Village Earth's Renewed Vision For Change

Village Earth (originally called the Consortium for Sustainable Development or CSVBD) was born at a conference  held from September 28 – October 2 , 1993 and attended by approximately 250 delegates from 40 different countries. The majority of those in attendance were from developing nations, and most of those individuals represented non-governmental organizations working in very grassroots and participatory projects around the world. The impetus for the conference was the recognition that the billions of dollars spent in the name of development largely was not bettering the lives of the people who needed it most. The conference, as well as the roots of the Village Earth approach, were heavily influenced by Agenda 21 which came out of the United Nations Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro on June 14, 1992. In particular, its recognition that poverty is not the problem, rather, lack of access to resources is the primary obstacle to building a better life for the majority of the world's poor. As such, the VE Approach transforms traditional role of the NGO from being a service provider (health, irrigation, education, etc.) to  functioning more as an “intermediary,” working to mobilize village leadership and planning and from that, develop linkages to resources institutions such as governments, single sector NGO's, universities and the private sector. In development circles, an NGO that works in this capacity is referred to an “Intermediate” NGO.

The Village Earth model serves as tightly woven set of organizing principles for a specialized subset of Intermediate NGOs, referred to in the literature as “Grassroots Support Organizations” or GSOs. Rafeal Boglio, in his 2008 article in the Journal of Community Practice, describes some of the features that distinguishes GSOs from other NGOs. “They foster the long-term empowerment of impoverished populations by assisting them in decision making and the mobilization of resources and political power. This core approach is what defines these development NGOs as grassroots support organizations (GSOs).1”

At its core, what differentiates the Village Earth Model from that used by most other NGO's includes:

• Strategic focus on the empowerment of entire regions, ethnic groups, and/or people's. The boundaries and populations being defined by the people themselves. Working towards systemic change vs. short term “fixes.”

• Long-term commitment to those regions and to working as allies with communities as they work to identify the core barriers and opportunities to their empowerment, creating networks to resources and building local institutions.

• A holistic, community-driven approach that, by nature, simultaneously traverses numerous sectors at once. For example, simultaneously implementing small scale infrastructure projects, organizing cooperatives of agricultural producers, building a political base to influence local elections, and creating networks to international advocacy groups. Whatever direction the community guides the process, the GSO should seek to provide support in a responsive and reliable manner.

Organizations implementing the Village Earth model work with communities as allies, clarifying a vision and a strategy as they go, learning by doing, making mistakes along the way, but always learning from those mistakes and moving forward. Our vision for the future is to continue to ally with communities around the globe and develop this model through this work but also to develop a support network for other Grassroots Support Organizations around the globe.
 

If would like to join us in this effort, please contact David Bartecchi, Executive Director of Village Earth. david@villageearth.org