Collaborating for the Commons in the days of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed how the world works, communicates, and collaborates. The lockdown heightens problems of environmental degradation, environmental justice, and climate change adaptation. In India, an estimated 45 million people migrate to cities from rural areas for work each year. COVID-19 has induced a return of migrant labor from urban to rural areas, as health and safety measures have shut down many sources of employment. In the first wave, roughly 10 million citizens returned to rural areas. Upon returning, people face landlessness, lack of jobs, and increased mental and physical stress. This is placing a strain on natural resources as a source of livelihood, highlighting problems of resource management and the ability of local government to respond to community priorities.
When Collaborating for Resilience (CoRe) and the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) found their joint convening in Bhubaneswar, Odisha postponed from March 2020 due to COVID-19, we had to strategically adapt. An interactive Virtual Commons Exchange was convened instead on Zoom from 20-24 July, 2020 – the first of its kind for FES and its partners. The Exchange brought together 45 organizations from some of the most remote locations across eight states of India to strengthen the “Promise of Commons” initiative spearheaded by FES. What lessons emerged, both in the event design and priorities for action?
Context of the Commons in India
Shared natural resources such as forest, pastures, drylands, and water bodies, referred to as Commons, provide livelihoods to over 350 million rural people in India. The Commons face pressures from local human use and demand from expanding markets. Commons in India are typically owned by the state but managed collectively by state agencies and/or local groups. Confusion over tenure rights and management responsibilities often accelerates resource depletion and environmental degradation. State interests, often without local consultation (or in the face of local resistance), tend to prevail and spur development into “productive” (i.e. taxable) solar farms, biofuel cultivation, corporate agriculture, or industrial zones, while discounting restorative ecological value and dispossessing rural people. How does one make sense of these complexities, especially during COVID-19, and work to find a coherent, multifaceted response?
Jagdeesh Rao, Chief Executive of FES, introducing the Commons Exchange event and the diversity of Commoners in India, emphasizing the local voices that need to be strengthened to support sustainable resource management and development
FES has been working on ecological restoration and conservation for three decades. FES collaborates directly with village institutions, governments, and civil society organizations to achieve ecological restoration and equitable economic opportunity for the rural poor. Securing collective tenure for rural people who rely on the Commons as a source of income is a critical foundation for community-led management. Though policies have been established at a national level to encourage this, for example, the 2006 Forest Rights Act, implementation gaps are prominent at the local level. FES aims to close these implementation gaps through an initiative called the Promise of Commons, working to strengthen tenure security and local governance for 30 million acres of land (about one-fifth of India’s Commons or 121,405 sq km).
Lessons from Convening the Commons Exchange virtually
A multi-pronged approach to achieve these goals includes building partnerships with government and strategic alliances with NGOs. Thus, the Commons Exchange served as a catalyst for this approach by exploring connections, sharing strategies for addressing challenges, and building action plans for joint impact. How can strong connections still be established in a virtual format to generate shared insights? Here’s what we learned:
1. A virtual event enables broader participation and multiple forms of input—make the most of these. While limitations to computer and internet access were present, there were no travel and budget constraints. This enabled representatives from other states to join, bringing their unique perspectives thus enhancing knowledge and practice sharing. The virtual format also allowed conversations to be recorded and documented for future reference. The chat function served as a place for participants who potentially did not feel comfortable speaking up or did not have the time to fill templates during breakout groups. In the plenary, the chat became a stream of consciousness to complement the verbal discussion, housing a continuous flow of exchange and ideas.
2. Keep the questions simple and focused to encourage joint reflection. Reducing the length (from full workshop days to two-hour virtual sessions) helped to prioritize the essential themes for presentations and breakout sessions. Though the power of technology can bring a more diverse group together, it can also constrict the conversation, as physical communication cues are difficult to read and interruptions occur often. Thus, the breakout sessions used streamlined questions for facilitators to guide participants in conversation. Each question built upon the previous, allowing discussions to increase in depth, step-by-step.
3. Tune into gender and linguistic barriers to equal participation, and address these. Breakout rooms designed thematically and regionally helped conversations to flow in local languages, as a significant number of participants were less comfortable expressing themselves in English. Plenary sessions then drew connections among the themes addressed in each room. Gender balance among presenters, facilitators, and within breakout rooms was central to the design. Nevertheless, some discussion points on gender were shared in the chat or filling in an exercise template during the breakout sessions but not in plenary. Facilitators took note and invited these perspectives to be verbally discussed given their intricate relationship to social justice or tenure rights. Addressing these barriers fostered a more inclusive dialogue and minimized the risk of fading participation due to unfamiliarity with the platform or other attendees.
4. Adapt plans to achieve the goal of partnership-building. Assessment of risks associated with the virtual tools aided in establishing flexible contingency plans. During the breakout sessions, for example, not all participants were able to access shared templates to add their input directly, but facilitators used a combination of multilingual verbal discussion and simultaneous chat discussion to capture key inputs. By the third day, facilitators were able to spotlight “champions” to emerge among the organizations present, expanding the diversity of voices to summarize progress and reflect on next steps during plenary sessions.
Richa Audichya, Director of Jan Chetna Sansthan, speaks about women’s empowerment in relation to the Commons
Key Outcomes and the Future of the Promise of Commons
Awareness building is critical to shift public norms and attitudes. Establishing a “Common Voice for Commons” (a phrase that was circulating on day three) highlights the importance of partnerships to elevate the Commons agenda. Similar sentiments were expressed throughout the Exchange. As T Pradeep of the NGO Prarambha, based in Karnataka, explained, “We believe that we have to first get people to believe that the Promise of the Commons is real and do-able: it is not a mirage.” Demonstrating local models of success, such as engaging government officials to secure community rights under the Forest Rights Act, can serve as inspiration for others.
Awareness building has been a core priority for several participating organizations. Targeted communications such as articles in local newspapers and radio programs in local languages can shift attitudes for sustainable Commons management. The Gandhian social movement group SR Abhiyan has organized dialogues and training with government authorities and communities in Rajasthan. These demystify complex government data sets and break down land jargon to align understanding and lay the ground for collaboration. A presentation from Vrikshamitra (Maharashtra) stressed that collective action requires time and joint knowledge generation. Providing people with information is one step; working with that information to collectively solve a problem generates new knowledge.
Identifying potential collaboration across sectors is key to create shared models of success. Organizations often focus solely on their issue and disregard the linkages to others, which can stall governance progress. Governments often prioritize short-term economic growth rather than longer-term work of ecological restoration grounded in community rights to the Commons. By aligning their efforts, organizations can build supportive momentum within government for action to restore the Commons.
Some organizations already apply these methods, highlighting the potential for the future. Seba Jagat (Odisha), Punganur Mandala Vayalaga Rythula Samakhya (Andhra Pradesh), UNNATI (Rajasthan), and the Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (Odisha) all emphasized the importance of linking sustainable, community-led Commons management and restoration to the development of resilient livelihoods. Further, the engagement of women and traditional local knowledge enhances implementation success for many organizations. UNNATI, for example, has applied this approach in its work leveraging the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). This provides work for rural people – a crucial source in the current pandemic where the month of June saw record demand for work at around 40 million households.
A unified voice grounded in local institutions is essential to build “winning coalitions.” It takes a certain set of priorities to achieve sustained collective efforts compared to one-off collaborations. Building a unified voice and strengthening local institutions as principle actors emerged as fundamental to long-term success. Creating supportive ties among government departments and policymakers is pivotal to achieve the goals of the Promise of Commons. Established coalitions can then effectively leverage government decision-making and funding to support community-led initiatives.
Polls at the close of the event on day 3 point to progress made during the Commons Exchange to identify and connect organizations, with the majority of respondents noting increased partnership opportunities. Drawing on the lessons from the Commons Exchange, follow-up virtual convenings are now underway to continue the partnership network-building at the state level. These efforts are carrying forward the vital work to overcome collective action challenges and turn potential partnerships into enduring coalitions for change.
Poll results from Day 3 (N=54) point to future partnership opportunities