Azerbaijan Cluster Development Program

In 2001 Village Earth was invited by the International Rescue Committee to help them make the transition from temporary relief for internally displaced peoples to a longer term approach to integrated community-based development throughout the entire southern region of Azerbaijan (approximately three million people). To accomplish this, Village Earth was contracted to provide training, consultation, and evaluation support. In particular, IRC was interested in Village Earth's approach of Clustering Villages into Resource Access Networks (RACs) and linking organizations and resources through regional Service Centers.

The service center is grounded in the practical resource needs of rural areas. Its five basic functions include:

• Training locally-appointed Internal Activators and Sector Specialists to collaborate with and train other villagers to implement action plans.
• Providing support for village planning and program implementation, developing links to private and public resource institutions.
• Providing appropriate technologies and other resources needed to meet locally defined objectives.
• Facilitating village and inter-village consultations and decision making.
• Monitoring and Evaluation.
  

A Resource Access Network(RAN) involves a collection of 25 to 40 villages that come together in order to mobilize and provide necessary resources, with an aggregate population of approximately 35,000 to 50,000 people. Village Earth identifies two major role-sets within an RAU, namely, to build the capacity of:

• The NGO and external, activating staff serving the villages in an RAU.
• The village leadership, already described, to operate in a participatory, problem- solving mode with enhanced productive skills.
• The center functions to link people with essential social, economic, technical and financial resources to enhance their own self and community development, eventually building linkages with private and public sectors and become a focal point for development activities at the regional level.
  

The goals of the program included:

1. To establish legitimate, accountable and self-sufficient community-based organizations (CBOs) enhancing civil society development at the community and cluster levels.
2. To promote demand-driven, multi-sector (agricultural, technical, business) economic opportunities inciting expansive market activity.
3. To strengthen community involvement in the access to self-identified and prioritized services (health, infrastructure, education).

The key to sustainability is empowering local people to build linkages with each other, to their local resources, and to the resourc institutions of the broader society. We are very excited about the work IRC has done thus far to help make this happen in Southern Azerbaijan. By our estimation IRC has gone further than any organization we have seen to date in their implementation of the Village Earth Approach to Sustainable Development. A strong foundation of community organizations has been built and sustainable access to resources is being created.