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The Project has had a chequered institutional framework over the years. As has already been mentioned, it started out as part of a broad UNDP/FAO assistance project to CENCIRA, the national agrarian reform training and research centre. That project, PER/71/544, terminated in 1975, and the International Project Manager formulated a second phase to continue along much the same lines as the first. However, a new Director of CENCIRA, Col. Max Velarde, decided that he only wanted assistance in the communication area, stating that "Peru has plenty of technical knowledge; we just have to transfer it to peasants".
The Government therefore requested assistance for a project to help to develop a system for farmer training on a mass scale. Its title, directly translated from Spanish, was "Mass Training for Rural Development". CENCIRA remained as the counterpart agency, but CENCIRA's Communication Department was renamed Centro de Produccion Audiovisual pare la Capacitacion, or CEPAC for short.
UNDP approved the project as PER/76/003; its contribution was to amount to $900,000 for 4 years and was designed to cover the coat of three international advisers for varying periods of time, training courses, equipment, etc. The Government contribution was to be the equivalent of $2,000,000. However, the Project was approved during one of UNDP's financial crises, and there was to be a delay of several months in actually providing funds. Things looked bleak, but after some frantic efforts, the Government of the Netherlands agreed to step into the breach with a bridging allocation of $94,000.
Later, the Netherlands again helped, through a Project with Cencira, to create a production unit at Cusco. And the Friedrich Ebert Foundation of Germany also became involved in that it financed and ran a production unit at Piura, in the northern part of the Costa, from 1978 to 1983. Both this and the Netherlands-financed unit relied on CEPAC in Lima for training of staff and for general support.
A very grave problem throughout those years was the deteriorating economic situation in Peru, and the effect this had on the Government's ability to pay its part of Project costs. At the start of the PER/76/003 project, the CENCIRA staff working with it numbered 30, and in addition to covering their salaries, CENCIRA was also able to meet most running costs. By 1979, the staff covered by CENCIRA was only 15, and all running costs were being met from the international component or from income being generated by some training activities. All in all, it is probable that the Government only contributed about 10% of the $2 million it had committed itself to provide in terms of salaries and services. As could be expected, this seriously hampered operations and made it difficult for the Project to meet all its objectives.
In the face of this serious situation, in 1978, FAO's Technical Cooperation Programme helped out too. It made available the sum of $150,000 to help finance CEPAC's operations, and to purchase some equipment. It was with these funds that the first colour video was bought, after some argument in fact, but the Project staff reasoned that colour equipment would soon be as cheap as black and white -- they were right -- and that it should be used experimentally.
During the Mid-term Review of the Project in 1979, the question of Government financing received much attention, for it was evident that the Project would never be able to continue unless there were some mayor changes, and above all, unless there was real national support for it. Another factor was that CENCIRA was in decline as an institution, and it was in fact abolished in 1980.
For these reasons, a new institutional home had to be found for the Project, and it also seemed that it might be possible to ensure proper financial support if the Project were to become Special Investment Project in the Agrarian Sector.
It was to examine this possibility that the detailed Feasibility Study of 1980 was prepared, and the upshot was that CEPAC became CESPAC -- Centro de Servicios de Pedagogza Audiovisual pare la Capacitacion. And with the demise of CENCIRA, CESPAC was attached directly to the office of the Minister of Agriculture as a Special Project.
When the first phase of PER/76/003 terminated, also in 1980, the Government requested another project which was basically to consolidate, refine, and improve the methodology already developed, and to help to apply it on a massive scale. UNDP agreed to finance it to the extent of $946,000 spread over a further 4 years. The Government contribution was to be the equivalent of $1.7 million.
In the event, UNDP was unable to provide any financing until 1982, and FAO's Technical Cooperation Programme again came to the rescue. The CESPAC methodology had been arousing ever more interest in other countries of Latin America, and a number of people from other countries had been trained in CESPAC courses. Furthermore, CESPAC staff had provided advisory services outside Peru. A TOP project was therefore fomulated to allow the international adviser in CESPAC to draw up a Latin American regional project for video-based farmer training, but at the same time it bridged the period until UNDP financing could come on stream.
So, at the beginning of 1982, a new phase of PER/76/003 began, with a termination date of end-1986. In addition, during 1984, the Swiss bilateral aid programme in Peru also became involved and made contributions to the Project worth $485,000 for work in the Puno and Cusco areas.
At many times during the years covered above, it seemed as though international support for the Project could not be continued, and that the adviser who had really been the driving force behind getting the Project started in the first place -- and who won FAO's prize, known as the Sen Award, for the best field expert in 1983 -- would have to leave. And at no time did the Project ever have the resources it really needed to operate properly in the field. It has always been a hand-to-mouth existence, and survival itself was often the main concern: on several occasions, only desperate efforts in Perk and in FAO Headquarters came up with a last-minute rescue.
In reality, that survival might not have been possible at all but for one vital factor, a factor which also serves as an illustration of the value placed on the services provided by the Project: the Project began to generate considerable income. The first step in this direction was when cooperatives began voluntarily to pay something towards the costs of the courses they were receiving. Then, little by little, national and international organisations began to seek the services of CESPAC. For example, the Andean Pact organisation commissioned a course on Coffee Rust. And gradually, development institutions and projects in Peru signed contracts for CESPAC services.
Over the years, this turnover generated by the Project has reached the remarkable total of $1.13 million. And the Project, quite apart from the work it has done in Peru, has provided advisory and training services to the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, El Salvador, Paraguay, Uruguay, India, China, South Korea, Cape Verde and Mali.
Initially, when CENCIRA was still the Project's institutional base, the income being generated was often appropriated for other CENCIRA activities, but since the Project became CESPAC, such income has been ploughed back and is used to meet operational costs, salaries of staff who are not on the ffinistry's regular payroll, and the like.
While on the subject of staff salaries, it in interesting to note how those of Project staff relate to those of other sectors, and how they seem to have declined over the years. While the Project was still with CENCIRA, CEPAC staff were being paid 20-30% less than other CENCIRA staff, and some 30% less than they might have expected at an equivalent level of competence in the private-sector broadcasting system. In US Dollar equivalent, a video producer earned $200 per month in late 1976, $500 in 1983, $300 in 1984, $220 in January 1985, and only $80 in January 1986. In the same period, the monthly salaries of the directors of departments in the Project have dropped from a peak of the equivalent of $650 in 1975 to $100 In January 1986. Of course, these figures reflect the parlous state of the Peruvian economy and currency, but there has also been a real loss in local purchasing power.
The total resources of the Project, from all sources since 1975. have amounted to the equivalent of about $4.63 million. Of this total, some $670,000 have been spent on audio-visual equipment -- and over half of that amount was provided by Peru. A further $290,000 or so have been spent on other equipment such as vehicles. The remaining $3.67 million have been spent on salaries and operating costs.
Thus, the audio-visual equipment component represents just under 15% of the total cost, and this confounds the idea held by so many that the capital investment in video equipment will override all other considerations when embarking on such a methodology. Even including the vehicles and other items, which are standard issue in most development projects anyway, the equipment component only comes to 20.7%.
In fact, all the other projects now using the methodology are confirming the CESPAC experience: equipment costs run to 15-20% of total costs, assuming that Low Band (sub-professional) video is used.
Detailed analyses have been made of the cost of producing a course and delivering it to farmers. In 1984, the cost of producing a farmer training package worked out at $1,502 for the printed materials and $1,780 for the video programme for each lesson. And the direct costs of making and presenting a whole course -- which, as will be remembered, is normally made up of about 10 lessons -- worked out at S13 per person who received the course.
Even taking the total resources used by the project and dividing them by the number of farmers who have received courses, the cost only comes to $30 per farmer/course. And this does not take into account the value of the equipment the Project still has, the trained staff, the value of the training packages, and so on.
It is interesting to note the relative costs of the printed materials and of the video: the so-called high-technoology medium of video costs little more than the very traditional. And one can hardly expect to make much impact with printed materials in most rural areas of the Third World.
It is also interesting to compare the cost of making and presenting a video-based course with the cost of farmer training centres. In 1980, a farmer training centre in Honduran calculated that the cost of lodging and training a farmer in the centre was $6 per day. Nor did this figure include any allowance for the productive work time lost on his holding.
In summary, therefore, it can be said that the costs of the CESPAC methodology are far from being dissonant with the needs in Third World countries.
A final, but very important point, needs to be made in respect of the Project's institutional framework within Peru. It concerns its relationship with the traditional extension services.
When the Project first began, the idea was that the methodology would be used by the CENCIRA farmer training units known as CENCICAPs -- centres for participatory peasant training. However, this did not function very well, mainly because the staff of the CENCICAPs were not over-enthusiastic about the methodology, preferring in many cases to use blackboard and chalk.
Later, when CENCIRA had been abolished, it was planned that the methodology would be used by the extension services belonging to INIPA -- the national institute for agricultural and livestock research and production. And when the Government purchased almost 100 playback units, it was planned that these would be distributed to the extension offices scattered around the country for their use, and many units were so distributed. But yet again, the cooperation did not work out well. The equipment was underutilised, and it broke down much more often than when in the hands of CESPAC staff, most probably because there was a general lack of enthusiasm for the methodology. In the end, CESPAC took the equipment back.
It is not easy to pin-point the reasons for this inability to integrate the use of the methodology in the extension services. And it should be clear that the problem is not limited to Peru. In the past, there seems to have been a reluctance on the part of many agricultural technicians to accept development communication. Perhaps they considered that the social scientists or generalists normally involved in development communication have no substantive role to play in agricultural matters; or perhaps the news, home entertainment, and publicity functions of the media warp their attitudes towards all media and they do not grasp their potential as a serious tool for development; or perhaps the relatively new approach of development communication has been seen as a threat to more traditional systems of extension.
Whatever the cause, and it could be an amalgam of the possibilities outlined above, plus others not mentioned, there are today weak links between INIPA staff and the staff of development institutions (and CESPAC staff too) who are using the video-based training system in the field.
The Project has been a pioneer. It has established a series of parameters and a methodology for grassroot-level training based on video, one which overcomes the problems that have been frequently encountered in making rational use of this medium. CESPAC's work has been the basis for similar successful projects elsewhere.
It has also established standards of hard work and dedication to the cause of rural development among many Peruvians, an important asset in any administration. Witness the remark of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Norman Borlaug, when he was asked what he felt his biggest contribution had been during his years of work at CIMMYT, the maize and wheat breeding centre in Mexico. He replied to the effect that he had created a team of young Mexican agricultural scientists who took pleasure in work in the field, in donning workers' clothes, and in going out into the trial plots under the hot sun. CESPAC has young people who will work all hours of the day or night, in primitive rural conditions, away from their families, and all this for a salary which is usually lower than those at similar levels in other sectors.
CESPAC has actually reached very large numbers of rural people, and people in the bidonvilles, with useful information and training. This is in contrast with nearly all other institution-building projects in which the international community assists because, in effect, they provide training and orientation to the staff in the top part of the agricultural-sector pyramid. CESPAC, with its methodology, reaches the base of that pyramid.
It is also noteworthy that the Project has succeeded, despite all the difficulties, in accumulating the critical mass of equipment, trained people, and work output required to overcome the forces of inertia and resistance that tend to bog down any new approach. CESPAC, as an institution, has been created, and it is likely to endure unless it suffers complete neglect and no replacement of staff and equipment.
The Government's role has been of fundamental importance throughout, even if it is true that it was unable to finance its part of the activities as planned; but this was mainly the result of the Peruvian economic situation. Several Ministers of Agriculture supported the Project to the best of their ability, and they had the wisdom to leave the national Project Director, originally the Director of the Communication Department of CENCIRA, in the job for 10 years. The fact that his exceptional talents were available to the Project for so many years was vital to the development of the Project. In most developing countries, able staff are moved like firemen from one desperate-need situation to another. At the time of writing, he has been replaced by another of the original 6 Peruvians who have worked with the Project since the beginning. He is also highly competent, very experienced, and fully dedicated to the peasant cause.
If one cares to be critical, it has to be concluded that CESPAC is still not making the fullest possible use of video as a catalyst in rural development. It has confined itself to the use of the medium for training and the transfer of technology; and it has not really used it for participatory planning and social mobilisation, for example by transferring successful development experiences in one community to other communities facing similar problems.
The reasons offered by CESPAC staff for this limitation have validity. They include the notion that a first step towards better lining standards in rural areas is an increase in production and productivity, that the political climate has never been appropriate for other uses of video, and that the Project was so busy fighting for its survial that it had no time to do anything but produce, and use, course after course, following the format and methodology it had developed over the years.
These same reasons are also given for the lack of the applied research that is necessary in order to maximise the effectiveness of the training packages. And yet, such research is of crucial importance.
Just to quote one example, it is not known whether a really good farmer showing how to do a certain farming operation is more or less convincing to other farmers than a white-coated technician, with his outsider's authority, demonstrating the same thing.
It would not be too difficult to experiment with different ways of presenting the same information and then to test the various approaches with typical audience groups. It could be that there would be no real preference for one approach over another, but the CESPAC must find out more about such issues, about peasant perceptions and preferences in terms of the way information is structured and presented, and about the way language needs to be used to ensure optimum assimilation by the farming community. Only in this way will the methodology developed by CESPAC really reach its ultimate stage of development and effectiveness.
Despite these observations, the achievements of CESPAC are remarkable. It has broken new ground in working with video in rural areas, and it has also created a viable methodology for its use as an instrument of grassroot-level training.
An enthusiastic, and totally committed, group of people have more than proven their point, often against fierce opposition from conservative thinkers, and always in the face of great material shortages, if not actually fearing for the very survival of their endeavour.
Rural development planners would do well to consider carefully whether the ever-improving communication technology available today, especially in the area of video, could not be applied to their needs, building on the CESPAC experience.
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