SCALE booklet cmyk.qxd.qxp

System-wide

Collaborative

Action for

Livelihoods and the

Environment

SCALE

Going to

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Founded in 1961, the Academy for Educational Development is an independent,

nonprofit organization committed to solving critical social problems in the United

States and throughout the world. Major areas of focus include health, education,

youth and leadership development, and the environment.

This publication was prepared by GreenCOM, the environmental education and

communication project of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID),

for USAID. The findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this

document do not necessarily reflect the official viewpoint of USAID.

GreenCOM is funded and managed by the USAID Economic Growth, Agriculture, and

Trade Bureau: Natural Resources Management Office. Technical services for GreenCOM

(Contract no. LAG-I-00-01-00005-00) are provided by the Academy for Educational

Development in partnership with Chemonics International.

The Academy for Educational Development’s Center for Environmental Strategies

wishes to thank USAID for creating this vision and providing eleven years of support

to GreenCOM. Thanks are also due to the many people throughout the world* who

contributed to the development of this pioneering approach for creating a

sustainable future.

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* Bolivia, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, The Gambia, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, India,

Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia,

Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Oman, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Tanzania,

Tunisia, Uganda, United States, the West Bank, and Zambia

Contents

SCALE 1

What Is SCALE? 2

SCALE in Action 3

The SCALE Framework 4

The SCALE Process: A System-wide Approach to Sustainability 5

Implementing SCALE Successfully 7

Map the Context 8

Catalyze Coalitions and Partnerships 10

Create Collaborative, Sustainable Solutions 11

Act 12

Value: Monitoring & Evaluation 13

SCALE Tools & Techniques: Social Change Methodologies 15

SCALE: Lessons Learned 23

SCALE Outcomes 24

Notes 26

SCALE

The need for an integrated approach to international development is underscored by

problems that illustrate how interconnected and interdependent are the world’s natural

resources, governments, economies, and people. Diseases such as AIDS, social and

economic disasters caused by poor environmental management, wars over the

ownership of natural resources, and decreased agricultural production are only a few

examples. The challenge is to improve governance and strengthen civil society to use

available technologies and resources in creative and responsible ways, ultimately

enabling countries to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability

of future generations to meet their own needs.

Lasting change depends on a critical mass of people—individuals, families, groups,

communities, and institutions—freely taking action to implement sustainable

solutions. Whether change needs to take place throughout a watershed, coastline,

protected area buffer zone, or an entire country, a framework called SCALE can help

make far-reaching and enduring transformation a reality.

SCALE—System-wide Collaborative Action for Livelihoods and the Environment—is an

approach for broadening development impact. By providing a framework to achieve

widespread change, SCALE can help improve people’s livelihoods and quality of life by

helping them manage their natural resources in a sustainable way. SCALE has evolved

from more than a decade of work by GreenCOM, a U.S. Agency for International

Development global environmental communication program. GreenCOM has had the

unique opportunity of working with people in more than thirty countries around the

world to address an extensive range of issues including:

 Natural resource management (coastal, forest, watershed)

 Biodiversity conservation

 Ecotourism

 Sustainable agriculture

 Water and energy efficiency

 Clean production

 Solid waste management

To identify lessons learned and best practices from this experience, the GreenCOM team

conducted a cross-portfolio assessment of current and past projects. Next GreenCOM

integrated cutting-edge thinking from leading social change professionals and projects

throughout the world. This synthesis led to the development of SCALE.

This booklet provides an overview of the SCALE approach for people interested in

achieving sustainable solutions to challenges in natural resource and agricultural

management. Resources for additional information, including SCALE training

opportunities, are also included.

What Is SCALE?

SCALE is a framework, a process, and a set of practical tools and techniques that

catalyze system-wide change and result in enhanced livelihoods, improved governance,

increased civil society participation, and the adoption of best practices. SCALE effects

widespread social change in three primary ways:

 SCALE starts big by engaging significant segments of a country or region’s

population and gets bigger by generating simultaneous top-down/bottom-up

action and change across many levels and sectors of society. Solutions with

impact beyond a few communities or villages are necessary to have impact at a level

that produces real, positive, and lasting change. SCALE provides a means of

permeating all levels of society to realize broad shifts in attitudes and actions that

result in improved practices.

 SCALE allows for an understanding of the larger context surrounding a particular

natural resource issue. These issues are often very complex. By utilizing a system-

wide approach, SCALE effectively maps the larger context and identifies the

strongest leverage points

for positive change.

 SCALE helps stakeholders combine social change methodologies—advocacy,

social marketing, education, mass communication, social mobilization, and

conflict resolution—for widespread and lasting change. Rarely is there one

answer to a complex problem. SCALE makes it possible to implement several

methodologies simultaneously to achieve change through the most effective means

possible according to a particular issue and its unique social, economic,

governmental, and environmental context. This simultaneous engagement with many

segments of society builds on itself, allowing for faster change on a broader scale.

SCALE is a combination of the best practices from various disciplines. Much of it will

not be new to communication and other development practitioners. What makes SCALE

innovative is the way it combines these best practices in a framework and process that

create and support system-wide change.

SCALE in Action

Applying SCALE can benefit programs by:

 Facilitating the development of innovative partnerships and coalitions across sectors,

disciplines, institutions, and groups

 Accelerating adaptation of new technologies

 Boosting adoption of new technologies, alternative income generation activities, and

best practices

 Strengthening citizen constituencies for effective decision making and action

 Increasing private sector involvement

 Generating demand for, ownership of, and compliance with new policies,

technologies, and services

 Fostering civil society participation in the development of new policies

 Enhancing decentralization of government and strengthening local government

capacity

 Accelerating and improving the flow of information among stakeholders

 Strengthening the ability of all sectors to apply a variety of social change

methodologies

 Supporting the adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors that help resolve the

problem

 Providing a process that catalyzes change on a scale large enough to make a real

and lasting impact

The SCALE Framework

The SCALE framework generates system-wide change by catalyzing and supporting

concurrent and sustainable collaborative action toward a common goal by as many

stakeholders in the system as possible. These stakeholders may be individuals, groups,

organizations, businesses, institutions, partnerships, and coalitions. SCALE also

strengthens the communication and working relationships among these stakeholders to

create a network of interconnected interests and actions.

The following graphic illustrates the SCALE framework.

Apply the

SCALE Process

Start at SCALE

Map the Context

Catalyze Coalitions

and Partnerships

Create Collaborative,

Sustainable Solutions

Act

Value

• Increased number of stake-

holder individuals, groups,

businesses, organizations,

communities, partnerships,

and coalitions taking collabo-

rative, sustainable action

toward a common goal

• Strengthened communica-

tion and working relationships

among these stakeholders

• Agricultural/environmental

best practices

• Sustainable livelihoods

• Civil society participation,

equity, and accountability

• National, regional, and local

government capacity to man-

age and support improved

agricultural and natural

resource management

Intermediate

Outcomes

Results

The SCALE Process:

A System-wide Approach to Sustainability

SCALE takes a system-wide approach to development to generate a broad view of a

problem or issue. This requires standing back from everyday routines, events, and

problems to see the “forest of relationships”

through the trees and to understand the

influences that exist within and between the various aspects of the system—social,

economic, environmental, and governance—in which a development program is

working.

The system-wide approach helps to identify the leverage points where targeted efforts

will have the most impact on the many connections in a system. It is particularly

useful for difficulties that agricultural and natural resource management programs

commonly encounter, such as:

 Complex problems that require multiple stakeholders to understand a variety of

perspectives (and not just their own) to develop collaborative solutions.

 Recurring problems or problems that have been made worse by past attempts to fix

them.

 Problems with no single obvious solution that require innovative, multidisciplinary

thinking to resolve.

The SCALE process provides a road map to initiate, implement, and evaluate this

system-wide approach. The components of the process, illustrated and described in

more detail on the following pages, include:

 Map the Context

 Catalyze Coalitions and Partnerships

 Create Collaborative, Sustainable Solutions

 Act

 Value

The SCALE Process

CATALYZE

COALITIONS

CREATE

SOLUTIONS

ACT

VALUE

Positive Impact:

Environment,

Livelihoods,

Civil Society

Participation &

Governance

MAP THE

CONTEXT

Assess process and

impact, strengthen

stakeholder leverage

points

Identify stakeholders

and leverage points

for action

Commit to a

common goal

Negotiate collab-

orative, sustain-

able solutions

Apply multiple

social change

methodologies

Implementing SCALE

Successfully

The following recommendations maximize the effectiveness of the SCALE process:

 Remember that change happens one step at a time. Assessing where people

(groups, communities, individuals) are in terms of their knowledge and inclination to

act (or not act) provides information to determine reasonable first steps to move

them along the path to change.

 Build on what is already working (including indigenous knowledge) and

eliminate what is not.

Engage key groups and individuals by recognizing and

incorporating their successes.

 Use every opportunity to improve people’s ability to make informed

decisions.

This includes using the best scientific data available; conducting primary

research to frame an issue in its particular social, governmental, environmental, and

economic context; involving technical experts; and identifying best practices and

negotiating the behaviors that are feasible for stakeholders to adopt.

 Remain flexible. A system changes and evolves, and a successful program needs to

respond proactively to significant changes in the context of the issue at hand. For

example, as new participants enter the process (and others leave after their

objectives are met or change), re-mapping the context and accounting for the

resulting new connections—and opportunities—allow the program to adapt and

move forward.

Map the Context

An issue or problem is always situated in a particular context, so it is essential to

learn as much as possible about that context. For SCALE, mapping the context means:

 Defining and understanding the issue.

 Creating system maps to help analyze the context—the social, economic,

governmental, and environmental systems surrounding the issue.

 Envisioning potential goals and desired outcomes.

 Identifying the stakeholders who are linked to the issue and analyzing their

positions, beliefs, values, and practices.

 Identifying leverage points where small interventions will trigger large-scale,

sustainable change.

 Identifying gaps in knowledge and conducting primary research to fill those gaps—

for example, conducting research to understand the barriers and benefits people

perceive to taking action.

 What are the best environmental or agricultural practices and technologies that can

contribute to the goal?

 How can livelihoods be increased in relation to this goal?

 What impact could these best practices have on people’s current livelihoods?

 How can the positive impact be increased (for example, changes in policy and

strengthened marketing)?

 How can the negative impact be reduced (for example, adoption of more sustainable

technologies and services)?

 How can civil society participation, equity, and accountability be increased in relation

to the goal?

 What should be done to strengthen local, regional, and/or national government to

achieve the goal?

Key Questions for Understanding the Context

In Indonesia, GreenCOM created a stakeholder map to

determine key influences and possible connections

surrounding the issue of illegal logging across Indonesia.

The map, developed with NGO and government partners,

revealed stakeholders ranging from government ministries

and indigenous rights and community groups, to private

logging companies and the media. This analysis identified

the message that resonated with target audiences most

strongly: the amount of money being lost to illegal

Lumber and

pulp mills

Shipping/

export compa-

nies

Consumers: interna-

tional &

domestic

Courts

Private sector

industrial

capacity

associations

Logging com-

panies

Donors

Environmental NGOs:

Advocacy

Training

Research

Communication

Governance

Illegal

Logging of

Indonesian

Forests

Local govern-

ment officials

Military police

Local communities

Government

ministries: environ-

ment, forestry, trade

Civil society

groups

Indigenous

groups

Women’s

groups

Religious

groups

Celebrities

Mass

media

logging that could be used to improve social services such

as health and education. This resulted in a two-pronged

strategy consisting of a national media campaign to bring

the issue of illegal logging to the forefront of public

discourse during a major election year and strengthening

the capacity of local organizations to combat illegal

logging.

Mapping Illegal Logging in Indonesia

Catalyze Coalitions and

Partnerships

SCALE catalyzes new coalitions and partnerships, even among

unlikely associates.

Collaboration occurs from the outset by bringing the whole

system into the room through the participation of stakeholders

representing a broad array of interests involved in the issue.

Ranging from fifty to fifteen hundred stakeholder participants

from every possible sector and viewpoint, these sessions aim to

find common ground and develop a shared vision or goal.

Establishing common goals allows the stakeholders to invest

more fully in effective actions that complement the actions of

other stakeholders. It allows them to commit with the

assurance that they are more likely to succeed because other

groups are committing responsibly as well. The result:

innovative partnerships and coalitions that bring people from

multiple sectors and points of view together to develop shared

solutions.

Building new partnerships and strengthening and expanding

existing networks are crucial steps toward system-wide change

because they:

 Accelerate the process of going to scale by broadening the

base of people creating solutions for the issue.

 Help consider the various social, economic, governmental,

and environmental interests that impact or are affected by

the issue.

 Increase the likelihood that success will be sustainable by

generating value for everyone involved.

Bringing Diverse

Stakeholders Together

In Jordan, a stakeholder planning meeting

helped launch a USAID project designed to

increase agricultural water efficiency. Sixty

participants representing the public sector,

farmers, landlords, universities, the media,

and the private sector took part in a two-

day workshop. Mapping and discussion of

international, local, and personal histories

illustrated that seemingly distant and

unrelated events are often interconnected.

As a result, participants learned to

recognize not only how certain events affect

water resources, but how different

stakeholders affect one another.

Current issues and challenges affecting

water resources were discussed, along with

ways to define optimal use of water

resources. Ideas developed in small working

groups were presented in plenary sessions

and adjusted to reflect common ground and

build a mutually satisfactory plan. The

result: an overall strategy for improving

irrigation water use efficiency and short-

term (three months) and long-term (three

years) implementation plans for each

stakeholder group.

Whole-system-in-the-room planning can help address an issue by

first “tweaking the system.” If thirty stakeholder groups and

organizations are in the room and twenty of them can make a

dent in the problem through minor adjustments or additions to

their ongoing programs, then resources may be devoted to only

the ten remaining groups, a much more cost-effective approach.

Create Collaborative, Sustainable

Solutions

SCALE assists coalitions and partners in applying the information gathered and

analyzed in Map the Context and Catalyze Coalitions and Partnerships to:

 Generate options that address policy, structural, technological, economic, social, and

environmental aspects of the issue.

 Negotiate and prioritize collaborative solutions by identifying specific opportunities

to work together as partners.

 Define the coalition’s or partnership’s objectives and indicators of success. What

does this group want to accomplish and how will members know they have achieved

it? How will it contribute to the overall goal?

 Define the stakeholder actions that will contribute to solving the problem.

 Choose a combination of social change methodologies and tools to help them reach

their objectives and measure success along the way.

In Ecuador, GreenCOM was asked to provide support to a

USAID-funded sustainable land use project working with

residents of the buffer zone surrounding the Cotacachi-

Cayapas Ecological Reserve. Through a series of

workshops and meetings, the key stakeholder groups—

technical experts, project staff, local extension agents,

representatives of community groups, municipal

government officials, and local farmers—developed a list

of twenty-seven ideal behaviors that farmers should

adopt to use their land sustainably. These included, for

example, planting crops on a contour, keeping (not

cutting) trees for ten meters along river and stream banks,

and cultivating three ecologically compatible crops.

Local extension agents and residents then conducted

structured observation and in-depth interviews to collect

information from community members, men and women

alike, about the feasibility of adopting these behaviors.

The results were graphed and analyzed by the

multidisciplinary team and workshops were held with

local farmers to share the findings. Together, they

applied a tool called the Behavior Analysis Scale,

which

helps groups select and negotiate sustainable solutions.

As they discussed and negotiated each action, they fine-

tuned it to make it workable for local conditions. The

local farmers suggested three additional actions they

should follow to carry out controlled burning, thus

concluding with a list of thirty specific behaviors that

all of the key stakeholders agreed on as the focus of

sustainable land use in the buffer zone. These became

the objectives of the program.

Ecuador: Negotiating Solutions for Sustainable Land Use

Act

To make solutions real, people must take action. SCALE provides the needed spur to

action by working with stakeholders to:

 Develop a collaborative strategic plan that addresses how a group will achieve its

objectives. This includes simultaneously applying social change methodologies that

are most appropriate and effective for achieving these objectives and pretesting

technologies, messages, and materials.

 Create new synergies and strengthen relationships among partners to expand their

reach and leverage their influence.

 Reassess, as activities generate change, where individuals, groups, organizations, and

communities are in the process and support them in moving one step forward toward

their objectives.

 Maintain a balance between the “task”—achieving objectives—and the “process”—

strengthening stakeholders’ capacity for informed decision making and sustainable,

collaborative action.

 Overcome barriers to action and provide motivation to change.

To preserve Red Sea natural resources while encouraging

sustainable tourism, GreenCOM identified the Red Sea

Rangers, through system mapping with Egyptian partners,

as one of the key leverage points in the Red Sea’s ecologi-

cal, economic, and social system. The Rangers, employees of

the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, are charged

with enforcing coastal resource management best practices

and conducting public education. As a result, they were

well positioned to influence a number of other important

groups affecting Red Sea conservation.

By helping the Rangers improve their communication skills

and strategic outreach, increased collaborative action

between the Rangers and the following groups resulted:

 Educators and students

Through training on how to use the Red Sea Learning

Supplement developed by GreenCOM, the Rangers were

able to effectively conduct environmental education in

schools in proximity to the Red Sea.

 Boat operators

To address the issue of boat mooring and anchoring,

GreenCOM worked with the Rangers to offer training to

boat operators on best practices. More than three

Leveraging Partnerships for Red Sea Conservation

hundred boat operators were certified, and a boat opera-

tors association was formed.

 Hotel operators

GreenCOM worked with hotel operators and the Rangers

to improve the flow of information on environmental

best practices to hotel managers and guests. A hotel

managers association was also formed to improve indus-

try environmental management systems, raise public

awareness, and conduct clean up campaigns in collabora-

tion with the Rangers.

 Tourists

The Rangers received interpretive training to aid them in

effective outreach to tourists on the natural environment

of the Red Sea and best practices to protect its fragile

ecosystems.

Value:

Monitoring & Evaluation

The name of this component was intentionally chosen for its

multiple meanings. The SCALE process helps stakeholders place

greater worth on their shared resources. It also helps them

value other stakeholders’ perspectives and contributions. Finally,

this is the time in the SCALE process to value what is working

and identify what can be improved—as well as to evaluate

impact.

SCALE monitoring and evaluation may measure impact through

a variety of indicators including:

 System-wide change

 Number of stakeholders (individuals, groups, institutions,

communities, government agencies, businesses,

partnerships, and coalitions) simultaneously implementing

collaborative, sustainable solutions toward a common goal

 Types of working relationships among these stakeholders

 Stakeholders’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices related

to the issue and to collaborative action toward a common

goal

 Sustainable livelihoods

 Numbers of people benefiting economically from improved

agricultural and natural resource management practices,

services, and technologies and the amount of increased

investment, productivity, and income from these sources

 Governance and civil society

 Levels of civil society participation, equity, and

accountability

 Local, regional, and national government capacity for

supporting and managing improved agricultural practices

and natural resource management

 New or changed policies

 Increased compliance with policies

 Environmental impact

 Quantity and quality of agricultural and environmental

best practices and technologies

 Number of hectares under improved management

Participatory Monitoring and

Evaluation

SCALE encourages the use of participatory

monitoring and evaluation as a process for

collaborative problem solving. The process

leads to action by involving all levels of

stakeholders in shared decision making.

Key principles include

 Local people must be active participants—

not just sources of information.

 Stakeholders evaluate, outsiders facilitate.

 Monitoring and evaluation should strength-

en stakeholder capacity for analysis and

problem solving.

 The process should build commitment for

implementing the recommended corrective

actions.

GreenCOM is working with USAID in Tanzania to increase

coastal resource management best practices in ways that

improve people’s livelihoods and quality of life. The core

strategy is a community environmental awards program

that aims to increase the participation of a wide variety of

stakeholders—in this case, communities, schools,

government agencies, NGOs, local governments, and the

private sector—in implementing environmental actions

related to coastal resource management. The award

categories include as many sectors and levels of society as

possible—individuals, schools, NGOs, groups (cooperatives,

fishermen associations, neighborhoods), businesses, and

institutions.

A recent review of program data included the following:

 Number of stakeholders (institutions, community

groups, businesses) taking collaborative, sustainable

action has increased from 0 in 1999 to 476 in 2003.

 Anecdotal information indicates that communication

and working relationships between these stakeholders

have greatly increased.

 There has been an increase in sustainable livelihoods,

indicated by a growing number of entries related to

sustainable income generation. For example, the number

of awards going to women’s seaweed farming groups has

tripled since the beginning of the program.

In Bagamoyo, the local awards program committee

secretary David Kaijunga said, “Indeed, CEAS [Community

Environmental Awards Scheme] has not only mobilized

people in proper management of natural resources, but it

has also promoted individual and collective efforts towards

positive socio-economic development. CEAS projects and

activities are not just initiated for the sake of winning

prizes, but rather helping people to realize that to

participate in environmentally friendly practices pays.

People are now changing [their] perception towards proper

natural resources utilization and socio-economic

development.”

One of the major strengths of this approach is the marked

increase in national and local government and civil society

participation. With twenty intersectoral award program

committees, more than 300,000 annual participants, and

an estimated 70,000 people attending the prize

ceremonies, a significant number of Tanzanians are

actively participating in the program and working toward

sustainable practices.

Some of the best practices recognized through the awards

include:

 Reduction of pressure on coastal resources through

alternative livelihood development, including seaweed

farming, beekeeping, and agroforestry (the single

largest category of entries and award winners)

 Reduction of coastal erosion through mangrove/tree

replanting

 Increasing sustainable fishing practices (reducing

dynamite fishing with appropriate traps and nets)

 Increased environmental advocacy, particularly in

schools through drama performances that engage

students and inform communities about coastal issues

and behaviors

Since it began in 1999, the awards program has expanded

beyond the coast to communities near Lake Manyara and

Tarangire National Parks and the Ugalla Ecosystem.

Measuring System-wide Change in Tanzania

SCALE Tools & Techniques:

Social Change Methodologies

The SCALE framework encourages the use of a combination of social change

methodologies and tools including civil society participation and mobilization,

advocacy, social marketing, organization development, mass communication, education,

and conflict resolution. In most programs, one methodology alone is not sufficient to

create change. The following criteria are helpful for selecting the most appropriate and

effective methodology or combination of methodologies for the specific context.

Purpose or Goal—The purpose or goal of a program plays a major role in

determining which methodologies and tools are selected. The overall program purpose

may be achieved by establishing multiple objectives, each of which might require a

different combination of methodologies. For example, the goal “stop illegal logging in

the northern region of the country” requires a different mix of methodologies than the

goal “get illegal logging on the political agenda of the presidential election.” For the

former, it might be appropriate to use a combination of civil society mobilization and

mass communication. For the latter, social marketing and advocacy might be better.

Efficacy—Some methodologies are more effective for achieving discrete, short-term

changes. Others may be more suited to strengthening governance and civil society

participation, which is a long-term process. Social marketing and mass communication

are generally more effective if the objective is to generate immediately measurable

change, such as a change in people’s knowledge, attitudes, and/or practices on a given

issue. Participation and mobilization are more effective for developing the democratic

processes needed to achieve sustainable change in the long term.

Level of Action—Another criterion to consider when selecting methodologies is

whether an individual or family, an organization or group, or an entire community

needs to take action to achieve the objective. For instance, social marketing may be

most effective if the level of action is the individual or family (for example, reducing

farm or home water use). Participation and mobilization may be most effective if the

level of action is the community (for instance, community-based forestry

management). Organization development may be useful if the level of action is the

group or institution (for example, strengthening an NGO or coalition). Often the best

strategies involve several levels working on parallel tracks.

Preference—Program managers come to a project with their own experience and

expertise. SCALE enables them to see the positive potential of supplementing their

strengths with other complementary approaches to achieve the defined purpose.

Through the development of partnerships and coalitions with individuals and groups

who have expertise in the right combination of methodologies, managers can focus on

what they do best and support others in doing the same, thus working together toward

common goals.

The purpose and organizing guidelines of seven social change methodologies are

described in the following pages.

Social Change Methodologies

Civil Society Participation and Mobilization

Purpose:

Create collaborative processes for constructing a common vision, making decisions, and

taking action.

Organizing guidelines:

 Effective participation is based on respect for local knowledge and capabilities,

appreciation for diverse perspectives and opinions, the free exchange of information,

valuing each participant’s contribution and experience, and increasing equity among

different segments of the population.

 Address issues of power and control by ensuring that all key stakeholders and

interests have an equal opportunity and ability to participate if they wish. As

Donella Meadows said, “Pay attention to the rules, and to who has power over

them.”

 Participation is a process that takes time. Groups need time to understand what is

proposed, develop trust with one another, and decide what to do.

 Pay attention to both the task (achieving results) and the process (increasing

people’s capacity to take action in the future).

Good sources of information:

 Clayton, Andrew, Peter Oakley, and Brian Pratt. Empowering People: A Guide to

Participation. New York: United Nations Development Programme, 1997. Available

online, http://www.undp.org/csopp/paguide.htm.

 de Negri, Bérengère et al. Empowering Communities: Participatory Techniques for

Community-Based Programme Development. Vol. 1, Trainer’s Manual, and Vol. 2,

Participant’s Handbook. Nairobi: Centre for African Family Studies, 1998. Available

online, http://pcs.aed.org/empowering.htm.

 Institute of Development Studies Sussex’s Participation Web site,

http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/particip/index.html.

 International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) Web site,

http://www.iied.org.

 World Bank. The World Bank Participation Sourcebook. Washington, DC: World Bank,

1996. Available online, http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/sourcebook/sbhome.htm.

Advocacy

Purpose:

Influence policymaking and decision making at the local,

regional, national, and/or international levels.

Organizing guidelines:

 Influence a policymaking or decision making process by

targeting the specific person(s) who can make decision(s)

about the desired change; the process is complete when the

decision maker(s) acts.

 Advocacy can be done by an intermediary, such as an NGO or

an advocacy coalition, or directly by the affected people

(direct action organizing).

 Develop a strategy appropriate for the type of decision

making process: formal (the official procedure stated by law

or an organization’s regulations); informal (a decision

making process not required by law but often occurring

concurrently with the formal process); or alternative (a way

to influence decision making that is completely outside of

the official process).

Good sources of information:

 Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA).

Advocacy: Building Skills for NGO Leaders. CEDPA Training

Manual Series Volume IX. Washington, DC: CEDPA, 1999.

Available online,

http://www.cedpa.org/publications/pdf/advocacy.html.

 POLICY Project. Networking for Policy Change: An Advocacy

Training Manual. Washington, DC: Futures Group

International, 1999. Available online, http://www.policypro-

ject.com/pubs/AdvocacyManual.cfm.

 Sharma, Ritu R. An Introduction to Advocacy: Training Guide.

Washington, DC: Academy for Educational Development/SARA

Project, 1997. Available online, http://sara.aed.org.

 Work Group on Health Promotion and Community

Development’s Community Tool Box Web site,

http://ctb.ku.edu.

1. Use research to identify and understand

the issue.

2. Select an objective that is feasible and will

gain support from the widest possible

constituency.

3. Identify:

 What needs to change

 Who has the power to make the change

 Who could be mobilized to apply pressure

for change

 What message would convince those with

power to act for change

 When the change should be completed

4. Apply communication methodologies

appropriate for the target audiences.

5. Evaluate results.

Advocacy Tips

Social Marketing

Purpose:

Catalyze action by increasing benefits and reducing barriers.

Organizing guidelines:

 Understand what the target audience needs and wants in exchange for using a

technology or service or adopting a best practice, and design a program that

responds to those wants and needs by creating a mutually beneficial exchange.

 Use ongoing social science research to consult the target audience and put the

audience in the driver’s seat for shaping the strategy.

 Segment the target audience. Break the general audience into smaller subgroups that

share a set of common characteristics and design the strategy specifically for one of

those audience segments. The program will be more responsive to the characteristics,

needs, and wants of that specific group of people.

 Understand the determinants of current behaviors, negotiate feasible behaviors with

clearly stated benefits, and empower the target audience to adopt the new behaviors.

 Use principles of the market mix—product (options), price (cost), place (distribution

points), and promotion (communication)—to strengthen the design and

implementation of the program.

Good sources of information:

 Social Marketing National Excellence Collaborative. The Basics of Social Marketing:

How to Use Marketing to Change Behavior. Seattle: University of Washington/Turning

Point Program, n.d. Available online,

http://www.turningpointprogram.org/Pages/smc_basics.pdf.

 Social Marketing National Excellence Collaborative. The Manager’s Guide to Social

Marketing: Using Marketing to Improve Health Outcomes. Seattle: University of

Washington/Turning Point Program, n.d. Available online,

http://www.turningpointprogram.org/Pages/smc_managers_online.pdf.

 Tools of Change: Proven Methods for Promoting Health and Environmental Citizenship

Web site, http://www.toolsofchange.com.

Organization Development

Purpose:

Strengthen leadership, group, and organizational ability to create change.

Organizing guidelines:

 View the organization or group as a system in order to create a framework that

strengthens connections between its members.

 Be alert to the role that mental models—perceptions of how the world works that

are shaped by culture, personal experience, and professional and intellectual

training—play in the decision making and change processes.

 Collaboratively create a shared vision, common goals, and feasible actions. The

outcome is teamwork, with each individual playing an integral part.

 Use whole system participatory planning techniques to involve a critical mass of

people in generating sustainable solutions.

Good sources of information:

 The European KM Community’s Knowledge Board Web site,

http://www.knowledgeboard.com.

 International Center for Applied Studies in Information Technology’s Knowledge

Management Web site, http://www.icasit.org/km.

 Knowledge Management for Development Web site, http://open.bellanet.org/km.

 NGO Manager: Management Tools and Research for NGOs Worldwide Web site,

http://ngomanager.org.

 Society for Organizational Learning (SoL) Web site, http://www.solonline.org.

Mass Communication

Purpose:

Diffuse information in appropriate, attractive formats through multiple, integrated, and

accessible channels.

Organizing guidelines:

 Use social science qualitative and quantitative research with the target audience to

define the media mix (combination of communication channels) and sources of

information that are trusted by and appropriate to the specific target audience.

 Program messages need to break through the “noise” in ways that are relevant,

appropriate, and persuasive to the specific target audience. Messages should excite

the eye and ear, inspire trust, and appeal to both the heart and the head.

 Deliver messages with enough reach and frequency to give the target audience time

to hear, understand, think about, and act on them. The combination of reach and

frequency increases the number of times the target audience receives the message,

which is one key to high impact.

Good sources of information:

 de Fossard, Esta. How to Design and Produce a Radio Serial Drama for Social

Development: A Program Manager’s Guide. Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University

Center for Communication Programs, 1998. Available online,

http://www.jhuccp.org/pubs.

 de Fossard, Esta. How to Write a Radio Serial Drama for Social Development: A Script

Writer’s Manual. Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication

Programs, 1996. Available online, http://www.jhuccp.org/pubs.

 National Cancer Institute (NCI). Making Health Communication Programs Work.

Bethesda, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/National Institutes of

Health, n.d. Available online, http://cancer.gov/pinkbook.

Reach is the number of people

or households exposed to a

particular message during a

specific period of time.

Frequency is the average num-

ber of times individuals in a

target audience are exposed to

a specific message.

 Roberts, Anne, and Reynaldo Pareja. A Tool Box for Building Health Communication

Capacity. Washington, DC: Academy for Educational Development/HealthCOM, 1995.

Available online, http://www.dec.org/order_form.cfm (USAID Development

Experience Clearinghouse Document #PN-ABU-931).

Education

Purpose:

Increase the values, knowledge, and skills and catalyze the action needed to protect

and conserve the biological resources that economies of countries and, ultimately,

human survival depend on.

Organizing guidelines:

 Environmental education seeks to reorient current education policy and curricula so

that environmental literacy, including the concept of sustainability, becomes an

integral component of all learning, at all levels.

 This vision of education helps learners address complex, interrelated problems such

as environmental degradation, poverty, wasteful consumption, urban decay, gender

inequality, population growth, health, conflict, and the violation of human rights, in

holistic, interdisciplinary ways.

 Three assumptions guide the learning process:

 Learning about the environment increases knowledge and understanding of the

biophysical, social, cultural, economic, and political processes that shape the

world. It helps learners to make informed decisions about how to interact with

the world.

 Learning in the environment provides opportunities to understand local

environmental problems.

 Taking action for the environment empowers learners to make changes for a

better world and to respond to local issues and problems.

Good sources of information:

 McKeown, Rosalyn. “Active Participatory Learning: Teaching Strategies That Work.” In

Education for Sustainable Development Tool Kit, version 2. Knoxville, TN: Energy,

Environment and Resources Center/University of Tennessee, 2002. Available online,

http://www.esdtoolkit.org.

 North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE). Environmental

Education Materials: Guidelines for Excellence Workbook. Rock Spring, GA: NAAEE,

2000. Available online, http://naaee.org/npeee/workbook.pdf.

 North American Association for Environmental Education Web site,

http://www.naaee.org.

 UNESCO and Griffith University. Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future: A

Multimedia Teacher Education Programme. Paris: UNESCO, 2002. Available online,

http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/index.htm.

 UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development Web site,

http://www.unesco.org/education/esd.

Conflict Resolution

Purpose:

Assist and empower parties that are in conflict to resolve their disputes.

Organizing guidelines:

 Ensure that all sides have the opportunity to be heard.

 Clearly define the issues. Keep the discussion focused on the issue in dispute rather

than the individuals involved.

 Help all sides analyze and discuss the kind of conflict they are involved in, their

individual or group styles of dealing with conflict, and how those factors affect the

disagreement.

 Help all sides generate creative options for mutual gain and develop objective

criteria for assessing solutions and reaching agreement on the next steps.

 Initiate negotiation or mediation if conflict continues to escalate and the parties are

open to it. Bring in an outside person to facilitate this process if necessary.

Good sources of information:

 The Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress Web site, http://www.arias.or.cr.

 Borrini-Feyerabend, Grazia, M. T. Farvar, J. C. Nguinguiri, and V. A. Ndangang.

Co-management of Natural Resources: Organising, Negotiating and Learning-by-Doing.

Heidelberg, Germany: GTZ/IUCN/Kasparek Verlag, 2000. Available online,

http://nrm.massey.ac.nz/changelinks/cmnr.html.

 Conflict Research Consortium Web site, http://www.colorado.edu/conflict.

 International Alert. Resource Pack for Conflict Transformation. London: International

Alert, 1996. Available online, http://www.international-alert.org/text/respack.htm.

 United Nations Environment Programme and Woodrow Wilson International Center for

Scholars. Understanding Environment, Conflict, and Cooperation. Nairobi: UNEP, 2004.

Available online, http://www.unep.org/PDF//ECC.pdf.

 USAID Center for Democracy and Governance. Alternative Dispute Resolution

Practitioners’ Guide. Washington, DC: USAID, 1998. Available online,

http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy_and_governance/publications/pdfs/pnac

b895.pdf.

In Panama, GreenCOM used a combination of social

change methodologies to achieve objectives contributing

to the overall goal of strengthening the sustainable

management of the Panama Canal Watershed (PCW):

 To increase demand for ecotourism in PCW parks, they

combined nature interpretation and social marketing.

Nature interpretation improved the parks’ “products,”

including attractive signage and interpretive materials

and the training of guides and park guards. Social

marketing increased demand for the products—that

is, the number of visitors to the park annually.

 To increase the capacity of municipalities within the

PCW to manage their lands more sustainably, they

used community participation and mobilization to

develop municipal environmental plans.

 To reinforce a new NGO federation, they used

organization development to strengthen its capacity

to provide technical assistance to municipalities in

the watershed.

 To increase PCW residents’ knowledge of the benefits

of the Panama Canal and its watershed, they com-

bined a mass communication campaign and media

advocacy to increase awareness of these benefits from

19 to 62 percent.

 To increase school children’s knowledge and practices

concerning the PCW and its benefits, they used social

marketing and education and created the Watershed

Guardians program, which brought students together

to accomplish a “mission,” or set of basic activities to

increase local action to protect the watershed.

 To promote cleaner industrial production within the

watershed, they combined social marketing and

organization development to yield cleaner solutions

and conduct whole-system-in-the-room assessments of

potential solutions for sixteen key industries in the

watershed.

Using Multiple Methodologies to Achieve a Common Goal

The poster, left, was part of a mass communication campaign to highlight the

tangible benefits, including electrical power, that the Panama Canal Watershed

provides. The map, above, outlines official protected areas within the watershed.

Environmental

education for

youth was one

important com-

ponent of the

project.

SCALE: Lessons Learned

Impact is directly proportional to the scale of the project or program. To make a real

and lasting impact on an issue, a sufficient degree of sustainable change must take place across

society. Many programs focus on a limited number of individuals, families, groups, or communities.

This may have some local effect, but it does not cause enough change to impact the problem.

By contrast, SCALE catalyzes simultaneous top-down/bottom-up action and change among large

numbers of individuals across many levels and sectors of society. SCALE’s approach is to start large

at the beginning by bringing together stakeholders from all sectors involved in the issue. During a

series of participatory sessions they focus on the big picture—the interplay of people’s concerns

about the environment, economic growth, and social equity. As dialogue continues, these

stakeholders build relationships that allow them to negotiate sustainable solutions.

Take a holistic, system-wide approach to social change. Program managers often grapple

with complex issues and challenges. SCALE’s system-wide approach helps address this complexity

through an understanding of the relationships among the social, economic, governance, and

environmental elements of a system and by identifying leverage points where targeted action will

yield maximum change.

Balance social, economic, environmental, and governance interests in the decision

making process.

Sustainable development means combining opportunities for economic growth

and improved livelihoods with environmental stewardship, good governance, and social

responsibility. SCALE helps involve and give voice to all of these interests.

A genuine commitment to democratic and participatory process is an end in itself

and is an essential stepping-stone toward solutions that are sustainable.

SCALE

decentralizes technical decision making and action to stakeholders whenever possible and

establishes intermediate indicators that measure participation, equity, and accountability.

The most sustainable solutions are negotiated, results-oriented solutions. SCALE helps

stakeholders generate options and negotiate mutually beneficial, sustainable solutions that achieve

measurable results. Such results may include improved policies, accelerated technology transfer,

enhanced livelihoods, and widespread adoption of sustainable action by individuals, groups, and

communities.

Moving one step forward makes the road to large-scale change manageable.

SCALE helps stakeholders determine where they are on the path to change and find ways to take

one step forward toward their goal. Research has indicated that people are more likely to change

their behavior by taking small steps that don’t challenge their basic self-image or worldview.

Taking small, voluntary steps outside their comfort zones can dramatically change their attitude

toward the new behavior or way of thinking. Additional, larger steps are then easier to take.

SCALE Outcomes

System-wide change

 Increased numbers of a variety of stakeholders (both individuals and groups) taking

action toward common goals

 Changes in awareness and action taking place across a broad span of society

 Increased sustainability of a program through stronger ownership by stakeholders

 Increased numbers of stakeholders actively participating in improved agricultural and

resource management

 Increased numbers of public-private partnerships formed and taking collaborative

sustainable action

Sustainable livelihoods

 Increased numbers of people benefiting economically from improved agriculture and

natural resource management

 Increased productivity and income from sustainable agriculture and natural resource

management

 Increased incomes from products and services through environment-friendly means

 Increased income from sustainable tourism

Governance and civil society

 Increased civil society participation, equity, and accountability

 Strengthened local, regional, and national government capacity for catalyzing,

managing, and supporting improved natural resource management

 Increased numbers of municipalities implementing municipal resource use

management plans

 Increased numbers of laws, policies, and regulations with positive impact on

sustainable agriculture and natural resource management

Environmental and natural resource use

Increased environmental best practices:

 Hectares under improved management (biodiverse landscapes, forests, watersheds,

agricultural and natural landscapes)

 Targeted conservation areas implementing improved management plans

 Industries implementing cleaner production audit recommendations

 Erosion reduced

 Water quality improved

Actions that can make a difference now:

1. Look at the larger context of the issue and identify places where a small amount of

effort will achieve the most results.

2. Involve the widest possible array of stakeholder groups in working toward a common

goal and solutions.

3. Build on your own strengths—participation, advocacy, social marketing, organization

development, mass communication, education, conflict resolution—and what is

already working. Build alliances with partners who complement your existing

capabilities by implementing other social change methodologies in a coordinated

way toward the common goal. The simultaneous implementation of multiple

methodologies will increase impact and provide results.

This overview of the SCALE methodology is accompanied by training modules to

help practitioners adapt this framework to their own programs. For information

on SCALE training opportunities and additional information on GreenCOM’s

experience, please visit http://www.greencom.org.

Notes

Leverage points are defined by Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline, 114) as places “where actions

and changes in structures can lead to significant, enduring improvements.”

Barry Richmond, Systems Thinking: Four Key Questions (Lebanon, NH: High Performance

Systems, 1991), 3. Available online, http://www.hps-inc.com/contact.htm. Peter M. Senge, “The

Art of Seeing the Forest and the Trees” in The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning

Organization (New York: Currency/Doubleday, 1994), 127–135.

For background information on whole-system-in-the-room planning see Barbara Benedict

Bunker and Billie T. Alban, “A Brief History of Large Group Interventions,” in Large Group

Interventions: Engaging the Whole System for Rapid Change (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997),

11–27.

For more information on the Behavior Analysis Scale, see Elizabeth Mills Booth, Starting with

Behavior: A Participatory Process for Selecting Target Behaviors in Environmental Programs

(Washington, DC: Academy for Educational Development, 1996). Available online,

http://www.greencom.org.

Deepa Narayan, Participatory Evaluation: Tools for Managing Change in Water and Sanitation,

World Bank Technical Paper No. 207 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1993).

Donella H. Meadows, “Places to Intervene in a System,” Whole Earth, Winter 1997. Available

online, http://www.wholeearthmag.com/ArticleBin/109.html.

Kimberly A. Bobo et al., Organizing for Social Change: Midwest Academy Manual for Activists,

3rd ed. (Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press, 2001), 11.

Information on systems, mental models, and collaboration is from Peter M. Senge, The Fifth

Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization (New York: Currency/

Doubleday, 1994).

Photos provided by:

Academy for Educational Development

Irma Allen

Jerry Bauer

Bette Booth

Brian A. Day

Ana Celia Domínguez

GreenCOM Project

Atziri Ibañez

KAFA’A Project

James Mangan

José Ignacio Mata

Rony Mejía

Red Sea Rangers

Kedar Sharma

USAID/Guatemala

Carolyn Watson

Academy for Educational Development

1825 Connecticut Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20009

USA

E-mail: greencom@aed.org

Web: http://www.greencom.org and

http://www.aed.org