8. Recommendations
8.1. General Recommendations
In general, the Mission recommends a pause in the overall operation of the PED programme, aimed at restoring the meaning and dynamism of the various projects, giving thought to:
* harmonizing the approach and particularly the tools so as to make them more applicable to local conditions, especially with regard to needs, capabilities and the structures which will remain in place;
* ways and means of reasserting the value of the "local area"/support to local governance dimension;
* the type of institutional arrangements which could end the seclusion of projects and incorporate them to a much greater extent in the local structures which will remain in place on the one hand and, on the other, the programme approach.(52)
The field team could make a start on these issues and then pass on their thoughts to the national offices and headquarters in New York. At the latter level, discussion could begin on how to take better advantage of the potential synergy between the four UNCDF programmes and, in particular, how to associate LDF activities more closely with those of the PED.
Fed back to all levels (New York, national offices and field teams), these thoughts could provide the basis for a plan of action to be put forward to the donors' evaluation mission.
A series of specific recommendations follows, summarizing those mentioned in the report and intended to feed into this process of reflection. They are subdivided into four parts: concepts/overall approach; formulation/institutional arrangements; approaches and tools; and internal management.
8.2.1. Concepts/overall approach
- Since other programmes and donors also work at village/terroir level, the PED approach would do well to highlight the potential of its two major innovative orientations:
- seeking and defining "forums for dialogue" in the framework of decentralized programming and management;
- encouraging local dynamic processes between the terroirs and their trading and communications centre/s (the "local area"). In fact, organizing communities around existing and potential economic links between the villages and towns or urban centres is an innovation which deserves to be investigated further, with a view to defending the interests of the local people and enabling them to break into the markets.
- In this regard, the significant benefit of incorporating the other UNCDF components, especially micro-finance and LDF, should be pointed out.
- More specifically, there is a need to:
- move away from any notion of homogeneous communities and lay emphasis on interest groups;
- replace the notion of the eco-swap with that of negotiation between stakeholders - including the technical services and administrative authorities - on the basis of adapting community livelihood strategies in accordance with environmental conditions. The environment should be seen as a dynamic entity rather than insisting on restoring ecological balance.
- From this viewpoint, land-use management should not take precedence over other strategies (e.g. eco-tourism, seasonal urban employment, etc.);
- However, in the case of land-based strategies, incentives should be directed towards not only improving, but also providing security for productive practices, with particular emphasis on access to land. This latter aspect is vital to encourage producers to adopt more environmentally-friendly measures. A concerted overall effort is required to find a balance between the various local possibilities and practices (agriculture, forestry and livestock).
- simplify the "local area" notion, so that this is seen as referring to the administrative level immediately above the village.
8.2.2. Formulation/institutional arrangements
(i) Overall approach
- The Mission approves of the recently floated idea of widening consultation to cover further elements of civil society.
- It also approves of the idea of a feedback session in the project area before starting the project, as a first stage towards the development of a forum for dialogue.
(ii) Project document - institutional arrangements
- PED projects must not be fixed and uniform in nature. However, apart from the particular features of each locality, they should address a clearly defined set of issues, setting out the general direction and working guidelines. This does not mean that activities to be undertaken should be detailed at this stage, as field teams too often tend to take these as a blueprint.
- Project documents should lay more stress on "non physical"/technical aspects, such as methodology to ensure genuine participation; community organization; appropriation by local stakeholders; institutional support; etc.
- With a view to sustaining and replicating project achievements, it is important to make them less "cut-off", so:
- participation, the keystone of the PED, should be extended to all stakeholders in local development - technical services, administrative authorities, voluntary sector, communities and private operators;
- institutional arrangements bringing project teams within local sustainable structures, thus helping development co-operation to move towards a programme approach, should be considered or even tried out on a pilot basis. In this regard, efforts should be made to consult recipient governments (e.g. Senegal), international agencies and donors (e.g. GTZ, IDA and Dutch Co-operation) which have begun the process.
- The time-frame of PED projects should be longer, perhaps ten to fifteen years. As is done for projects with a similar vocation in other cases (e.g. GTZ), such a time-scale would enable an orientation phase to be included at the beginning of the project.
(i) General Remarks
- The overall perspective is to simplify the tools currently in use, as well as to match them to a much greater extent with local capacities and needs. This would facilitate not only work in situ, but also appropriation by local stakeholders and co-ordination with the activities of the other agencies in the UN system.
- The choice of tools should therefore depend primarily on the objectives set by consensus during the formulation phase. It should also be determined by local circumstances and demand rather than predefined by projects.
- Whatever the need may be, the development of methodologies and instruments should conform to four principles:
- not seeking to "reinvent the wheel", i.e. consulting projects and development agencies involved in similar activities to find out what instruments they use (such as MARP, the equivalent, in francophone Africa, of PRA);
- combining external and local know-how, whether the latter be national or within the project. This would help to bring the field dimension into the development of such tools, whereas hitherto these tasks have mainly been handled by external experts – consultants or UNCDF staff.
- Tools should be developed with a view to appropriation for post-project use, having regard to existing capacity, but also from the point of view of strengthening such capacity (especially where the technical services and villagers are concerned).
- Finally, tools should be perfected gradually through a process of action research.
- Particular emphasis should be placed on the development of methodologies and tools related to support for local governance, which are currently not part of the arsenal: roles of protagonists in local development, analysis of existing institutions, etc.
- With a view to a less cumbersome and more flexible overall approach, methodology should be subdivided into two categories: what it is compulsory to use in a particular order and what is to be used if required. A suggestion along these lines is given in Table 4 of this document.(53)
(ii) Specific Remarks
A. Knowledge-acquisition tools
- Tools should be developed primarily on the basis of needs in order to enable local stakeholders - communities, local governance, private operators and NGOs - to define and discuss the constraints and opportunities inherent in sustainable local development and to take action in this regard.
- With this in mind, as well as to meet the need for less cumbersome tools, the Mission feels that knowledge acquired by means of participatory, properly conducted appraisal should serve as a reference point as far as the minimum need for knowledge of the local environment is concerned.
- The foregoing also means that the need to acquire additional knowledge in ways other than participatory appraisal and learning by doing should be assessed on a case by case basis.
- It is recommended that the following available instruments should be used on the basis of need rather than systematically: typology of agro-pastoral systems; micro-regional studies; interpretation of social and land tenure issues; databases.
- Low-key studies should be conducted with a view to identifying potential commercial avenues between village territories and markets, as well as between producers and traders. This should improve the facilities for collecting and marketing products from the terroirs and those imported by the local people, thereby developing economic links between urban and village structures.
B. Participatory appraisal and programming
- Participatory appraisals should use tried and tested instruments, such as MARP. They could be carried out by specialist bodies as subcontractors, thus providing additional training for project staff in this regard.
- Programming of development activities should aim to integrate projected activities simultaneously in a land-use management plan (landholding, land/resource use patterns, etc.) and a development programme (economic and social activities, targeting interest groups, etc.).
- The tools used for participatory programming with villagers should be more accessible to their level of understanding and adjusted in such a way as to allow productive and/or entry point activities to be set up in the short term.
- In view of the insecurity (with regard to nutrition, landholding, education and so on) of a substantial minority within communities, efforts should be directed towards defining specific activities for disadvantaged groups (women, young people, herders, etc.).
C. Setting up and Monitoring
- UNCDF should make a complete inventory of current contracts and agreements relating to eco-development projects and determine the stage they have reached and their particular contribution to the various projects, so as to justify or invalidate the policies which underpin the increase in their numbers.
- The increasing number of implementation contracts (e.g. more than 150 in the case of the Mayahi Rural Development Project in Niger) intensifies the sectoral focus and tends to reinforce the impression of "scattering". Annual programming, as defined in village plans, should provide the backbone for the activities to be implemented.
- In order to clarify and firm up the relationship between projects and implementing partners, it would be a good idea for projects to draw up a protocol beforehand regarding the quality standards and modus operandi to be followed.
- Technical data sheets on the experience of project activities would fill a gap and provide the beginnings of a technical reference work on development which would accompany and enhance the presentation of UNCDF projects.
- It is recommended that each community benefiting from a village development programme should develop permanent monitoring of its programming, with the assistance of the extension worker.
D. Impact Study
- The impact study system should be adapted to the capacity and needs of the various protagonists - communities, local technical services and national level.
- In this regard, it is recommended that an approach be adopted which will enable the following sequence of questions to be answered at each level: why and for whom is the impact study being conducted, what is to be measured, how is it to be measured and what means are to be deployed?
- At village level, project impact should preferably be measured using a set of measurements made by the communities themselves on the basis of a simplified and genuinely operational village plan. The development and appropriation of such tools would be led by the extension workers with a view to training communities in management.
8.2.4. Internal Project Management
(i) Project Staff
- The present co-ordinating units should be retained for the duration of the projects in order to gain maximum advantage from their field experience, but a redefinition of roles and responsibilities is essential to bring them closer to the local communities and intermediate structures in facilitating and monitoring activities.
- Working relationships with local development partners should be easier if projects were to be incorporated within the local structures which will remain in place.
- This aspect is also discussed in the recommendations concerning institutional arrangements.
- Consequently, it is recommended that this option should not be excluded with regard to taking over project activities and that the establishment of a private unit should not be presented as the only way forward.
(ii) Training
A. Project Staff
- Training for national experts in mastering PED concepts and approaches would be more effective if it was provided during the first few months of projects.
- It would also gain from the inclusion of all project technicians (advantages of a multi-disciplinary perspective) and partners involved in the operation (technical services, NGOs, administrative authorities and so on).
- Training should be geared towards helping to define development orientations and a plan of action on the basis of consensus.
- Training in using tools should be given with this in mind and not simply for the purpose of mastering such and such a tool or in order to carry out a specific activity.
- Project staff should thus be encouraged to innovate in this regard, in accordance with both their knowledge of local reality and the PED approach.
B. Village Communities
- Priority must be given to functional literacy as a way of strengthening their position in negotiations concerning development options and the roles of the various stakeholders.
- Village representatives could be trained in participatory approaches and especially in MARP.
C. Technical Services
Capacity-building for the technical services needs to be seen at three levels:
- In technical terms, it is important to complement sectoral technical training with training on other topics:
- ecology, in connection with community livelihood strategies;
- non-technical aspects;
- village know-how which has proven its validity; and
- aspects relating to other sectors of activity.
- In terms of attitudes and behaviour, it is vital that they "unlearn" their "master-pupil" attitude towards villagers. In this regard, mutual evaluation of the performance of the other stakeholders, as well as learning techniques and methodology together, should facilitate changes in attitude.
- In terms of working resources, two opportunities present themselves: one involves decentralization and skills transfer, which should be accompanied by greater availability of funds at the level of natural resources, while the other involves village participation in evaluating the performance of technicians.