Sida's Strategies for Natural Resources and the Environment

by Johan Holmberg

Important changes in the global development paradigm are reflected in the recent priority setting exercise of a major donor agency. CGIAR News is reprinting this interesting analysis with the kind permission of Development Today, Oslo.

The work of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) in the area of natural resources and the environment should be seen in the context of four policy papers adopted during 1996 and 1997 in the areas of sustainable development, poverty, gender equity, and human rights and democracy.

These policy papers are closely aligned with the politically established objectives for Swedish development aid and set a framework for all of Sida's operations.

It is the paper on sustainable development that is of most direct relevance to Sida's work with natural resources and the environment. It specifies that priority should be given to five subject matter areas and two cross­cutting methodological approaches, namely: water resources management; sustainable land management, including soil conservation; the marine environment; the urban environment; environmentally sound production and consumption of energy; capacity building and institutional development; and NGOs and civil society.

But what became of agriculture and forestry, subsumed above under "sustainable land management?" And what about fisheries? Sweden was very much part of the trend in the aid donor community in the late 1980s and early l990s when aid to agriculture declined as the combined result of political pressure for environmental action and disillusion with the performance of aid to agriculture, primarily in Africa.

It is therefore reasonable to ask whether this remains the predominant view. Is it reflected in the aforementioned priorities of Sida's work with natural resources?

The short answer is no. There is a gradual shift under way back to agriculture in Sida's cooperation with African countries. In 1995 Sida commissioned a major review of its possibilities to contribute more effectively to African food security. The report, available in mid­1996, recommended that Sida strengthen its professional presence in Africa in fields related to food security. It also recommended more support to decentralized programs to tackle issues related to productivity in smallholder agriculture.

Major programs in this area are now in various stages of planning in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique. These are all area­based programs with several different components designed to address the multiple needs at farm level. They resemble the integrated rural development programs of the 1970s. But there are major differences. The new programs set out to strengthen the local government administrations instead of creating separate organizations. They are based on a bottom­up planning approach where priorities for intervention are determined by the beneficiaries. They use low quantities of imported farm inputs and more emphasis on locally produced, improved seeds. They all have significant components of agricultural research.

In addition, support to international agricultural research through CGIAR is Sida's single largest research program. There are signs that this support may increase further in future years.

So what has changed? Why does Sida now consider conditions for success in agriculture to be more propitious in Africa than in the 1980s? First, with structural adjustment many of the economic distortions discriminating against agriculture have now been removed. Economic incentives now exist for farmers to grow more food. Second, there is the belief that food security in Africa is an issue that needs to be tackled head­on and that improving the environment in rural areas is not sufficient to increase farm productivity. Third, many of the components of these programs, such as strengthening local government institutions, gaining knowledge through research, and improving rural roads, are prerequisites for future agricultural productivity increases. And fourth, there is increasing realization that more support to agricultural research is a necessary, albeit insufficient, precondition for future food production increases.

Interestingly, the development has been similar in forestry, previously considered one of the high­profile areas of Sweden's development assistance. It is Sida's experience that to reduce deforestation rates, support to improved agriculture and security of tenure is often likely to be more effective than direct forestry assistance. That has lead to a gradual disappearance of separate forestry projects. They are being integrated into programs for natural resource management that emphasize agricultural extension, provision of water and credit facilities. Examples of programs where this development has been evident are found in Vietnam, Laos and India.

Support to fisheries development by Sida has almost ceased, as the last project is being phased out in Angola. This is being replaced by an interest in coastal zone management, and a review of Sida's work in this area is under way.

An important new priority area for Sida is water resources management. In 1996 Sida took an initiative in southern Africa with a focus mainly on capacity building and awareness raising for water development. There is a long Swedish experience in the area of rural water supplies and sanitation with successful projects in several countries, including Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Laos and India.

In 1996 Sida decided to host the secretariat of the Global Water Partnership (GWP), a network of organizations interested in the sustainable development of water resources in developing countries co­sponsored by the World Bank and UNDP. The network is active in all fields within the water sector, not only rural water supplies, and hence forces Sida to broaden its expertise. With the Stockholm Water Symposium already one of the major annual scientific conferences on water in the world, the planned creation of the Stockholm International Water Institute to administer the Symposium and to conduct research, and the Stockholm Environment Institute already active in this area, Sida's involvement in GWP will contribute to raising the Swedish profile in water resources development.

Swedish development assistance is declining and will in 1997 be 0.7 per cent of GDP, the lowest since 1974. In many areas Sida is now cutting back its programs and staff. However, the government's parliamentary bill directing Sida's work in 1997 singles out natural resources management as the only sector (in addition to democracy and human rights) where Sida's programs should increase in scope. In 1995/96 this sector accounted for 13 percent of Sida's disbursements, and it has remained at that level for the last four years. When the programs now being planned have reached maturity in a few years, this percentage should increase substantially reflecting economic realities in many of the traditional Swedish aid recipient countries.

(Johan Holmberg is director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment at Sida, and Executive Secretary of the Stockholm-based Global Water Partnership.)