Of the countries covered by MCA Monitor Field Reports, Nicaragua stands out as the only one that has gotten civil society consultation mostly right. Effective consultation and public participation are an important part of each of Nicaragua’s three headline stories. MCAN outreach to local authorities clinched support for the passage of FOMAV funding; programmatic buy-in by civil society and local authorities, and their presence on the board of directors, helped steady the MCAN in a politically stormy period; and recommendations from local producers and civil society members gave the MCAN some of its most interesting features. But the subtext of consultation goes even deeper and offers insights into how the MCC could strengthen its overall approach to public participation.
One of the key take-aways from the Nicaragua story is that the MCC’s consultation principle can yield enormous returns when a country already has formal, credible structures for consultation and a strong legacy of public participation. But as other MCA Monitor field reports reveal, the MCC’s intention of consultation is not enough in countries where civil society is weaker. The Nicaragua case offers good insight into what can happen when civil society is organized, capable, and funded.
Nicaraguan civil society is organized.[3] The MCAN relied heavily on the department and municipal-level development councils (the formal coalition of NGOs, businesses and local government) that were created by the citizen participation law of 2004. Thankfully, these entities are strong and effective in León and Chinandega. One group of NGO leaders described them as an "open, inclusive, official and legally constituted space" in which they "have power."
Nicaraguan civil society is capable. The MCAN benefited from a social and political legacy that has created a tenacious civil society in some parts of Nicaragua. The brightest example is the group of women who came together to form the Western Women’s Council to influence the MCAN process. Of their own volition, and on their own dime, these women gathered from across the western region of Nicaragua to map female producers in León and Chinandega, firmly establishing themselves as key partners in the program. They also made a series of demands of the MCAN, two of which--a gender strategy and a gender specialist--are a part of the MCAN approach. The focus on gender equity in the projects has already yielded results--a concerted effort to identify female producers as beneficiaries, training of all MCAN staff on gender sensitivity, and equal participation by men and women in a recent producers’ training trip to Honduras.
Nicaraguan civil society is funded (somewhat). But the funding has not come from the MCC. The early phases of MCAN consultation benefited from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) support to strengthen the development councils. A later participatory diagnostic was funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID). This $40,000 effort was designed principally to support programmatic planning (i.e., to help the MCAN identify sectors and places for investment and to see where technical assistance was most needed). But its highly participatory approach and its methodology of helping the public “read” their territory gave communities the information and practice necessary to continue engaging with (and supporting) the MCAN in a substantive way. Finally, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has made a small grant to the Western Women’s Council to support the women in capturing their MCAN engagement in a systematic way so they might refine and reuse the strategy.
How the MCC can get more out of its consultation principle? The MCC should assess the degree to which civil society is organized, capable and funded in each compact country. It is also crucial to assess the degree to which official structures or coalitions upon which the MCC/MCAs rely are truly representative. MCC could then help ease shortfalls through strategic partnerships and its own resources. To avoid conflicts of interest, the MCC has apparently taken a decision not to use 609g or compact funds to support the consultative process. It is understandable for the MCC to be concerned that members of civil society might feel pressured by governments to give the "right" answers if the MCC is funding the consultation process. But such conflicts can be avoided by creative cost-sharing with other donors and with communities themselves. The MCC could support structures (like development councils or NGO umbrella organizations) rather than specific groups, and could do a lot more to coordinate with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to leverage its Democracy and Governance funds that support NGO capacity building in some countries. The Nicaragua experience yields the following recommendation: If the MCC is serious about partner countries meeting its high expectations for consultation, the MCC should formally assess the degree to which civil society is organized, capable, representative, and funded in each compact country, and mobilize resources to fill gaps in these areas.
Next Section: Operational Issues and Recommendations
3. By "Nicaraguan civil society," the author is referring only to civil society in León and Chinandega which have engaged with the MCAN. She did not have exposure to nation-wide civil society groups.