SRIJAN/DPIP1 Is Enough Attention Paid to Human Resource Development Issues in CDD Projects? Some...
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Transcript of SRIJAN/DPIP1 Is Enough Attention Paid to Human Resource Development Issues in CDD Projects? Some...
SRIJAN/DPIP 1
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
SRIJAN/DPIP 3
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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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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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
SRIJAN/DPIP 22
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
SRIJAN/DPIP 23
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 25
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
SRIJAN/DPIP 26
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
SRIJAN/DPIP 27
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
SRIJAN/DPIP 28
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
SRIJAN/DPIP 31
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?
SRIJAN/DPIP 33
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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Core Values
Participation and Ownership of Community
Transparency Collaboration Empathy With Poor
SRIJAN/DPIP 36
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