Local Organisations Capacity and Its Influence on Partnership with Local Government for Rural Development in Brazilian Amazonia

Abstract

The paper attempts to further understanding of the Local Organisations (LO) capacity for working in partnership. In particular, the paper analyses the LO nature, function and structure to be effective in working in partnership with Local Government Agencies (LGA) in the implementation of local development programmes at municipal level in Brazilian Amazonia. Through a qualitative and descriptive analysis, the paper reconstitutes the factors that infl uenced de LO creation; classifi es the LO by their nature, level of action, identity and achievements; and points out the LO characteristics that have facilitated and/or hampered relationships with LGA. The paper's data is from the LO of the municípios of Igarapé-Miri, Ourém and Mojú located on the north-east of Pará state in the Brazilian Amazonia region. The paper shows that heterogeneous and multi-functional LO such as the Community-Based Development Association (CBDA) and the Rural Workers' Unions have a much greater organisational capacity than single or dual-function local organisations for carrying out a partnership process and to respond to family-based, small-scale rural producers' interests. They have been dominated by the better-off and those with more trained members although the poorer and less capable groups have not been excluded. One of the most signifi cant powers of the multifunctional organisations (particularly the CBDAs and the Rural Workers' Unions) is the combination of strong intragroup ties with powerful extragroup networks at different levels -an important component of social capital. The Igarapé-Miri, Ourém and Mojú cases illustrate the impact that multifunctional local organisations such as the CBDA and the Rural Workers' Unions have on local development and governance. Without a political capacity for understanding their own role and of the role of the state in the process of development, the participation of single or dual-function LO in local development process may reinforce or simply confi rm the power of the state.

Partnership inside Governance Spaces: the case of the Municipal Development Forum of Igarapé-Açú, Pará, Amazonia

“…These include social capital, political competitiveness, local norms and procedures and organisational management capacity. In the local context, these factors coexist and interact with each other affecting the construction and performance of partnership (VASCONCELLOS SOBRINHO and VASCONCELLOS, 2012a). …”

“…According to Vasconcellos Sobrinho and Vasconcellos (2011), literature on development has located the concept of partnership into two different streams with low dialogue between each other: in the first stream, partnership is understood as a result of the existence or construction of social capital (OSTROM, 1997;HARRISS, 2000) and then it depends on the existence of trust and self-organisation (HARRISS, 2000, p. 236) of the partners. This view brings the ideal perspective that partnership only flourish inside claimed spaces.…”

“…This view brings the ideal perspective that partnership only flourish inside claimed spaces. In the second stream, partnership is understood as resulting from the roles of formal and political institutions (VASCONCELLOS SOBRINHO and VASCONCELLOS, 2012a). From an institutional-based point of view, partnership in any context is influenced by the incentives and opportunities created by prevailing institutional frameworks and innovative organisations.…”

“…Governance in the context of partnership means news forms of relationships between civil society, Government and Market to carry out development programmes that involves transparency, accountability and improvement of the efficiency of public programmes and services (VASCONCELLOS SOBRINHO and VASCONCELLOS, 2011;VASCONCELLOS and VASCONCELLOS SOBRINHO, 2015). Thus, governance means a new pattern of management which in some way the partners share valour, ideas, power and resources in favour to a common aim.…”

“…Before 1990s, the policy established by the federal Government for the rural area development in Amazonia did not take account of the family-based, small-scale producers (COSTA, 1995;VASCONCELLOS SOBRINHO and VASCONCELLOS, 2012b). The exclusion of family-based, small-scale producers was linked to others factors such as the political rural elites' dominance at local levels.…”