RESEARCH WORK

Proposal of actions for the development of the popular council Carrera Larga, Guantánamo, Cuba (Technical note)

Mireidy Ramírez, Yuliet Velázquez and Lisandra Steele

Centro de Desarrollo de la Montaña (CDM) Limonar de Monte Ruz, km 1, El Salvador, Guantánamo, Cuba
E-mail: miritart@cdm.gtmo.inf.cu

ABSTRACT

A study was conducted at the popular council Carrera Larga, El Salvador municipality (Guantánamo province, Cuba), in the period between February and December, 2012, in order to propose actions that contribute new elements to the knowledge system of the inhabitants. Through the diagnosis the potentialities of the territory were identified to implement a sustainable development process, with the purpose of guaranteeing an adequate living standard and social protection for all citizens. The research was exploratory, descriptive and non-experimental, and a descriptive trans-sectional design was used. The methodology used was based on the principles of the Participatory-Action-Research, to identify the principal potentialities that contribute to the adequate foundation of the development strategy of the locality. It was proven that the incorporation of the actions allows channel such development, with relation to the environment changes and the endogenous capacities of the community.

Key words: agricultural development, diagnosis, communities.

INTRODUCTION

At the center of local development processes are the governments of the territories, whose main objective is to guarantee a basic degree of social protection to all citizens, which contributes to eliminate inequalities in the access to basic quality services and also provides the groups with lower salaries with the opportunity to receive integral attention, that satisfies their needs and demands without the payment capacity being a barrier.

Development is not only an economic process, although economy is in the foreground; it also constitutes a real social process political in the first place», in which a re-arrangement of society is pursued in benefit and interest of the majority, from the power relationship. It intends to achieve a process through which quantitative and qualitative changes occur in all the structures of a society in interest of its improvement (Becerra, 2008).

The solution for developing countries and economies is not in assuming the neoliberal model, with opening to market; but in implementing strategies based on the potentialities of the communities and the local knowledge. According to Vicente (2006), the policies which work very well in some places can cause negative effects on others.

Since several years ago, the processes of local development management have played an increasingly relevant role in the achievement of higher welfare and progress levels for society. This is a topic that has been approached by diverse authors such as González (2007); Boffil et al. (2009) and Benítez (2012). On the other hand, the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Communist Party and the Revolution, approved by the 6^th Congress of the Communist Party, provide the localities with a higher protagonist role in these management processes.

The experience of this initiative implies contributions for the strategic conception of local development in the community. The objective of this research was to propose actions that contribute to the development of the popular council Carrera Larga, El Salvador municipality, Las Tunas.

Methodological aspects

The research was exploratory, descriptive and non-experimental; and a descriptive trans-sectional design (Hernández Sampieri, Fernández Collado and Baptiste Lucio, 2003) was used. The methodology was based on the principles of the Participatory-Action-Research.

The universe of the population was 560 inhabitants and the chosen sample consisted in 307 inhabitants, which represents 55 % of the total. The study was conducted in the period between February and December, 2012, in the Popular council Carrera Larga, El Salvador municipality (Guantánamo province, Cuba), in the following production forms: the Cooperative of Agricultural Production (CPA) Jesús Menéndez, the Basic Unit of Cooperative Production (UBPC) 13 de Septiembre, the Cooperative of Credits and Services (CCS) Vidal Megret and the CCS Sabino Pupo.

Theoretical methods

Analysis-Synthesis. It allowed to determine the constituent elements of local development and to synthesize them in a coherent body.

Historic-logical. It was useful to approach the antecedents of the locality which is the object of research.

Induction-deduction. It was used to know the real conditions of local development.

Empirical methods

Survey. It allowed the validation of the pre-designed conceptions from the results obtained during the study.

Interview to key informants. It was conducted in order to know the opinion status of local actors about the endogenous transformations.

Observation. It was used to understand the circumstances that surround the social facts and phenomena, because it contributed consideration and judgment elements, from the perspective of the acting environment.

SWOT matrix. This tool contributed to the formulation of the strategy.

A detailed document review was also performed, from the consultation of the decrees and regulations of the government system, as well as of reports of preceding studies related to the municipality, which support the validity of the work carried out.

Statistical analysis. For quantifying and processing the data obtained in the surveys the program SPSS version 11.5 was used.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

All the participants stated that they knew about the local economic development, which facilitates the process of change leading to a better situation.

In this sense, local economic development is defined as «a process of growth and structural change which, through the utilization of the existing development potential in the territory, leads to the improvement of the population's welfare in a locality or region. When the local community is capable of leading the structural change process, the development form can be called «endogenous local development» (Vázquez, 1998).

On the other hand, Guzón (2006) and Méndez and Lloret (2008) consider that local development should fulfill certain premises depending on its status, such as: the identification of traditional knowledge, an integral and systemic approach to development, widening of cooperation spaces, utilization of the existing structures, an intense training activity, the identification and mobilization of local potentialities and knowledge management to connect innovation to development, as well as social participation since the conception of development.

Endogenous development processes occur due to the efficient utilization of the local economic potential, which is facilitated through the adequate functioning of the institutions and regulation mechanisms of the territory (Albuquerque, 2001). In this research the structure, by ages, in the different productive forms was studied (table 1), which proved that significant structural changes should be made in them to achieve that the productive and economic development contributes to sustainable development.

With the exception of the CPA, the other productive forms which integrate this locality should achieve a higher incorporation of new workers to agricultural activities, because a high percentage of the members are older than 50 years, which constitutes a problem due to the ageing of the labor force. In a near future this could limit considerably the increase of productivity levels, as well as a better organization of the productive forces. The incorporation of new workers would be possible if the entities prioritized the introduction of scientific and technological advances, and increased the standard of living of the inhabitants, which would increase their permanence in the territory because there is a deficit of young population in these farmer structures.

In the studied community a progressive restructuration of local productions has occurred, through the incorporation of new technologies (irrigation systems and agricultural tools) and advances in the commercialization channels (creation of a state agricultural market and opening of seven sale points, etc.), which constitute basic elements to improve the productive tissue.

When the development of participatory processes in the communities is stimulated, the physical and social transformation of the locality, which propitiates a decisive contribution for the achievement of the society's participation and development, increases (Ramírez, Velásquez and Ramírez, 2012). In this sense, the participants refer that in the community participatory actions are not carried out with the local actors, to achieve their self-transformation and direct insertion in the productive and commercialization activities of agricultural productions. For such purpose, a diagnosis was performed which assisted as starting point to formulate the proposal of actions, because it allowed to detect the existing limitations and identify the capacities and potentialities of the locality to manage its development. Table 2 shows the internal and external factors derived from the strategic diagnosis.

The factors of higher impact, related to the main weaknesses and threats of the locality, coincide with the ones reported by Benítez (2012) in the Camagüey municipality. This means that the government of the studied locality should maximize its strengths to utilize the opportunities. The identification of the internal and external factors facilitates the orientation of intervention measures towards concrete areas; in addition, such factors constitute aspects of mandatory reference to show the possibilities of the territories where synergy sources can exist for the structuration of a coherent system of local-development policies.

The agricultural sector has progressively adapted to the economic changes, by means of searching for new productive processes and actors through the leasing of idle lands for production. The analysis of the evolution of global economy, as well as the particular performance of the different economic sectors of the locality, is essential to further study the strengths of the community from the economic point of view, to determine key factors that contribute to increase the development opportunities, and, especially, to generate new ways of economic diversification for the agricultural sector.

The continuous improvement of the human capital and the incorporation of young people with regards to local development constitute a basic milestone for the introduction of scientific and technical advances, mainly in productive sectors.

Table 3 shows a group of actions and their system of activities, which could contribute more rapidly to the development of the locality.

To guarantee the sustainability of local development initiatives it is essential to implement actions that serve as starting point; as well as to create structures and determine the people responsible for the management, monitoring and control of the technological innovation projects generated. Such actions constitute an instrument to increase the active participation of the true protagonists of the process, from the generation of knowledge from their practices, and in them the traditional methods harmonize with the requirements and demands of local development. Thus, an economic, social and environmental culture is promoted in the local actors, with the inclusion of gender reciprocity and participation of the different age groups in the productive processes and the development of the studied community.

This study allowed to identify the main potentialities which can contribute to the adequate explanation of the development strategy in the researched locality. In addition, a group of actions were proposed that will allow to channel development, with regards to the environment changes and endogenous capacities of the community.