• a management office, made up of a national director, a chief technical adviser (CTA) and an operational technical adviser (OTA);
• a technical office, made up of various national experts (an average of five) and possibly some national counterparts;
• an administrative and financial office, with one member of staff, the accountant.

Most of the co-ordination offices are staffed by nationals from the technical services, which has the advantage of ensuring that technical skills and experience are available. However, the other side of the coin can often be a lack of experience in non-technical aspects (participatory approaches, negotiation, communication and so on) and a tendency to work in a sectoral manner.

A number of dysfunctions in the implementation of PED projects, which have been discussed in this report, have been magnified by the failure to resolve ambiguities relating to the status, understanding and level of ownership of the approach, the capability and professional future of the project staff and relationships with counterparts in the national administrations.

In the field, there is a degree of ambiguity in accepting that project execution is on a national basis and that government structures are responsible for project implementation. National experts are recruited through the UNDP's ad hoc system, on the basis of their competence. As a general rule, helped by experience, they usually come from the central or decentralized technical services and have fixed term contracts. The average salary of around $1,200 per month represents a substantial quantitative leap compared with their counterparts in post in the project areas. There are also differences in respect of subsistence allowances. This different treatment often gives rise to difficulties and frustrations which have, for example, been clearly expressed in the case of the PDRM/Niger (UNCDF 1997c, p. 24). A not inconsiderable part of these difficulties relates to the fact that members of the project staff, who may well go back to the administration after their United Nations contracts, find themselves in a delicate position and certainly do not want to make too many waves, which could annoy former and possibly future work colleagues. This stifles the innovative impulse to an even greater extent.

Overall, the PED approach is often unevenly grasped by project teams. In fact, most staff discover the PED concept when they are seconded to the projects. If one adds to this their background which is often in the public service, one can understand why national experts have had trouble mastering the concepts and approaches and, consequently, in running the projects.

At the same time, the very academic method of learning the modules and other tools described in the operational guidelines has induced an attitude of great conscientiousness, but this is mainly focused on carefully reproducing what has been learned about using knowledge-acquisition tools.

This somewhat restrictive way of working raises the question of the technical teams' ability to adapt and to master a new approach. Unfortunately, it is not enough to suggest that technicians take over a new approach for it to happen. The difficulty is exacerbated by their current ambiguous position and their background as public officials working on a sectoral basis.

On page 7, the operational guidelines state that: "it is expected that the project teams will transform themselves before the end of the projects into structures under private law dedicated to promoting local development". The Mission considers this statement, subsequently hammered in by some PED designers to national staff, to be inappropriate for the following reasons:

At the risk of generalizing, the opinion held by local partners of PED projects may be summed up as follows:

Some very relevant recommendations can be found in the UNCDF Capacity Assessment Report (Christensen, 1996) on this subject. It was therefore agreed that the task of this mission would consist mainly of assessing to what extent the recommendations had been put into practice.

To judge by the few countries visited by the Mission, the major concern of UNDP representative offices is to harmonize support. In theory, PED projects fit in completely with UNDP's poverty alleviation strategy. However, as the "graft" of these theories has often not taken well in reality, the doubts expressed by local structures are reflected in the remarks of national UNDP representatives. In principle, the synergy between UNDP and UNCDF lies in the complementarity of the PED, LDF and micro-finance components. This should be fostered, along with a simplification of the overall PED approach and tool kit.

PED projects have often experienced problems with project execution agencies (e.g. FAO and ILO). The difficulties derive essentially from differences in opinion concerning strategies, procedures and ways of operating. On this subject, the Mission is in favour of the idea of entrusting staff recruitment to the UNOPS, an essentially administrative body which is therefore more neutral than implementing agencies.

The various teams responsible for putting the PED approach into practice understand its broad theoretical principles relatively well. However, there are some differences in perception, which sometimes leads to a degree of confusion when carrying out activities. The learning process concentrates on the tools indicated in the operational guidelines. This technically-oriented conception of the dissemination of the approach favours mechanical and not very functional use of knowledge-acquisition tools, without leading to the emergence of dynamic lines of intervention or facilitating decision-making.

Capacity-building should be designed to simplify understanding of the approach on the basis of the three main pairs in the original postulate:

Ecology – Productive Security;

Participation – Structuring of village communities;

Sustainability – Forums for Dialogue.

This means that capacity-building must focus first of all on understanding and simplified use of the approach, rather than concentrating on the use of one tool or another.

The direction capacity-building should take may best be determined by giving project staff a chance to reflect on aspects which might give PED genuine meaning and dynamism:

• Firstly, the overall approach of PED needs to be examined from all angles and deciphered, in order that the various teams can internalize and have the same view of the meaning, purposes and orientation of the approach in relation to local conditions.
• Secondly, thought needs to be given to seeking out and defining a forum or forums for dialogue at local level. The potential and richness of PED lie mainly in the complementarity of local development activities and the integration of the latter within a local/regional resource management perspective. This is the cornerstone of PED, but does not play the part it should, as a result of an unrealistic and inefficient amalgam of knowledge-acquisition tools and a minimalist perception of local development. The lessons from the initial experience of the LDF would be very useful here.
• Thirdly, the tools needed to achieve such dialogue must be identified and developed. While seeking the participation of the most suitable and representative partners, there must be a constant concern for continuity and for enhancing supervisory skills and capacity. In addition, while bearing in mind the PED approach, it is desirable that the field team should define and appropriate their own tools, adapted to local circumstances and based on experience in the areas where they work.

• Functional literacy programmes need to be worked out and undertaken, making sure that their content really is function.
• At the same time, an information campaign is essential. In consultation with local people about their needs, written text and other useful information referring to natural resource management, decentralization, land tenure and so on should be prepared, in a manner comprehensible to grassroots communities, and translated into local languages. Obviously, other media may also be used (radio, video, television, etc.).
• Village communities could be invited to select representatives (including women) to be trained as facilitators. These facilitators would be given instruction about the broad lines of the approach (in the local language, of course), so that they could go back to their communities and train other assistants in their turn. Once the latter had been trained, they would be able to move on to attempt an analysis of the resources managed and used by the communities. It is important to note that one of the main objectives of this stage is to refine and develop MARP so as to adapt it to local living conditions. This is a long way from the "conventional" MARP procedure, which usually involves short missions by people from outside the communities. This stage is aimed at the appropriation of MARP by a given community. The process may take several months, in view of the adoption of a genuinely educative approach.

Functional literacy and the provision of information regarding the rights and responsibility of each stakeholder must precede negotiation of roles. Village communities need to be strengthened before they can tackle such negotiations.

Capacity-building for the technical services should be concentrated at three levels: technical skills, attitudes and behaviour and, finally, working resources.

• At purely technical level, learning subjects which lie outside their specific sectors of activity. For instance, foresters would need to enhance their technical knowledge in fields such as agriculture, animal husbandry and other branches which are not entirely forest-related. Moreover, it is important to plug some of the current gaps in technicians' knowledge of ecology, in relation to land-use and livelihood strategies. It is also vital to enhance technicians' knowledge of communication techniques, economics and rural sociology. The learning process should give priority to the ability to conceptualize, analyze and plan activities relating to rural development in an integrated manner. Finally, acknowledging and learning traditional methods of sustainable resource use must precede the provision of advice to local people. This brings us to the following point.
• In terms of attitudes and behaviour, it is vital that technicians "unlearn" - in reality and not just on paper – their "teacher – pupil" and "controller – controlled" attitude towards rural people. Relationships must be based on partnerships, including the sharing of knowledge. There are various ways of encouraging such learning:

• in a spirit of genuine partnership, it might be suggested that villagers should participate in evaluating the work of staff, since the latter often evaluates what the villagers do;
• training in participatory approach methodologies (e.g. MARP); this should be done in association with village representatives so that the tools are not monopolized by the technical services.

• As regards working resources, decentralization and its corollary, skills transfer, provide an opportunity, in principle, to increase availability of funds at local levels of rural development.

Efforts to strengthen the capacity of the technical services with regard to the aspects described above should therefore be based on genuine partnership, relying on participation in decision-making and mutual learning by doing. Training involving representatives of both the communities and the technical services can often play a very positive role here: this could be classroom training, but it often proves helpful to bring in practical experience or even courses. In this regard, all participants in this type of activity usually agree to inter-village visits. These could be combined with longer courses in some villages on technical and/or organizational aspects prior to commencing activity.