Paper No. 17 / October 2004 Within and Beyond Borders An Independent Review of Post-Conflict Fund Support to Refugees and the Internally Displaced Swarna Rajagopalan Post-Conflict Fund Summary Findings This independent review assesses the performance of seventeen Post-Conflict Fund (PCF) grants relating to 4. PCF does not meet the bar on considerations of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees. gender equity. Few of its approved program These seventeen PCF grants adopt a wide variety of proposals factor gender relations into their needs approaches, have different objectives, and are assessment, their evaluation standards or their implemented by many different partners. They also assessment of impact. represent a new area of work for the World Bank as 5. PCF performs slightly better when it comes to refugees and IDPs are not usually the focus of taking a rights-based approach to working with development programs. As such, these seventeen situations of displacement, but that does not PCF grants represent a valuable source of seem to be a function of design as much as sheer information. This review is an attempt to learn from serendipity. these experiences. 6. PCF has a problem when it comes to recovering First, this review assesses existing operational reports and evaluations from its grant recipients. literature on the topic and compiles a set of `best Therefore, the capacity for institutional learning practices'. Second, it analyzes the seventeen PCF is less than it might be given the resources of the grants assessing their performance as per the `best World Bank. practices' and per their initial objectives. Third, it recommends ways in which IDPs and refugees needs In light of the review of the seventeen grants, the can be better addressed by PCF grants. While review makes the following recommendations: discussing PCF grants directly, the recommendations are believed to be of a general character and, as such, 1. Political and security assessments should be part relevant to development projects seeking to address of the needs assessment. the needs of displaced people. 2. Project proposals should be accompanied by skills assessments. The PCF does reasonably well vis -à-vis the `best 3. Short-term funding should be accompanied by practices' list. On balance, PCF's strength stems from fund-raising assistance. its flexibility and openness to fund innovative 4. Gender equity issues should inform post-conflict approaches in different situations, with a variety of project processes and objectives. beneficiaries, and its willingness to work in 5. PCF's position on the place of rights advocacy partnership with others. PCF however, performs less and the question of return/resettlement should be well on the following counts: debated and articulated. 6. The PCF should prioritize information 1. In the assessment of what needs to be done, there management. also needs to be an assessment of what is 7. Analytical end products should be made possible given existing skill levels and what available in the public domain. constraints exist in terms of security or other 8. Applicants should articulate a clear conflict factors. rationale as opposed to a purely developmental 2. Political and security issues are seldom factored one. into proposals or rationales. However, for a 9. Skilled project partners should be used as program that operates in very sensitive contexts, resources for training others. some of the first questions that should be raised in feasibility assessments should be those relating to political and security circumstances and consequences. 3. PCF grants are generally implemented over a 1-2 year period and a lot is left to the follow-up phase. This is not long enough for some of the development projects to bear fruit. So while the size of the grants may not be problematic, the need to keep raising funds could be. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PAPERS Conflict Prevention & Reconstruction Paper No. 17 / October 2004 Within and Beyond Borders An Independent Review of Post-Conflict Fund Support to Refugees and the Internally Displaced Swarna Rajagopalan This Working Papers Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage discussion and exchange of ideas on conflict and development issues. Papers in this series are not formal publications of the World Bank. The finding interpretations and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank Group, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The series is edited by the Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Unit in the Social Development Department of the Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Network for the World Bank. To request copies of the paper or for more information on the series, please contact the CPR Unit. Papers are also available on the CPR Unit's website. Conflict Prevention & Reconstruction Social Development Department The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433 Fax: 202-522-1669 Web : http://www.worldbank.org/conflict (see "Publications" in the navigation menu) E-mail: cpr@worldbank.org Printed on Recycled Paper Table of Contents Acronyms Foreword I. Introduction.................................................................................................................................1 II. Best Practices? Review of the Operational Literature ....................................................................2 III. How Does the PCF Measure Up? A Report Card.........................................................................8 IV. Conclusion: Assessing PCF's Performance ...............................................................................14 V. Recommendations ....................................................................................................................15 Annexes Annex 1: List of PCF Grants on Refugees and IDPs...........................................................................18 Annex 2: Seventeen PCF Grants on Refugees and IDPs Reviewed......................................................20 References.......................................................................................................................................29 Box Box 1: Summary List of `Best Practices'............................................................................7 Acronyms CBO Community-Based Organization CPRU Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Unit DRC Democratic Republic of Congo EC European Commission GSRF Georgia Self-Reliance Fund IDPs Internally Displaced Persons IRC International Rescue Committee NGO Non-Governmental Organization PCF Post-Conflict Fund TSS Transitional Support Strategy UN United Nations UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Foreword This independent review of PCF grants on refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) was commissioned by the PCF Secretariat in an effort to assess performance of PCF grants in this area and to learn from these experiences. As such, it intends to shed light on the accomplishments and shortcomings of PCF grants implemented by partner organizations in response to the needs of the displaced. This independent review is also an effort to compile lessons learned from these experiences that can guide future PCF grants and World Bank operations. This independent review was undertaken by Swarna Rajagopalan, an external consultant, and does not represent the World Bank or PCF views. WITHIN ANDBEYOND BORDERS: AN INDEPENDENT REVIEWOFPOST-CONFLICT FUND GRANTSSUPPORTING REFUGEES AND THE INTERNALLYDISPLACED I. INTRODUCTION Close to one third of all Post-Conflict Fund (PCF) funding has gone to grants on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees. The PCF, administered by the World Bank's Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Unit (CPRU), provides grants to governments and non-governmental agencies working in conflict and post-conflict settings to implement pilots and innovative projects that may not be financed through regular World Bank projects. In so doing, PCF grants adopt a wide variety of approaches, have different objectives and create a number of partnerships. As such, they represent a valuable source of information and experience that needs to be compiled, analyzed and disseminated. Refugees and IDPs are not usually the objects of development programs; rather, they are the focus of relief and humanitarian programs. Regular World Bank projects address their needs by including them in the category of "vulnerable" groups. Seventeen PCF grants have tried to address the needs of refugees and IDPs or situations affected by their flight or arrival. These seventeen grants are the focus of this review. A set of `best practices' are compiled from existing operational literature on the topic. Based on these, the review analyzes grants by assessing their performance relative to their initial objectives and against best practices, and recommends ways in which IDP and refugee needs can be better addressed by PCF grants. The Post-Conflict Fund differs from other donors and agencies working with refugees and IDPs, in that it is primarily a fund for projects "focused on the restoration of the lives and livelihoods of war-affected populations." The PCF does not actually create or implement the projects. It often finances experimental approaches, pilot phases of projects with longer-term potential for replication and to bridge periods between the completion of the pilot phase and the securing of other funding. It does not seek to be the sole agency involved and favors partnerships with other donors and executing agencies. It seeks to leverage resources by flexibility and openness to a variety of funding arrangements. Reintegration of war- displaced populations, which is listed as a PCF priority theme, would be the favored outcome of projects. The PCF grants reviewed are distributed across the world's regions as follows: seven in Central Europe and one in the Caucasus (Georgia); five in South Asia (four of which focus on Afghanistan); three in Central Africa and one in South America. The grants address a wide variety of issues from developing regional visions, to infrastructure reconstruction and from teacher training to rule of law. The total PCF allocation to the seventeen grants amounts to $19.7 million. This report has five sections. Section Two discusses the operational literature on refugees and IDPs and summarizes in eight questions the main best practices that will guide the analysis of PCF grants. Section Three reviews the seventeen PCF grants in light of best practices summarized in Section Two. Section Four presents the key conclusions of this review. Section Five puts forward recommendations on how PCF grants could better address the needs of refugees and IDPs. All grants reviewed are listed in Annex 1, and the analysis of the seventeen grants is included in Annex 2. 2 II. BESTPRACTICES? REVIEW OF THE OPERATIONAL LITERATURE The World Bank has no specific framework to analyze and address refugee and IDP needs in conflict- affected countries. Hence, this review will rely on operational guidelines and best practices of other organizations that work mostly in the humanitarian and relief fields. Two categories of documents were examined in the preparation of this review. First, reports, recommendations and guidelines generated by humanitarian organizations were examined with a view to identifying `best practices' and an analytical framework. Second, PCF documentation pertaining to the seventeen grants was examined. Materials were selected by first identifying organizations and agencies prominently active in this field such as the United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the office of the Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons, and non-governmental agencies engaged in humanitarian work such as the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children. In addition, a random selection of project reports were used when they explicitly yielded a set of lessons learned. The focus was on knowledge generated from the field rather than from academe.1 The literature on how to assess the needs of refugees and IDPs, how best to fund, run and monitor projects and how to replicate successes can be categorized either as normative texts (such as resolutions and guidelines set forth by international organizations or conventions, the Geneva Conventions, the Guiding Principles on IDPs, etc.) or as operational guidelines and studies (organizational guidelines and values generated by those working in the field such as the IRC, Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, and others; studies sponsored by policy think-tanks and agencies; and project evaluations, reports and assessments, including `lessons learned'). Even in these documents, it is hard to discern a ready-made list of best practices that can be applied to this review. Historically, the focus has been on refugees' legal standing and attendant rights. Recently, attempts have been made to identify the special needs and concerns of particular segments of the refugee population, such as women, adolescents, children and the aged. For instance, the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children has developed guidelines for working with refugees who have AIDS and both the Women's Commission and UNHCR have developed guidelines for the protection of refugee women. They yield a sense of what the field considers appropriate or important rather than concrete principles or best practices. In recent years, practitioners and policy-makers have given a great deal of thought to the plight of IDPs. The establishment of the office of the Representative of the Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons was an important step to this end, and the Representative has developed a set of Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement that are meant to serve as the normative reference point for all policies and actions affecting this population--in the absence of legally-binding international conventions. Several prominent think-tanks, including the Brookings Project on Internal Displacement and the Global IDP Project, which is hosted by the Norwegian Refugee Council, have been active in creating awareness of the Guiding Principles and finding ways to implement them. Given the task of codifying lessons learned, guidelines and best practices scattered through the operational literature, this review has chosen to use a list of PCF-relevant norms and recommendations. 1. How should the beneficiaries of PCF projects relating to IDPs/refugees be identified? 2. How to assess what is needed, and therefore, which projects are relevant to particular situations? 1Accordingly, certain areas were disregarded as not being relevant to the PCF developmental mandate. For instance, in UNHCR reports and guidelines, the accent is very much on protection issues, which is not within the PCF mandate. Therefore, protection-related discussions were disregarded in the derivation of a framework of analysis. 3 3. Are there broad principles for determining the appropriateness of a project? 4. How to you balance innovation on the one hand with experience and constraints on the other? 5. How to identify suitable partners? 6. How is the work of multiple donors and agencies best coordinated and managed? 7. How to maintain flexibility but also enough structure so that documentation and reviews can be monitored to garner institutional learning? 8. What is the collective wisdom regarding the desirability of resettlement and reintegration of refugees/IDPs? In this section, the eight questions listed above will be used to organize the collective wisdom yielded by the operational literature review. Following a summary of the lessons and recommendations derived in response to the questions, a short bulleted list of best practices will be drawn up in each instance. 1. How should the beneficiaries of PCF projects relating to IDPs/refugees be identified? The first issue that operational literature and projects point out is that there is more to the identity of IDPs and refugees than the fact of their displacement. As for any other group of humans, gender, class, ethnicity and other characteristics also identify the displaced. Furthermore, one or another of these other markers of identity may be more important than their status as IDPs and refugees. Participant observation shows that other experiences and relationships are evoked by IDPs as equally or more significant. It is also pointed out that IDP and refugee are both categories that are redefined and recreated in response to specific experiences and situations. Therefore, there should be a certain dynamism inherent in the way humanitarian and development agencies regard and identify the people they work with. Further, IDPs and refugees retain their history and other identities. They bring these to bear upon the situation in which they find themselves. Recognition of this, and the fact that they also retain the capacity to assess their risks, articulate their needs and respond to the crises in their lives, is a prerequisite of any project. It also reinforces the importance of structuring the project development process to reflect the history and context of each situation. Engaging IDPs and refugees in needs assessment, planning and evaluation stages is the best way to realize this. However, the operational literature is also clear that projects responding to situations of displacement (and conflict) should not address the problems of the displaced in isolation of the welfare of the host communities. Post-conflict efforts should also address the situation faced by the host communities as a consequence, both where they are hospitable and where they are hostile to the IDPs/refugees. Projects should undertake to build economic and social links between the host and displaced communities and to promote communication between them. Best Practices · Planners and fieldworkers should understand and acknowledge that the identity of displaced persons remains complex in displacement. · History, experience and the capacity to determine risk, priorities and their future also remain with displaced persons through their displacement. · The welfare of the displaced cannot be addressed in isolation of their hosts (and as a corollary, of the areas from which they are displaced or populations having remained in the returning areas). · Links should be forged between the displaced and host communities. 4 2. How to assess what is needed and therefore, which projects are relevant to particular situations? On the question of what makes for a good assessment of needs, there seems to be a consensus. First, project planners and fieldworkers should have an understanding of the social, cultural and political background of the IDPs/refugees. This serves the additional purposes of helping identify credible interlocutors among the displaced communities and of allowing the planners to anticipate some of the consequences of the projects they initiate. Second, participatory approaches to needs assessments are favored in such contexts. Finally, if the displaced are a diverse community, then it stands to reason that a needs assessment must take that diversity into account. There is a danger that in the assessment of needs, the implementing agency filters information relative to its own mandate and capacity. Conversely, there is a danger that locals begin to articulate their needs to fit the mandate of those agencies working in their areas. Donors should stay alert to this danger and ensure that project structures are attentive and responsive to the needs of the displaced. Best Practices · A good needs assessment depends on a good understanding of context. · Participatory assessments that engage the displaced are ideal. · Care should be taken to ensure that the needs of the displaced inform priorities of funding and implementing agencies, and not vice versa. 3. Are there broad principles for determining the appropriateness of a project? The "Brookings Process" and the "New Approach to IDPs" both seek to bridge the gap between emergency responses and longer-term developmental activities. The latter, according to a Georgian activist who also happens to be an IDP, refers to an attempt to include the internally displaced within the developmental framework and to ensure their equal access to socio-economic rights. (Kharashvili 2001, p. 12). Self-help is important. Activities must support the capacities of the refugees/IDPs themselves. This might take the form of training and skill-building programs, but it might also entail asking the displaced communities to make some contribution to the financing or implementation of the project. Projects often focus on removing existing impediments but they should also identify the enabling structures in any situation, in addition to enhancing agency and providing services. For instance, one of the successful PCF projects--in Croatia--emphasizes the creation of economic incentives that depend on the return of displaced persons to that region, as a way to reduce resistance by those who remained. Initiatives should be gender-sensitive. Women should be part and parcel of every stage of the project process. Agencies should be aware of needs related to gender relations and to the tensions that displacement can cause. They should also take into account that project initiatives may increase that tension as they empower one group rather than another. Complementary projects should therefore be developed that can empower both men and women in the community. There is also a growing emphasis on the rights of the displaced. Neither relief nor development can remedy the loss or violation of a person's human and civil rights. It is suggested that rights advocacy become part of the humanitarian agenda. Civil society organizations are often weak in conflict-affected contexts placing the burden on international agencies to ensure the protection of displaced populations' human rights. "It is difficult to request multi-year funding from donors and yet simultaneously convince them that they are funding a temporary crisis" (Holtzman 1999, p. 26). Nevertheless, financial support should be adequate to cover all substantive, objective-related initiatives arising from a project (as opposed to administrative or publicity-related costs, for instance) and to allow for them to be replicated. 5 Best Practices · "Relief-to-development" is the strategy with the best long-term impact. · Projects must enable the displaced to help themselves. · Women should be consciously included throughout the project process, in addition to initiating projects that focus on their needs. · The impact of both displacement and development on gender relationships should be taken into account in project design. · The human and civil rights of the displaced should be protected, promoted and assured. · Projects should be amply funded so that work can be initiated and replicated when successful. 4. How to balance innovation on the one hand with experience and constraints on the other? Operating in conflict situations, projects addressing displacement and seeking to help the displaced often run into security problems. It would follow then that in the needs assessment phase, a security assessment should also be made. Its objective should be not avoidance of risk but the design of projects so that they can adapt to and survive disruptions caused by security concerns. Finding suitable partners would be key to finding the experience needed in each situation. Best Practices · Where grants operate in tenuous security environments, it is imperative that the prevalent security context and its implications for the operation of the proposed projects be considered seriously and systematically. · The project design should include mechanisms for course correction in response to changes in the security situation built into the plan, records of which should be explicitly maintained. 5. How to identify suitable partners? The longer an organization has been active in a particular field setting, the better projects it initiates, the more credible it is to the people it seeks to help and the more likely the project is to succeed. In the case of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), this may mean the ability to identify and reach local community-based organizations (CBOs). However, building the capacity of local organizations to initiate projects and gain experience should also be a priority for humanitarian and development agencies. Such capacity building should focus on building complementary strengths among local NGOs. For one, this creates a wider base of human and organizational resources to generate and support projects. For another, it makes it necessary for local organizations to work together rather than in competition, and that furthers project implementation. Best Practices · Local organizations with experience or other organizations with local experience make the best project partners. · Creating more such partners and strengthening their capacity is a worthy objective. 6 6. How is the work of multiple donors and agencies best coordinated and managed? The structure of project partnerships is crucial to their success, including clearly delineated responsibilities and functions. Some organizations found that the lack of a strong centralized regional approach to operations was a major deficiency. Creation of a clear chain of command with unambiguous roles and responsibilities at field level is essential. On the other hand, one interesting observation is that project difficulties were greatest when implementation was left to a local agency. This is at odds with other recommendations in the operational literature that favor decentralization and the investiture of responsibility in the local agency. The reconciliation of this contradiction might lie in the clear statement of mutual expectations and delineation of functions. The local agency might still be the primary initiator and actor, but the outside agency might be able to facilitate their work on the ground by providing other perspectives and by holding them accountable--both financia lly and substantively. What clearly matters is that either side should know what they are responsible for. This is also important for answering the next question. Best Practices · Clear structuring of project partnerships and working relationships is vital, with explicit assignment of tasks and responsibilities. 7. How to maintain flexibility but also enough structure so that documentation and reviews can be monitored to garner institutional learning? The press and urgency of work in the field may relegate reporting and reflective self-evaluation to a lower priority in some instances. However, some element of documentation and review is essential to the learning process. "The seeds of good evaluation practice are sown in the setting of clear objectives, defining of appropriate indicators and identification of appropriate means of their verification."2 In addition to setting clear objectives and defining indicators, however, a review of PCF grants suggests that setting up a mechanism to document how and why objectives shift (as they might in a long-term project) would enable evaluators to understand divergences between the original objectives and what was actually done. Requiring that recipient agencies update objectives, indicators and monitoring mechanisms presented in the logical framework at the beginning of the process, and also provide summary rationales for significant shifts can do this. Best Practices · Setting clear objectives, defining indicators and creating simple but efficient monitoring mechanisms are key for good evaluation. Clear lines of reporting and communication in project design should accompany clear organizational lines. 8. What is the collective wisdom regarding the desirability of resettlement and reintegration of refugees/IDPs? · Return, reintegration, resettlement, rehabilitation and repatriation are words used in the discussion of displacement situations. They are used inter-changeably, with each organization favoring one or the other and lending a specific meaning to each term. The ambiguity in usage might reflect the field's ambivalence about their relative desirability. 2The Refugee Experience, Programming and Evaluation for Psychosocial Programmes, Project and Programme Evaluation, accessed 6/2/2003. (Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford). 7 BOX 1: SUMMARY LISTOF`BESTPRACTICES' · Planners and fieldworkers should understand and acknowledge that the identity of displaced persons remains complex in displacement. · History, experience and the capacity to determine risk, priorities and their future also remain with displaced persons through their displacement. · The welfare of the displaced cannot be addressed in isolation of their hosts (and as a corollary, of the areas from which they are displaced). · Links should be forged between the displaced and host communities. · A good needs assessment depends on a good understanding of context. · Participatory assessments that engage the displaced are ideal. · Care should be taken to ensure that the needs of the displaced inform the priorities of funding and implementing agencies, and not vice versa. · "Relief-to-development" is the strategy with the best long-term impact. · Projects must enable the displaced to help themselves. · Women should be consciously included throughout the project process. · The impact of both displacement and development on gender relationships should be taken into account in project design. · The human and civil rights of the displaced should be protected, promoted and assured. · Projects should be amply funded so that work can be initiated and replicated when successful. · Where grants operate in tenuous security environments, it is imperative that the prevalent security context and its implications for the operation of the proposed projects be considered seriously and systematically. · Further, given such operational environments, the project design should include mechanisms for course correction in response to changes in the security situation built into the plan, records of which should be explicitly maintained. · Local organizations with experience or other organizations with local experience make the best project partners. · Creating more such partners and strengthening their capacity is a worthy objective. · Clear structuring of project partnerships and working relationships is vital, with explicit assignment of tasks and responsibilities. · Setting clear objectives and defining indicators facilitate good evaluation. Clear lines of reporting and communication in project design should accompany clear organizational lines. · The wish to return home is not a given, which post-conflict projects should acknowledge. · Participatory needs assessments can go some way to ensure that project and beneficiaries share the same views on return. The Guiding Principles on IDPs identify three possible solutions: return to where they were living prior to displacement, integration in the places where they now find themselves or resettlement in another part of the country (Mooney 2003). 8 A review of the operational literature on IDPs/refugees suggests a rethinking of the notion that displacement is a temporary interruption of normal life and that it must end in return. It questions the view that the displaced person longs to return. The circumstances of displacement may have extinguished any desire to return. What is "home" is constantly created and re-created, and is ambiguous. Long-term displacement or multiple displacements can blur what constitutes home to a person. Finally, the socio- economic opportunities of the host setting may be preferable to returning. By assuming that return is the `happy ending' sought, project planners create the setting for a great deal more tension than they might anticipate. Three separate sets of circumstances are involved. First, the displaced community, hardly a monolith, has to want to return. Second, the host community has to be prepared for their not wanting to return. In fact, the issue of their eventual return can adversely affect the prospects for cooperation between host community and refugees/IDPs during the time of the latter's stay. Finally, those who remained and the conditions under which they stayed have to be prepared for the return of those who left. Moreover, as Holtzman states, "When we view displacement as a temporary problem soluble in the first instance by relief aid and then by a quick return home and a minimal transition package, we minimize what are invariably lasting effects on very significant numbers of people."(Holtzman 1999, p. 10). Waiting from the onset of the crisis for people to return to their homes leaves hundreds or more in limbo--unable to return, unable to build a life where they are. Engaging the displaced in every stage of the project process from the inception of the crisis is one way of assuring that the outcome that is favored by the project bears some relation to the outcomes favored by the people for whom the project is being designed. Best Practices · The wish to return home is not a given, which post-conflict projects should acknowledge. · Participatory needs assessment can go some way to ensure that project and beneficiaries share the same views on return. III. HOW DOES THE PCF MEASURE UP? A REPORT CARD This section juxtaposes the eight questions and their related best practices list discussed in Section II with comments on the functioning of PCF grants on each count. 1. How have the beneficiaries of PCF projects relating to IDPs/refugees been identified? Best Practices · Planners and fieldworkers should understand and acknowledge that the identity of displaced persons remains complex in displacement. PCF grants identified as relating to IDPs and refugees often serve a wider group of beneficiaries. In that sense, these grants have recognized that the needs of societies facing situations of conflict and displacement have diverse needs and diverse populations that need to be served. There are grants that serve communities readily identifiable as being displaced, such as the people in the evacuation centers in Mindanao (Grant 159) and the project to evolve mechanisms for the protection of patrimonial assets of IDPs in Colombia (Grant 234). There are other grants that reach out to particular vulnerable communities, sections of which may be displaced or otherwise, victims of displacement, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo project that seeks to promote the reintegration of street children. The teacher training projects in Afghanistan and western Pakistan are also good examples of the openness shown by the PCF in its selection of projects. 9 They also, however, illustrate the problems of theorizing identity and identification beyond a point. The UNICEF Macedonia grant (Grant 92), Promoting Inter-Ethnic Dialogue and Supporting the Learning Environment of Children, is a good example of this. In the proposal stages, the idea was to find ways to improve access to education for both refugee and host communities. However, the Early Childhood Development projects and youth centers that were finally set up could have served any society, whether displaced or not, at war or not. The inclusion of all cases and categories into a theoretical definition is salutary; however, in the realm of practice, this may result in a particular set of beneficiaries or issues being defined so broadly that those originally intended to benefit or those questions supposedly being addressed are obscured. · History, experience and the capacity to determine risk, priorities and their future also remain with displaced persons through their displacement. The experience of the Burundi Community Rehabilitation Project (Grant 80) demonstrates this. The assumption of the project was that an important aspect of community rehabilitation was the rebuilding of schools and health centers, and that involving the community in this process would guarantee that the community would safeguard them. What became apparent during the project was that while the communities did value these service centers, their priorities were security and reclaiming lost property. Even being displaced and ravaged by conflict did not impair the capacity of the people concerned to make their own reading of the situation and their own priorities. · The welfare of the displaced cannot be addressed in isolation of their hosts (and as a corollary, of the areas from which they are displaced). · Links should be forged between the displaced and host communities. This is a recurring feature of PCF grants. Improving relations between displaced and host communities or between a returning group and a group at home that was not displaced feature as objectives of several PCF grants. The Support Program to Areas of Albania Hosting Refugees from Kosovo (Grant 11), the Georgia Self-Reliance Fund (Grant 127), the Croatia Refugees Return and Regional Development Project (Grant 133) all explicitly aimed at forging connections between communities. The teacher training programs in Afghanistan (Grants 155, 156 and 189) served that purpose incidentally because they trained some teachers that taught both refugee and host children and because the training methods and standards they introduced would ultimately enter the host community's mainstream school system. In short, for the most part (with exceptions like the Macedonian project), PCF grants seem to perform well on the question of whom to serve and how to identify their beneficiaries. 2. How have the grants assessed what is needed and therefore, which projects are relevant to particular situations? Best Practices · A good needs assessment depends on a good understanding of context. · Participatory assessments that engage the displaced are ideal. · Care should be taken to ensure that the needs of the displaced inform the mandate and priorities of funding and implementing agencies, and not vice versa. Several PCF projects use participatory or other techniques in the needs assessment or at other stages. The Afghanistan Watching Brief (Grant 4) commissioned studies by local and Pakistani experts to create an information base for when the World Bank could operate there. The conference on Balkan Reconstruction (Grant 148) brought together practitioners, business representatives and policy-makers. The Croatia Refugees Return and Regional Development Program (Grant 133) invited a large range of stakeholders to attend and participate in the workshops to develop a Regional Development Vision. The 10 Mindanao Project on the Peace-to-Development Transition (Grant 159) also engaged the people it worked with in a variety of ways in the development and implementation of the projects. The Georgia Self-Reliance Fund (Grant 127) stands out because of the way it is structured. Here, the project proposals come from local organizations and are screened by a committee in Georgia itself. The Croatia Program mentioned above (Grant 133) also set up a Social and Economic Recovery Fund that would operate similarly. The catch with participatory needs assessments is nevertheless pointed out in evaluations of some grants. In the case of the Republic of Congo Community Action for Reintegration and Recovery of Youth and Women (Grant 8b), while an outside evaluator found the project to have been responsive to its beneficiaries, there was no way to be sure that the needs met were in fact, needs or priorities for everyone in the target group. There was also no way to make sure that they were not serving one group at the expense of others. In short, participatory processes can be manipulated to serve parochial ends. Likewise, evaluators of the Burundi Community Rehabilitation Project mention that the planning and implementation processes were both dominated by urbanites, civil servants and men. 3. What are the broad principles by which a project proposal is evaluated? Best Practices · "Relief-to-development" is the strategy with the best long-term impact. Given that the World Bank was founded as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, it is but natural that PCF projects take the `relief-to-development' formula to heart. Indeed, every one of the 17 grants addressed a past or continuing conflict context, and whether or not they addressed the moment of crisis, the grants addressed medium-to-long term issues. However, the constraint may be that while the grants were concerned with long-term issues (community development, regional development visions, educational reform and teacher training, democratizing local government), PCF grants tend to only run from one to four years, making it difficult to assess long-term impact. · Projects must enable the displaced to help themselves. While some PCF grants specifically include a capacity-building component, many do not. The capacity- building component is usually of two sorts. The first, more common, is capacity building for socio- economic development. This includes, for instance, the Afghanistan teacher training programs (Grants 155, 156 and 189) and the Macedonia early childhood care program (Grant 92). The second kind of capacity-building program includes programs such as the training of Afghan women to found and run NGOs (Grant 4). It appears less common for needs assessments to reveal a lack of administrative and organizational capacity than the lack of skills. The unfortunate result of this is the lament in project evaluations and reports that at a point, field agencies discovered that their local counterparts simply did not know how to carry out a project or meet administrative or auditing requirements. This happened with the Croatia Refugees Project (Grant 133) and the Mindanao Project (159), both of which are otherwise successful. Another consequence that is not anticipated in the evaluations, but that does follow, relates to fundraising past the pilot or early phases that typically draw PCF funding. When that funding runs out, and the bulk of the developmental or even relief work remain, how are local organizations to compete for the funding they need to carry on their work if they lack the basic competences to operate in the world of development assistance. While the grant application forms do in fact ask about the credentials of the implementing agency, they do not ask about the many other agencies to whom the implementing agency typically must farm out sub-projects. · Women should be consciously included throughout the project process. 11 · The impact of both displacement and development on gender relationships should be taken into account in project design. While there are projects that specifically target women, based on the documents included in this review, it does not appear that the PCF is as concerned with gender, gender equity and gender mainstreaming in IDP/refugee projects as other development or humanitarian agencies are. Only two grants (the Republic of Congo Community Action for Reintegration and Recovery of Youth and Women [8b] and the Afghan Female Teachers' In-Service Training Program [155]) specifically were directed at helping women. The Burundi Community Rehabilitation Program (Grant 80) used UNHCR criteria for evaluation which includes the impact on women. The Macedonia grant (92) did address women at one point but in their capacity as mothers. The PCF grants clearly did not come close to meeting second the guideline listed here, that project design should consider changing gender relationships. · The human and civil rights of the displaced should be protected, promoted and assured. There are PCF grants that fund projects whose impact might be to increase rights awareness. Three of these stand out. The first is the Kosovo Community Development Fund (Grant 103). The Soros Foundation/Kosovo Foundation for Open Society is the implementing agency and one of its aims is to support the development of responsive, transparent, equitable and accountable local governance structures. One effect of this project is that the Soros Foundation has helped to develop statutes for registering civil society organizations. The second, the Mindanao project (Grant 159) takes an interest in the functioning of local and traditional leadership, with a view to teaching or conveying democratic practice. The third is the Colombia project for protecting patrimonial assets of IDPs (Grant 234). · Projects should be amply funded so that work can be initiated and replicated when successful. The issue for PCF grants is not that of quantity but duration. To reiterate a point made earlier, most PCF projects take on objectives that would appear to need more than the short to medium-term funding they apply for. PCF funded projects are essentially pilot or bridge projects. However, if PCF wants to encourage relief-to-development work, PCF should pay greater attention to how scaling up or additional funding will be secured by implementing agencies. During the proposal review of the Reintegration of Vulnerable Street Children in Urban Areas in DRC (Grant 184) the point is made that it is really important to blend both short and long-term goals. 4. Have the grants balanced innovation on the one hand with experience and constraints on the other? Best Practices · Where grants operate in tenuous security environments, it is imperative that the prevalent security context and its implications for the operation of the proposed projects be considered seriously and systematically. · The project design should include mechanisms for course correction in response to changes in the security situation built into the plan, records of which should be explicitly maintained. On occasion, reviewers of PCF proposals do raise questions about political ramifications and the fluid security situation. However, the response made to these is not clear from the grant documentation. Evaluations suggest that implementing agencies seem to be caught unawares by deteriorating security situations. The Burundi Community Rehabilitation Project (Grant 80) was interrupted several times for security reasons, for instance. But given that PCF operates in a context of conflict, the point is not so much to find out if things are going to be insecure as to prepare for security-related disruptions or changes in circumstance. The 12 Macedonia project (Grant 92), in early discussions of the proposal as a refugee-oriented program, raises the issue of how rapidly things were changing on the ground. The response appears to have been to transform the project dramatically to the point where it bore little relation to that discussed at the outset. If a project design has to change, then the changing circumstances and the rationale for specific alterations in the project should be detailed for the record. · Project partnerships and inter-agency cooperation are an important element of success. PCF grants seem on the whole to have found good working partnerships at least at the level of implementing agencies and local partners. The weak links, as mentioned in the capacity-building discussion, are sometimes at the level of the subprojects when local agencies lack the competence to carry out the tasks agreed to. 5. Has PCF identified suitable project partners? Best Practices · Local organizations with experience or other organizations with local experience make the best project partners. · Creating more such partners and strengthening their capacity is a worthy objective. In some instances, such as the Kosovo Community Development Fund (Grant 103) and the Mindanao project (Grant 159), PCF-funded projects have been implemented by agencies whose specialist skills (Soros Foundation in Kosovo) or local presence (Community and Family Services International) have decisively benefited the project process. 6. Has the work of multiple donors and agencies been well coordinated and managed? Best Practices · Clear structuring of project partnerships and working relationships is vital, with explicit assignment of tasks and responsibilities. This is something that PCF seems to have found a way to do, drawing in governments, other international/multilateral organizations and international and local NGOs into working relationships. For the most part this seems to have worked well, allowing PCF to experiment with funding structures such as the Georgia Self-Reliance Fund. 7. Has PCF maintained flexibility but also enough structure so that documentation and reviews can be monitored to garner institutional learning? Best Practices · Setting clear objectives and defining indicators facilitate good evaluation. Clear lines of reporting and communication in project design should accompany clear organizational lines. While the PCF has not had a problem with building working partnerships, it has not been as successful with documentation or evaluation. To start with the positive, some grants are very well documented and their reportage and evaluations are regular, comprehensive and very informative. In this category, fall the Burundi Community Rehabilitation Project (Grant 80), the Croatia Refugees Return and Regional Development Project (Grant 133), the Mindanao project (Grant 159) and cumulatively, the various Afghan teacher-training projects (Grants 155, 156, 189). It is possible to understand the rationale behind the projects and to follow the progress of the projects simply by reading the documents chronologically. On the other hand, there are several grants for which the administrative paperwork is available but no substantive reporting or evaluative documents. With these it is hard to track either the thinking behind the projects or the progress of the projects themselves. Examples are the Georgia Self-Reliance Fund (Grant 13 127) and the Reintegration of Vulnerable Street Children in Urban Areas project in DRC (Grant 184). One reason why the Macedonia project (Grant 92) is the subject of so many criticisms is that all the documents that would record and explain the changes in the project are missing. The PCF application form asks about reporting and evaluation schedules and the Letters of Agreement usually mention when reports are expected. Nevertheless, the arrival of reports seems to depend on the implementing agencies in question. If there is not an `enforcement mechanism' at the PCF end to solicit reports and either a lack of will or ability at the other end to send them, then there is a fundamental problem that PCF needs to address. Without proper documentation, it is difficult to assess either the efficacy of the grants or the effectiveness of the PCF itself. The PCF has identified the need to strengthen its learning and knowledge management of on-going and past grants as demonstrated by the commission of this evaluation and by requiring best reporting practices from implementing agencies and Task Managers. This problem is compounded in the case of projects like the Georgia Self-Reliance Fund (Grant 127). Structured funnel-style, this project draws in money from a range of donors and then through a local steering committee, awards the funds to local organizations that propose appropriate projects. While the structure of this grant is laudable from the point of view of decentralizing grant decision-making and bringing the planning process closer to its intended beneficiaries, in the absence of clear reporting and feedback mechanisms, it is not clear that lessons can be learned, let alone this model replicated. Who is to report to whom, and who is to maintain records for this remarkable experiment is unclear and the result appears to be that no one does entirely. Thus, setting clear goals and defining indicators is of no use where there is no reporting structure, and this is a problem that the PCF needs to address. 8. Have the grants reflected the collective wisdom regarding the desirability of resettlement and reintegration of refugees and IDPs? Best Practices · The wish to return home is not a given and post-conflict projects should acknowledge this. · Participatory needs assessments can go some way to ensure that project and beneficiaries share the same views on return. The PCF lists "resettlement and reintegration of war-displaced populations" as a priority theme. When it funds UNCHR projects, their ultimate objective is repatriation. PCF uses these three terms as distinct from each other,3 has special procedures for deciding on resettlement projects and does not deal with repatriation. The point that this review wishes to make is one that was made in an evaluation of the Croatia Refugees Return and Regional Development Project (Grant 133). The assumption cannot be made that the mere creation of better socio-economic circumstances would convince Croatian Serbs (or anyone else) to return, or to the local majority to welcome them. The evaluator then suggested that a political assessment should be made and the `capacity for reconciliation' evaluated. In other words, PCF projects should fight shy of the formulaic assumption that all other things being improved, IDPs or refugees would want to return to the place they have fled. On the other hand, in the Mindanao project (Grant 159), the "Go and See Visits" enabled the IDPs to make the decision, first, to go and see what conditions were in the places of their origin and second, whether to move back. By arranging the trips and making sure they could take place in safety, the implementing agency empowered the IDPs in the evacuation centers where they were working with 3 Resettlement = relocating people physically; reintegration = returning people to their original community (applies to IDPs); repatriation = returning people to their country. 14 information and security, but made no assumptions about the outcome of the trip. Most of the IDPs did move back. IV. CONCLUSION: ASSESSING PCF'S PERFORMANCE The PCF does reasonably well vis-à-vis the `best practices' list. Its strength stem from its openness and flexibility to the range of situations and beneficiaries, a variety of arrangements and projects and its willingness to work in partnership with others. PCF, however, performs less than well on the following counts. 1. In the assessment of what needs to be done, there also needs to be an assessment of what is possible given existing skill levels and what constraints exist in terms of security or other factors. When the grant itself funds such a needs assessment, that exercise must also include a skills assessment. In more than one PCF grant--the very effective Croatia Refugees Return and Regional Development Project and the Mindanao-based Conflict-to-Peace Transition Project local NGOs and groups were seen to lack the financial management, planning and administrative skills needed to implement the grant. 2. Political and security issues are seldom factored into proposals or rationales unless a reviewer raises the point specifically. However, for a program that operates in very sensitive contexts, some of the first questions that should be raised in feasibility assessments should be those relating to political and security circumstances and consequences. This question came up in reviews of the proposal for the Macedonia project on education and ethnic relations (which subsequently changed quite a bit). It ought to have been raised in the case of the Burundi projects and also from the perspective of the IDPs in Georgia. 3. PCF grants are generally designed to be implemented over a 1-2 year period and a lot is left to the follow-up phase. This is a very short duration and certainly not long enough for some of the development outcomes to be met. So while the size of the grants may not be problematic, the need to ensure longer-term funding could be. If PCF funds the pilot phase or needs assessment of a project, there is no guarantee that funds will be found for the follow-up or implementation phase. Many of the projects funded have a long gestation period before they can begin to bear fruit as the review for the Congo Street Children project proposal pointed out. In the circumstances, just when a particular effort is beginning to show results, it could run out of funds. 4. PCF does not clear the bar on considerations of gender equity in its IDP/refugee projects. Few of its approved program proposals factor gender relations into their needs assessment, their evaluation standards or their assessment of impact. Of the seventeen grants reviewed here, only two directly benefited women as economic actors. A third one set out to reach women, but viewed them only as mothers who needed training in that role. Yet, displaced women face a complex set of gender-based issues. For example, women in contexts of displacement are often increasingly subject to domestic violence and vulnerable to sexual violence. In many situations, displacement forces them to leave their homes for the first time to seek outside employment--for which they are neither educationally nor psychologically prepared.4 This complex situation and dynamic gender relations are not reflected in any of the PCF grants on IDPs/refugees. 5. PCF performs slightly better when it comes to taking a rights-based approach to working with situations of displacement, but that does not seem to be a function of design as much as sheer serendipity. The PCF Secretariat may explore the extent to which PCF grants executed by 4See for example: Khattak (2002, 2003); Ward (2002); and Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children (2002, 2003). 15 external partners could integrate education or advocacy on the rights of the displaced (as the Guiding Principles on IDPs favor, for instance) more explicitly. 6. PCF has a problem when it comes to recovering reports and evaluations from its grant recipients. Therefore, the capacity for institutional learning is less than it might be given the resources of the World Bank. V. RECOMMENDATIONS In light of the preceding report card, this section will first make recommendations that address the areas of weakness listed above. Then, it will add recommendations intended to reinforce the areas in which the PCF is already doing well. 1. Political and security assessments should be part of the needs assessment Needs assessments should also include political and security assessments, particularly where a conflict or displacement crisis situation prevails. With the occasional exception of a conference held in Brussels on the Balkans, all grants and grants made to support needs assessments should pay attention to the political and security context in which they are to operate. The purpose of such assessments would be three-fold: (i) to see if the circumstances would permit completion of the project as envisaged; (ii) to see what mechanisms for change and course correction need to be built in and what documentation should be required; and (iii) to see what the political and security consequences of a given project would be. Addressing these issues at the proposal review stage itself would allow PCF and the implementing agency to anticipate problems that might slow or shut down operations in due course. One way to integrate these concerns into the proposal review might be to add this as a section to the required Development Grant Facility/Post-Conflict Fund Application Form--either after the description of how the proposed project relates to the Bank's work or as an appendix to the form that is submitted for the consideration of reviewers. 2. Project proposals should include a skills assessment There should be some assessment, if only at the field or regional level, of the skills of local partners who are likely to be engaged in aspects of the project work. This assessment is best made at the time of the initial proposal reviews, either at the country or regional level. Further, when such an assessment is made, it should be recorded in some form in the proposal itself or as one of the accompanying documents. This way, the information is available for purposes of evaluation and for framing the terms of reference for future assessments. If the skill levels of local partners are found wanting, all concerned would be well served by some brief training in administrative, financial and evaluation practices. The PCF review showed that some project partners were much better at reporting, monitoring and evaluation than others. Where costs permit, as within the same region, these partners may be invited to develop and run training workshops. This would also, as a bonus, facilitate regional networking, cooperative undertakings and allow organizations to learn what resources are locally available and what need to be developed. Where this is not possible, PCF might itself develop reporting and evaluation formats which it could make available for future implementing agencies. 16 3. PCF should include capacity building for fundraising, where appropriate PCF's strength lies precisely in the kind of short-term pilot phase funding that then limits long-term planning for the implementing agency. Admittedly, the fact that the amounts disbursed are relatively small, allows the PCF Secretariat to be less encumbered by bureaucratic detail and more flexible. Ironically, such short-term funding limits the operational flexibility of the implementing agency. In fact, to continue along the theme of the last point, this might be another area of capacity building that PCF might consider funding. 4. Gender equity issues should inform post-conflict project processes and objectives PCF needs to incorporate gender considerations into its evaluation of project designs. Even as a proposal is being considered, it should be considered also in terms of its gender impact politics and its consequences for gender relations. Gender mainstreaming is not a new concept. Most international organizations, including the World Bank, now have units that focus on gender issues in development. What remains is for PCF to integrate the spirit of these institutional measures into the consideration of project proposals as well as evaluations of operations. Essentially, three measures are recommended. First, when a project is being designed or reviewed at the proposal stage, questions about women's concerns and consequences for gender relations need to be raised seriously. Second, when a project is being evaluated, impact on women and gender relations need to be one of the criteria used in the evaluation. UNHCR's gender evaluation criteria might be a model for PCF. Third, PCF might require implementing NGOs or CBOs to demonstrate the active participation of women at every stage of the project process. Affirmative action only provides symptomatic relief for the traditional exclusion of women from certain kinds of decision-making; however, in the absence of other measures, it is a useful point of departure. Implementing agencies might, for instance, be required to show that workshops and decision-making committees have a reasonable proportion of qualified women. External evaluators or PCF Secretariat staff on field visits might pay attention to whether the project involves women in substantive ways or just in a token fashion. Further installments of the grant funds or future funding might be made contingent on meeting this criterion. The same concerns exist for ethnic and other minorities, but within each of these categories, women are more easily sidelined in most societies. 5. PCF's position on rights advocacy and return/resettlement issues should be debated and articulated As noted earlier, notwithstanding the restrictions placed on PCF's engagement with protection issues by World Bank rules and mandate, it may be useful for the PCF to articulate its position on the question of rights-based approaches to IDP/refugee situations. This question becomes salient with the stress laid by the Guiding Principles on IDPs on the rights of the displaced, and the growing acceptance by the community of practitioners of the Guiding Principles. 6. PCF should prioritize information management Information management should be given priority by PCF. Documentation is vital to institutional learning, not merely in terms of gathering reports and evaluations when they are due, but also finding a way to keep track of project evolution and explaining it. As a pre-condition for disbursement, project partners might be required to clarify the reporting and evaluation schedule and structure. That is, the content and frequency of interim reports, who is to write them and who is to compile them, the content and frequency of evaluations and who is to conduct them--all should be clearly specified and agreed upon. 17 7. Analytical end products should be made available in the public domain Analytical end products such as the Afghanistan Watching Brief papers, Regional Development Vision in Croatia, etc., should be made accessible (if necessary, in a modified form) in the public domain. Having commissioned them, the PCF would maximize their utility by making them available to others working in related areas. 8. PCF applicantions should articulate a clear conflict, as opposed to purely developmental, rationale Insofar as PCF works in the relief-to-development nexus, it needs to lay out very clearly the project's link to conflict as opposed to a regular World Bank project. This was not always clear. Beyond differences of scope (Bank projects are much larger in size and coverage), partnerships (Bank projects partner with governments; PCF also with other agencies) and in piloting approaches that have not been adopted in regular Bank projects, the key role of the PCF is in relation to conflict.Where the application form asks the applicants to state what the linkage their project has to the Bank's program, applicants might also need to be cleared in terms of conflict dynamics. 9. Skilled project partners should be used as resources for training others Those NGOs and CBOs that display the skills needed for a strong civil society--the ability to mobilize, raise funds, respond to changing situations, and play a strong advocacy role--should be invited to play a role in training others within their own contexts. 18 Annex 1: List of PCF Grants on Refugees and IDPs Grant Title Year(s) Recipient Geographical Amount No. area of focus ($) 4 Afghanistan Watching 1998 UNDP-Afghanistan Afghanistan 350,000 Brief 8(b) Republic of Congo 2001-02 UNDP Republic of 1,000,000 Community Action for Congo Reintegration and Recovery of Youth and Women 11 Support Program to Areas 1999 Comunitá di Sant' Albania 1,000,000 of Albania Hosting Egidio Refugees from Kosovo 80 Burundi Community 1999- UNHCR Burundi 2,000,000 Rehabilitation Project 2001 91 Support Program to Areas 2000 Ministry of Education Albania 500,000 of Albania Hosting Refugees from Kosovo 92 Promoting Inter-Ethnic 1999- UNICEF Macedonia Macedonia 1,995,881 Dialogue and Supporting 2000 the Learning Environment of Children 103 Kosovo Community 1999- Soros Foundation/ Kosovo 4,232,587 Development Fund 2001 Kosovo Foundation for Open Society 127 Georgia Self Reliance 2000 Funnel grant; money Georgia 1,150,000 Fund for IDPs onwards disbursed to local organizations 133 Croatia Refugees Return 2001 Recipient: Republic of Croatia 1,899,988 and Regional Croatia; Implementing Development Project agencies: Italian Consortium of Solidarity, Catholic Relief Services, GISPLAN 148 Conference on "What Can 2000 Humanitarian Affairs Balkans 25,000 Business Bring to Balkan Review Reconstruction?" 155 Afghan Female Teachers' 2001 Swedish Committee for Pakistan/ 300,000 In-service Training Centre Afghanistan Afghanistan 156 Basic Education for 2001-02 Deutsche Gesellschaft Pakistan/ 930,000 Afghan Refugees fur Technische Afghanistan (BEFARe) Zusammenarbeit (GTZ- BEFARe) 159 Promoting the Transition 2001-02 Community and Family Philippines 1,275,000 from Conflict; Social Services International Assessment of Conflict Affected Communities in Mindanao; and Multi- Stakeholder Consultation for Investment Programming 19 in Mindanao 184 Reintegration of 2001-03 OXFAM Quebec and Democratic 1,000,000 Vulnerable Street Ministry of Social Republic of Children in Urban Areas Affairs, DR Congo Congo 189 Balochistan Refugee 2001-02 Save the Children, USA Pakistan/ 270,000 Teacher Training Project Afghanistan 191 Southern Serbia 2001-02 UNDP and Federal Yugoslavia 1,000,000 Municipal Improvement Republic of Yugoslavia and Recovery Program 234 Protection of Patrimonial 2002-03 International Colombia 809,658 Assets of Colombia's Organization for Internally Displaced Migration and Population Government of Colombia 20 Annex 2: Seventeen PCF Grants on Refugees and IDPs Reviewed The seventeen grants identified as dealing with refugees and IDPs present a variety of project activities. This section briefly describes each grant and its objectives, and the extent to which it has met those objectives. The Afghanistan Watching Brief grant in 1998 was intended to improve the World Bank's understanding of Afghanistan's economic conditions in order that in a future situation, it might contribute usefully. To this end, it commissioned several studies, on which reporting was sketchy and it is not clear how many of these were conducted and concluded. It included also one pilot project to train Afghan women to found and run their own organizations, which was more successful. Relating this project to the list of best practices, the project was consistent with the principle that the better informed the donors and implementing agencies about a particular context, the better they are able to help it. Further, in training Afghan women to run NGOs, it was building their capacity to help themselves. On the minus side, the project managers had trouble identifying resource people for the studies they were commissioning. Moreover, reporting was not consistent, nor is there any explanation on file for why this might have been so. In 1998-99, PCF funded the Republic of Congo Community Action for Reintegration and Recovery of Youth and Women, which was intended to benefit youth and women victimized by war. The funding for this was channeled through UNDP but different agencies received funds for carrying out different parts of the grant. As part of the Bank's Transitional Support Strategy (TSS), this project proposed to assist war-affected youth and women to: (i) overcome the negative psycho-social effects of war; (ii) reintegrate households and communities; (iii) play a central role in the restoration of peace; and (iv) rebuild a normal life that is economically and socially sustainable. To this end, the following categories of activities were undertaken: (i) training of trainers in trauma counseling; (ii) capacity building at the local level to ensure a greater participation and civic engagement; (iii) rehabilitation of basic social infrastructure; (iv) income generating activities for women and youth; and (v) social, cultural and sports activities to enhance community dialogue and promote peace and reconciliation. Internal and external evaluations assessed the performance of all the project partners positively and judged the project as being successful. Inter-agency coordination worked well. The number of beneficiaries of the project appears to have surpassed initial estimates and the program was said to have been effective and responsive to demands coming from them. Some points made by the independent evaluations also resonate with issues raised by the `best practices' discussion in this review. Positively, the project was seen as responsive to the expressed needs of its beneficiaries. However, the outside evaluator pointed out that although the project was said to have been responsive to beneficiary needs, there would have been no way to ascertain that those needs were actually priorities for all those in the target group. Further, they may have been the needs of one or other communal interest in that situation. Another positive point was that the TSS goals do represent the relief-to-development approach that seems to be becoming the norm with most agencies. The evaluator found the project prescriptive rather than involving beneficiaries in sharing and articulating goals, or in monitoring progress. It should be noted that while the evaluations themselves took into account the perspectives of project partners, they did not ask members of the target groups their views either. Perhaps this was not germane to an assessment of operations, but there might have been some other way to assess what people actually felt about the projects being run for their benefit. One recommendation in the `lessons learned section' is that project objectives be set out as clearly as possible. The outside evaluator suggested that had poverty alleviation been included more explicitly as an objective, the income-generating activities might have seen greater success than they did. 21 The Support Program to Areas of Albania Hosting Refugees from Kosovo (1999)5 was directed at both Kosovar refugees and Albanian host communities. The grant recipient was an Italian NGO, Comunità di Sant' Egidio. In the initial proposal, the goals were defined very broadly in terms of helping the host communities with the influx of refugees. They were to: (i) support the resident population of conflict-affected areas; (ii) support flexible responses to refugee distribution patterns and needs identified by host communities; (iii) reduce tensions between Kosovar refugees and resident Albanian populations created by scarce resources; and (iv) commit to long-term benefit of resident population during and beyond the crisis. However, this is a grant whose aims are redefined with greater specificity from one document to another, and the scope of the activities it funded were narrowed to the support of health and education in the Albanian districts impacted by the conflict in Kosovo. In the absence of descriptive and evaluative documentation, it is hard to assess how the funded projects actually worked. Nevertheless, relating the available documentation to the best practices list, the following observations can be made. To its credit, the grant sought to engage both refugees and the host communities. It is repeatedly stressed that programs seeking to address the problems faced by refugees/IDPs should also consider the host communities' situation and find ways to make the two groups work together. In early versions of this grant proposal and discussions of it, this was an important priority. The activities undertaken reflected this as well. It also sidestepped the repatriation issue, which has been identified as problematic, and a constraint to cooperation on projects. On the other hand, the elaboration of a monitoring and reporting structure does not seem to have actually brought reports in. Also, while there is more to the identity and needs of refugees beyond displacement, in its final design, it is hard to see how this project actually related to this target group. UNHCR was the recipient in the case of the Burundi Community Rehabilitation Project, 1999-2001, which specifically targeted refugees. The objective of this grant was to finance rehabilitation activities in some provinces that are affected by the return and resettlement of refugees in the short run. In the long run it hoped to forge a closer working relationship between the World Bank and UNHCR. Specifically, the project would reinforce the accountability of the local administration, utilize local mechanisms for conflict resolution and create a partnership environment by strengthening local capacities. This was an unusually well documented grant. Using UNHCR's criteria, reports consistently documented both achievements and constraints, laying out ways to deal with the latter. There were several concrete achievements made by the project: schools and health centers rebuilt, development of marsh areas and, water supply networks rehabilitated. The major constraint faced by projects financed by this grant seems to have been the dynamic security situation. The project designers had assumed that simply involving people in the process of design and implementation would ensure their investment in safeguarding them, and that such a process would allow marginalized groups a voice. However, this did not happen. Interviews conducted during the project evaluation showed that while people valued health facilities and schools, the two things that really exercised them were security and reclaiming lost property. Another constraint was climate. Between the security situation and inclement weather, the window for implementing anything was small. Finally, the evaluation pointed to the continued domination of urbanites, civil servants and men in the project planning and implementation processes. Relating this to the best practices list, on the positive side this was a project that really tried to integrate the relief and development dimensions. It also used participatory techniques of needs assessment and evaluation. One lesson that emerges from UNHCR's assessment of its operations in Burundi is that when many agencies are involved, how partnerships are organized is critical to effectiveness. On the negative side, the focus on repatriation, while central to UNHCR's mandate, is somewhat at odds with the way the rest of the humanitarian assistance community seems to regard the question. Further, while those engaged with development and humanitarian work tend to overlook security issues, this grant shows that in 5 A follow-up or supplementary grant 91 was made in 2000, but those documents were not reviewed, as Grant 91 was not in the list of grants originally under review. 22 conflict situations (where PCF is engaged by definition), readings on the security situation are as vital as any other issue that needs to be considered in the planning of a project. One grant that seemed to lose direction was that made to UNICEF Macedonia in 1999-2000: "Promoting Inter-Ethnic Dialogue and Supporting the Learning Environment of Children." It was meant to benefit Kosovar refugees, host families and vulnerable groups by supporting the promotion of conflict- prevention activities. These activities would strengthen the Macedonian community's capacity for early childhood care, development and youth activities. While refugees and IDPs figured in the correspondence preceding the grant and a little in the initial description of the project, there is no subsequent mention of them and the project appears no different from child welfare development projects. The project appears to have been implemented in two phases. Phase 1 must have dealt with refugees, conflict prevention, etc. but only Phase 2 is documented in the evaluations. Phase 2 is focused on early childhood care and education. To be fair, in both instances, early childhood care, youth activities and inter-ethnic relations were the area of interest, but in all the reports made available for this review, it seems from the descriptions of ECD, youth centers, etc. that while refugees/IDPs may have incidentally benefited from the projects, the targeted group broadened to the point where it was unrecognizable. In many ways, this Macedonian project performs well in terms of best practices. First, the grant set out to help both refugees and the host society. Second, needs were assessed at several turns in the process, allowing continuous learning to take place. The views of potential beneficiaries were solicited in each assessment. Third, part of the grant went to replicating the successful Babylon project that is also consistent with the best practices. Finally, parenthood training in the early childhood care project placed importance on educating women. The biggest drawback of this grant was that the project objectives changed so much that it is hard to assess from one set of objectives to the last available evaluations, what worked and what did not in terms of the original requirements. It is also hard to understand, given the documentation available, the rationale for the changes. The Kosovo Community Development Fund, 1999-2001, was funded through the Soros Foundation/ Kosovo Foundation for Open Society. Its benefits were meant to reach the most war-affected communities and people from vulnerable groups, particularly minorities. This grant went to finance a Community Investment Fund, whose main objectives were to: (i) assist communities rehabilitate or develop basic infrastructure and services at the local level and among marginalized communities, while stimulating the local economy and creating jobs; and (ii) support the development of responsive, transparent, equitable and accountable local governance structures. This Fund would make grants to projects that furthered these ends, targeting war-affected groups and vulnerable groups without other sources of investment. The goals and priorities of the Fund were refined from one document to the other, pinpointing water and sanitation as the highest priority along the way. This grant appears to have been unusually successful and to have exceeded its original expectations. It emphasized community ownership and initiative, even sometimes requiring communities to provide matching funds. As the pilot phase report stated, the project partners added value to the project bringing expertise and experience that the donors did not have. The Fund expanded its reach to include training, outreach, promotion and capacity building to enable communities to make choices, access resources and manage their investments. One final question that grants such as this one raise is the link to conflict. In some cases it appears that it is simply the fact that conflict exists in the place where the grant money is to be used. In this grant for instance, other units in the World Bank might well have funded the same activities and working partnerships. This has partly to do with the nature of post-conflict reconstruction--ultimately the activities are no different than those in other contexts where other kinds of devastation and depredation occur. However, it makes it all the more important that proposals and changes in project objectives or 23 activities should be argued to make this connection. A secondary question related to this is the fact that in this grant, subsequent reports did not even allude to IDPs/refugees. Yet, this grant is considered one that addresses their situation. That implies their needs are no different, but if that is the case, what is the rationale for having a separate theme for them at all? This was an enormously successful project and it incorporated many elements valued by the practitioner community: capacity building, community initiative, using and enhancing local resources, and it also generated employment. There was continuous assessment and continuous learning. However, the grant seems to have essentially been transitional funding. There is a view that funding should be more long- term so that project managers are not constantly looking to raise funds rather than developing their activities. Further, if there are special needs felt by IDPs and refugees, the documentation available for this grant does not indicate they were taken into account. The `New Approach to IDP Assistance' entails improving the lives of IDPs in a way that reduces IDP- host community tension and eliminating discrimination and violations of human rights, primarily through activities that increase opportunities for equal access to rights and all other things (Kharashvili 2001, p. 12). The Georgia Self-Reliance Fund (GSRF) for IDPs (2000 onwards) is considered as an experiment in this approach and is structured as a `funnel' grant, through which money is disbursed to various local organizations. It is intended to benefit IDPs, host communities and regions most affected by IDPs. Accordingly, it is an attempt to fund more sustainable, community development initiatives that will involve cooperation between IDPs and hosts. Like other PCF grants, it funds pilot projects and provides funds that aim to cover the gap between humanitarian and development assistance. The PCF website states that, "The effectiveness of GSRF will be demonstrated by the degree to which individual initiatives financed under the GSRF provide guidance and lead to larger donor/government investments in improving the self-reliance of IDPs." It is still early days to judge the working of such a complex arrangement. The proposal for one of the grants in this rubric lays out detailed operational measures of effectiveness. It remains to be seen how much reporting will actually take place. In fact, this may be one concern about such a structure. Even where tighter reporting relationships are applied, the flow of information back to the PCF Secretariat seems to be erratic. What seems to make a difference are the implementing agency and how meticulous its staff is. In relation to the list of best practices, it broadly incorporates important elements of the Guiding Principles such as protection of IDPs' rights as well as the need to reduce tensions between IDPs and host communities. Specifically, the GSRF promotes cooperation and coordination among donor communities so that the evolution of a shared vision may become a reality. In the absence of substantial reporting as yet, it is hard to discern how these relationships are working on the ground. Another point, made in fact by a practitioner working with the GSRF in another venue, points out that raising the question of repatriation jeopardizes prospects for cooperation between host community and refugees/IDPs. The Croatia Refugees Return and Regional Development Project (2001) is funded through the Croatian government and implemented by three NGOs, Italian Consortium of Solidarity, Catholic Relief Services and GISPLAN. The overall objective of the grant was to facilitate the expected return of Croatian Serbs to Croatia. It sought to do this through development projects that postulate the return of the Serbs as an opportunity for economic development in the local communities from which they fled. There were to be two elements to this. First, a Regional Development Vision (RDV) would be worked out through participatory research and consultations. This would include a couple of detailed sectoral programs. Second, a Social and Economic Recovery Fund would be established whose grants would favor proposals benefiting inter-ethnic cohesion and ethnic diversity. 24 At the proposal stage, one concern expressed about this grant was that it seemed to assume that economic development would definitely create the conditions (and incentives) for reintegration and reconciliation. In some sense, this optimism may be inevitable in projects financed by a bank. However, the point made here was that there should also be an account of the political issues involved and an assessment made of the `capacity for reconciliation'. There was no way to tell whether this had been taken into account. One problem with the documentation relating to this grant, which is not unique to it, is that it is very hard to distinguish between phases and projects. There is a lack of clarity to both the writing and documentation that makes assessment very hard. Based on the reports available, it seems as though the RDV workshops went well although the people assembled ultimately were not as representative as they might have been. However, as with all such initiatives, the fact that people met and talked is in itself an indication of success. On the other hand, it is hard to judge within the year whether such dialogue is fruitful. As seen in many other contexts, the mere production of a document goes only so far. The second aspect of this grant, the Social and Economic Recovery Fund, met with mixed success. Some of the constraints faced included lack of skills and understanding of the market, lack of management skills, no understanding of assessment or fund-raising and lack of coordination. Therefore, those monitoring the project recommended training in these areas. This is something that, with the benefit of hindsight, the needs assessment should have picked up in advance. How does this project fare in terms of the best practices list? The needs assessment and the formulation of the RDV were done with the participation as far as possible of stakeholders. Also, using the `Fund' structure, allows the grant to be utilized in closer consonance with local needs and capacities. On the other hand, it was found that the local organizations carrying out the funded cooperative and social service projects lacked skills and capacity to effectively use the resources made available to them. A better needs assessment might have focused the grant on developing that capacity in the first place. Second, the grant also makes the assumption that reintegration is both desirable and will follow from social and economic reconstruction. The IDP/refugee field does not generally seem to assume the former, and the latter assumption is unduly deterministic in a context where there is great uncertainty. Third, while the project addresses one dimension of the Croatian Serb displacement experience (giving them something to return to), it ignores other issues that might be important to the Croatian Serbs themselves. The need to take cognizance of the complexity of IDP/refugee identities and life-experiences is often emphasized in the operational literature, but in such a grant, that complexity is finessed away, partly as necessity and partly from oversight. The PCF funded a conference on "What can business bring to Balkan reconstruction?" in 2000 organized by the journal, Humanitarian Affairs Review. The conference brought together practitioners in the fields of humanitarian relief, business representatives and policy-makers. There were two objectives for this conference. The first was to give participants and European media a clear picture of what the post conflict role of business should be in the Balkans and how business should interact with the World Bank, the United Nations (UN) and the European Commission (EC). The second objective was to map out how the conditions can be created for the various actors to carry out an effective reconstruction program. It was thought that the conference would try to get business involved beyond capacity building and operational applicability of projects. The final report of the conference is a volume that describes the conference, lists participants, media coverage and also includes facsimiles of papers/speeches. It remains to be seen what else it will yield. This conference brought new actors into the field in a way that would further the `self-help' objective, thus meeting one goal of humanitarian action in this sphere. However, it is always hard to assess the utility of conferences and workshops in the short run. PCF made three grants to projects in Afghanistan that were designed to meet the education needs of Afghan refugees, two of which relate to the training of Afghan teachers. 25 The first was the Afghan Female Teachers' In-Service Training Centre . The grant was made to the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan in 2001 and female Afghan refugees were its targeted beneficiaries. The objective was to train approximately 600 teachers within 2 years with in-service training, with a view to improving the performance of schoolgirls in standardized tests, improving teachers' performance and possibly increasing the demand for girls' education in Afghanistan. Initially the project was based in Pakistan, thus benefiting both Pakistanis and Afghan refugees, in that it set standards for the former by imparting them to the latter. Responding to changing ground-reality, the project moved after the fall of the Taliban to Jalalabad in Afghanistan. This was anticipated and documented in the reporting. This grant is an excellent example of setting clear and concrete objectives as a prerequisite for success. Also, the experience of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan in the field of Afghan education made a great deal of difference to the project's success. Further, the project certainly empowered women, the more successfully for its recognition of cultural context and practice, building in funding for a male escort for the teachers to attend the training. Finally, in tandem with the Basic Education for Afghan Refugees, it also offers an example of complementary planning since this project focuses on women teachers and that includes both male and female teachers. This project raises the question of how to respond to shifts in the reality on the ground. It points to a need to build in mechanisms for the kind of change and adjustment, plus the documentation thereof, that might be called for. The second education-related Afghanistan grant was Basic Education for Afghan Refugees (BEFARe) (2001-02), which was implemented by the German agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ-BEFARe). The purported beneficiaries were Afghan refugee schools, and the grant hoped to support and expand existing teacher training programs. To this end, the grant expected to: (i) improve access to basic education and teacher training for refugees in remote areas; (ii) expand and improve quality of education of selected middle and secondary schools through integrated teacher training programs; (iii) improve the quality of teachers in self-help schools and non-formal schools; and (iv) build capacity of women and vulnerable populations through non-formal vocational education and training programs and use these to retain students in schools. While the progress report lists tangible achievements, it also mentions problems arising during the programs. Further, repatriation of refugees resulted in some identified schools being vacated. This grant too highlights the need to find a way to revise original objectives in light of changes in the situation. What would an assessment of this grant in terms of the best practices list tell us? On the positive side, first, it addresses education in the non-formal and self-help sector, reinforcing the idea that ultimately IDPs and refugees can and should be helped to fend for themselves. It improves their capacity to do this. Second, along with the Afghan Female Teachers' In-Service Training Centre, it expands the scope of teacher training programs to include men and women, while the first grant focuses on training women. Finally, as in the case of the previous grant, there is a need to build in mechanisms for review, change and documentation of grant's objectives and outcomes. The third of the Afghanistan grants is the Balochistan Refugee Teacher Training Project, 2001-02, implemented by Save the Children, USA. The intended beneficiaries were teachers in Balochistan's refugee villages. The objective was to develop and implement a model primary teacher-training program in Balochistan with assistance from an education institute within six months. There is not enough information to comment on how the project is working, but it is possible to relate the project to the best practices list. The training programs are useful in the refugee villages, to the host communities and to refugees returning to Afghanistan. Further, the program, replicates a model that has been successful in those cases. The reports discuss recruitment of female teachers. Insofar as they have made a special attempt to do that and to mention it, this is also in conformity with the gender equity criteria. 26 A grant was made to Community and Family Services International to implement the project, Promoting the Transition from Conflict to Peace and Development at the Community Level, in Mindanao, Philippines. Directed at conflict-affected communities, its aims were to: (i) develop enabling conditions that encourage safe return, facilitate transition and stabilization and provide community foundation for peace-building and sustainable development; (ii) contribute to knowledge base by developing and testing models for working with communities in the transition from conflict to peace, drawing on existing models and best practices, incorporating gender analysis and supported by participatory action research; and (iii) strengthen institutional and civil society cooperation. Two complementary interventions were planned. First, a social assessment which would form the basis of a Mindanao Peace and Development Plan. Second, a pilot project that would facilitate the transition from conflict to peace and development at the community level. The availability of several detailed, comprehensive reports for this grant reinforces the positive impression that the reports themselves convey. In terms of the programs developed, the manner in which they were implemented and their results, this would seem to be a successful grant, despite the uncertain security situation in Mindanao. Of the many things that worked, two were particularly striking. The first was the everyday presence of the implementing agency in the lives of the IDPs with whom they were working. In addition to building trust, an effect to which the reports allude, this would have meant that the fieldworkers would be familiar with traditional social and political relationships in each community, and participatory techniques they introduced would be more effective than those introduced by strangers. The second was the `Go and See Visit' program. The aim of the grant was to enable safe return of IDPs to their homes. Community development programs have been one way to do this as similar projects in Burundi and Croatia. This project literally made it possible for the IDPs to make their own assessment of whether it would be possible to return by arranging for them to travel back for a visit, in safety and dignity, and see for themselves what the conditions were. The fact that over the project period an overwhelming majority of IDPs in the evacuation centers did return attests to its efficacy. One of the later reports speaks to the lack of experience, and consequently preparation, of local and community leaders in democratic practice and development planning. This suggests that the need for capacity building might be routinely raised during the proposal review process since it seems to have come as something of a surprise to the implementing agency in spite of their daily presence in the field. A final note on the reports themselves is warranted. They describe the constraints faced during the implementation of the project and they detail both qualitatively and quantitatively the achievements of the period covered. However, the three features that make them stand out in this review are their: (i) regular appearance in a standard, consistent format; (ii) detailed descriptions of the activities themselves rather than just a listing of targets met, allowing the reader to understand precisely how the grant money is being spent; and (iii) reflective list of lessons learned in each progress report. While it is true that the circumstances and capacities of grant recipients and implementing agencies vary greatly, these reports could form the basis for a good model to facilitate monitoring. These comments can be summarized by relating them to the best practices list. First, the projects draw on the knowledge of the IDPs themselves in a variety of ways. Second, they meet the relief-to-development transition criterion, focusing on livelihood assistance, democratic processes and education. Third, they vest agency in the IDPs when it comes to the decision to return. Fourth, the implementing agency is a familiar, trusted presence to the targeted beneficiaries. The one drawback, alluded to in the project's own reports, was that the lack of a capacity-building element in the project design became a problem in later stages of the project process. The 2001-03 project on Reintegration of Vulnerable Street Children in Urban Areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) addresses an important post-conflict constituency often overlooked: street children. The grant recipients and implementing agents are OXFAM Quebec and the Ministry of Social Affairs, DRC. Within areas where the Government can guarantee security, the project 27 aims to promote age-appropriate re-integration of street children by: (i) promoting full access to a minimum set of basic social services; (ii) establishing the basis for social reinsertion and/or eventual reunification with their families; and (iii) reducing their vulnerability and risks facing the targeted street children. While no evaluations are available as yet for this project, a couple of points discussed during the proposal review bear highlighting here. First, the duration of the project was questioned by a reviewer who pointed out that identifying who to work with and how to do so would take more time, let alone building trust and convincing street children that reintegration was a good thing. To this the reply was that World Bank funding would garner interest and further support. This seems to be a common optimistic assumption regarding future funding. Second, it was stressed that the social services focus should not come second to physical infrastructure. In light, for instance, of the Burundi experience where security and climatic considerations left newly reconstructed premises vulnerable, this is a point to note. As for how it relates to the best practices list, on the positive side, the project reaches out to a group that receives little attention. On the negative side, however, is the question of the grant duration. Another project which poses the same question is the Southern Serbia Municipal Improvement and Recovery Program 2001-02. The UNDP and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia received funding to work in seven municipalities in Southern Serbia. The objectives of this grant as stated in the initial proposal are so broad as to be sweeping. It aims to consolidate peace, prevent conflict and increase livelihoods in multi-ethnic and minority regions in Serbia through the promotion of non-discriminatory governance tied to economic and social recovery initiatives. The final application narrows this down to three components: municipal development, economic recovery, and social rehabilitation. The grant also established a locally-owned development investment fund for seven municipalities in southern Serbia. There are no evaluations available although the project has been completed. Hence it is hard to assess how it has worked. However, the available information can be related to the best practices list to point out that broad objectives have both a positive and a negative aspect. This project's goals reflect the idea that conflict situations cannot be looked at in isolation of the need to reform governance and socio-economic structures. It can be questioned whether all this is possible in the short time spans of these grants. The joint International Organization for Migration and Government of Colombia effort in 2002-03 for the Protection of Patrimonial Assets of Colombia's Internally Displaced Population, which has received PCF funding, is an interesting project. The objective of this grant is to design, test and implement a strategy to minimize the risk of displacement and mitigate the effects of forced displacement through protection of patrimonial assets. Three elements are to be piloted in five areas to test: (i) development of methodologies and procedures to protect patrimonial assets belonging to displaced populations or those at risk of displacement; (ii) Monitoring and Internal Evaluation System; and (iii) Project Management Unit--to implement in five pilot areas. Work is just beginning and no evaluations have come in as yet. The following conclusions are based therefore on the proposal itself. The project builds mutual confidence between groups and the state (social capital) by creating a mechanism through which they can work together reliably. How IDP assets are to be protected is to be determined through participatory methods. On both these counts, it incorporates values on the best practices list. A Summary of Trends in Displacement-Related PCF Grants It is possible to summarize the main trends in the PCF grants dealing with situations of displacement and their related projects. On the whole, the review does suggest broad conformity with the best practices list compiled above. After reading the proposals, reports, evaluations and correspondence related to the 17 grants, the following observations could be made. 1. PCF does consistently fund experimental and innovative projects. 28 2. PCF is committed to the relief-to-development approach, which is described in the PCF Guidelines. 3. PCF has been funding more and more `Funds', creating local grant-making agencies that are better qualified to judge local projects. 4. Reporting arrangements are adequate on paper, but `enforcement mechanisms' seem weak in reality. 5. Many PCF grant projects metamorphose suggesting responsiveness. However, they metamorphose sometimes beyond recognition (e.g., Macedonia grant for early childhood care) to the point where it is hard to tell why and how they serve the ends originally intended. 29 References Accion contra el Hambre. 2001. 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CONFLICT PREVENTION ANDRECONSTRUCTION UNIT--WORKINGPAPERSERIES No. Title Author Date 2 The East Timor Reconstruction Program: Successes, Problems Klaus Rohland November and Tradeoffs Sarah Cliffe 2002 3 Humanitarian Assistance, Reconstruction and Development in Alastair J. McKechnie March 2003 Afghanistan: A Practitioner's View 4 Central America: Education Reform in a Post-Conflict Setting, José Marques April 2003 Opportunities and Challenges Ian Bannon 5 Using Case Studies to Expand the Theory of Civil War Nicholas Sambanis May 2003 6 Financing and Aid Management Arrangements in Post- Salvatore Schiavo- May 2003 Conflict Situations Campo 7 Community-driven Reconstruction as an Instrument in War-to- Sarah Cliffe August 2003 Peace Transitions Scott Guggenheim Markus Kostner 8 Gender Equality and Civil Wars Mary Caprioli September 2003 9 Do Participatory Development Projects Help Villagers Manage Patrick Barron September Local Conflicts? Et al. 2003 10 Landmine Clearance Projects: Task Manager's Guide Jacques Buré November Pierre Pont 2003 11 Timor-Leste: Independent Review of the Credit Component of John D. Conroy March 2004 the Community Empowerment Project 12 Social Capital and Survival: Prospects for Community-Driven Paul Richards April 2004 Development in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone Khadija Bah James Vincent 13 MIGA's Experience in Conflict-Affected Countries The Case John Bray June 2004 of Bosnia and Herzegovina 14 The Devil in the Demographics: The Effect of Youth Bulges Henrik Urdal July 2004 on domestic Armed Conflict, 1950-2000 15 Practical Guide to Multilateral Needs Assessments in Post- Uwe Kievelitz August 2004 Conflict Situations Et al. 16 The Private Sector's Role in the Provision of Infrastructure in Jordan Schwartz August 2004 Post-Conflict Countries: Patterns and Policy Options Shelly Hahn Ian Bannon 17 Within and Beyond Borders: An Independent Review of Post- Swarna Rajagopalan October 2004 Conflict Fund Support to Refugees and the Internally Displaced Also published as Social Development Paper No. 72