Successful community-based management of natural resources is dependent upon the formation of local institutions for collective action. Effective program implementation agencies are critical for the participatory process of institution formation by resource appropriators. Some useful lessons for design of program implementation agencies can be learned from NGOs who have a proven ability to catalyze the formation of local institutions for collective action. However, as Farrington and Thiele (1997) note, implementing participatory community-based programs on a regional or national scale will ultimately require the involvement of public sector institutions; NGOs on their own have limited potential (and unwillingness) to scale-up their programs.
The necessity for public sector involvement raises a number of complex issues. It is a well known fact that public sector institutions in developing countries perform poorly; they are not client responsive and are inefficient at delivering services. This chapter endeavors to identify organizational structures and implementation arrangements that have worked, whether in the non-governmental sector or in the public sector. It starts by identifying two broad types of implementation agencies, each with different characteristics and capabilities; both types of agency can improve their effectiveness and efficiency by creating de-concentrated field units (see box 8). Poor coordination and collaboration between public agencies is a decisive factor that has led to the failure of numerous government programs. This chapter reviews the few islands of successful coordination in an attempt to identify some generic remedies. Finally, it is recommended that close and meticulous supervision of program progress and impact is essential for implementing community-based NRM programs.
Based on the limited sample of programs analyzed as part of this research, two types of catalytic implementing agencies can be discerned: (i) multidisciplinary agencies, and (ii) single sector agencies drawing on multiple agencies for technical assistance.
Multidisciplinary agencies are those that consist of single unified authorities providing holistic inputs to local communities for the collective management of natural resources. This includes a cadre of social organizers to catalyze the formation of institutions for collective action; and, technical personnel specialized in integrated management of natural resources to assist social organizers in micro-level planning, subproject design and implementation. The social organizers work in tandem with the technical personnel and interact with resource appropriators as a multidisciplinary team. In this way, social organizers are able to assure that the local knowledge of rural peoples are blended with the exogenous knowledge of university trained technicians and engineers. Multidisciplinary teams are able to meet most of the resource management needs of appropriators without the requirement for coordinating and drawing in assistance from other agencies. This dramatically reduces the coordination problems associated with trying to bring different agencies to provide technical inputs to bear in communities that may be prioritizing different entry point activities. By providing efficient and fast delivery of services, they are also able to maintain the momentum between the initial catalysis of institutions for collective action and the implementation of entry point subprojects.
Archetypal examples of solitary multidisciplinary implementing agencies are NGOs such as the AKRSPs and SWDF. Both agencies have social organizing staff, as well as specialized engineers, surveyors, agricultural and livestock extension agents, gender specialists, water resource experts, and so on. There are also a number of government agencies that have sought to mimic the organizational structure of NGOs. For example, the Doon Valley project team consists of staff seconded from various sectoral line Departments for the specific purpose of implementing the project. The disadvantage of this approach is that the team is only active for the duration of project implementation. Once the project is completed, the team will return to their various Departments taking their experience with them; no institutional capacity will remain in government to expand the program to new geographic areas. ASPRO (Mexico), in contrast, is a specialized State government agency created for the purpose of implemented community based micro-watershed development program. It is considered to be a statutory agency of the State government of Oaxaca and therefore has a more secure and predictable source of financing. ASPRO, however, is not a true multidisciplinary agency; it does not have specially trained social organizers. Instead, it relies upon engineers that have had some training in mobilizing and organizing resource appropriators.
Korten and Siy (1988) in reviewing the experience of the Philippine National Irrigation Administration (NIA), found that it was not sufficient to train technicians and engineers to develop social organizing skills. The NIA resorted to recruiting specially trained community organizers with social science degrees to organize farmers into irrigation associations. Many of these community organizers were women who were able to interact with women resource appropriators who had special requirements that were distinct from those of men. Initially, the community organizers reported to division leaders that were senior engineers. Eventually, the NIA developed a separate division for community organizing and women were promoted to senior levels. However, because of budgetary restrictions on employing new permanent government staff, many of the community organizers were employed on a contractual or temporary basis. There are many criticisms of the NIA, nevertheless, it is a good example of a government bureaucracy that was transformed and became reasonably successful at organizing farmers and turning over operational and maintenance responsibilities to irrigation associations.
Single sector program implementing agencies are those that specialize in motivating and catalyzing resource appropriators to form institutions for collective action. They may conduct exploratory participatory micro-level planning exercises as part of their catalyzing function resulting in identification of entry point options. Nonetheless, they rely upon other agencies to provide technical inputs for the detailed design and implementation of subprojects. On occasion, the disjuncture between social organizing and technical inputs means that identified entry point subprojects may be deemed to be unfeasible after technical appraisal. Substantial delays can result because entry point activities have to be reassessed by local institutions. Moreover, because of the separation of technical inputs and social organizing, it is much more difficult to blend external technical expertise with indigenous knowledge. On the other hand, the advantage of this type of approach is that the social organizing inputs can be rapidly scaled-up; a large number of villages can be motivated to form institutions for collective action in a relatively short period of time. The problem of coordinating inputs from different line ministries is the critical issue in this type of implementation system; different line ministries with dissimilar agenda, work plans, and budgets, may have scant incentives to coordinate and collaborate. This can result in substantial delays between institution formation and initiation of entry point implementation.
These type of implementation agencies are not necessarily restricted to government. In the IGWDP, NGOs are contracted to organize resource appropriators; technical inputs are provided through state government Departments. The NGOs are supported and trained by a Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR) that has personnel with skills in awareness creation, social mobilization, and the planning, implementation and monitoring of watershed development subprojects; technical design of subproject interventions, however, requires state Department personnel. Despite the requirement for coordination between NGOs and government departments, the program works effectively and has scaled-up to cover 74 watersheds in the space of 5 years (Farrington and Lobo, 1997). In the case of PNGT in Burkina Faso, the core team of the program consists of personnel seconded from social welfare and extension ministries, or those who have been specifically trained in social organizing techniques. PNGT also contracts NGOs with specific skills in PRA to work with rural communities and catalyze the formation of local institutions. The PNGT secretariat is officially under the Ministry of Agriculture. Most of the subproject entry points are related to land management and require technical inputs from the agriculture and extension department. The coordination problems are reduced because all service agencies fall under one ministry.
Most donor funded programs have relied upon the creation of multidisciplinary project implementation units with staff recruited from different line ministries. This has been relatively effective for the implementation of isolated projects. However, once donor funding ceases, governments rarely continue to support them because they are not considered to be part of the statutory public institutions (World Bank, 1995). A program approach offers more potential for promoting long enduring systemic change. This is achieved by developing a coordinated strategy for reform of public sector institutions and developing the capacity of pubic institutions to implement community-based natural resource management programs. (See box 9 for an explanation of the differences between project and program approaches). Obviously, a far reaching and radical restructuring of government line ministries for agriculture, forestry, irrigation, etc., to form one multidisciplinary ministry for NRM is politically unrealistic and, perhaps, not even desirable. Therefore, the critical question is how to improve coordination and collaboration between these ministries. The following discussion will attempt to highlight some good practice options.
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Box 8. Towards Efficient Program Implementation: Adopt a De-concentrated Organizational Structure Catalyzing the formation of local institutions for collective action requires program personnel to have prolonged and regular interaction with resource appropriators. NGO programs have demonstrated that the most efficient and effective organizational structure for this type of interaction is one that is de-concentrated with personnel located as close to the target beneficiaries as practically feasible. The most obvious benefit of this structure is that it minimizes the time and costs of traveling from offices to villages, and encourages resource appropriators to voluntarily interact with program staff in field offices to request services and inputs. Another lesson to learn from NGO experiences is that de-concentrated units must have a considerable degree of decision-making authority without the need to constantly request clearances from further up the organizational hierarchy. This makes it possible for them to plan their work more efficiently, respond to specialized local needs, and gives them the freedom to contract other agencies in order meet targets. The level of de-concentration, however, needs to take into account that it is often difficult to recruit qualified personnel for de-concentrated units; arduous living conditions and lack of facilities for married couples with children mean that staff turnover is usually high. Moreover, many societies restrict the ability of single women to apply for such positions. This reduces the potential for making the program employees gender unbiased. The AKRSP(Pakistan) provides an example of a de-concentrated organizational structure. It operates in a mountainous area the size of Switzerland covering approximately 3,000 villages. This makes communications very difficult and expensive. Initially AKRSP(P) had staff located in three Regional offices who would regularly travel to rural communities. There were also social organizing staff who were often drawn from the communities and continued living in their villages. They were therefore able to interact more frequently with villagers. Technical staff such as engineers and agricultural extension agents tended to have more formal educational qualifications than social organizers, and were therefore more inclined to be based in Regional headquarters where living conditions were less arduous. Subsequently, AKRSP(P) reorganized and sought to integrate and decentralize technical personnel. Field Management Units (FMUs) were established consisting of a core team of five people; FMUs have staff with skills in social organizing, programs for women, natural resource management, and economic infrastructure development. These FMUs report to Directors located in Regional offices. Nevertheless, they have considerable autonomy in approving subprojects identified by local institutions and in experimenting with new approaches. The structure is effective, but there is a severe problem in recruiting staff who are willing to be based in the FMUs; staff turnover is high and it is also very difficult to find women to fill vacant positions. |
The success of single sector implementing agencies that are reliant upon coordinating inputs from various line ministries, requires: (1) a policy framework supportive of a participatory, community-based natural resource management program involving the formation of local institutions for collective action; (2) Cabinet level approval of the policy framework with associated budget implications; (3) apex working groups consisting of key stakeholders to provide on-going learning and also promote coordination between implementing agencies; and finally, (4) a review of public sector implementing agencies with strategies for making them more responsive to resource appropriators. These are discussed in more detail below:
Scaling-up cannot take place without a long-term vision of what constitutes permanent improvement in the conditions of the intended beneficiaries and the institutional changes that are required. The enabling decentralization and macro-level preconditions need to be spelled out clearly in a policy framework. This sets the context and provides the long-term vision and strategy for achieving the program goals. In addition, a policy framework should specify the roles, responsibilities, systems and procedures for coordinated implementation of a program by different public agencies.
The transformation of the NIA in Philippines was characterized by such a policy framework. Although limited to only one government owned agency, some lessons are replicable. The policy framework spelled out the clear role of farmers in the design, operation and maintenance of a irrigation systems. This required a legal policy to give recognition to the irrigators’ associations, thereby enabling farmers to design their own rules for the appropriation of irrigation resources, levy fees and organize maintenance. The framework also focused on developing appropriate organizational systems, capacities and norms for the NIA (Korten and Siy, 1989).
The NWDP in India is a centrally sponsored scheme. It required a policy framework to divert financial resources away from four existing centrally sponsored employment generation and drought prone area schemes to the NWDP. The framework was backed up by program guidelines explaining the roles, responsibilities of federal and state agencies, as well as Program Implementing Agencies (PIAs) that were used to catalyze the formation of watershed associations. Unfortunately, the program has had considerable problems in implementation because it was assumed that the policy framework was sufficient to promote effective coordination and implementation; no working groups, steering committees, or strategies for the reform of public agencies were included.
Based on the small sample of programs in this paper, it is apparent that policy frameworks and working groups will have restrained influence unless they are backed-up by Cabinet level support.[18]
Cabinet can assist in assuring departmental employees of their long-term security and provide incentives for coordination and collaboration. For example, a key move in facilitating the supportive action of state government Departments in the IGWDP was when the Ministers overseeing the Departments successfully promoted a Cabinet Resolution in 1992 in support of the program (Farrington and Lobo, 1997). The Cabinet Resolution was followed by various Departmental orders specifying the roles of the different line agencies, systems and procedures for implementation. Similarly, the Doon Valley project required a Cabinet Resolution in order to allow staff to be seconded from sectoral line ministries to form a multidisciplinary project team.
Working groups are inter-institutional and multidisciplinary bodies located at federal, state or district levels. They have been used by some programs to ensure that policy frameworks are implemented and that coordination occurs at multiple levels in the public sector. Their role is primarily to develop organizational systems and procedures, adapt program design and nurture coordination between line agencies.
The apex working group used by the NIA provides a partial, but imperfect, model for other programs. The process of change was enhanced by having a central level working group chaired by the Director of the NIA. Other disciplines such as social scientists, agricultural engineers, management specialists from within and outside of the agency were also represented. Government agencies did not appoint representatives to the working group, instead, representatives were identified based on their interest in the issues of farmers organizations. This was acceptable to the government agencies because the working group did not have decision-making authority; it was purely advisory (Korten and Siy, 1989). The limitations of this model are that it was only geared towards the change of one agency - the NIA. Moreover, the working group did not make any real impact in improving coordination between line agencies. This is partly because the public agency representatives were ex-officio with no official sanction for their participation in the working group.
The IGWDP uses two fora to promote adaptive learning and coordination: (1) a Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR) which is a private agency. It trains NGOs and also conducts research on community-based watershed development issues and improving program implementation mechanisms and methods; it also acts as a resource center for NGOs. (2) a Project Sanctioning Committee (PSC) includes representatives from the financing institution (NABARD), participating NGOs, the Program Coordinator, three state government representatives, a representative of the federal Ministry of Agriculture, and special invitees as required. This body approves subproject proposals from community-based watershed institutions. It also provides support to the program coordinator whose responsibility it is to foster coordination between state government Departments for technical assistance in forestry, agriculture and livestock extension, and water resources development (Farrington and Lobo, 1997).
Promoting participatory approaches to local institution formation requires public sector implementing agencies to change their organizational structure and culture to become more responsive to beneficiary needs. This is extremely difficult to do in practice; a whole discipline focused on public sector reform has been established to develop strategies for improving client responsiveness and service delivery but, so far, with limited success outside of OECD countries.[19] Nevertheless, from the few successful examples, it is possible to identify key outputs of a public sector review exercise. The review process should make recommendations that specify:
the type and quantity of outputs expected from the agencies;
the incentives for each agency and their personnel (including pay and conditions);
performance indicators on which to assess successful change;
the type and quantity of inputs required to transform the agencies and how these are to be used;
which activities of the agencies should cease and when;
the required finance, capital, number of staff and the skills that they should have;
the mechanisms, systems, procedures and budgeting arrangements required for coordination and collaboration between the agencies;
capacity building programs including training, study tours, technical assistance, etc., to facilitate reorientation and changes in working culture.
The review should identify quick wins in efficiency and responsiveness to clients and seek to implement these as a starting point. A phased strategy should be put forward to implement the changes identified based on the above review. Budget allocations for at least three years help to provide a degree of resource predictability for agency managers and makes it possible for them to implement the changes in a coherent and phased manner.
In the absence of any proven model for the formation of local institutions for collective management of natural resources, program implementing agencies need to closely monitor their progress to adapt program approaches. Often, physical and financial progress is monitored because release of funds is usually tied to a report on expenditures. In practice, however, very few implementing agencies place a high priority on monitoring and evaluation of participatory processes, effectiveness of local institutions and economic impact; these are often seen as donor requirements rather than management tools to improve performance.[20] In essence, three types of monitoring activities are required:
Assessing efficacy of participatory processes and sustainability of the institutions. There are few tried and tested tools currently in use by programs. Research is required to develop tools which can provide quick and pragmatic information to enable program management to constantly adapt implementation strategy. AKRSP(I) uses detailed case studies to monitor the effectiveness of the participatory processes. Their system is based on cost effective participatory and beneficiary assessment techniques. Similar systems can be evolved by other programs to provide more statistically relevant information about the impact of participatory processes and their relationship to the type of local institution that evolves.
Monitoring and evaluating social and economic impact. This is usually geared towards providing a justification to donors for program funding. However, informative impact studies can also be used to indicate which components of the program are having greatest impact, and which components need to be adapted or ceased. An informative impact assessment would need to include an assessment of institutional maturity, economic and social impact using statistically representative surveys. Techniques and methodologies for this type of monitoring and evaluation are relatively well known; their implementation by programs, however, is less common.
Tracking physical and financial performance. This is usually used to justify the release of the next tranche of funds. Management information systems for tracking of physical and financial progress (including cash flow projections) provide for efficient coordination between the source of funds (government or donor agency) and program implementing agency. Used to its full potential, a MIS can also provide information on program progress by region to enable management to target research, personnel, and inputs, in areas where the program is not performing as anticipated.
Institutionalizing monitoring and evaluation systems is not an impossibility. It does, however, require a commitment from management and appropriate resources to be set aside for hiring staff, contracting third party institutions to carry-out field research, and developing methodologies. Efficient monitoring of program performance, if combined with working groups and other recommendations cited in this chapter, can improve the capacity for institutional learning, adaptive programming and successful outcomes.
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Box 9. Adopt a “Program” Approach in Preference to a “Project” Approach. Project-by-project, and donor-by-donor approaches have sharply reduced government ownership of projects thereby reducing their long-run sustainability. Moreover, projects tend to be small islands of success in a sea of government failure. A coherent, systematic and sustainable change in the ability of the public sector to address the issue of degrading natural resources requires the adoption of a “program” approach. In contrast to a project approach, this is one which is sector-wide in scope. A sector can be defined as a coherent set of activities that need to be looked at together to make a meaningful assessment of the policy requirements, institutional requirements, and also the expenditure requirements, both current and capital. Natural resource management can be considered to be one sector incorporating the “disciplines” of social organizing, forestry, agriculture, water resources, livestock, and so on. A program approach is therefore one that is based on a sector-wide strategy and policy framework. All donor agencies need to agree to implement the same sector strategy and have one set of procedures, rules and reporting requirements. Government is actively engaged in the sector strategy and takes on responsibility for implementation using existing local capacity. Where this capacity is weak or non-existent, local staff are recruited and trained in preference to appointing external and expatriate staff. In this way, government is encouraged to own the program and is assisted to build local capacity to improve performance. Experience from 10 Bank supported programs indicate that a sector improvement program approach can be effective in terms of improved service delivery and large-scale impact. Preparing such programs is expensive and relatively slow, especially for the first one in a given country; subsequent programs become cheaper as they build upon previous sector work. In the long-run, it is expected that program costs will be more cost-effective than piece-meal project costs (World Bank, 1995). So far, however, there are no examples of sector improvement programs that encompass all the natural resource disciplines. |
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[18] Manning (1997) in
reviewing experience in public sector reform programs and putting forward a
framework for analyzing the public sector, noted that most reform programs have
little to say about the role of Cabinet and Councils of Ministers in promoting
sustainable and systemic change. He is currently developing a research program
to analyze their functions and also training programs to strengthen Cabinet
capacity to assess options and manage risk. [19] There are few examples of successful reforms of the public sector outside of OECD countries. This is partly because there is no accepted and clear understanding of how public sector institutions and organizations work and what were the underlying reasons for the few successes that do exist. In effect the public sector remains a black box which is periodically kicked by donors in the hope that something will shift and it will somehow start working. [20] Practically all the programs studied in this research were only monitoring physical and financial progress of subprojects. Only the AKRSPs had some baseline information and were regularly monitoring the participatory processes and social, institutional and economic impact of their programs. These programs have been operating for over 15 years and they are also dependent on five year donor funding cycles; they therefore have a vested interest in ensuring that donors have sufficient information to gauge the impact of their funds so that subsequent phases of funding can be approved. The poor record of many programs on monitoring and evaluation is also corroborated by World Bank (1997c) in reviewing Social Fund programs. |
