Internal Evaluation of the United Nations Capital
Development Fund (UNCDF) Participatory Eco-Development Programme

February 1998

Summary

1. Presentation of the PED programme
Since 1995, the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) has changed its rationale, moving from the role of infrastructure and equipment supplier to that of "local development facilitator", providing support not only at community level, but also to local governance and institutions (the "local area"), using a participatory approach. To this end, UNCDF has added three further components to the core infrastructure and equipment component: Participatory Eco-Development (PED), Local Development Funds (LDFs) and Micro-finance.
The aim of this internal evaluation of the PED component is to analyse to what extent it has developed in accordance with the new policy direction adopted by UNCDF, as well as the factors which influenced this development.
The term "eco-development" seeks to translate the interdependency between environmental problems and those connected with economic growth, demography and poverty. The notion of participation adds a concern for local control over decision-making and development activities. The purpose of PED projects is to combine guaranteed ecological balance, at local level, with economic and socio-political dynamism.
PED projects operate in areas characterized by a lack of natural "capital" (low rainfall, degraded soil, etc.), as well as marked economic fragility and lack of infrastructure. Under the circumstances, UNCDF programmes should constitute significant support for local development.
With regard to institutional arrangements, PED projects are managed by a co-ordinating unit, made up of national experts in charge of the start-up, knowledge-acquisition, assessment/programming and steering phases. Service providers (technical services, private operators and NGOs) are responsible for getting activities under way and for impact studies.
2. Analysis
The Mission acknowledges that activities of interest with the potential to improve community living standards have been carried out within the projects visited, which suggest that similar results may be expected in the others. However, results are more positive in terms of concrete achievements than non-technical impact, although this may partly be explained by the fact that many projects are of recent date.
Furthermore, PED projects sometimes display a spirit of innovation in their initiatives, such as promotion of local architecture, reviving hydro-agricultural schemes, rural credit and so on.
The considerable quality and potential of the eco-development programme must be recorded, viz.:
• A wish to develop local "forums for dialogue" to assist decision-making with regard to rural development and supporting governance, thereby going beyond the level of mere village participation;

• A wish to work at several geographic levels of intervention, involving villages and local governance together, in order to break the seclusion of projects and increase the sustainability of activities;

• Bearing in mind the two previous points, the considerable advantage of having four programmes within UNCDF, whose complementarity, both in thematic terms and in respect of the scale of intervention, could undoubtedly drive forward sustainable local development, if there were greater synergy between the various elements of UNCDF activity in the field and New York. Few organizations have such potential within such a small unit and UNCDF is not taking sufficient advantage of this at the present time;

• Field teams who often know local reality and are equipped with technical skills;

• Finally, in New York, a team which is open to criticism and prepared to act upon it where necessary.

Despite some interesting achievements and the potential they show, the overall feeling is that the programmes and activities carried out often follow a standard path and are not really linked into efforts to understand and appraise the local environment, as well as often being very similar to integrated rural development or land-use management (GT) projects.
Furthermore, the forums for dialogue very often do not exist since the "local area" dimension has been neglected.
Finally, the goal of the teams is to master programme tools rather than prepare an action strategy. As a result, a lot of time is given over to learning and using tools which are often on a scale exceeding local capacities and needs. This means that tools are used in a mechanistic way, seen as an end in themselves rather than working resources.
To use some colourful expressions, one tends to get the impression, at the programming and implementation stage, most of the time, that people have "slaved away in vain" or "the graft has not taken". The potential for innovation and genuinely sustainable development activity often seems to be stifled for reasons this report discusses in detail and which may be summed up as follows:
• Conceptually speaking, some concepts are somewhat reductionist in nature, especially those related to the notion of restoring the ecological balance. Some others, such as eco-swap, also involve operational difficulties and ethical questions. Finally, however essential they may be, some others are poorly defined. Here we are thinking of the notion of the "local area".

• The tools recommended are too many in number and too complicated in relation to local capacity and needs. The cost is likely to make them even more difficult to use in the post-project phase.

• It follows that the teams' energy is concentrated on the mechanical handling of these tools, to the detriment of perspectives emanating from the local context. Monitoring of activities is neglected for the same reasons.

• The projects' current institutional arrangements place project teams in a difficult position wherein their employment benefits complicate relations with the technical services and do not foster a spirit of initiative.

• Moreover, the short time span of PED projects – 4 years on average - does not leave sufficient time for the assimilation of a new approach and new concepts or to put them in place efficiently. This therefore encourages an inward-looking attitude and concentration on learning and mastering the tools, especially in view of the possibility, which has been brought up at an inopportune moment, that private project management bodies might be established.

• The local administrative authorities and technical services are, as a whole, considered as mere service providers, with no involvement in decision-making with regard to strategic options or programming.

In view of the foregoing and especially the potential of the PED programme, the Mission recommends that the programme should be pursued, but that a series of measures be taken to get back on course. In fact, the Mission feels that UNCDF can only have a comparative advantage in local development if there is a genuine association between the village/"terroir" and local governance/district levels.
3. 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:

* The potential for adapting the approach to local conditions;
* Ways and means of reasserting the value of the "local area"/support to local governance dimensions;
* Incorporating projects within the local structures which will remain and adopting the programme approach.
The field teams 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 programme.
• With regard to concepts and overall approach, the PED programme would do well to highlight the potential of its two major innovative orientations:

* Seeking and defining "forums for dialogue";
* Encouraging local dynamic processes between the "terroirs" and their trading and communications centre/s (the "local area").
• In this regard, the great advantage of incorporating the other UNCDF components, especially micro-finance and LDF, should be pointed out.

• Some concepts need to be revised (e.g. ecological equilibrium), refocused (interest groups instead of homogenous communities; development instead of land use), abandoned (e.g. eco-swap) or redefined (e.g. "local area").

• From the point of view of formulation, PED projects should address a clearly defined set of issues, setting out the general direction and working guidelines, although activities to be undertaken should not be detailed in the project documents.

• 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.

• As regards institutional arrangements, with a view to sustaining and replicating project achievements, it is important to make them less "cut-off", so:

* Participation should be extended to all stakeholders in local development:
* Institutional arrangements bringing project teams within the local structures which will remain should be considered or even tried out on a pilot basis.
• The time frame of PED projects should be longer, thus enabling an orientation phase to be included at the beginning of the project.

• With regard to the tools intended to implement the approach, the overall perspective is to simplify those currently in use as well as to match them to a much greater extent with local capacities and needs.

• The choice of tools should therefore depend primarily on objectives, by also on local circumstances and demand rather than be predefined by projects (cf. operational guidelines).

• Some tools need to be used systematically (e.g. MARP – the equivalent, in francophone Africa, of PRA; negotiating tools), but others only if required (e.g. interpretation of social and landholding aspects, micro-regional studies, etc.).

• Generally speaking, when developing tools, it is important not to try to "reinvent the wheel", but rather to combine external and local know-how, with a view to their use post-project, via gradual implementation and the training of local stakeholders.

• 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.

• Knowledge-acquisition 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. The Mission feels that knowledge acquired by means of participatory, properly conducted appraisal should serve as a reference point as regards the minimum need for knowledge of the local environment.

• Participatory appraisals should use tried and tested instruments, such as MARP.

• 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.

• Efforts should be directed towards defining specific activities for disadvantaged groups (women, young people, herders, etc.).

• In terms of setting up activities, the UNCDF should:

* Consider annual development programmes as the basis for implementing activities;
* Make an assessment of existing contracts and agreements within eco-development projects;
* Draw up protocols relating to quality standards and modus operandi;
* Draw up technical data sheets on the results of project activities which could provide a frame for a technical reference work.
* It is recommended that each community benefiting from a VDP/AVDP should develop permanent monitoring of its programming, with the assistance of the extension workers and as part of training in a real situation.
• The impact study system should be adapted to the capacity and needs of the various protagonists – communities, local technical services and national level. It should, therefore, closely involve the various "client" levels in answering the following questions: why and by 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?

• The roles and responsibilities of the co-ordinating units need to be redefined, in order to encourage innovation, concentrate on operational strategies, considering tools as means rather than an end in themselves and working in genuine partnership with the local structures which will remain. Working relationships with local development partners should be facilitated if projects are brought into these permanent structures.

• With regard to training in mastering PED concepts and overall approach, this would 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 toward helping to define development orientations and a plan of action on the basis of consensus.

• With regard to village communities, priority should be given to functional literacy training, focusing on the activities needed to ensure post-project continuity.

• Capacity-building for the technical services needs to be seen at three levels: technical skills, attitudes and behaviour; and working resources.





Table of Contents
< Previous / Next >