Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
A lack of accountability and rigorous assessment
Accountability is a thorny issue as it is challenging to guarantee the responsibility
and performance of multilateral donors, international NGOs, commercial
businesses, states and community leaders. Mowforth and Munt (1998) suggested
that despite donor and government rhetoric of support for community tourism in
Belize, the Toledo Ecotourism Association was undermined by multilateral donors
as well as national and local politics. Wright (2005) reflected on the EU-funded
Wild Coast Spatial Development Initiative Pilot Programme and contentiously
argued that South Africa needs to develop a legislative framework to ensure that
multilateral donor agencies are held contractually accountable for programme
outcomes. Responsibility for poor performance can also lie within the community.
The study of the Amadiba Trail on the Wild Coast highlighted that collective
funds generated by community tourism are liable to be misused in ways that do
not enhance livelihoods if there is a lack of accountability, transparency and
democracy within local organizations (Ntshona and Lahiff, 2003).
Insightful critical appraisals of and lessons learnt about community tourism
development have emerged, yet few community conservation projects in sub-
Saharan Africa have been studied critically and in-depth (Adams and Hulme,
1998), and the evaluation of the impact of tourism projects on poverty continues
to be constrained by a lack of good quality research, monitoring and evaluation,
reporting and data (Pro-Poor Tourism Partnership, 2005; Goodwin, 2006b).
Many proponents of community tourism have endured - or conveniently
ignored? - increasing scrutiny of the approach and assertions that 'there are too
many failed community-based tourism projects around the world' (Ashley, 2006,
p23). However, given the amount of funding new projects continue to absorb,
even donors are now calling for much more rigorous assessment as '
resources for
conservation and for development are too scarce to waste on wishful thinking
' (Kiss,
2004, p236).
The research on community tourism in Zambia
The need for good quality information and more robust assessment of commu-
nity tourism was a major reason why research in the Republic of Zambia was
undertaken (Dixey, 2005). The practitioner study was commissioned by a
private-sector development programme, Production, Finance and Technology
(PROFIT) funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The research was undertaken in 2005 when community tourism was rising on the
national political agenda. PROFIT had a grants programme and wanted to ensure
that resources were targeted effectively. It required an assessment as there was no
inventory or adequate understanding of the range of community tourism initia-
tives and their impact in Zambia. The assignment focused on providing an
overview of tourism and its relationship to poverty reduction in Zambia; outlining
relevant policy, planning and institutional frameworks; developing an inventory of
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