Transcript Can Governments Promote Community Development Projects?

Is Enough Attention Paid to Human
Resource Development Issues in CDD
Projects?
Some Lessons from DPIPs and Karnataka Tanks project
By
Self Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action (SRIJAN),
New Delhi
May 5,SRIJAN/DPIP
2004
1
CDD
Projects
with
which
SRIJAN
Works
SRIJAN/DPIP
2
Four Central Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
How to get right people and develop staff capacity
in the field?
Why and how to develop district staff capacity?
Why to develop staff capacity in partner civil society
organizations (NGOs)?
How to renew and revive enthusiasm at mid-term?
Are HID lessons generic enough?
(could the lessons from Indian CDD projects be applied in other countries and other sectors
such as health?)
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Organization of Presentation


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Context of Government, and CDD specifically
Human Resources and Institutional
Development Strategies in DPIP
MP/Rajasthan/AP and Karnataka Tanks
– Enabling Environment
– Recruitment and Selection (R&S) System
for human resources
– Capacity Building
Impact/Results
Lessons for Project/Institutional design
SRIJAN/DPIP
4
Institutional Context of CDD projects



Social - political context: feudal relationships creating
dependency => elite capture of rural/ local institutions
- result => poor outreach of programs, leakage, etc
Decentralization to the district level is not being
pursued vigorously any more,
Existing achievement ratio - 20% (notional figure) implies poor sustainability of either the project
benefits or economic benefits
SRIJAN/DPIP
5
CDD Project Context



Large coverage area (min. 6 to max 14 districts in a
state, 2000 to 7000 villages in each state)
Bottom up planning and demand or community driven
Projects to promote groups and village level
structures - key objectives are -- building their
capacity and empowerment
SRIJAN/DPIP
6
Concept of a Village Process
Facilitation Team (PFT)
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A full time cadre of people in a facilitative role
(facilitator characteristics explained later)
Competence to design and implement sub projects
(certain intellectual competence) notwithstanding
support in technical areas
Team of four to five members dedicated
A cluster of 20 to 25 villages or about 2500 poor
families over a period of five years
Base at block headquarters close to the village
cluster
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Typical structure in a CDD project
State Project Support Unit
District Project Support Unit (DPSU)
Village Process Facilitation Team (PFT)
Village 1
Village 2
Village 3
Village n
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Size of the Human Resource
Requirement, say in MP



50 to 60 locations (village clusters) where
PFTs need to be set up
Need to recruit over 200 to 250 PFT
members, and 50 to 60 staff for 14 district
units
This staff has to come from various
departments (who should be willing)
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Strategies for Human Resource and
Institutional Development

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Staff Selection System for ensuring
“process sensitive government staff”
joins the project
Orientation and learner centric capacity
building programme for field units
Capacity Building at District
Partnership with NGOs
Enabling Environment and Conditions
SRIJAN/DPIP
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HR/ID Strategic Intervention –
ONE
Staff Selection System
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Desired Characteristics of
Facilitators to be selected

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Motivation to succeed, ability to respond
positively to challenges
Empathetic attitude towards the poor,
and women
Intellectual competence at the job
Ability to work in a group/ team
Integrity
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Staff Selection Methodology
Psychometric (RING TOSS)
- Achievement Motivation
- Risk taking/ fear of failure
Sociometry
(Scored Group Discussion)
- Ability to work in a team
-Power and control motivation level
Extended Interview (“critical incidents”)
- Approach to work
- formula for success/to move up in life
SRIJAN/DPIP
Selected 50 teams in MP
and
Appraised 25 in Karnataka
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Results

More than 90 PFTs are in place in 14 districts (more
than 250 staff)

stronger groups, and stronger process
orientation
Interesting innovative ideas (rich diversity) –
music band, community tube well, sprinkler,
tent house

SRIJAN/DPIP
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Challenges in Staff Selection from
Government

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Getting staff “relieved” from parent departments (a
hugely bureaucratic procedure)
Difficulty in attracting the right kind at the DPM level
(who needs to be a class one officer, and perhaps
additional collector rank)
Difficulty in finding people for “gender specialist” at
the district level, and engineers, Women workers and
Agriculture specialists at PFT level from within the
government
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Conclusions and Lessons for
Project Design

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Process Sensitive Recruitment and Selection system
is possible to develop and institutionalize in
government,
could lead to accelerated filling of positions with
individuals having “desired skill - attribute mix.”
Voluntary application from individual staff rather than
department driven process
Word of mouth and “contacts” to identify right people
SRIJAN/DPIP
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HR/ID Strategic Intervention TWO
Capacity Building
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Field Staff’s Capacity Building in
Participatory Processes

Orientation
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Orientation Workshop

Purpose:
– Give common orientation to people coming from
different departmental background
– Acquire basic understanding of DPIP’s objectives,
structure, and operational functioning (there is an
OM)
– Appreciate the attitudes required for working with
village communities, and its demand driven nature
– Get an estimate of where they stand in terms of
skills, attitudes, and behavior required in this
project
– Finally, this is another occasion to stay or quit the
project
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Five Day Staff Orientation Camp
Participants Share
Past Experience
Village Interaction
provides live data
about behavior
Ready to Learn
new Skills and Attitudes
Returning to Group
for Processing
the Experience
All PFTs and DPUs
went through it
in MP DPIP
SRIJAN/DPIP
Change it for a
tribal project?
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Methodology

Create a learning environment
– valuing everyone’s community development experience,
crystallizing learning for oneself based on group’s feedback often
given in a creative, indirect form such as skit

Village assignment
– to observe oneself in a “lab situation” and generate data about
ability to communicate with villagers (esp. Poor and women) and to
work as a team

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Evening sessions to clarify administrative matters
related to transfer, posting, and reporting
Four types of issues are identified and discussed
– problem of participation and forming groups,
– problems of implementation such as release of money, CSR based
budgeting, linking with existing groups (such as SHGs and watershed),
– Administrative issues of coming to work in DPIP
– Link with administration and PRIs
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Results

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Orientation workshops generated high level of
bonding and enthusiasm among participants (PFT
members) to take up intensive work in the community
More than 20 workshops have been held and
approximately 300 plus participants have gone
through it
Staff are ready to be located close to the villages and
spending intensive time with community
Better results in terms of assets created in
comparison with Rajasthan
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Challenges

Need to provide them skills/ confidence to
– Evolve activities into sub sectors
– Take up new functions such as marketing,
processing etc.
– Evolving groups into village organisations and
linking them with Panchayats

Need to have enough capacity building
organizations to take up problem solving role
as 14 districts are well spread out
SRIJAN/DPIP
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HR/ID Strategic Intervention Three
District Capacity Building
SRIJAN/DPIP
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District Project Managers (DPMs)
Workshop

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DPMs should begin to appreciate the
difference between DPIP and other
Government poverty alleviation projects
their role is sophisticated – DPMs need
to understand that rather than using
orders and authority their role is to get
the work done by the PFTs
SRIJAN/DPIP
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DPM Workshop – Village Visit 
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Who are the poor in the village visited and
what are their main problems/difficulties?
What are the difficulties in getting their
participation?
What has been the process of CIG
development in the village?
What are the different aspects of PFT’s role in
the village/CIG
SRIJAN/DPIP
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DPM Workshop – Results

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(more) ready to play facilitative role!!
Could not understand why a group was
needed
keen to play Public Relations role rather
than be keen observer of village process
Not too keen to read!
Reinforcement by State Administration
feedback session attended by Secy (RD) –
emphasized Facilitative role
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Challenges

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Not enough decision making power to
respond to local situation - Circulars
or orders from the state limit this
Not enough exposure to successful
projects so cannot guide the field
teams
Still work is not interesting enough to
keep them here, and not seek a
transfer
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Product being designed –
for Rajasthan DPIP
Livelihood Visioning
and Project planning
at Village Level
Re-shaping
DPU culture
District Visioning and
Exposure Visits
Business Process
Reengineering
(scrutiny of groups and
projects that NGO submit)
SRIJAN/DPIP
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HR/ID Strategic Intervention Four
Collaboration with Civil
Society Organizations or
NGOs
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Field Agency Selection System

360 degree Feedback Process –
consultation with villagers (clients), staff, leadership including
the Board, and district administration

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Development Impact - Visits to NGOs’ field
Integrity - checking account system (trail of bills to debit to
a budget item in a project)

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Governance – Read proceedings of the board meetings
Objectivity of the Panel
– THREE MEMBER TEAM - project admin, academic, NGO
background
– Scoring
SRIJAN/DPIP
– Feedback to NGO
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360 Degree Method for Field
Agency Selection
Assess
Developmental Processes
and Impact in
NGO Villages
NGO Governance
(Interact with Board)
3 Member
Panel
Interact with Staff
(Skills and Attitudes)
Check out with
District Administration
WOULD APPLY
To PRI SRIJAN/DPIP
SELECTION?
32
Challenges in Rajasthan and
Karnataka
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Assumption is NGOs have the manpower and
the capacity, the fact is large number of
NGOs come up afresh (83 in Rajasthan, 58 in
Karnataka)
Project tends to ignore HR needs of NGO
teams – “contracts for performance”? 412
groups and sub projects in two years’ time, by
a team of 5-6 people.
NGOs serving merely as body-shops?
SRIJAN/DPIP
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HR/ID Strategic Intervention Five
Enabling Environment
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Core Values

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Participation and Ownership of
Community
Transparency
Collaboration
Empathy With Poor
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Enabling Conditions
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Travel norms modified – women members are given
additional allowance, soft loan for vehicles ( 4%
interest subsidy),Money for office support
Project allowance – approximately 10 to 25 percent
including HRA
Incentives for performance (Mobile phones and jeep
allowance if project investment target is met)
Flexibility – people could try new things and make
mistakes
Access to state leadership and state project unit
Trust the staff - Technical Assistance could be
sourced from anywhere, TS powers with PFT
SRIJAN/DPIP
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Lessons For Project Design
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District units need to be empowered too with CB
inputs
Three phase design (i) start up phase to get the
village process going, (ii) consolidation phase for
district capacity build up, and (iii) acceleration phase
for taking activities into sub sectors or regional
development
Capacity Building needs evolve, should respond to
field results as they occur
NGO partnership needs serious re-thinking, can’t be
managed through “performance contracts” to realize
their potential as empowerment and poverty
reduction agents
State vision development - involvement of political
and high level bureaucratic
involvement is absolute 37
SRIJAN/DPIP
must
Thank You
SRIJAN/DPIP
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