[OSList] emergent governance

Mon May 21 08:29:13 PDT 2012

John – Once  again you and your friends are right in the middle of something
unique and productive. Well done! I would just love to be a fly on the wall
as your adventure goes along. Hopefully you will keep us up to date. Please!

And having been in (or near) similar kinds of “Community Building” efforts
over the years, some thoughts come to mind which I share without benefit of
really knowing what you are proposing to do. This could just be a case of
not wanting to be confused by the facts, in which case please just humor the
old fellow.J (Please send me your proposal!)

Standard Procedure for operations such as yours is to start with the check
list of “Essential Structures and Mechanisms for Community Governance” –
usually prepared by some academic institution after extensive research. Step
II is to create a model Governance Structure for the “soon to be Community.”
Step III is to recruit and train local people to do the jobs. And Step IV is
to “Push the Button.” The result is almost inevitably: a) Nothing b)
confusion c) frustration d) all of the above. And everybody scratches their
heads and blame the people for being stupid. 

We then come to the inevitable Evaluation (usually done by the same or
different Academic Institution). If the evaluators are honest and reasonably
perceptive, the difficulties are not hard to specify. 1) It turns out that
the model was built for the “average” community – which simply doesn’t
exist. Every community, even a nascent community, is unique. 2) The model
may be a great way to build an automobile (a mechanical thing), but
unfortunately a community is a Living Being which grows as opposed to being
assembled. And the process of growth has different needs and requirements
along the way. By following the “Standard Checklist” the emergent community
is saddled with a whole mess of things it doesn’t need (at that stage of
growth) and may never need. The net effect is that everybody spends all of
their time “running the community” with little time left for “being the
community.” 3) The model was promulgated from on high rather than grown from
within. This critique is often framed as, “Nobody talked to the people” –
but that usually isn’t true. In fact countless surveys, focus groups,
individual interviews were conducted but
 the central point had been missed.
It has nothing to do with “talking to the people” – the critical thing is to
create the space in which the people can talk to each other. And keeping
that space open so that the conversations can lead to positive solutions.
Only the people are full experts on the people, and their solutions may not
be “textbook perfect” – but if they work, they work. To quote an old piece
of folks wisdom from the State of Maine, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

But what if it is broke, or at least not working very well? Should “we”
help? A little help is always nice, but always remembering that the more we
do for others, the less they will do for themselves. And the price is steep.
When “we” provide the solution, the people are deprived the opportunity of
working out their own solution – which may be better, or at the very least
more adequate to their situation. Who knows, “we” might learn something.J

Should we never help? Of course not. If a flood overwhelms the nascent
community, a few life boats are surely in order. But floods don’t happen
every day, and every “problem” is not a flood.

Does all this sound hard hearted or perhaps like idealistic platitudes?
Possibly, but if you think about it I believe you will see that every time
we  have the privilege of Opening Space we have the opportunity of seeing in
microcosm effective community building in action. And of course, none of it
could or should happen
 but it does.

Perhaps we can now state the 5 Principles and One Law of effective community
building?

1) Whoever comes is the right people.

2) Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.

3) Whenever it starts is the right time.

4) Wherever it happens is the right place.

5) When it’s over it’s over.

And the Law
 If you find yourself neither learning nor contributing, use you
two feet. Get yourself to a place where you can learn and contribute. It is
the responsible thing to do.

Just thinking
 and John I know you are way ahead of me!

Harrison   

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 20854

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

www.openspaceworld.com

www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)

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From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of John Engle
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 5:23 AM
To: Artur Silva; World wide Open Space Technology email list
Cc: Raffi Aftandelian
Subject: Re: [OSList] emergent governance

Greetings from Haiti,

I appreciate the thread and it has me thinking about work we're doing right
now with Habitat For Humanity. They've built a new village of 150 homes and
will have another 150 added to it by December. The village is in the Santo
area, just outside of Leogane, which was part of the earthquake's epicenter.

With 5-7 people per home, we're talking about a new village of 1,500-2,000
people not to mention hundreds of additional people from surrounding areas
that enter daily for water. Habitat For Humanity acknowledges that while
they have tons of experience building homes, they don't have experience
building full villages and helping community members to develop a sense of
community and plan of governance. 

They fear, and for good reason, that if no measures are taken, this nice
village of well designed and constructed homes could become a slum. It also
has the potential to become an extraordinary community known for safety,
community engagement and mutual respect. 

We have a 6-month contract with Habitat For Humanity to help members in the
village nurture a culture of participatory decision-making and to create
together, a governance plan. We're using our approach called Circles of
Change which will include three community wide open space meetings during
the 6-month period. The governance plan will likely be a bit traditional in
the sense that there will be established rules and decision-making
structures. But hopefully, the practice that emerges around how they govern
themselves will include lots of invitation and dialogue. 

Local elected officials will be invited to participate in open space
meetings and other gatherings. In Haiti, local government is typically
underfunded and ineffective. Thus, for communities to run well, it's really
up to the community members. This is generally true everywhere but i think
some of us likely take things for granted that can help make communities run
smoother, which many communities in Haiti don't have: access to potable
water, garbage pick-up and sanitation, paved roads/repair of roads,
effective water drainage systems, fire departments, adequate police (10,000
for a population of 10 million)

Here's more about this project with Habitat For Humanity:

http://www.haitipartners.org/2012/04/partnership-with-habitat-brings-circles
-of-change-to-santo-housing-community/

Let me know off list if you'd like to receive our proposal to Habitat For
Humanity, which responded to the public request for proposal (RFP) they
issued.

Again, thanks for the thread!

John

PS The name of the project went from Santo Governance Project (in
Haitian-Creole: Pwojè Gouvenans nan Santo), based on Habitat For Humanity's
title of the RFP to Pwojè Bon Vwazen (Good Neighbor Project), based on input
from people in the village.

______________________________

John Engle - On the ground regular updates at
<http://www.haitipartners.org/the-blog/>
http://www.haitipartners.org/the-blog/

 <http://www.haitipartners.org/> 

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