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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, 2004

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CDD Projects with which SRIJANWorks

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Four Central Questions

1. How to get right people and develop staff capacity in the field?

2. Why and how to develop district staff capacity? 3. Why to develop staff capacity in partner civil society

organizations (NGOs)?4. 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?)

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Organization of Presentation

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

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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

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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

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Concept of a Village Process Facilitation Team (PFT)

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

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Typical structure in a CDD project

District Project Support Unit (DPSU)

Village Process Facilitation Team (PFT)

State Project Support Unit

Village 1 Village 2 Village nVillage 3

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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)

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Strategies for Human Resource and Institutional Development

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

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HR/ID Strategic Intervention –ONE

Staff Selection System

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Desired Characteristics of Facilitators to be selected 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

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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 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

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Challenges in Staff Selection from Government

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

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Conclusions and Lessons for Project Design 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

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HR/ID Strategic Intervention -TWO

Capacity Building

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Field Staff’s Capacity Building in Participatory Processes

Orientation

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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

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Five Day Staff Orientation Camp

Participants SharePast Experience

Village Interaction provides live data

about behavior

Returning to Group for Processing the Experience

All PFTs and DPUs went through it

in MP DPIP

Ready to Learn new Skills and Attitudes

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

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

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Results

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

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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

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HR/ID Strategic Intervention -Three

District Capacity Building

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District Project Managers (DPMs) Workshop

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

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DPM Workshop – Village Visit -

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

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DPM Workshop – Results

(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

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Challenges

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

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Product being designed – for Rajasthan DPIP

Livelihood Visioning and Project planning

at Village Level

District Visioning and Exposure Visits

Re-shaping DPU culture

Business Process Reengineering

(scrutiny of groups and projects that NGO submit)

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HR/ID Strategic Intervention -Four

Collaboration with Civil Society Organizations or NGOs

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Field Agency Selection System

360 degree Feedback Process – consultation with villagers (clients), staff, leadership including the Board, and district administration

Development Impact - Visits to NGOs’ field

Integrity - checking account system (trail of bills to debit to a budget item in a project)

Governance – Read proceedings of the board meetings

Objectivity of the Panel – THREE MEMBER TEAM - project admin, academic, NGO background– Scoring– Feedback to NGO

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360 Degree Method for Field Agency Selection

NGO Governance (Interact with Board)

Assess Developmental Processes

and Impact in NGO Villages

Check out with District Administration

Interact with Staff(Skills and Attitudes)

3 Member Panel

WOULD APPLY To PRI

SELECTION?

WOULD APPLY To PRI

SELECTION?

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Challenges in Rajasthan and Karnataka

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?

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HR/ID Strategic Intervention -Five

Enabling Environment

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Core Values

Participation and Ownership of Community

Transparency Collaboration Empathy With Poor

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Enabling Conditions 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

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Lessons For Project Design 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 must

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Thank You