Comprehensive Communal Planning as a critical first step to the planning and developing of Community Conservancies in Africa

Introduction and Overview

The planning and development of Community Conservancies is a crucial intervention that seeks to stabilise and develop a Conservation Economy in Africa. The creation of conservation jobs and livelihoods that are respectful of culture, social and economic dynamics at a local level, is a genuine long term solution to Africa's conservation of its biodiversity and the protection of its endangered species.

The continent, endowed with cultural and environmental assets, can be a powerhouse of economic recovery, based on a Conservation Economy, and an example to the world, of a collaborative multi-million hectare regenerative and restorative engine for prosperity.

By engaging with Traditional Authorities to help communities develop their own Comprehensive Communal Plan(CCP) for their own land, this will enable the co-creation of a vision for a Conservation Economy that respects culture, tradition, the environment and its resources, and respects the right of individuals and the community to determine their own futures.

What is a Comprehensive Communal Plan (CCP)?

Comprehensive communal planning (CCP) is a holistic process that enables a community to build a roadmap to sustainability, self-sufficiency and improved governance capacity. It is a community-led approach to planning, where the process is driven and owned by all community members rather than by a small group or committee.

It can also be termed Indigenous Planning.

This type of planning has a broader and more comprehensive scope than mainstream or?Western?planning, (often called Spatial Development Planning in South Africa) and is not limited to?land use planning?or physical development, but should address all aspects of community life, including the social and environmental aspects that impact the lives of community members.

Planning in this way, for land and resources can be understood as transformative planning, as it can address complex issues of sovereignty,?self-government, and?self-determination. A CCP is a form of insurgent planning, as it can provide an avenue for communities to confront and address their own oppression.?

It covers all aspects of the community and lays out a vision and goals for the long-term development of a conservation economy, that restores culture, landscape, water resources and society.

The CCP process is a type of planning that is designed to be entirely inclusive, culture-and-community-specific, and long term.

CCP’s range from 5-10 year plans, with high-level goals and a vision that represents the overarching dreams for the community.

These high-level goals and objectives are then broken down to short, medium and long term plans, with financial and resource allocations and strategies for achievement.

Benefits of Planning for a Wilderness Community

Comprehensive Communal Planning provides a framework and process for the community to explore its core values, and to establish a vision for the future and work toward achieving it.?

Planning can benefit the entire community by creating positive change in a proactive way, while also protecting the values of the community. Planning can improve the performance of the land administration as well as enhance the community’s governance tools and capacity.

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Once in place, an effective community plan can:

·?????? Empower the community. The community becomes more self-aware, creates its own future, and has the tools to respond to change in an effective manner.

·?????? Improve performance. Having a plan leads to informed decision-making, combines fragmented efforts, decreases duplication, enables efficient use of resources, and identifies and solves organizational problems.

·?????? Build teamwork and expertise. Planning improves communications within the First Nation’s government, builds managerial and staff skills and supports capacity-building efforts

·?????? Coordinate future development. The planning process identifies the community’s priorities for the use of its land base and territory, anticipates future infrastructure and development needs, and helps to prevent conflicting developments.

·?????? Protect resources. The community is able to identify and protect vulnerable or valuable areas, traditions, or cultural values and practices.

·?????? Celebrate traditions and culture. The cultural aspects of the community may be a focus of the planning process.

·?????? Promote healing and reconciliation. Planning helps the community to work together to proactively address negative or painful community issues by establishing a positive vision for the future, and by taking the steps necessary to achieve that vision.

·?????? Create economic opportunities. Examining and identifying sustainable economic opportunities is an essential part of creating a Comprehensive Communal Plan. Having a plan in place will also help to attract investment.

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The scope of comprehensive communal planning may vary greatly depending on where the community’s interests are in relation to matters such as land claim negotiations, approach to governance, and the extent to which it is addressing land and resource issues within its traditional landscapes

What’s Needed to Make Planning Work

There are some basic needs that apply to all phases of the planning process:

·?????? Community engagement and support

·?????? Capacity building and training

·?????? Communications

·?????? Resources

·?????? Mentorship

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The Community Planning Unit (CPU) Team:

A typical Community Planning Unit(CPU)brings together a collective of social ecologists who drive the process and facilitate collaborative CCP’s for each landscape.

?The structure of a typical CPU is a Senior Social Ecologist, with typically 10 years practical experience to lead a field team. This member is supported by a Social Ecologist, with 5 years experience. 2 interns per team provide backup, local context and a documentary administrative role, whilst learning the nuances of the team approach.

In turn the CPU Team Leader is mentored, and supported by a technical advisor, an expert in human wildlife conflict and facilitation.

?This entire team is managed by a project implementor and supported by the HR, Finance, GIS mapping and administration teams.

?Interactive collaborative and cross team learning is key as the model of reflection and co-creation within landscapes evolves.

?Team members go through rigorous selection and will be mentored in field before they are placed into a new landscape.

?Key in this endeavour however, is longevity of the team, and the development of a trust relationship with each community, and all stakeholders.

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The CCP STRUCTURE:

Each CCP looks different, in order to reflect the unique community that created it, but in general they often include the following sections:

• Community History and Context
• Vision
• Goals & Objectives
• Strategy and Action plans

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?Goals and Objectives:

Goals and Objectives can be broken down into groups or Themes, according to community needs, such as:

·?????? Economy

·?????? Culture & Language

·?????? Education

• Governance & Administration
• Health
• Infrastructure & Housing
• Land, Water & Resources (Environment)
• Social Issues
• Monitoring & Evaluation Process

Timeline and Staffing

Typically it takes 2-5 years to complete a CCP, but a first objective is to create a short, medium and long term goal sheet, with a clear understanding that the plan is revisited at regular intervals, and updated every 5 years so that the goals stay relevant.

Often a CCP Champion (ideally a community member with some facilitation and planning skills) is engaged to oversee the project, often with a CCP Assistant and a CCP Community Committee.

The initial project is a Pre-Planning and Planning exercise, estimated to take 3 to 6 months to complete. It is the comprehensive survey to determine the current and historic situation and to begin the process of identifying Communal Dreams, Goals and Aspiration.

It critically involves setting up a suitable oversight NPO entity, that will act as the land use and management authority

Community Engagement

The CCP process involves the broader community at all times.

?Staff meetings, Chief & Council meetings, many community meetings (often targeted to specific demographics or focusing on specific topics) both on- and off-site, the development of communication materials and use of social media, surveys, video projects, and many other forms of community engagement are typically all part of a good community planning process.

How do we do this? The Methodology

Community involvement is essential for all stages of the planning process. The four stages of comprehensive communal planning are:

I.?????????????????Pre-planning Steps

II.????????????????Planning Steps

III.?????????????? Implementation Steps

IV.????????????? Monitoring & Evaluation Steps

Pre-Planning Steps

This is the first step and one which involves a series of meeting to explain the process, the inclusivity of the engagement and the potential outcome as outlined above.

1.????? Assess community readiness

2.????? Develop a budget, identify funding

3.????? Build a planning team of volunteers

4.????? Research basic infrastructure and assessment of needs

5.???? Build a work plan

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Planning Steps

1.????? Gather background information

2.????? Complete community analysis

3.????? Create a vision statement and values

4.????? Build a comprehensive strategic framework

5.????? Set goals and objectives

6.????? Identify activities and projects

7.????? Create an implementation strategy

This phase includes the deep survey, an audit, of all households, stakeholders discussions and facilitated sessions with Nkosi, Isinduna and community leaders and groups.

The household level survey, facilitated and enumerated by community members, overseen by the CPU technical team, is grounded in a concurrent education process. This means that while we are gathering this information we are casting a vision of a communal future of abundance and explaining the importance of working together.

This provides the team and the leadership with a clear understanding of physical assets, both communal and individual resources, skillsets, literacy levels, health and social issues, economic pressures and income sources, social, cultural, environmental and economic expectations, and an understanding of the process that we are embarking on.

A physical mapping process begins here, with identification of households, traditional ?boundaries, landmarks, road networks, water infrastructure, sacred sites, current landuses, future landuses, environmental and structural impediments, livestock concentrations, barriers and opportunities.

The next step therefore takes all the wisdom, visions and information we have gathered and puts it onto a written plan, with Maps, physically placing the past and present into a context for the future.

At this point we develop a Vision, and Objectives for each parcel of land, contextualising each homestead in the process, including every person into the plan, and mapping out the future based on the current reality.

We identify the Future the Community wants in 20 years.

We do a SWOT analysis, Strengths, Weaknesses Opportunities Threats.

We work out a plan with action steps to build on strength and open opportunities whilst overcoming threats and weaknesses, building towards your vision.

At this point also, these overall themes are explored further and plans put in place for each. A key principle is transparency of roles, responsibilities and particularly finances.

An Example of what might be expected from the process:

• Culture & Language Determine how the local culture, customs and language is going to be supported, including traditional ceremonies, seasonal events, and capturing of historic knowledge and wisdom.

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• Economy What are the economic drivers, current and future, and how can these be unlocked by collaboration and communal sharing of resources, or collective management of cattle herds, for example Current income into the community, and future projected income, including value and barter systems, evaluation of the local economy

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• Education What facilities exist, staffing, shortfalls, etc. How do we drive education in its broadest sense, not just formal education within schools, but informal practical education, that goes beyond standard schooling. What type of education will be required to build the new future for YOUR Community, for instance getting 20 books into every household, or training “herdboys” to become livestock health technicians.

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• Governance, Finance & Administration Transparency is key here, and Trustees or Board members of any Community Trust or company, should be appointed based on their commitment to serve their community, and not on their requirement to employ themselves or family members, and should not receive money for attending meetings.

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• All finances of the Community trust or other legal structures should be made available to all members of the community in public spaces, and for public commentary.

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• Funding that is accumulated or projected income surpluses, should be allocated to be spent on agreed functions and facilities, BEFORE it arrives in the account, to avoid any conflict and confusion.

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• Municipal Councillors will not influence the process unduly, and will be required to report to and serve the community, and to represent the community to the governmental structures and functions and identify capacity and assistance in that realm.

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• Health How can the CCP team develop a comprehensive plan that addresses primary health, reduces infant mortality, supports regular clinic functions and maximises the health of traditional medicinal herbs as well. Physical, emotional and mental health issues addressed at local, traditional cultural level and incorporated into modern medical practices

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• Infrastructure & Housing Current locations and future expansion or concentration, services delivery and communal water and infrastructure development and maintenance plans

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• Land, Water & Resources (Environment) With Rights comes responsibilities. Water and land management practices, undertaken by the community for the communal good, and improvement. Allocation of a roster of work, with each household giving one person day per month to communal land restoration activities

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• Social Issues Identify the social conflict points, and find mechanisms to address them Cattle thieves, fence thieves, drug dealers, illegal housing squatters, brought to Traditional court and systems set up for community policing and accountability

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• Monitoring & Evaluation Process Continual and ongoing monitoring of progress, against milestones and evaluating resource usage and effectiveness

COMMUNITY CONSERVANCIES DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK

Once the CCP process has been successfully completed, this become the collaborative framework for the formal planning of a Community Conservancy multiple land use, multiple revenue stream plan. The Conservancy development and management framework is prepared by a team of specialist consultants and professional including:

• Town planner
• Environmental Consultant
• Engineering
• Architect
• Legal
• Land surveyor
• Quantity Surveyor
• GIS
• Social impact and economics
• Other

This will be covered in more detail, in future articles..