"Many so called poor communities are wealthy in many other respects. More precisely speaking, they are financially poor or they are poor in infrastructure or in technology" - this was one of the insights that Dr. Serafin Talisayon^* gleaned from his stint on analyzing the success factors among 952 projects sampled. From these projects, ten emerged as successful because of the following factors:

The gentle and careful hands as well as patient
attitude of women is part of the social capital that
makes the silk industry successful.(www.texeresilk.com)

2. "We feeling among members" - From the point of view of 17 development leaders interviewed, the good dynamics of project beneficiaries equates to a higher level of economic development because they “own” or view what they do as theirs.

3. Strong commitment, starting with the leader or the core group.

Quoting from Stephen Covey, Dr. Talisayon said that “When trust goes up, speed goes up, and cost goes down. When trust goes down, speed goes down, and cost goes up. Trust and the “we feeling” form part of the intangibles¹ that are mostly part of the stakeholder capital or social capital. “Social trust is correlated  with lower transaction costs and higher level of economic development.” This social capital is an important component of Knowledge for Poverty Alleviation (KPA) framework- a development model that is built on two recent, powerful development paradigms, Knowledge-Based Management and Sustainable Development².

The lesson is clear: development is not just about technology, money and physical infrastructures, development is also and perhaps more so, about "inner infrastructures" such as trust, commitment, goodwill, sense of ownership, self-worth, etc.

Sustainability is not only economic viability, it is also human and social empowerment as well as caring for the earth and all its life-giving natural support systems³. 

The KPA framework can be used in the participatory design and evaluation of anti-poverty projects at the community level to increase chances of project success and sustainability. KPA emphasizes the importance of recognizing a community’s intangible assets, and proposes a set of actions to use internal and external assets to sustainably protect and build local tangible and intangible assets. Sustainability is pursued along the three domains of sustainable development.

____________

This article is mainly drawn from Dr. Serafin Talisayon's presentation "Knowledge for Poverty Alleviation" during the Agriculture and Development Seminar Series (ADSS) held at SEARCA, Los Baños, Laguna last 5 August 2008.

Download the full paper of Dr. Serafin Talisayon, Knowledge for Poverty Alleviation.

ENDNOTES:

¹ Rediscovering the wealth of “poor” communities: identifying intangible assets, http://kpa.cclfi.org/index.php/Learn/3/

² http://kpa.cclfi.org/index.php/Learn/2/

³ http://kpa.cclfi.org/index.php/Learn/4/

* Director for Research and Development, Center for Conscious Living Foundation Inc., Philippines and Chair, Knowledge Management Association of the Philippines