here, at New Mexico State University, IIRM has trained more than 300 SC & PDW practitioners, although this in is still an insignificant number. IIRM has also worked with the US Forest Service and private corporations as well. IIRM collaborators have also worked with the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico and managed other SC & PDWs in other countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador.
The value of these tools (SC & PDW) should very well deserve the Emerys a Nobel prize.
Best regards, ************************************************************ |J.C. Wandemberg |
|URL:http://web.nmsu.edu/~juwandem Email:mailto:juwandem@nmsu.edu |
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