|
| © DIIR, 2004 |
Guidelines for Development in Tibet |
Crosscutting Principles
All development projects in Tibet should incorporate the following crosscutting guidelines:
- Involve beneficiaries, from the identification of a project to formulation through the implementation cycle, by applying participatory tools and techniques such as participatory assessment (PRA) to ensure accountability and ownership.
- Insist always on small-scale interventions that suit the regions and populace rather than the capital intensive ones.
- To foster self-reliance and build local project management teams based on community based organisations (CBOs) through local capacity building.
- Conduct feasibility study and environmental impact assessments;
- Rely on age-old local knowledge and wisdom involving resource management and survival techniques.
- Respect and promote Tibetan culture, traditions, knowledge and wisdom about their landscape and risk management.
- Be subject to ongoing on-site monitoring by the development agencies to ensure that the intended target group benefits, and that the powerful do not usurp benefits meant for the poor and disadvantaged.
- Use Tibetan as the working language of the projects.
- Neither provide incentives nor in any way facilitate direct or indirect migration and settlement of non-Tibetans in Tibetan regions.
- Neither provide incentives nor help facilitate the transfer of land and natural resources to non-Tibetans.
Guidelines are, by their nature, a checklist enabling development agencies to test the suitability of their plans for working in Tibetan communities on Tibetan territory. But checklists also compartmentalise the issues into neat categories; the ground reality may involve an interdependence of many factors. The Tibetan worldview and modern synthesis of appropriate development practices encourages a respectful, thoughtful approach to development that embraces many factors rather than a narrow, technical compliance with shallow and literal considerations.
|
