70040 COMMUNITY BASED DEVELOPMENT AND INFRASTRUCTURE IN TIMOR-LESTE: PAST EXPERIENCES & FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES Funded by the Australian Government’s AusAID – East Asia and Pacific Infrastructure for Growth Trust Fund Contents Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements....................................................................................................................................... 1 1. Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................. 2 2. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 4 2.1 Background ................................................................................................................................... 4 2.2 Genesis of the Report and Methodology ..................................................................................... 5 3. Examining the Enabling Environment for Community Based Development ........................................ 8 3.1 The Regulatory and Policy Environment for Community-Based Development in Timor-Leste 11 3.2 The Operational Environment for Community-Based Development in Timor-Leste ................. 14 4. Community-Based Development in Timor-Leste: Experiences and Results ...................................... 17 4.1 Participation and Empowerment: The Case of the Community Empowerment Project .......... 18 4.2 State-Citizen Links: The Case of the Local Development Program ............................................ 21 4.3. Technical Soundness and Sustainability: The Case of the Community Water Supply and Sanitation Program ............................................................................................................................. 24 5. Conclusions and Recommendations ................................................................................................... 28 5.1 Programming and Operational Recommendations ................................................................ 29 5.2 Policy recommendations......................................................................................................... 35 References .................................................................................................................................................. 37 ANNEX 1: Stocktaking Summary ................................................................................................................ 39 Stock taking Review Of Projects With Participatory Elements ........................................................... 39 Stocktaking Project Summaries .......................................................................................................... 40 Aguas de Portugal (ADP) – Water catchment and distribution in Atauro .......................................... 40 AMCAP - Ainaro & Manatuto Community Activation Project (UNOPS) ............................................. 41 3rd Agriculture Rehabilitation Project ................................................................................................ 42 Australia-East Timor Community Water Supply and Sanitation Program (CWSSP) ........................... 44 CARE – Road Sector Improvement Project (ADB Grant No: 0017-TIM).............................................. 46 Community Empowerment (and Local Governance) Project ............................................................. 48 Concern Worldwide – CADRE project ................................................................................................. 50 CVTL .................................................................................................................................................... 52 Haburas – Eco Tourism Tutuala .......................................................................................................... 55 i Local Development Program ............................................................................................................ 58 Ministry of Economic Development – Mini Markets .......................................................................... 60 Oecussi Ambeno Community Activation Programme (OCAP) ............................................................ 61 Plan Timor-Leste – WES program, ....................................................................................................... 63 Portuguese Missao Agricola (PADRTL) ................................................................................................ 64 Timor Aid ............................................................................................................................................ 65 Triangle ............................................................................................................................................... 66 UNICEF ................................................................................................................................................ 69 Water Aid (Community Led Total Sanitation pilot) ............................................................................ 70 ANNEX II - Real Participation and Decentralization ................................................................................. 71 ii Abbreviations ADB Asian Development Bank ARP Agriculture Rehabilitation Project CADRE Coordinated Actions for Disaster Risk Reduction and Empowerment Programme CBO Community-Based Organization CDD Community-driven development CEP Community Empowerment Project CLTS Community Led Total Sanitation CWSSP Community Water Supply and Sanitation Program DNSAS National Directorate for Water and Sanitation Service GDP Gross Domestic Product GOTL Government of Timor-Leste ICAP Integrated Community Action Planning ILO International Labour Organization IMF International Monetary Fund INAP National Institute for Public Administration INGO International Non-Governmental Organization INDMO National Institute for Labour Force Development IOM International Organization for Migration KDP Kecamatan Development Program LDP Local Development Program LGSP Local Government Support Program MED Ministry of Economic Development MSATM Ministry of State Administration and Territorial Management iii NDI National Democratic Institute NGO Non-governmental Organization PRA Participatory Rural Appraisal SEFOPE Secretary of State for Vocational Training and Employment SEPI Secretary of State for Promotion of Equality TVTL Television Timor-Leste UNDESA United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women UNOPS United Nations Operations UNTAET United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor USAID United States Agency for International Development iv Acknowledgements This report was prepared by a team led by Angela Khaminwa and including Michelle Whalen, Jacomina de Regt, and Paul McCarthy. The Bank would like to extend a special thanks to the Ministry of State Administration and Territorial Management for its support during the preparation of this report. The Bank would also like to thank the numerous stakeholders—representatives from government, civil society groups, and communities— who generously shared their time with, and provided candid comments to, the Bank team. The report was prepared by the World Bank with financial support from the Australian Government’s AusAID –East Asia and Pacific Infrastructure for Growth Trust Fund. 1 Community-Based Provision of Infrastructure in Timor-Leste 1. Executive Summary This paper examines the opportunities, challenges and constraints of undertaking community-based development (CBD) programming in Timor-Leste, particularly through the lens of community-based provision of economically productive infrastructure. During an extended period of weak central governance in the aftermath of Timor Leste’s turbulent independence struggle, external actors – mainly foreign donor agencies and international NGOs broadly favoring a community-based approach – played a dominant role in the country’s reconstruction. In light of Timor Leste’s political history and geographic isolation, it is not surprising that weak social capital and logistical obstacles have hampered CBD efforts, leaving Timor Leste with a mixed track record of success. Based on a longitudinal stock taking of CBD projects and face-to-face interviews with key actors in government, NGOs and the donor community, three specific initiatives are examined in detail with a view to elucidating key successes, constraints and opportunities as well as lessons learned that can inform the shifting policy environment :  The Community Empowerment Project, one of the earliest and largest CDD projects in Timor Leste, is viewed through the reconstruction lens as a means of building social capital and enhancing civic participation in a post-conflict environment;  The Local Development Program (LDP), representing an early state-led intervention intended to reinforce still nascent state-citizen links in a newly independent country; and,  The Community Water Supply and Sanitation Program, looks at the advantages and shortfalls of CBD approaches in the provision of village-level infrastructure, particularly from the perspective of technical soundness and cost efficiencies. The paper examines both the historical background to CBD initiatives in post-independence Timor Leste as well as the evolving regulatory and operational environments in an attempt to analyze the shifting policies that have defined government involvement in the provision of infrastructure and essential public services. Proposed changes to electoral laws and local governance would seem to indicate a predisposition towards community based planning and development. But uncertainty over how and when Timor Leste’s long planned decentralization policies will be rolled out make it difficult to predict how prominently CBD approaches will feature in terms of infrastructure and economic development. To date, the LDP program represents the only concrete effort to decentralize development programming albeit still on a fiscally small scale. 2 Based on the analysis of CBD’s constraints and successes to date in Timor Leste, the paper concludes with the following operational and policy recommendations. Operational recommendations: These recommendations have the potential to enhance CBD results despite operational constraints that still exist in the country. 1. Develop appropriate technical standards. 2. Strengthen capacity by developing a coordinated capacity building effort. 3. Strengthen participation and promote social capital. 4. Facilitate information flows. 5. Promote social accountability. Policy recommendations: Should Timor Leste’s government opt for CBD-type approaches as one means of providing local productive infrastructure, these recommendations set forth key challenges and opportunities that the government will likely face as they forge ahead with community-level public service delivery. 1. Improve coordination with sectoral line agencies to facilitate technical assistance. 2. Identify a lead agency to implement a national policy on community development. 3. Establish a mechanism for streamlined funding of community development. It is recognized that community based development has a role to play in Timor-Leste. The challenge facing the Timorese and their development partners will be in how to strengthen the existing use of approaches in an effort to ensure that infrastructure delivered using these methods are a result of full community participation, are aligned with overall development needs, and most importantly, meet the needs of the communities they are meant to serve. 3 2. Introduction 2.1 Background Timor-Leste emerged from years of occupation and a violent independence struggle in 1999. At the time it was one of the world‘s poorest countries, crippled by departing Indonesian forces and anti- independence militia who burned and destroyed much of the existing infrastructure, including 70 percent of private homes and public buildings, bridges and power lines, and the telecommunications system (World Bank 2005). With government institutions all but non-existent in the years immediately following the referendum—the UN Transitional Administration for East Timor (UNTAET) effectively governed the country for nearly three years between October 1999 and full independence in August 2002—Timor- Leste had a weak foundation on which to build a new state. Despite its difficult beginnings, Timor-Leste‘s government has consistently prioritized the provision of key public services – education, health, agriculture and transport – and has allocated large portions of the national budget to building the infrastructure necessary to provide these services. Government-led efforts to build infrastructure have been complemented by initiatives undertaken by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), resulting in a mix of supply-side government initiatives and demand-driven bottom-up interventions. These interventions have different objectives ranging from rapid implementation of works to community building through participation—the latter approach intended to play a reconciliation role in a post-conflict environment as well as serving as a means of building a relationship between citizens and a newly-founded state (Cliffe et al 2003). However, while some positive strides have been taken in some areas such as immunization and school enrollment, poverty remains stubbornly persistent and access to key public services is limited. Based on per capita food consumption, the number of people falling below the poverty line increased from 31.2 percent in 2001 to 42.1 percent in 2007, with rural poverty remaining especially acute.1 Available statistics place 58 percent of the population with access to potable water (compared to 75 percent in other low-income countries in the region) and only 37 percent of the rural population with access to sanitation. 1 Full statistics available in: Timor-Leste: Poverty in a Young Nation. Ministry of Finance, the National Directorate of Statistics and the World Bank (November 2008). 4 Table 1: Access to basic services and roads 2001 & 2007 Basic Services 2001 2007 Drinking water from an improved source 50.1 64.7 Basic Sanitation 41.2 48.5 Electricity 25.6 36.1 Nearest vehicle passable road Walking time to get there (minutes) 8.8 18.6 Accessibility during rainy season (%) 82.7 68.5 Number of times it was used last month 27.4 26.4 (Ministry of Finance and World Bank, 2007) In the transport sector, the extensive network of some 6,000 km of national and district roads is impressive and the average density is higher than other low-income countries A World Bank report (2005) notes that the density is ―almost the same as that for eight middle-income countries with GDP per capita some eight times higher.‖ However, the condition of the roads is poor and maintenance costly. In 2005, of the 1,412 km that constitute the National Road Network, over 85 percent were rated as being in poor or very poor condition (World Bank 2007). Pavements are narrow, vertical and horizontal alignments poor, and inadequate drainage increases road damage (World Bank 2005). Infrastructure has been recognized as a vehicle for improving socio-economic opportunities for the poor particularly in the agriculture, health, sanitation, and education sectors when combined with effective service delivery. In the years since independence however, socio-economic indicators in Timor-Leste have been low. Child nutrition indicators, for example, all worsened between 2003 and 2007.2 Limited access to health clinics because of both cost and geographic isolation means that more than 95 percent of poor women continue to give birth at home (TIDS 2007). Agricultural productivity is depressed as a result of poor access to input and output markets, and in the lowland areas, the deterioration of irrigation systems. 2.2 Genesis of the Report and Methodology A grant from the AusAid Infrastructure for Growth Initiative facilitated an exploration of the participatory method of infrastructure provision, taking into account the processes used and products delivered. Given the continuing infrastructure needs and the continued use of bottom-up strategies by government and non- state actors, the study sought to inform the Government‘s consideration of increased support to demand- 2 Data in Timor-Leste: Poverty in a Young Nation reports that stunting in children under two years of age increased from 49.4 percent to 53.9 percent and wasting almost doubled from 12.4 percent to 24.5 percent during this period. 5 driven infrastructure provision as well as possible Bank support to these efforts. In addition, the study sought to inform the work in which other stakeholders were engaged. The initial study concept aimed at providing guidelines for Community Driven Development (CDD) in Timor-Leste. CDD is a development methodology—widely used by the Bank—in which communities are given control over local development resources (Chase 2007). The interest in examining CDD grew out of an assumption that in the aftermath of Timor-Leste‘s first CDD project, the Community Empowerment and Local Governance Project, CDD had been adopted by other actors in the development field. This assumption proved to be wrong. A stocktake showed that a CDD-only review would yield few projects and that in order to understand the participatory dimension to infrastructure delivery the study would have to broaden its review to include methods that are broadly defined as Community Based Development (CBD). The difference between CDD and CBD is the extent of participation of target beneficiaries and the extent to which target beneficiaries control development resources. In CBD projects, target beneficiaries may be involved in prioritization of community needs, for example, but are unlikely to control financial resources. CDD places participation and resources in the hands of communities and allows for the formation (or adaptation) of village level bodies to manage and monitor all stages of the project cycle and the project resources. Taking a wider CBD perspective, the study looked at two areas. First the study reviewed past development activities that utilized participatory approaches in an effort to understand methodologies used for participatory planning, implementation, and monitoring; links between community-level planning and sectoral strategies and budgets; the range of infrastructure constructed and their quality; and technical and other constraints on implementing and maintaining infrastructure projects. 3 The review included the work of both state and non-state actors and focused on what was defined as infrastructure for growth—infrastructure that forms the foundation for economic productivity such as access roads, irrigation canals, market facilities and water systems. A total of twenty-one projects were included in the review. Second the study looked at the enabling environment for participatory approaches both at the policy and operational levels – i.e. how did/do policies support the use of participatory approaches; how did/does the day-to-day operational environment facilitate participatory approaches? This required an understanding 3 This stocktaking included projects undertaken since 1999. Projects had to include community participation at a minimum of one stage of the project cycle and had to have outputs categorized as infrastructure for growth. 6 of the governance institutions at the local level, understanding inter-communal relationships and relationships between community members and government, and examining the relationships between local community structures and higher levels of government within the context of the decentralization piloting activities. The study had its challenges and mid-stream corrections. One, already mentioned, was the shift from a review of CDD to a review of CBD projects. Other areas of study were rendered difficult due to the paucity of data and ex post project reviews; these included the review of M&E tools and an analysis of the cost-effectiveness of these methods. Much of the study therefore, relied on semi-structured interviews with project staff, government officials, community members, and representatives of NGOs and donor agencies. Because of the period of time under study and the transitional nature of work in post-conflict environments some stakeholders gave second-hand accounts as they were not present at the time of project conceptualization and implementation. Nonetheless, the review team was able to garner sufficient information to obtain a sense of the challenges and opportunities faced at the policy and operational levels. Early consultations revealed a prevailing perception that the success of infrastructure delivery using participatory methods was uneven and that sustainability of programming and outputs was unclear; that funding was mainly short-term and maintenance arrangements for infrastructure nonexistent at worst and inadequate at best.4 The study shows that while the broad outlines of those initial perceptions remain, there are further complexities once one scratches the surface. This report brings to light some of these complexities. The core of the report delves into the enabling environment at the operational and policy levels. The report then examines three aspects of participatory approaches – participation and empowerment; the state-citizen link; and technical soundness – through the lens of specific projects while pulling examples from other projects in the review. The report concludes with a set of recommendations. It is hoped that the concluding recommendations are useful and will serve as a source of discussion for the target audiences: relevant Government of Timor-Leste agencies, non-governmental actors, and other development partners. 4 Carried out in March and April 1998. 7 3. Examining the Enabling Environment for Community Based Development Community Based Development (CBD) approaches feature participation of the target beneficiaries at some point in the project cycle: needs assessment, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Participation here suggests four key features: (i) devolution of authority and resources to primary stakeholders; (ii) genuine involvement of a majority of community members (i.e. across gender and age boundaries) in decision making; (iii) two-way flow of information between resource providers and recipients; and (iv) real community contributions (in cash or in kind) to promote local ownership. Community participation can vary in strength, along a continuum which ranges from information sharing on one extreme to full community empowerment on the other (see Figure 1). At the community empowerment end, communities have full control of resources and lead monitoring and evaluation—this is referred to as Community Driven Development (CDD). CBD approaches, broadly speaking, can work well in the absence of state authority – indeed, it is often used when the state is fragile or non-existent – but it is not intended to remove or replace government from the development equation. CDD models typically combine three overlapping approaches: sectoral, local government and direct community support. Sectoral approaches are defined through functional specialization—the type of services they provide. They have been able to mobilize technical capacity, but may be unresponsive to local demand and conditions and cross-sectoral considerations. Local government approaches are organized through the institutions of territorial governance. They commonly ensure clear formal autonomy and accountability of local decision-makers but may be subject to politicization and thus may be less effective in managing service provision. Direct community support approaches are organized around social groups that, traditionally or voluntarily, make collective decisions. Their entry point through community structure and processes sometimes complicates coordination with public sector organizations and local government institutions. In this way, CDD can recognize that sound community development is a co-production of communities, local governments, and supportive sector institutions, often with collaboration from the private sector and NGOs (as sectoral service providers or in a facilitation role). 8 Figure 1: Progression of participation and community involvement Using participatory methods to provide infrastructure has been appealing in light of research which shows that community based (and community driven) development can strengthen links among all stakeholders, improve accountability, and has been cost-effective in some instances. Labonne and Chase (2008) show that participation in village assemblies, the frequency with which local officials meet with residents, and trust towards strangers increased as a result of the KALAHI-CIDDS project in the Philippines. Research in Brazil (Binswanger 2006) shows that the Rural Poverty Reduction Project has had a positive and sustainable impact on social capital, transforming it into new social and political spheres—transparent transparent mechanisms minimized political interference and elite capture. Social capital generated in communities and municipalities continues to increase even subsequent to project implementation. On costs, a three-country study (Philippines, Indonesia, Burkina Faso) showed that there were "significant unit costs savings from the community-driven development approach compared with comparable government projects not based on community driven development." In Indonesia, evidence from the Kecamatan Development Project (KDP) indicates self-implementation costs on average 56 percent less than local government contracts (World Bank 2007). In Zambia, an evaluation of its Social Investment Fund, carrying out a value-for-money audit, found that contractor-based investments cost twice as much for classrooms and more than three times as much for latrines than did the community-based approach (Dowdall, 2000). 9 To succeed however, the mechanics of these approaches require support, or an enabling environment, at two levels. First the policy environment. This is the extent to which local policies, laws, regulations and administrative practices support, reinforce or – conversely – inhibit community participation in development. An environment is considered ―enabling‖ to the degree that such regulatory practices facilitate processes whereby communities are involved and empowered as a result of their participation. Second the operational environment. This is the extent to which operational practices, technical capacity and the availability of human and financial resources favor participation in identifying and delivering infrastructure outputs that are cost-effective and sustainable by the communities in which they are built. An enabling environment can result in a range of beneficial processes and outputs. It can strengthen social capital, build or strengthen the links between the state and citizens, and increase accountability. In addition, it can result in outputs that are cost-effective and that are technically sound. The projects included in this review fall under the broad banner of community based development. Some were designed with the intention of full community control of resources while others were not. The following discussion on the enabling environment therefore, provides the context in which these activities occur, and then discusses how three elements of community-based development—the major perceived advantages—were tackled. In so doing, the report does not present an evaluation of the projects, neither does it compare projects against each other, but rather, highlights constraints and opportunities to undertaking these types of projects. 10 Figure 2. 3.1 The Regulatory and Policy Environment for Community-Based Development in Timor-Leste Timor-Leste was run under United Nations mandate for nearly three years, following the 1999 independence referendum, until popular elections were held in 2002. The UN authority in Timor, UNTAET, worked on building the basic blocks of government administration. Donor-funded and NGO activities operated in this policy vacuum as the need to fill service and infrastructure gaps was significant. It is worth noting that because of low government capacity infrastructure-related projects and services that have been delivered by NGOs (usually international NGOs, though often in partnership with Timorese counterparts) tended to use participatory methodologies. The emergence of a Timorese government in 2002 saw administrative structures come into being, most visibly with the establishment of community structures at the local level. The 2004 Law on Community Authorities entrenched suco chiefs and suco councils as a way of legitimizing community leaders and providing recognized leadership ahead of decentralization efforts.5 Suco chiefs can serve as intermediaries, mobilizers or gatekeepers. The roles of suco chiefs are broadly defined and encompass tasks such as leading activities related to maintenance of social infrastructure, roads, wells; activities 5 Timor-Leste is divided into thirteen districts, which were further subdivided into sub-districts, suco (villages) and aldeia (hamlets). 11 related to peace and social harmony; and activities related to the protection of the environment. Suco chiefs are directly elected and supported in their functions by a suco council which is composed of aldeia heads, a treasurer and representatives from women, youth and customary elders. Much of the community based development in Timor-Leste works within, and depends upon, these structures. In terms of CDD, the World Bank-financed Community Empowerment and Local Governance Project, in taking a CDD orientation, sought to contribute to the creation of policies and administrative structures that would support a community driven approach to infrastructure provision. Also in 2004, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) started the Local Development Program (LDP) which supported the emergence of an administrative structure for decentralization and local development. LDP built the capacity of district administrators to manage local development and tested different models and locations for representative decision-making. In 2008, efforts to harmonize planning were initiated by the Ministry of State Administration and Territorial Management (MSATM) in response to the multiple planning processes being utilized, sometimes in the same community. Planning guidelines were developed and it is envisioned that this process would be used as a basis for communities to look for and attract funding for priorities identified. Further changes in the policy environment are on the horizon. The 2009 draft Law on Administrative and Territorial Division foresaw the creation of municipalities to replace the Districts and serve as formal local government bodies.6 Concurrent draft regulation, the Municipal Electoral Law, saw the implementation of direct elections for a Municipal Assembly and the election of a Mayor from among the Municipal Assembly members. The municipalities are formed with essentially the same borders as the existing 13 districts but with a minimum population of 30,000 inhabitants. Suco councils are retained under the new legislation. Although their functions will be further formalized, they are still defined as a ―community organization‖ rather than a formal part of the state administration and suco chiefs will not be considered as civil servants.7 The new law on suco councils has been passed, however the GOTL has yet to pass the Law on Local 6 The laws listed here underwent public consultation in October and November 2008; information refers primarily to drafts of early 2009. 7 The new 2009 Law on ―Community Leaders and the Way They Are Elected‖ attempts to ensure broad-based representation at the community level making it obligatory to include two women (reduced from three in the previous law), as well as a youth representative and a customary leader. Suco chiefs retain a consultative and liaison role on local development and, together with suco councils will be responsible for, inter alia, drafting an annual development plan for the suco; identifying, planning and monitoring the execution of activities in the areas of health, education, environment, employment promotion and food security for the purpose of suco development; assisting government authorities to implement development activities; and, reporting to the Ministry of State Administration on the use of funds received for development purposes. 12 Government and the revised Electoral Law. Delays in passing relevant laws have resulted in a delay in holding the inaugural municipal elections (originally scheduled for early 2010). Municipal Assemblies will only be established once the Local Government Law has been passed.8 Although national ministries were mandated to develop decentralization plans in early 2009,9 there continues to be a high level of uncertainty as to how decentralization will move forward. Indeed, it is possible that it will occur after the national elections scheduled for 2012. To date, only the MSATM has undertaken any activity that could be classified as decentralized service delivery under the LDP.10 However this program has operated at a relatively small scale in terms of budget commitments. According to current plans, municipalities would not be vested with substantive revenue generating powers and very few central services are planned to be decentralized. The local government agenda however, does foresee grants being transferred to local government who could administer payments for service delivery through the annual budget process. Until decentralization plans and policies are clarified, it is difficult to accurately predict how the overall policy environment will impact the prospects of community-based development and the provision of local infrastructure. Given the primary role that suco chiefs and their councils have played in village-level development activities, the extent to which suco chiefs remain in place, how they are integrated (or not) into governance structures, and the extent to which the new decentralization regime recognizes their contribution will be critical to the continuation of community-based methodologies given the exposure many have had to such practices over the past decade. Also, the role of external actors may shift. There are indications that GoTL line agencies, in the interest of greater coordination and standardization, may be keen to reign in the many non-state actors operating in Timor-Leste who have long been involved in promoting community-based practices.11 Along with a gradually decreasing dependence on external donors for development resources, this could result in a contraction of non-state driven community-based provision of infrastructure from their historic levels. In 8 The government‘s time-table had called for a ―phased decentralization‖ – beginning with the decentralization of water supply services - once the Administrative and Electoral laws were passed and Municipal Assembly elections held. 9 In the event, not all Ministries have developed plans and some – including the Ministry of Education – have indicated they are not prepared to do so at this time. 10 The Local Development Program is further discussed in Section 4. 11 In an April 2010 interview with the director of the DNSAS (National Department of Water Supply) it was clear that – while acknowledging ongoing agency shortfalls in service delivery capacity – he believed the time was ripe for government to take greater control. This included, he foresaw, a much wider use of private sector contractors as delivery agents rather than NGOs. 13 addition, the policy environment that emerges from decentralization may or may not support community based methodologies regarding the provision of infrastructure. Much will depend on the continued role of suco councils and chiefs, the extent to which line agencies reign in external projects, and the availability of resources from government and/or external donors. 3.2 The Operational Environment for Community-Based Development in Timor-Leste The humanitarian disaster which resulted from the violence visited upon East Timor immediately after the announcement of the results of the popular consultation has been the most pressing crisis facing UNTAET. A large proportion of the population was displaced from their homes, which were systematically looted and destroyed. The majority of the private residences, public buildings and essential utilities in East Timor were destroyed and hundreds of thousands were displaced, including an estimated 250,000 who became refugees in West Timor. Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, 26 January 2000, S/2000/53. The violence and destruction wrought by the departing Indonesian army and pro-integration militias immediately following the 1999 referendum changed Timor-Leste‘s operational environment almost overnight. Infrastructure damage was significant, there were large numbers of internally displaced people,12 weak human capacity, and no central-level government institutions. Donors and international NGOs responded immediately. At the macro-level the UNTAET administration did its best to coordinate aid flows and rebuilding efforts, relying heavily on its development partners— NGOs as well as multilateral and bilateral donors—for funds, reconstruction, and service delivery particularly in rural areas. Even today, development partners retain a strong presence in Timor-Leste and are a major factor in the economy (though less of a factor in recent years given incoming oil and gas revenues). According to the Ministry of Finance‘s website, there were 364 active foreign-funded projects in 2008 funded by 38 bilateral, multilateral and United Nations partners. Foreign aid commitments extending through 2010 total US$476 million. 13 In the early years, one of the results of the absence of centralized government and the robust international engagement was that many of the NGOs were predisposed to using community based methodologies to 12 Upwards of 75 percent of the population was displaced, ―Some 200,000 persons were deported to West Timor and other areas of Indonesia. In addition, more than half a million people are believed to have fled to the remote hilly areas in East Timor.‖ 13 See http://www.mof.gov.tl/en/ae/one-stop-shop/ for complete details. 14 assist in the reconstruction effort. This enabled the widespread use14 of community-based participatory planning in villages throughout Timor-Leste.15 On the ground, the environment for delivering infrastructure was characterized by weak capacity, the unavailability of quality inputs, and weak coordination between actors as described below. Although the international presence was significant, local capacity was weak. Many Indonesians had left Timor after the referendum and many educated Timorese lived abroad leaving a low skills repository in a wide range of fields including government administration, program management, process facilitation, and basic engineering. This impacted both the implementation and maintenance of infrastructure. Since, there have been significant efforts to increase capacity, for example suco chiefs and councils have received a wide range of training, some implemented in partnership with the National Institute for Public Administration which has played a role in coordinating training programs. In addition, NGOs have embarked on in-house project-specific training activities including partnering with local NGOs. Technical inputs have historically been difficult and expensive to procure in Timor-Leste. Starting in the immediate post-conflict days, materials for construction were scarce and where available, expensive. In addition, supplies were often only available in Dili. Even recent activities have required materials to come from Dili. While this challenge is not unique to participatory projects it was likely to have been additionally challenging in projects led by non-state actors who may have had limited budgets. Government-nongovernmental coordination has varied. Small-scale interventions may have tenuous links to other efforts within the same sector while larger interventions may have a higher likelihood of linking to related projects and to government efforts. Coordination appears to have been strongest at the suco level with links to suco leaders in planning and implementation. A centralized approach continues to coexist alongside participatory infrastructure initiatives as the glaring service gaps and governments‘ limited capacity to meet them are recognized. Moves towards a higher 14 Many of the basic tenets of CDD had been introduced to Timor-Leste during the mid- to late 1990s via the Kecamatan Development Project (KDP), a World Bank-supported initiative that promoted community-managed development planning as a means of poverty reduction. 15 Community Driven Reconstruction (CDR) projects – led by the Community Empowerment Project (CEP) – were the primary modus operandi during the early post-referendum years. CDR is a variation of CDD used in emergency or immediate post- conflict situations to bridge the gap between reconstruction and development. CDR typically has two main objectives: i) the speedy and cost-effective delivery of reconstruction assistance and ii) the building or rebuilding of a governance structure that stresses local choice and accountability. It differs from CDD less in methodology than in the environment to which it must adapt. (Cliffe et al 2003) 15 level of coordination are however underway. Momentum appears to be building for the GoTL line agencies to take on more coordination in service delivery efforts. The impact that this will have on community-based NGO programming remains to be seen. 16 4. Community-Based Development in Timor-Leste: Experiences and Results Through Timor-Leste‘s transitions, the policy environment enabled community development even as the operational environment presented challenges. This section of the report provides an on-the-ground view of how community based development projects have addressed participation and empowerment, citizen links with the state, and technical soundness and sustainability. In reviewing these tenets of community based development the report focuses in-depth on the experiences of three projects—the Community Empowerment and Local Governance Project, the Local Development Project and the Community Water Supply and Sanitation Program—and pulls examples from other projects included in the review. The aim of this review is not to evaluate the projects, but rather to highlight examples of how these issues were tackled at the operational level. 17 4.1 Participation and Empowerment: The Case of the Community Empowerment Project The overarching goal of the Community Empowerment Project (CEP) was ―to strengthen local-level social capital to build institutions that reduce poverty and support inclusive patterns of growth.‖16 Social capital refers to the norms and networks that enable collective action – that is, the ability of people to work together for a communal goal. At the point of the referendum, the social fabric in Timor-Leste had been damaged after decades of oppression, colonial rule, conflict, and top-down governance. CEP included two critical policy choices - decentralization and participation – along with two key design elements: (i) the provision of resources in the form of block grants directly to the community forums so that they could plan and manage their own reconstruction priorities and (ii) the formation of democratically selected, socially inclusive and locally-based community forums – referred to within CEP as Village Development Councils (VDCs).17 It was these VDCs that were implicitly intended to help rebuild suco-level social capital. The VDCs were also intended to serve as a basic building block for a new local governance structure. They would not only ―prepare and execute village development plans that would address local needs in various sectors [but also] produce village codes of conduct and resolve disputes, manage village funds, and relay priority development needs that could not be met through local efforts to sub-districts and districts‖ (World Bank, 2006). Early reports reflect enthusiasm about the projects‘ ability to start up quickly, organize communities, and disburse funds for worthwhile infrastructure activities on a nation-wide scale. The projects‘ success was lauded, particularly in light of an exceedingly difficult operating environment: [CEP] councils represent a considerable capacity improvement in project planning and implementation, including management of funds at the village level. … As an example of community driven development project, the CEP has built participatory mechanisms for community control and stakeholder investment. It has taken specific steps to ensure social and gender inclusion. It has done so without compromising the fast delivery of funds in an emergency situation. (World Bank 2003) 16 From the original Project Appraisal Document as cited in the Project Performance Assessment Report conducted by the World Bank‘s Independent Evaluation Group (June 2006) . CEP had more concrete objectives as well: i) To strengthen the capacity of sub-districts and villages to plan and implement their development decisions and ii) to build and reconstruct basic economic infrastructure; and, iii) to support productive economic activities. 17 In the case of most CDD projects, including CEP, this includes a specific provision to involve women. These design elements are cited in Cliffe et al (2003). 18 The VDCs, however, sidestepped existing leadership systems at the village level. Village chiefs were explicitly excluded from membership on the CEP councils as were resistance networks in an attempt to ―reverse the historical tendency of accountability upwards; each layer of administration, rather than receiving instructions from higher authorities, would now be accountable downwards to a popular constituency‖ (Chopra 2002). This approach weakened existing authority holders and tried to subvert existing norms. A joint Government-Civil Society assessment (2004) noted that, Both CEP facilitators and Council members interviewed identified lack of community participation as the biggest problem facing the project. For the community, the Councils were repeatedly perceived as World Bank run, external to the community and therefore largely viewed as a source of ―easy‖ foreign money. Also discouraging community involvement was a lack of knowledge about the purpose of the project, a legacy both of the ambitious scope of the project and the pace of project implementation.18 In addition, VDCs were sometimes compromised by perceptions of elite capture, reports of misuse of funds, 19 and concerns that elections were not democratic. 20 Both internal World Bank evaluations and external independent evaluations identified a range of problems related to participation. The inability of the VDC‘s to survive is a result of three constellations of factors: Firstly, the project began too quickly without taking into proper account the socio-cultural context along with the limited social capital that was available at community, district and central levels. To be fair, pressure to deal with pressing reconstruction efforts after a crisis is usually enormous, but it appears that the assumption was made that government capacity to assume control over the program would develop over the course of CEP implementation and that the participatory methodologies would quickly foster social capital. Such was not the case. CEP‘s implementing agency expressed concern at an early stage that ―too much weight is being accorded to the speed of implementation‖.21 The speed of implementation had implications on the capacity of communities to manage development and in turn, ―[communities] saw 18 Joint Government-Civil Society Study of Development Projects, 2004 19 In a Box entitled ―Examples of Fiduciary Issues in the CEP Projects,‖ the PPAR mentions numerous examples from a variety of sources. 20 The PPAR references an internal World Bank report from October 2000. 21 From a 2001 progress report prepared by Community Aid Abroad as cited in the PPAR. 19 the project as a source of income or aid and not as an investment to manage for their own development in the future‖ (World Bank 2006). Secondly, the effort to establish a de facto parallel local governance structure to mitigate the possibility of top-down control within the community turned out to be ill-advised. The misreading of the cultural context whereby conflict resolution and political decision-making is vested in traditional and usually hereditary leaders was damaging in the long run. As an anthropological study of CEP (Ospina and Hohe 2001) concluded: ―the local community does not see [CEP Councils] as political power holders because they are also too young to have authority. Political and ritual authority are strongly connected to age.‖ It went on to note that ―council members were seen as ‗commoners‘ who cannot have political powers.‖ This left the Councils effectively orphaned within their own villages.22 The result of this effort was that the VDCs were perceived of strictly as a creation of the project and did not survive beyond it.23 Thirdly, although there were legitimate reasons to do so at the project’s onset, the decision to operate CEP, during its initial stages, outside the purview of United Nations authorities and the formerly clandestine CNRT resistance network established a pattern whereby external ownership – beyond the communities themselves – was lacking. The independent review of CEP‘s first phase noted—in a remark that now seems prescient—that, The project has not been formally integrated into the emerging governmental structures at the national level, an issue that should have been conscientiously addressed by IDA as well as GOTL at an early stage of the project. At the district level, linkages are presently being made, their operational success depending highly on the personalities involved rather than on strong ties of experienced and formalized collaboration. These circumstances imply a high risk that the facilities (mechanisms and capacities) built up at the village and sub-district level will not be brought into function beyond the project period (World Bank 2003). Although CEP managers made a conscious effort to strengthen participation at the project level and to indigenize project operations – at least in terms of hiring predominantly Timorese staff – efforts to integrate project operations with central and local governments were inadequate and frequently perceived as half-hearted. Substantial salary gaps between CEP staff and GoTL civil servants only served to 22 As a 2003 Social Appraisal report on the third Agriculture Rehabilitation Project declared after assessing the prospects of using the CEP Councils to assist in planning and implementation of the ARP: ―What is clear is that a broader role for the [Councils] beyond that of planning for administering CEP activities appears not to have been realized. Communities firmly associate them with CEP only.‖ 23 The NGO advocacy group Lao Hamutuk noted in 2002 that: ―A fundamental problem for the CEP ... is a lack of East Timorese ownership. From the village level to the national level, CEP is viewed as a World Bank project. ... Local community members view the councils as CEP councils, not their own‖ – was essentially ignored. 20 exacerbate the situation and cause more social fractures. With the benefit of hindsight, it can probably be concluded that the lack of Timorese ownership over CEP – at both government and community levels – and ultimately the challenges in failing to mobilize social capital with the project‘s design proved to be the most significant challenge for the project. Examples from other projects show that there has been regular use of suco chiefs and councils, institutions that were not formalized during CEP. For the most part, the projects reviewed as part of this study used suco councils as entry points into communities - 52 percent of the projects mention the inclusion of suco chiefs and/or councils in the project cycle. The inclusion of suco chiefs/councils in the project cycle is likely to have given projects a nod of community approval, however there is no analysis to show whether or not these links may have contributed to increasing participation of community members or increased ownership of the projects. The scant evidence on community participation in other contemporary projects shows that participation levels are good but could be stronger. Community attendance at meetings tends to vary widely depending on the nature of the project and it is reported to depend on the skills of the facilitator or the convening power of the suco chief. An Oxfam report (2003) notes that attendance levels for the Community Water Supply and Sanitation Program (CWSSP) meetings were unsatisfactory. In contrast, a recent World Bank review shows that an average of 49 percent of villagers (53 percent of men and 46 percent of women) had attended at least one community meeting during the previous year and that, at these meetings, 57 percent of participants (slightly more men than women) had voiced an opinion of some sort. The inclusion of women also varies and anecdotal reports show that it is stronger where proactive measures are taken. The LDP identified a range of reasons for the attrition of women‘s attendance, including lack of advance funds for transportation, time away from home, and lack of compensation for meeting attendance. Methods adopted by other projects to strengthen women‘s participation include training women facilitators, holding separate women‘s meetings, including quotas on the number of women for projects to proceed, and holding meetings at a time when many women can attend. 4.2 State-Citizen Links: The Case of the Local Development Program The World Bank defines public sector governance as the manner in which the state acquires and exercises its authority to provide public goods and services. In the context of good governance, the state-citizen link refers to a set of mutual obligations: (i) the means by which citizens fulfill their responsibilities in 21 enabling the state to acquire and exercise power (through, for example, voting, paying taxes and other types of civic participation) and (ii) the means by which the state respects the rights of citizens and fulfills its responsibility to provide public goods and services. A dynamic network of state-citizen links characterized by strong civic participation and mutual accountability is a prerequisite for good governance. Most emerging states face significant constraints in terms of forging strong citizen-state links. In fragile post-conflict countries the challenge is more daunting given glaring gaps in public service delivery, pressing resource limitations, and a citizenry that may be wary of interacting with the state. At independence in 2002, Timor-Leste‘s new government had been elected on the basis of democratic participation and had the advantage of widespread popular support. However, it was faced with high levels of poverty, massive destruction of infrastructure, and an overwhelming shortage of human resource capacity. Timor-Leste‘s government confirmed its intention to move toward decentralized service delivery by enshrining ―respect for the principle of decentralization of public administration‖ into Article 5 of the country‘s new constitution. This was in recognition of the desire to bring local government closer to the people so that it would be better placed to identify needs and deliver services. In 2004, the Ministry of State Administration and Territorial Management (MSATM) with the support of the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) launched a pilot initiative - the Local Development Program (LDP) – with the dual purpose of enhancing state-citizen links and field testing a decentralization programming model. LDP‘s goal from the outset was ―to establish strong, democratic and efficient local governance, by endowing accountable and strong local government bodies with greater responsibilities for planning, budgeting, implementation of infrastructure, and service delivery for the social and economic development in the country‖ (UN 2008). Piloted initially in two districts it rapidly expanded throughout the country.24 LDP experimented with different structural models with a view to creating a system and structure that would decentralize management of a funding pool for local development activities. The financial commitment to LDP increased at a similarly rapid pace with a fivefold increase over the initial three years of the program.25 More significantly, in 2006 the state budget 24 LDP expanded from the initial two pilot districts to eight districts in 2007. Two years later the program became national in scope expanding into the remaining five districts in 2009. 25 In FY2005/06, the commitment was US$388,000 in two districts. By 2008, this had increased to US$2.4 million covering 11 districts, with 100 percent of the funding coming from the state budget. 22 became the sole source of LDP funding, demonstrating a serious commitment on the part of the Government to this effort.26 Eventually settling on an operational model based on CBD practices, LDP introduced frameworks that linked priority-setting processes at the community level and mechanisms for aligning community needs with budgeting at higher levels. As it now works, suco chiefs are mandated to hold community meetings to discuss, prioritize and draft proposals for small-scale village infrastructure initiatives. Two representatives from each suco council (the suco chief and one female member, except in the rare case where the chief is female) form a Sub-District Development Committee (SDDC) to select five proposals that are then submitted to an annual District Assembly. This latter body – consisting of three representatives from each SDDC - discusses and votes on the proposals to be funded during the coming year.27 Through its design, LDP has been able to fashion a mandate for state actors in community development, to involve community members in their own development, and to strengthen both actors‘ capacity to fulfill their roles. It has further strengthened the role of suco councils as enablers of development and helped suco council members, district administrators and technical staff to develop a deeper understanding of community-based bottom up planning. That said, there are challenges to strengthening links between state and citizen.28 First, community members could be more engaged throughout the program cycle. Community members are seldom involved in the implementation, monitoring or evaluation of their projects (construction is normally tendered by local government to private contractors) which narrows the scope for community involvement and is likely to reduce the sense of ownership. Second, suco chiefs, who are the interface between communities and the state, are overburdened and could benefit from more training. Currently, suco chiefs receive training and a user-friendly manual as a resource, however it was noted in interviews that the training is not sufficient. 26 During the initial two years of LDP, the UNCDF provided funds for the community-level works, while MSATM covered the recurrent budget (between 10 and 15 percent of the operational budget). Community works were covered by the state budget beginning in fiscal year 2006 at a rate of US$2.40 per capita (exclusive of recurrent costs). This was increased to US$3.50 per capita in 2008. More detailed data is available at www.estatal.gov.tl. 27 With the change of government in 2007, the project selection model shifted from Sub-District Assemblies to District Assemblies. The SDCC is not a final decision-making body. 28 Conclusions in this section of the report are based on data collected and direct observations by the World Bank‘s Justice for the Poor Program. 23 Third, information dissemination, while adequate among civil servants in the program, is weak between government and communities. Community awareness of LDP is generally poor except in villages that have received funding for LDP infrastructure projects. Fourth, the relationship between government and citizens has not extended to allow for demand-side accountability – from the government to its citizens. This might be a consequence of the issues raised above. Villagers still have few means of voice available to them when higher levels of government or private contractors fail to provide the services to which they have committed or when they have complaints about projects. Within the community, conflicts and disputes can normally be handled by locally available mechanisms – the suco chief, suco council, traditional or religious leaders. Outside this local sphere, however, there are few means available for communities to seek accountability from non- community actors. Lastly, resources for infrastructure under LDP are limited. The money allocated for individual projects (based on an allocation of US$4 per village resident) do not adequately cover the significant infrastructure needs of most villages and in the absence of more resources or information on the program citizen expectations may be unfulfilled and trust in the ability of government to delivery may be undermined. Nonetheless, in the face of such uncertainties, LDP‘s achievements to date are impressive. The overall public perception of LDP appears to be positive. Skills such as advocacy, lobbying, negotiation and facilitation are being learned. Debate does take place and citizens feel free to voice their opinions in public forums thus building a modicum of mutual trust between citizens and the state. Improvements can and should be made but there is cautious optimism that the program can continue to serve as a model for decentralization. If momentum can be sustained, LDP represents important if still early steps in enhancing state-citizen linkages. 4.3. Technical Soundness and Sustainability: The Case of the Community Water Supply and Sanitation Program Sustainability is a critical factor in community based infrastructure initiatives and includes technical soundness at implementation and operations and maintenance after implementation. A majority of the resources allocated to the Water and Sanitation Supply (WSS) sector in Timor-Leste has come from external donor agencies. AusAID is the largest sector donor. Combined contributions from the three largest WSS funders - AusAID, the ADB and JICA - reached US$1.78 billion to water supply projects in the six years following Timor-Leste‘s independence (AusAid OED 2009). 24 Due to the perceived weak human resource and financial management capabilities of the relevant government departments and an underdeveloped private sector, the vast majority of AusAID‘s WSS development assistance during this period was channeled through NGOs. CWSSP was the first of two major post-independence AusAID projects focusing on rural water supply.29 The goal of CWSSP was ―to contribute to the improvement of health in target communities through increased access to clean water and sanitation services and increased environmental health awareness.‖ Commencing in January 2002, the program disbursed just over AUD$17 million over 4 years and 4 months on 220 WSS activities in three districts.30 CWSSP implemented project activities using participatory methods based on the Community Action Planning (CAP) methodology. During its lifespan, the project established 85 Water Management Groups and benefitted nearly 10,000 households.31 The Activity Completion Report (ACR) considered the project to be ―very successful‖ with a highly positive policy impact. The ACR noted that ―the Program has made a significant contribution to the development of policies, strategies, guidelines and reference manuals for the development and implementation of community WS&S activities in East Timor‖ and that ―the community action planning (the CAP) … developed by the Program are now well established and being used for ongoing community WS&S planning and implementation activities by CWSD [Community Water Supply Division of the National Directorate for Water and Sanitation], local government and PPs [Program Partners such as NGOs and contractors].‖ Despite positive reports, anecdotal evidence points to ongoing problems with the sustainability of the community-based user groups tasked with overseeing ongoing operations and maintenance of the systems.32 Two recent studies suggest that sustainability continues to plague the rural water supply sector in Timor-Leste including those systems constructed under CWSSP. A 2008 survey commissioned by DNSAS and conducted by OXFAM Australia found that of 134 water systems studied33 throughout Covalima District, only 39 percent were still fully functional, while 12 percent were partly functional, leaving 31 percent non-functional. (8 percent of the systems had yet to be completed.) Estimates on the functionality of water systems in Timor-Leste vary widely - from 10 percent to 70 percent - depending on 29 The successor to CWSSP is the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Program (RWSSP). It began in 2007 and is scheduled to be completed in 2012. 30 The districts were Bobonaro, Viqueque and Covalima. 31 The ACR indicates a total of 59,946 beneficiaries – a beneficiary being defined as having a water collection point within 100 meters of their house. The project also oversaw the construction of a total of 1,994 latrines (20 percent of the total households). 32 A comprehensive technical evaluation has not been conducted. 33 Not all of the sites surveyed were built under the CWSSP. The report does not provide data disaggregated by the project or contractor that built the original WSS systems. 25 the data source and the criteria used to define functionality. Evidence gathered from the field suggests that real functionality is at the lower end of this range with an independent sector review conducted by AusAID (2009) indicating that only 28 percent of the systems constructed largely under CWSSP remained fully functional less than three years after the project ended.34 The sustainability challenge seems to rest at the O&M stage. The 2008 Oxfam study shows that sustainability was facilitated by the existence of Water User Groups (WUGs). The study revealed that a higher proportion of communities with active WUGs had fully functioning systems when compared to communities where a WUG was not established or had collapsed. However maintaining WUGs are challenging in that they are not always financially sustainable and therefore may not be able to cover costs for O&M. The study also noted that ―82 percent of the systems surveyed in Covalima District were ―not financially sustainable‖. Resources are not available at the community level given high poverty levels and there is a lack of funding for routine maintenance coming from government. 35 In addition, there was limited technical assistance from DNSAS district staff. With NGOs taking a lead in providing WSS infrastructure there was a risk of delinking the service provision ―from local government [leading to] poor prospects of post-construction support and the service delivery role of local government is undermined‖ (AusAid OED 2009). This lack of support reinforced the attitude that government was unresponsive to public needs, in turn making it more difficult to raise O & M contributions from community members, which in turn decreased the sense of community ownership. In one instance, an NGO worked with Government to finance maintenance, provide spare parts, and employ a technician—in effect acting as a proxy for government. At the policy level, the government has been unable to acquire the human and financial capital necessary to develop and enforce an enabling policy regime. As identified by AusAID‘s sectoral survey, ―The main weakness of the regulatory environment is that responsibility for O & M is not well defined and therefore is open to conflicting interpretations.‖ Legislation points to the responsibility of management of water supply assets to the suco chief and council and to Water Management Groups and the relationship 36 between the two groups is not clearly defined, resulting in ongoing confusion at the community level. 34 In coming up with this 28 percent fully functional statistic, this report cites two field surveys –one carried out by OXFAM in Covalima and a similar 2007 study by Triangle Generation Humanitaire in Manatuto district. 35 The OXFAM study noted, for instance, that over 90 percent of piped systems had, at some point, been adversely affected by flooding or landslides, ―often requiring expenditure that is out of reach of community contributions‖. 36 While the Law on Community Authorities (5/2004), the new Suco Law of 2009, and the Water Services Decree (4/2004) provide responsibility for the management of water supply assets to community based-organizations, they are given to two different types of organizations—the former to the suco chief and council, and the latter to a separate Water Management Group. NDI study commissioned by RWSSP and funded by AusAID. 26 Current technical and managerial expertise within those government departments responsible for WSS is still inadequate especially at district levels and the private sector is far from filling these gaps. According to AusAID‘s sector survey, WSS activities are a low budget priority and there is invariably a lack of funds even for DNSAS‘s recurrent costs. District plans developed in 2004 are outdated while central- level strategies tend to be unrealistic in terms of the available budget. Challenges to technical soundness were also faced and met by other projects. Cruz Vermelha de Timor- Leste‘s (CVTLs) water and sanitation project ensured technical soundness at implementation by embedding a project implementation team in the community during the construction period to ensure technical quality and to facilitate community participation in construction. In other cases there were innovations to design: an IOM water supply project did not use taps in an effort to decrease maintenance requirements and a TimorAid water supply project did not install solar pump systems because of past maintenance difficulties. 27 5. Conclusions and Recommendations What emerges after an examination of efforts to enable community-based provision of infrastructure is that while there have been islands of success where infrastructure has been successfully delivered using these methods, such success has been uneven. In addition, the advantages that are envisioned in the use of these methods are still emerging. Indeed, the experiences highlighted in this report may give pause to those advocating the use of community based methods to deliver infrastructure given the significant challenges to using participatory methods to plan, implement and sustain quality infrastructure. Stepping away from this methodology however may not be a feasible option given Timor-Leste‘s geography (which makes many suco and aldeia difficult to access), the weak communications network and low contractor capacity. In this environment community based development approaches have a role to play. It should also be noted that the challenge of linking the technical and local governance dimensions is not unique to Timor-Leste, Indeed, it is a problem faced by many community-based and community driven projects. In moving forward, the question is perhaps not whether community based approaches should continue to be used (or scaled-up or adopted by government) to deliver community level infrastructure but rather, how these approaches can be used and positioned as part of a larger development toolbox so that they are effective and result in productive synergies. 28 The recommendations presented in this chapter attempt to respond to the constraints and challenges identified in the study. They are presented as recommendations for state and non-state actors alike and can be adopted piecemeal or whole. The policy recommendations are ambitious and pre-suppose a more prominent role for government. The recommendations do not call for a government led program; that said, the ingredients for such a program are already in place. The LDP has set up the structures for community planning and decision-making and sectoral level alignment and the myriad of projects led by non-state actors and the state bring key lessons to the table vis-à-vis training, information-sharing, and design. In addition, the sum of community based development work in Timor has resulted in a small cadre of community facilitators. International experience also points to methodologies and procedural sequencing from which Timor can learn. Decentralization may bring changes that impact the processes and mechanisms of community based development, however until these plans and policies are clarified it is difficult to predict what the impact will be. 5.1 Programming and Operational Recommendations 1. Develop Appropriate Technical Standards Norms, standards and simplified designs for technologically appropriate small-scale community-level infrastructure developed by line agencies can minimize the divergence in construction models using different materials and techniques and can promote the capacity of communities to maintain infrastructure. Currently there are no common technical standards for small-scale community-level infrastructure or standard practices for operations and maintenance. Having a wide array of implementing agencies has led to a range of construction models using different materials and techniques which has also left some confusion in its wake among community members. Measures to develop standards could include easy-to-understand technical drawings that could be housed at the community level to be used by community-level technicians/engineers; standard procedures (in the form of operational manuals) to guide community-level technicians/engineers in building and maintaining infrastructure; and a standard strategy/system for implementing and supervising operations and maintenance. 29 Once established, there should be a mechanism for enforcing these standards among private sector contractors and development partners as well as with sector line agencies. 2. Strengthen Capacity by Developing a Coordinated Capacity Building Effort Strengthening community based development will require a capacity building strategy that invests in both ―soft‖ skills – facilitation, management, organizational – and ―hard‖ technical skills. There is a paucity of the kind of organizational and management skills needed to provide strong facilitation for community-based development processes. In terms of infrastructure, there are weaknesses in technical skills as well. While a wide range of capacity building efforts have been carried out by an equally wide range of actors – donors, UN agencies, government, academic institutions and NGOs –given the track record of CBD projects, however, it would appear that efforts to build facilitation skills and basic technical capacity within communities have not been sufficient. A larger corps of facilitators can be trained in participatory approaches to development and soft skills such as facilitation and management. Ideally, formal training and certification courses are the desired mechanism through which this can occur. Facilitators can then be embedded in districts (or suco). Other skills that can be integrated into community based activities include: participatory needs assessment and development planning, group formation and community mobilization, procurement and financial management, planning and community project preparation, auditing, participatory monitoring and evaluation and negotiation skills. Building Human Capital at the Community Level The Kecamatan Development Program (KDP) - Indonesia Background The KDP design required engineers posted at the kecamatan (sub-district) level to provide technical support to communities. In Papua Province, there was a shortage of qualified facilitators, especially technical facilitators who provide basic engineering support. In response to this scarcity, KDP developed an educational program for approximately 200 Papuans (initially) to fill the technical facilitator positions. Recruitment The methodology for recruiting the candidate consultants was designed to involve the local communities as much as possible. An orientation was conducted for each kecamatan, wherein each village was told about the education program by a local NGO hired to facilitate the orientations. The attendees returned to their villages 30 and helped their respective villages select one or two persons as candidates from the kecamatan. Representatives of all the villages in the kecamatan screened the applicants and selected three candidates by voting, with at least one man and one woman selected. (90 percent of the candidates seemed to meet all the criteria.) Training The training is conducted at Cendrawasih University, Jayapura. The trainers have previous experience in village infrastructure programs elsewhere in Indonesia; the technical and project management parts of the curriculum were developed by the instructors with about 20 percent of the material developed by local instructors. Curriculum The curriculum emphasizes mathematics, technical drawing, materials science, structural calculations, earth science, basic hydraulic calculations, basic irrigation design, and construction management and practices. The local portion of the curriculum includes information from Papuan history, anthropology, ethnology, and sociology. A portion of the training was reserved for skills in lateral thinking, training design and delivery, facilitation, and long-term visioning. The last three weeks of the training introduces the basics of the KDP process and the duties of kecamatan facilitators. The graduates of this program will receive the equivalent of a first level diploma from the University. Post-training Consultants will be assigned back to their home kecamatans, with two or three graduates in most kecamatans, in part to make up for the size of kecamatans in Papua and partly to provide a support system for each other. Success 90 percent of the participants stayed with the program from the beginning. Technical skill gaps also need to be addressed by imparting basic competencies to district and community level technicians. Weak technical capacity has led to design flaws (a common problem with CWSSP water systems), poor technical supervision during implementation of physical works (frequently cited as an issue with irrigation schemes in the Agriculture Rehabilitation Project37) and inadequate maintenance once the infrastructure has been completed. Technical skills can be bolstered by training community members to carry out basic maintenance tasks or by training a district-level maintenance crew that would be on call to maintain and repair malfunctioning infrastructure. 3. Strengthen Participation and Promote Social Capital Inclusion of different perspectives on needs, design, and implementation is important in development planning and implementation to ensure that infrastructure is relevant and meets the needs of the community. 37 World Bank financed. 31 Although levels of participation at community meetings are generally adequate and opinions freely voiced, evidence suggests that decision-making remains primarily in the hands of men, notably with suco chiefs and customary leaders. Women are still largely relegated to a support role. In the water supply sector, for instance, AusAID‘s sectoral survey (2009) concluded that, although women bear the burden of meeting the family‘s water and sanitation needs, ―Traditional gender attitudes tend to dominate and impede opportunities for women to participate in building, maintenance and leadership roles.‖ A World Bank (2007) report on youth also suggests that youth have similarly expressed their frustration at being marginalized in decision-making processes – and that such resentment has been at least a factor in the social conflict that has hampered Timor-Leste‘s development. Bringing in the voice and perspectives of women, youth, and other groups that may be at risk of marginalization can be done in various ways including: strengthening women‘s voice in planning and design,38 building leadership capacity for women, 39 increasing opportunities for youth to engage in participatory planning, design and implementation,40and integrating traditional leaders into planning and implementation processes especially in projects involving natural resource management where traditional leaders have a well-established role as keepers and overseers. Some of these efforts are underway or have been undertaken in the past and may require strengthening or replication. 4. Facilitate Information Flows Ensuring information flows on project objectives, components, target population, and/or financial details promotes accountability, mediates expectations, and prepares citizens to be active participants in projects. In almost all of the projects examined for this study, information flows downward to communities is somehow restricted. This is due to both inadequate communication mechanisms and infrastructure and bottlenecks resulting from customary power relations and authority structures. 38 Participatory planning tools have developed models for integrating women‘s voice, either by having ear-marked funds for women‘s activities or by holding separate women‘s meetings. 39 Training is currently being provided to women who are elected or nominated into positions of leadership by UNIFEM as well as some international NGOs . Prior to the suco elections in 2004 and 2005, UNIFEM provided training to women leaders to encourage their candidacy. Of 1,265 women who participated in the training, more than half stood for election with 365 being elected. Ongoing training and support is needed as the new electoral cycle begins to encourage women candidates in both suco councils and municipal assemblies. 40 These efforts have already begun with the World Bank funded Youth Development Project which has established a mechanism to distribute small grants to youth in rural suco and aldeia. 32 While public signboards with project financing information is not uncommon, detailed information on project goals and objectives, target beneficiaries, etc. are not yet can be transmitted through a variety of media such as community radio, church gatherings, and street theater. Media may differ by region depending on literacy rates, languages spoken, population density, and internal community dynamics. An assessment of which forms are appropriate given the population and the socio-cultural context is important as is the consideration of accessibility differences for groups such as women and youth or the elderly within target populations. Information dissemination is critical during the project preparation stage but also during project implementation. Communication and Development Burkina Faso In Poni province, a local radio station (Radio Gaoua) gives daily information on an ongoing AIDS program, and in so doing it has greatly improved HIV/AIDS awareness. Radio Gaoua is also used to convene meetings in an area where mail and telephones are weak. Malawi The Malawi Social Action Fund designed a strategy that communicates messages to all stakeholders throughout the community-project cycle by using radio plays and television dramas. Messages are also broadcast explaining the importance of principles such as accountability and transparency, and offering instruction on specific technical issues such as procurement and contracting. Local radio is also effective. Announcements which give daily information on ongoing programs are accessible to both literate and illiterate listeners. Sri Lanka Sri Lanka’s community radio has a panel of resource-persons whom listeners can phone in for a wide range of information and answers to problems. 33 5. Promote Social Accountability Social accountability provides mechanisms for community members to hold government and nongovernmental actors to account for activities within their communities. In addition, it provides channels through which they can voice concerns. The large-scale absence of so-called ―demand side‖ accountability – such as grievance mechanisms or community-based expenditure tracking – tends to both weaken the sense of community ownership that is critical to the CBD approach and serve as a disincentive to community-led operations and maintenance. External players – the media and civil society watchdog groups – do not typically have sufficient reach to play this role effectively in Timor-Leste. Social accountability can be strengthened through a variety of means. Project designers can incorporate clear, accessible, equitable and culturally appropriate grievance mechanisms into projects. These mechanisms should include ongoing and transparent monitoring of complaints, relevant follow-up action, and feedback to communities. Participatory, community-based monitoring and evaluation can be integrated into projects. Tools such as community score cards—which evaluate both tangible (such as technical quality) and intangible (such as access to information) aspects of projects— can be valuable both as a means of creating a useful feedback loop and of enhancing empowerment within communities. External monitoring by civil society and the media can also be supported. These actors have a legitimate watchdog role to play in monitoring the implementation of community based projects and bringing shortfalls to the attention of government and the public.41 Activities could include procurement monitoring, technical quality oversight, assessment of grievance mechanisms and expenditure tracking. 41 A local NGO, Luta Hamutuk, founded in 2005, has conducted groundbreaking work on civil society-based monitoring of local infrastructure in recent years. Through a network of youth volunteers operating in most districts, they monitor government expenditures, particularly funds used to implement public works built by private contractors, disseminating their findings through the media and to Timor-Leste‘s government-appointed ombudsman. 34 5.2 Policy recommendations 1. Improve Coordination with Sectoral Line Agencies to Facilitate Technical Assistance Suco-level infrastructure can be orphaned if they do not receive adequate technical assistance during design, implementation, operations and maintenance. Coordination can be improved if there is regularized communications and coordination between the MSATM and sectoral agencies. Relevant sectoral agencies – for example, Ministries of Transport, Infrastructure, Agriculture, and the Directorate for Water and Sanitation Services – need to be made aware of community-level infrastructure efforts as well as be involved in district-level planning for the provision of infrastructure. Sectoral agencies could also define and differentiate their role and the role of communities and provide resources to back up those roles. This role definition is important in clarifying responsibilities and promoting accountability. To date roles (regarding operations and maintenance, between communities and line ministries), resource allocations, and fundraising responsibilities have not been clear. Over time, a budgeting mechanism that allows for a reasonable allocation of funding – ideally channeled through municipal budget streams - to cover anticipated O & M costs for community infrastructure by sector line agencies could be established. 2. Identify a Lead Agency to Implement a National Policy on Community Development Coordinated development efforts ensure that activities by the state and non-state actors are in line with government policy and local community development priorities. In the absence of a clear policy, development partners – donors and NGOs - continue to operate largely independently from GoTL agencies, pursuing CBD initiatives that risk being unsustainable because of a lack of government support or awareness. There is no widely accepted model of how the GoTL intends to pursue community development – so far LDP is the only government-supported project on the ground. The dispersed approach may prove to be a hindrance to both state-building and sustainable poverty reduction and hampers momentum towards the establishment of a consolidated policy on community-based development. 35 Establishing a lead agency will improve coordination with development partners and ensure their activities are in line with government policy and local community development priorities. In the medium-term, legislation could be put in place to facilitate and support community management of resources and assets to facilitate more robust participation through the project implementation cycle. Support to local-level financial institutions (or exploring alternative systems such as mobile banking) can aid in facilitating resource management by communities. In addition, procurement legislation could be updated to allow communities to procure materials with public funds. 3. Establish a Mechanism for Streamlined Funding of Community Development Government community based initiatives should be adequately and predictably resourced. To date, there is no fiscal policy that would ensure a coordinated flow of funds from the center to districts (or municipalities) or from districts to suco. Developing a mechanism by which government-led community development programming is financed through a harmonized single source—the State Budget—with simple, transparent procedures for disbursement would simplify financing for government-led programs and allow development partners to finance programs through general budget support or through specific budget/sectoral contributions, following the same procedures. As mentioned earlier, community based development has a role to play in Timor-Leste. The challenge facing the Timorese and their development partners is how to strengthen the existing use of approaches in an effort to ensure that infrastructure delivered using these methods are a result of full community participation, are aligned with overall development needs, and most importantly, meet the needs of the communities they are meant to serve. 36 References ________. 2007. ―Economic Results of CDD Programs: Evidence from Burkina Faso, Indonesia and the Philippines.‖ Social Development Notes No. 109, World Bank, Washington, DC. ________. 2008. ―In Our Own Hands: Local Development Programme makes progress in Timor-Leste.‖ Democratic Governance Support Unit, UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste. ________. 2008. ―Covalima District Rural Water Supply Management Study‖ Oxfam Australia. ________. 2009. ―Independent Evaluation of Australian Aid to the Water Supply and Sanitation Service Delivery in East Timor and Indonesia‖ AusAID Office of Development Effectiveness. ________. 2009. AusAID Office of Development Effectiveness. ________. 2010. ―Articulations of Local Governance in Timor-Leste: Lessons for Decentralization.‖ Draft Policy Note. Justice for the Poor Program, World Bank. Binswanger, Hans. 2006. Rural Poverty Reduction in Northeast Brazil Evluation, 1993 – 2005. Chase, Robert. 2007. ―Enabling East Asian Communities to Drive Local Development: East Asia Region CDD Flagship Report.‖ World Bank, Washington, DC. Chopra, J. 2002. ―Building State Failure in East Timor.‖ Development and Change, Vol. 33, Nov. 2002, pp. 979-1000. Cliffe, Sarah, Scott Guggenheim, and Markus Kostner. 2003. ―Community-Driven Reconstruction as an Instrument in War-to-Peace Transitions‖ CPR Working Paper No. 7, World Bank, Washington, DC. Dowdall, L. (2000). Zambia Primary School Study: Final Report. Background paper for the Social Funds Evaluation Study. Consultant Report. Government of Timor-Leste Ministry of Finance, 2005. Interim Statistical Abstract: Timor-Leste Survey of Living Standards. Independent Review, Community Empowerment and Local Governance Project, draft report (November 2003). Labonne, Julien and Robert Chase. 2008. ―Do Community Driven Development Projects Enhance Social Capital? Evidence from the Philippines.‖ World Bank, Washington, DC. Lao Hamutuk, Bulletin, October 2002 Ospina Sofi and Tanja Hohe. 2001. ―Traditional Power Structures and the Community Empowerment and Local Government Project.‖ Final Report. 37 Rolling Think Tank Initiative, 2004. Lessons Learned: The Community Empowerment and Local Governance Project (CEP). The Rolling Think Tank Initiative: Joint Government-Civil Society Study of Development Projects, Dili Timor Institute of Development Studies (TIDS), 2007. Baseline Study on Feminization of Poverty in Timor�Leste – Deprivation of Women across Sectors. SEPI, UNDP, EU and UNIFEM: Dili. UNHCR. 2000. ―The Timor Situation in Short.‖ http://www.unhcr.org/cgi- bin/texis/vtx/search?page=search&docid=3e2ebc230&query=IDPs%20timor%20leste%202000 World Bank, 2005. Timor-Leste Country Assistance Strategy. Washington, DC. World Bank, 2005. Timor-Leste Transport Review: Outline of Priorities and Proposed Sector Investment Program. Washington, DC. World Bank 2006. Project Performance Assessment Report for CEP and ARP, by Independent Evaluation Group. World Bank, 2007. Timor-Leste – Youth in Crisis: Situation Analysis and Policy Options. Washington, DC. World Bank, 2007. Timor-Leste: Economic and Social Development Brief. Washington, DC. 38 ANNEX I: Stocktaking Summary Stock taking Review Of Projects With Participatory Elements42 43 Participatory Planning Control of Involvement in Community M&E Sector & Design Resources Implementation Aguas de WSS X X Portugal AMCAP RD X X ARP III Ag X X X CARE Inf X X RD, CEP X X X LG Concern DRR, X X X Worldwide RD CVTL WSS X X CWSSP WSS X X GTZ RD X X X X Haburas RD X X X IOM WSS X X LG, LDP X X Inf Ministry of Economy & RD X X Development OCAP RD X X PADRTL Ag X X Plan International WSS X X Timor-Leste Timor AID WSS X X Water Aid WSS X X Triangle WSS X X UNDESA RD X X UNICEF WSS X X 42 All project are community focused and involved community member participation in some way. 43 Ag=Agriculture; DM=Disaster Management; Inf=Infrastructure; LG=Local Governance; RD=Rural Development; WSS=Water Supply & Sanitation 39 Stocktaking Project Summaries Aguas de Portugal (ADP) – Water catchment and distribution in Atauro44 Cost of Project: 1 million Euro Funding: Portuguese Agency for International Development (IPAD) Scope of Project: 1 district, 1 sub-district, 3 villages Number of Beneficiaries: 6,000 Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: land Physical: water supply system Implementing entity: materials and labor Community capacity: planning Government: local materials Planning: Planning occurred at all levels with the village, sub-village, village council and local CBO‘s. ADP and the sub-district administrator facilitated the planning process with participation from all groups from the villages. There were three meetings with everyone for broader planning and one per village as necessary. The methodology for the planning process was open discussion. The planning process itself or its results were not documented. Implementation: ADP was responsible for all aspects of implementation, with DNSAS engaged in monitoring and responsible for ongoing maintenance. The community participated through paid labor. Monitoring: ADP and DNSAS monitored the project through field visits. There is no MIS, and the DNSAS financed and conducted an evaluation of the implementation. The monthly financial reports and invoices were approved by the responsible Minister prior to submission to the donor. Operations and Maintenance: The community and DNSAS maintain the system. DNSAS finance the maintenance. DNSAS provide spare parts, sourced through the sub-district administration. (1-2 weeks) DNSAS also employ a technician who is based on Atauro to manage the maintenance of the mainline. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: The line ministry conducted the evaluation of the program. Local government (district/sub-district) supported with facilitation, transport and planning. Community authorities supported the planning process and conflict resolution. Gender: Women attended meetings and contributed to discussion and decision-making. Women‘s engagement was enhanced through direct contact with them, raising relevant issues, as women are the direct users of the water taps. Sustainability: 100 percent of the infrastructure is still functioning and ADP anticipates that 100 percent will still be functioning in three years. Knowing who is in charge of the system would improve the chances of sustainability of the infrastructure. Key Lesson Learnt  The employment of a technician by DNSAS to maintain the system is a key to sustainability. 44 Information from interview with Ricardo Costa Pereira, Adviser (MM). 40 AMCAP - Ainaro & Manatuto Community Activation Project (UNOPS)45 Cost of Project: $5,081,683 Funding: UNDP (EU - RDP) Scope of Project: 2 districts, 7 sub-districts, 37 suco Number of Beneficiaries: 11,895 families; 63,714 persons. (Total population – estimated 80 percent participation by the end of the project) Development Objective: To increase food security and incomes of poor households in Ainaro and Manatuto Districts on an environmentally sustainable basis, using community-focused participatory methodologies. Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Implementing entity: financial support, Physical: irrigation rehabilitation, community technical support, local NGO facilitation training centre (Ainaro), Catchment support Management Plans, Training of govt. and NGO staff Community capacity: health care, PRA Planning: Utilizing PRA methodology. Implementation: UNOPS project staff with NGO partners. ETADEP was proposed as the implementing partner in Manatuto. Community has village facilitators. Monitoring: Project Steering Committee – national level line ministries; UNOPS; Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Proposal developed during UNTAET administration; High level links with line ministries through Project Steering Committee; training proposed for district/sub-district civil servants. Gender: Recognizes women‘s role in household activities and small-scale income generation. Will contribute to women‘s empowerment. Recruitment and training of women facilitators, 45 All information from AMCAP Project Proposal document, 2002. 41 3rd Agriculture Rehabilitation Project46 Cost of Project: $11.4 million Funding: TFET, European Commission, GoTL Scope of Project: National The objective of ARP was to strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and its development partners to assist rural communities to increase their agriculture production and income in a sustainable way. It consisted of four components: 1. Participatory Development and Natural Resources Management 2. Irrigation rehabilitation and Management 3. Services to Farmers 4. Program Management Component 1 and Activity 2.3 Capacity Building and Water User Associations‘ support have particular relevance to this study. Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: labor, land Physical: irrigation infrastructure, inputs for Government: financial support, technical, productive activities management Community capacity: technical Planning: Community decided priorities for use of Community Development Fund and managed disbursement and implementation. Implementation: Government contracted major irrigation construction and rehabilitation works to contractors. Ministry of Agriculture was the implementing agency. Monitoring: Government monitoring from district and national levels. Operations and Maintenance: Formation of Water User Associations to maintain the irrigation infrastructure. Ongoing O&M costs of infrastructure were to be included in ongoing government budgets. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Government (MAFF) was the executing agency. Gender: Women are under-represented as members of WUA‘s and while their role in rice production is recognized, it is traditionally the men who represent the family in meetings about irrigation matters. Sustainability: Support and capacity building for Water User Associations combined with government budget for O&M were expected to support sustainability. The project design also proposed not paying labor costs to implement activities that communities are expected to maintain on their own once the project ceases. 46 Agriculture Rehabilitation Project III, Project Appraisal Document, 2004. 42 Key Lessons Learnt  Direct grant assistance to communities for irrigation rehabilitation was well-received and helped foster co-ownership.  Assistance to physically rehabilitate irrigation schemes alone is not sufficient to raise yields, ongoing support to WUA and extension support to farmers is also necessary. 43 Australia-East Timor Community Water Supply and Sanitation Program (CWSSP)47 Cost of Project: $18,306,734 (Jan 2002- April 2006) Funding: AusAID Scope of Project: 3 districts, all sub-districts, Number of Beneficiaries: Water supply-9,991 households; sanitation - 1,994 households. Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: land, labor, local materials Physical: water supply, sanitation Implementing entity: financial support, Community capacity: planning, managing work technical support, local NGO facilitation groups, technical skills, govt. and NGO service support delivery capacity Government: coordination, monitoring, support to planning process Planning: Over the life of the program, CWSSP developed a Community Action Planning process for community water supply implementation. Initially based on the Methodology for Participative Assessment (MPA), CAP was adapted to the Timorese context and utilized a methodology of community meetings with discussion and PRA tools to facilitate participative decision-making at community level around water supply infrastructure. Local NGO implementing partners were trained in the process and contributed to its development during the project. Implementation: Implementation was managed by the NGO partner in the community. Communities all provided voluntary labor for construction and the organization of the work groups was usually coordinated by suco and aldeia leaders. Monitoring: CWSSP staff and the district- based Community Water Supply Officer (SAS); Six-monthly monitoring with national government officials and AusAID. Operations and Maintenance: Facilitated by the NGO implementer, the community elects a Water Management Group (GMF) and decides upon a system of monetary contribution for the maintenance costs. In the majority of communities the system is not sustainable. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: CWSSP worked closely with national and district SAS, being co-located in their offices, and supporting the staff responsible for community water supply delivery (1 person per district). CWSSP supported the development of policy and guidelines for both the technical and social aspects of RWSS implementation. Implementation priorities were decided on the basis of a district RWSS plan that district and sub-district administrations were involved in developing. CDO‘s often participated in some of the socialization meetings. Gender: Gender was mainstreamed in all training of NGO implementing partners and they were strongly encouraged to ensure gender equality in opportunities for participation in planning and implementation. The extent to which this occurred depended on the partner staff, level of support/monitoring from CWSSP and the community. It was a challenge to achieve reasonable levels of women‘s participation in community meetings. In 2006, CWSSP published a Gender Case Study that reviewed the participation of women in all phases of the project cycle. 47 Information from Activity Completion Report 2006, Consultant knowledge of project (Training Adviser, 2003; Social Devt Coordinator 2004-2006). 44 Sustainability: Of 15 gravity fed piped systems constructed under CWSSP that were identifiable in the Covalima Water Supply Management Report), 10 were fully functional (67 percent), only two were partly functional and two were classified as non-functioning. Key Lessons Learnt  Despite considerable investment in socially focused training of NGO facilitators, community ownership leading to sustainable community management of the water supply systems was difficult to achieve.  Despite support to the GMF in the period following construction, they require ongoing technical and social back-up from local level government in order to sustainably manage the water supply system. 45 CARE – Road Sector Improvement Project (ADB Grant No: 0017-TIM)48 Cost of Project: USD 560,000 Funding: Asian Development Bank Scope of Project: 1 district, 2 sub-districts, 2 villages Number of Beneficiaries: 44 (receiving income) Care was contracted to implement the Community Empowerment Initiatives Component of the above project, the purpose of which is ―to strengthen the capacity of rural communities to respond to the risks and opportunities associated with increased connectivity to the national roads.‖ It is a 23 month pilot project addressing community empowerment and rural infrastructure development. Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: land, paid labor, local Physical: local roads, markets materials Community capacity: proposal development, Implementing entity: financial support managing community work groups, health and hygiene education, income generation – self-help groups, business management training Planning: Planning occurred at all levels with the village, sub-village, village council and local CBO‘s. The community participated in the planning process. Discussion, workshops and seminars were the key planning methodologies. The planning process is documented. Implementation: CARE was responsible for the management of implementation, technical support and managing the finances. The community participated through paid labor (44 work group members) and the supply of local materials. The ADB PMU monitored implementation. Monitoring: The ADB PMU within the Ministry of Public Works monitored implementation and use of financial resources. Operations and Maintenance: There are no plans for ongoing maintenance. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: There is a Steering Committee for the overall project within the Ministry of Public Works. No information given about the projects links with local government or the Ministry of Infrastructure. It is noted that the District and Sub-district assemblies meet regularly and complement activities and coordination, though the direct relationship with the project is not described. Gender: Women attended meetings and contributed to discussion and decision-making and were involved in physical implementation. A quota of 6 out of 10 workers had to be women ensured their participation. A gender equality assessment and training was conducted in April 2008. Some observed impacts of the training include: - Women became more outspoken in the workplace about expressing interest to take on more difficult tasks which were previously mainly done by men - Better balance between wife and husband over financial control and decision making 48 Interview with Jean Everett, Road Project Manager Project Proposal Document (2007) and Progress Report March-June 2008. 46 - Husbands of female crew members who were exposed to some of the information communicated during the gender training started demonstrating more support to their wives, such as bringing them lunch on the construction site etc. Sustainability: 100 percent of the infrastructure is still functioning and CARE anticipates that 50 percent will still be functioning in three years. An annual maintenance program would help to ensure sustainability. 47 Community Empowerment and Local Governance Project Cost of Project: USD 8.4 million in community infrastructure grants. Funding: TFET/CFET Scope of Project: National (13 districts; 63 sub-districts; 442 suco; 2600 aldeia) Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: labor, local materials (in second Physical: community infrastructure in all phase 32 percent of project value was local suco contribution) Capacity: project/ financial management, Implementing entity: financial support, planning; proposal development technical support, facilitators, administrative structure Planning: Participatory processes where priorities are identified at the aldeia level and priorities rose to suco meetings. These decided which projects would be prepared with technical proposals submitted to the sub-district councils for verification. Implementation: Tranches of funds (50/40/10 percent) were transferred to the suco council as construction progressed and previous tranches acquitted. Delays were common. Monitoring: Monitoring was by CEP structures as well as sub-district technical verification teams appointed by the sub-district councils. Operations and Maintenance: O&M groups were formed in the communities. (166 for WSS), though by the November 2003 review many water systems were showing signs of lack of maintenance and repair of broken taps and pipes. The same review made the observation that irrigation systems are repaired quickly as this is perceived as important for the agricultural production. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: There was no government in place at the local level for the first year of CEP operation. Once the district and sub-district levels emerged through UNTAET and GoTL many opportunities for coordination and linkage were lost. The relationships between CEP and local government depended on the personalities involved. Gender: UNTAET decreed 50 percent quota on number of women as council members and one woman and one man represent the suco at the sub-district council meetings. Women‘s participation rates dropped off more than the men‘s, perhaps because of traditional attitudes limiting women‘s public role in the community. A successful strategy to support women council members was to hold pre- council meetings with the women only, to give them the opportunity to consider issues that would arise and articulate their responses, so that they would be more confident expressing themselves in the broader meeting. Sustainability: Depended on the type of infrastructure. Buildings require little maintenance and some community buildings are still viable public spaces. Irrigation systems were quickly repaired when there were maintenance issues. Water supply management committees were formed but were largely not operating.49 Quality of design and construction varied depending on the skills of the facilitator. Cheap materials were bought, often compromising the quality of the system. 49 CEP Independent Review, Draft report 2003. 48 Key Lessons Learnt  The most important factor in the success of the community councils and development projects was the leadership abilities of the council leader. In places where he was able to motivate the community members and work with them, levels of participation remained high.50  Suco Councils require a lot of training and support over a long timeframe to develop capacities that enable them to facilitate and manage suco level development.  Quota system for women‘s representation was effective, though greater training and support is required to overcome traditional attitudes and maintain the levels of women‘s involvement.  Complaint mechanisms need to be clear and include downward communication back to the complainant as to the action take as a result of their complaint.  Traditional leaders need to be engaged by the ‗democratically‘ elected councils to support local development.  CDD projects such as CEP need to be integrated into government structures. Even though there was no government structure when CEP began, it remained a separate entity without clear institutional links to government once those structures were established. 50 Ibid. 49 Concern Worldwide – CADRE project51 Cost of Project: 280,000 Euro Funding: European Commission Scope of Project: 1 districts, 3 sub-districts, 16 suco, 61 aldeia Number of Beneficiaries: 15,903 Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: land, voluntary labor Physical: flood reduction barriers, irrigation Implementing entity: financial support, rehabilitation technical support, local NGO partner Community capacity: technical agricultural, facilitation support managing work groups Planning: An extensive PRA analysis (17 tools) and integrated community planning process (ICAP) was facilitated with the community. Initial planning with the suco council who are supported by NGO partner and Concern staff to facilitate the PRA tools with the groups within the community. These results are brought together at the suco level and the suco council and other groups developing the ICAP for the suco. The plan is held by the community. Implementation: Concern form a Disaster Risk Reduction committee at the suco level and they manage the implementation. Concern provide materials and the DRR Committee organize the implementation – work groups etc. Monitoring: NGO partner and Concern. Concern had set up Community Monitoring Groups at inception of the program, however they were not active. Since July 2008, they have been providing additional training and support to these groups so as to encourage more active community monitoring of the Concern program. Operations and Maintenance: The community is responsible for maintaining the infrastructure. Ongoing support from Concern and local NGO partners because the infrastructure is part of an ongoing integrated program. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: There are strong links with government at all levels. Concern is closely linked with the Ministry of Agriculture, National Disaster Management Department (NDMD) for these programs. The NDMO has promoted the ICAP as its preferred method of community planning for disaster risk reduction, and its National Disaster Risk Reduction policy includes the formation of Disaster Management Committees at the suco level. Concern has developed strong relationships with District and Sub-district administration in both Lautem and Manufahi. Gender: Women‘s participation is low, and is influenced by traditional roles, lower education and priorities at home related to income and subsistence. Sustainability: 100 percent of the infrastructure is still functioning and expected to be functioning in three years. High level of ownership among the DMC compared with other similar infrastructure that had been implemented by government through contractors, both line ministry and LDP projects. 51 Interviews with Marie-Ann Merza, Tapan Berman, Clare Danby and Peter Agnew. Project document: CADRE Final report to EC, 2008. 50 Key Lessons Learnt  Initially community planning was focused on planning for Disaster Risk Reduction Activities. Integration of the DRR with broader Food Security programming has created a single community planning platform, the ICAP that has been endorsed by NDMD.  Planning done at the suco level limits full participation of community members from all aldeia. Community participation is also limited by household economic pressures and non-availability due to observance of local customs and rituals.  Concern has procured laminating machines that will allow for all flipchart paper PRA tool results and ICAP to be laminated and kept by SDMC‘s at suco level. It will be useful for monitoring progress against activities but also in monitoring social development against PRA tool results. It is considered that the ―holding‖ of these resources within the community is critical for ownership and sustainable mobilization as well as important for visitors from other organizations who meet with suco council and SDMC in order to align responses to community defined needs.  There is no formal forum for development planning. Villages must advocate for the inclusion of their development priorities through presentation of plans and follow-up at the district and national levels. 51 CVTL52 Funding: International RC/RC Movement (IFRC, Austrian, Spanish, Australian RC) Scope of Project: 7 districts Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: voluntary labor, land Physical: water supply systems, household Implementing entity: financial support, latrines technical support Community capacity: hygiene education, Government: coordination managing work groups, financial management Planning: CVTL utilizes the CAP process through 4-5 community meetings in the aldeia. The Action Plan produced remains with the community. Implementation: The CVTL water and sanitation team lives in the community during the construction period, coordinating the physical work with the community leaders. CVTL considers the investment in intensive technical input to construction as essential to the production of high quality physical outputs Monitoring: CVTL technical staff from Dili monitor implementation. Regular donor monitoring depends on the individual donor. Operations and Maintenance: GMF formed during the planning process. They are responsible for ongoing maintenance. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Coordinate with national government SAS through monthly DNSAS meetings and Sanitation Working Group. Many district and sub-district level officials are board members of CVTL in the districts. Gender: Women have to be represented on the GMF and sometimes there are separate meetings with women. Sustainability: High technical quality of water supplies. Potential exists for back up support for maintenance from CVTL district offices. Key Lessons Learnt  Technical staff living in the community during construction ensures technical quality as well as facilitate community participation in the physical construction work. 52 Interview with Cornelio de Deus, September 2008. 52 GTZ Food Security Program (FSP) and Rural Development Program II53 Funding: European Commission and GTZ Scope of Project: 4 districts – Baucau, Viqueque, Covalima and Bobonaro Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: labor, local materials (>10 Physical: small-scale infrastructure – roads, percent of project cost) water supply, irrigation, roads Implementing entity: financial support, Community capacity: suco councils – technical support, training and mentoring planning, leadership, project management, Government: coordination work groups – technical skills Planning and Implementation: Seven Step planning and implementation process that includes both technical and social capacity building of suco council and community work groups. 1. Identify communities to be supported 2. Identify the infrastructure needs in the target areas 3. Screening of the community‘s readiness to engage through socialization 4. Detailed technical and organizational needs assessment 5. Carry out capacity building support 6. Mid-term evaluations and focus 7. Support village council members to participate in activities beyond the rehabilitation works. Suco council receive capacity building and support to manage the process. The suco council manages procurement and management of financial resources for the implementation of the project. Monitoring: The suco council regularly monitors the implementation and in periodic evaluation with the GTZ technicians identify and resolve issues affecting implementation. Considerable time commitment explaining technical needs and standards to the community so that they understand requirements prior to implementation. Operations and Maintenance: GTZ facilitates links with relevant technical government department. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Close coordination with MED and MAF at National level. District and sub- district administrations are engaged in identifying target villages, infrastructure needs and supporting community development and capacity building. The Business Development Centres established by MED provide management training for suco councils. Sustainability: Technical sustainability likely due to improved quality of construction and technical training of work group leaders and village leaders. Institutional sustainability enhanced through capacity building of village council and participation by district and sub-district officials. 53 Interview with Brigitte Podborny-Sugiono. Project Information Sheets, Practitioners Guide: Strengthening Civil Society Organizations in Good Governance Processes. 53 Key Lessons Learnt  Technical quality of infrastructure is higher when suco council capacity building is implemented in conjunction with construction project. There is greater local ownership and responsibility for the physical output, which along with increased management skills will improve likelihood of sustainability.  Institutional sustainability likely due to the high level of engagement of local government and the capacity building of village councils.  Assumption that government technical departments will provide backup support to maintenance.  GTZ technicians initially provide quite intensive support to suco council, gradually giving them more control and assuming a more conventional monitoring role. 54 Haburas – Eco Tourism Tutuala54 Cost of Project: 350,000 Euro Funding: IPAD/CIDAC/EU Scope of Project: 1 district, 1 sub-district, 1 village Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: land, paid labor, local materials Physical: eco-lodge Implementing entity: financial support Community capacity: planning, proposal development, managing community work groups, financial management Planning: A large planning process was conducted with the suco, with a key product being a suco development plan (a 5 year strategic plan). As well as residents, non-resident members of the suco were also invited to participate. The eco-tourism project planning occurred with those involved in the project under the auspices of the overall suco strategic plan. As land use and the natural environment is key to the project the traditional leaders and landowners were heavily involved in discussions and negotiations which took two years. Implementation: A cooperative was formed (not yet legalized) and work groups within the cooperative established. Each work group had responsibility for managing the construction of one of the buildings of the eco-lodge. Training was given to cooperative members in traditional construction and furniture making with local materials such as palm and bamboo. Monitoring: Haburas and CIDAC monitored implementation of the project. Operations and Maintenance: The cooperative is managing the eco-lodge. Rotating groups work at the Lodge under direction of the manager / leader of the cooperative. Payment is made to cooperative members on a quarterly basis. The manager described a percent of funds held for maintenance, though how this is done was not clear. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Coordination with the Ministry of Environment around the establishment of the national park. Gender: The project is led by women. The coordinator of the cooperative is a woman, as are the majority of members. Sustainability: Haburas anticipate that the project will be 100 percent functioning in three years. A lot will depend on the group dynamics and level of satisfaction of the cooperative members with the profit share arrangements/levels. The eco-lodge is constructed with local materials – regular maintenance will be essential, though not expensive. Key Lessons Learnt  Planning must be conducted at the pace of the community with time allowed for the resolution of conflicts as they arise.  Suco members who are not resident can have significant contribution to suco development planning. 54 Interview with Pedro, Project Manager, Cristina Guerreiro, Director CIDAC, Dimitri, Director Haburas, Sra. Angelina, Cooperative Coordinator. 55 International Organisation of Migration (IOM)55 Cost of Project: 3 million Euros Funding: European Union (EU) Scope of Project: 3 districts, all sub-districts in first phase (2 projects in each), 2 sub-districts per district in the second. Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: land, labor Physical: water supply, sanitation Implementing entity: financial support, Community capacity: planning, managing technical support, capacity building community work groups, laws and Government: socialization by CDO, training regulations, project management for the community Planning: Planning was conducted at the suco level, facilitated by the suco and with community members participating. Voting was used to decide priorities. In 2006, IOM sponsored training for suco leaders in all target suco in the six sub-districts. They were trained in participative planning and supported to implement it in their suco. Implementation: The community was responsible for the management of the implementation and the physical work. IOM provided technical support, financial management and monitoring. An MOU was established between IOM and the community at the outset of the project to clearly define roles and responsibilities. Monitoring: The EU monitored project implementation through field visits and reports. EU monitored the use of funds and conducted an evaluation of the project. Operations and Maintenance: Community Water Management Groups were established and trained. Technical information and designs for each water system was given to both national and district level SAS offices. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Close relationships were developed with district and sub-district administrations who were engaged in selecting target suco. Strong engagement with INAP to implement the training of suco councils. Gender: Women attended meetings and worked in implementation. Community meetings required 50 percent women participants for it to go ahead. Sustainability: 80 percent of the infrastructure is still functioning and sustainability will depend on climatic conditions. In order to decrease maintenance requirements the systems do not use taps. Key Lessons Learnt  Concentrate geographical focus in order to improve quality of support to implementation and maximize capacity building opportunities through improved relations with community authorities.  Increased community participation slows down the pace of implementation.  Additional training required for suco councils in development planning and management.  The original program design included national NGOs as potential partners. Internal review of operations using this methodology showed that working with local authorities would be more productive. There are several reasons for this given in the ECACS Final report. They include: 55 Interview with Bernardo, former Program Manager, and ECACS Final report. 56 o Evidence of poor communication with suco and aldeia chiefs. o Sub-district officials could play a more direct role in disseminating information about the program. o Community feedback showed little support for the involvement of national NGOs in the execution of projects. NGOs were not considered sufficiently skilled or trustworthy. o Increased sustainability of skills transfer as government employees have greater stability of employment than the donor-reliant NGO. 57 Local Development Program56 Cost of Project: $7.2 million over 5 years (Start: Jan 2007) Funding: GOTL, Irish Aid, UNCDF, UNDP, Government of Norway Scope of Project: 8 districts (2008) Number of Beneficiaries: 473,323 (51 percent of total population) Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: labor, local materials Physical: small roads, markets, water supply and Government: financial support, technical irrigation rehabilitation, schools, health posts support, administration Community capacity: participation in representative Implementing entity: technical support, assemblies at sub-district and district levels; management support, monitoring prioritization of development priorities. Planning: Suco and aldeia chiefs identify development needs and two suco representatives (suco chief and a woman) raise these to Local Assemblies where the sub-district and district priorities are selected. Projects are verified by a technical panel and tender documents prepared by the district administration. Implementation: Procurement is by an open tender process implemented at the district level by the Local Tender Boards (LTB) that comprises three local government officials and two suco representatives. Local contractors have to register and buy the tender documents for the projects they wish to bid for. Monitoring: Sub-district and district administration officials monitor project implementation. Project Implementation Committees (PIC‘s) at the assembly level oversee implementation. Technical support is obtained from line ministry or contracted out. Local Oversight Committees are meant to be established at the community level for each project but need further strengthening. Operations and Maintenance: Communities are responsible for maintenance of basic infrastructure. Staffing is provided by the line ministry where relevant. Many projects funded are for small scale infrastructure rehabilitation that is beyond the means of the community to maintain. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: LDP was implemented by MSATM with District and Sub-district administrations. There is high level of ownership of the program by local government officials. A District Integration Workshop is the mechanism by which sectoral buy-in is sought and duplication with line ministry programs is avoided. Gender: Regulation stipulates that one of the two suco representatives to the assembly must be a woman. The attrition rates of women participants have been higher than that of the men for the sub-district assemblies, though it has increased in the district assemblies. Sustainability: Highly sustainable at local government level due to intensive capacity building in the local government development management processes. 56 Interviews with Miguel Carvalho, Jill Engen, Henriquetta da Silva. 58 Key Lessons Learnt  Need to strengthen the processes at community level to ensure that the bottom-up planning is starting at the aldeia level with high participation rates. The Local Oversight Committee mechanism to develop community monitoring of implementation also requires further support.  Need to develop specific strategies to ensure that women remain involved at the sub-district assemblies. Reasons identified for the attrition of women‘s attendance at the SD assembly in 2006 included lack of advance funds for transportation, time away from home and lack of compensation for meeting attendance. To address this issue, a sitting allowance has been paid to assembly members since 2005.  High level of ownership of the project by the local government officials.  Considerable capacity has been developed in participative governance and procurement processes.  Development of official ministerial regulations to guide implementation has given the project staff the authority to demand compliance with established processes. 59 Ministry of Economic Development – Mini Markets57 Cost of Project: USD 9,000 per market Funding: GOTL Scope of Project: Ermera district, Railako sub-district; 3 mini markets implemented from March – September 2008 Number of Beneficiaries: 3 aldeia Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: land, paid labor Physical: mini-market construction in Government: financial support, materials, locations on major roads where informal technical support – design markets already exist Planning: Target sub-district was the location of Joint Command Operation after 11th February attack on the President and government needed to support economic development of the population in the area of the military-police operation. National government officials conducted consultation meetings at aldeia level to identify small-scale development priorities and organize the projects. Implementation: Skilled and unskilled labor provided by the local aldeia. National government managed procurement and weekly payment of laborers wages. Monitoring: National government officials, sub-district and district officials as the markets are located on the main access road to the district capital of Gleno. Operations and Maintenance: stallholders who are members of the local aldeia will be responsible for maintenance. The markets were not operational when the team visited the sites. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: National government is directly managing implementation. Funding from government budget. Gender: Most of the stallholders are women who will benefit from the markets, though laborers are men. Sustainability: Highly likely. As they are in a location of existing stalls, they are likely to be utilized. Apart from rubbish, there is likely to be little maintenance required if construction is of high quality. Key Lessons Learnt  Government directly managing the projects from Dili is feasible because it is a small project and located within 45 minutes from Dili. The 2009 budget includes the construction of 26 mini-markets across the country at $20,000 each. This will be more of a challenge for national government to be directly managing implementation. 57 Interview with Sr. Mateus Cabral & Sr. Agostino de Deus. Field visit to markets with Sr. Mateus Cabral in August 2008. 60 Oecussi Ambeno Community Activation Programme (OCAP) 58 Implementing entity: UNOPS Timeframe: 2004-2009 Cost of Project: USD 4,116,736 Funding: European Commission and UNDP Scope of Project: 18 suco The Community Activation Component includes a Community Development Fund (CDF) which can be accessed by community groups for community investments including wells, small irrigation, and nursery. Project Inputs: Project Outputs Community: 10 percent of project cost – Physical: Community infrastructure, planned for at least one in kind or cash community investment in each suco Implementing entity: financial support, Capacity: Community capacity, Government/ NGO capacity technical support Planning: 18 OCAP Community Activation Facilitators (CAF‘s) were to be assigned the each suco to assist in community mobilization, formation of community groups, and planning and implementation of development activities. Lao Hamutuk report that the CAF‘s are based in Pante Makassar and spend limited time working and living in the communities only dealing with OCAP-related issues – limiting their effectiveness. They also had limited decision-making responsibilities. Implementation: CAF‘s with constituted community groups. Community expected to provide voluntary unskilled labor; skilled workers would be paid. Lao Hamutuk found that only one of thirteen villages had both suco and aldeia chief involved in OCAP program. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Implementation in collaboration with Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Ministry of Economic Development and the district Administration of Oecussi. Government is involved in policy decisions, but UNDP and UNOPS make the budget allocation decision. CDF funding guidelines approved in October 2006. Gender: The role of women and their development needs was recognized through the consultations. The program planned to engage a Gender Adviser to provide a special focus on women‘s empowerment. Gender sensitization campaigns on identified issues would be launched to raise public awareness of the issues. Indicators are gender sensitive. Specific area of activities in first component around women‘s empowerment. Sustainability: It was planned that the CDF would be consolidated as a common mechanism for funding community based development in Oecussi and administered by a local government institution or CSO by the end of the program. 58 Information from Project Document, 2003 Lao Hamutuk Bulletin, January 2008. 61 Key Lessons Learnt59  Community Facilitators need to be based in the community rather than in the district capital.  Local government involvement in management needs to be fostered.  Challenge in engaging all relevant suco authorities in program planning and implementation.  Proliferation of small groups being formed in communities, often with overlapping objectives and activities. (in Oecussi: MAF, Caritas, Oxfam, FFSO, OCAP.) 59 Lao Hamutuk Bulletin, Jan 2008 62 Plan Timor-Leste – WES program60 Cost of Project: USD 80,000 Funding: Plan Scope of Project: Aileu and Lautem districts Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: land, labor, financial support Physical: FY07 - water supply (34 water points), Implementing entity: financial support, sanitation (157 latrines) technical support, labor, community training, Community capacity: planning, monitoring, managing planning implementation Government: coordination Planning: Utilize participatory assessment and planning methodologies at suco and aldeia levels. When plan is developed, sign an MOU with the government, community leadership, local NGO and Plan prior to beginning activities to ensure that all are aware of their responsibilities – important tool to manage expectations. Implementation: Pre-construction training for communities to support their management of the construction process. Plan and Local NGO provide technical support. Monitoring: Utilize a triplicate waybill system and logbook to record material deliveries and used to assist community monitoring of the implementation process. All technical and financial information is posted publicly in the community. Monitoring checklists are used to guide Plan staff monitoring – community satisfaction and beneficiary feedback are an important part of this. Operations and Maintenance: Community with government support responsible for ongoing maintenance. Plan provides six-monthly follow-up training and support for GMF for two years after completion of construction. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Utilize SAS District Plan to inform decision regarding target suco and aldeia. Gender: Women‘s participation is monitored. Sustainability: Key barrier to sustainability is community capacity for maintenance, however all key actors have copies of the system design. Key Lessons Learnt  MOU between Plan, implementing Local NGO, government and community outlining responsibilities of each party is signed prior to the commencement of implementation.  Technical and financial information is publicly posted in the community during implementation.  Community training and systems of triplicate waybill and logbook to support community management and monitoring of materials delivery and utilization.  Periodic support and training of the GMF for two years after the completion of construction.  Government, local NGO, GMF all have copies of system design to support maintenance. 60 Documents: Plan Country Strategy 2007-2011; Progress Report on Country Strategy FY07; WES Project Cycle; WES Implementation Guidelines. Interview with Prakesh and Claudio. 63 Portuguese Missao Agricola (PADRTL)61 Cost of Project: 12,000 Euro (materials only - pilot as part of a bigger program) Funding: Portuguese Agency for International Development (IPAD) Scope of Project: 1 district, 4 ha arable land; 16 ha irrigated land Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: land, labor Physical: irrigation: 16 ha irrigated land; 4 ha Implementing entity: financial support, arable land technical support Community capacity: technical irrigation Government: technical guidelines and line systems ministry priorities Planning: The PADRTL technician lived in the area for a period prior to implementation and through informal discussions agreement was reached to go ahead with the pilot irrigation project. Implementation: PADRTL managed the implementation process with the community involved in physical work. Monitoring: PADRTL monitored the program. Operations and Maintenance: The community is responsible for maintaining the infrastructure Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Follow the technical guidelines of the Ministry of Agriculture. The PADRTL is co-located with the Division of Forestry within the Ministry of Agriculture. The broader project (for which this was a pilot) has been negotiated with the Ministry of Agriculture. Sustainability: 100 percent of the infrastructure is still functioning and expected to be functioning in three years. Key Lessons Learnt  Facilitators lived in the community  Infrastructure provision was part of a broader agricultural development program. 61 Interview with Miguel Nogueira. 64 Timor Aid62 Cost of Project: 187,500 Euro Funding: AECI (Spanish Cooperation Agency) Scope of Project: 1 district, 5 suco Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: land Physical: water supply (5 bores with hand Implementing entity: financial support, pumps) technical support, labor, training in Community capacity: managing community management and languages work groups, improved language skills Government: coordination Planning: Planning was facilitated through monthly meetings with suco council, and community at the suco and aldeia levels by Timor Aid staff from Dili. Timor Aid had designed an irrigation project, however after negotiations with the community it was changed to potable water supply. The planning process is documented through the quarterly reports to donors and are held by Timor Aid and the donor. Implementation: Timor Aid was responsible for all aspects of implementation. Monitoring: Timor Aid monitored the program from their Suai office. Community members/leaders have easy access to Timor Aid office/staff to raise concerns about project implementation. Operations and Maintenance: The community is responsible for maintaining the pumps. A Community Maintenance Group has been formed and they have been supplied with spare parts. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Timor Aid coordinated with DNAS at district and national levels as well as with the sub-district administration. Gender: Women attended meetings and contributed to discussion and decision-making. The facilitator‘s deliberately call upon the women to participate and give their opinion as they are the main users of the water system. Sustainability: Timor Aid expects that 100 percent of the pumps will still be functioning in three years. It will depend on maintenance. A decision was specifically made not to install solar pump systems due to the maintenance difficulties that neighboring communities have had with this technology. Key Lessons Learnt  District office of Timor Aid was accessible to community members to respond to complaints and questions.  Infrastructure was part of a broader development program in the target suco. 62 Interview with Milenia, Program Manager. 65 Triangle63 Cost of Project: USD 320,000 Funding: ECHO and UNDESA Scope of Project: Manatuto District, 1 sub-dsitrict; 3 suco Number of Beneficiaries: 25,000 Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: land, labor Physical: water supply, latrines, solar panels for Implementing entity: financial support, technical household electricity, plastic hose for each tap support stand Government: technical guidelines, validation of technical choices Planning: Triangle expatriate and national staff both lived in the community during planning and implementation. System design was to the capacity of the source rather than number of beneficiaries. Design adapted to suit a low technical capacity for maintenance. Implementation: Weekly community meetings during implementation. Triangle staff lived in community and worked alongside community members. Operations and Maintenance: Community responsibility with back-up from Triangle when required. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Utilized government guidelines and received validation of technical choices. Gender: Hose was provided for each tap stand to reduce women‘s workload in carrying water. This was possible because of system designed to capacity of water source. Sustainability: Community has backup support from the NGO for maintenance issues they cannot solve alone. These are technical as well as social (GMF chief wanted a household connection). Triangle had to use a European sourced solar system as a donor requirement – there are no other systems of this type in the country, so spare parts difficult to source. Key Lessons Learnt  Relationships are important: Two triangle staff (1 expatriate and 1 national) lived in the community during planning and implementation.  Informal meetings and discussions are important to building participation and ownership: Discussions with individuals and groups of householders in the evenings helped build understanding of the approach and technology.  Technical solutions were found for common problems: o System was designed according to the capacity of the source rather than the CWSD Guidelines of 30litres per beneficiary. Population is utilizing the water for gardens and livestock as well as household use. o Provision of plastic hoses for each tap stand reduces women‘s workload in carrying water. o Solar panels connected directly to the water pump rather than batteries – reduces maintenance needs.  Need to use standard brands of solar systems to facilitate supply of spare parts. 63 Interview with Didier Francisco, Country Director. 66 UNDESA64 Cost of Project: $1.6 million (July 2005-July 2008) Funding: Human Security Trust Fund Scope of Project: 3 districts, 3 sub-districts Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Government: coordination Physical: Implementing entity: financial support, Laclo, Manatutu: construction of 3 water systems and rehabilitation of technical support, community one water system, the provision of one solar pump, distribution of facilitation, local NGO social and seeds technical support to implementation Laulara, Aileu: rehabilitation of 7 water systems, establishment of a solar project Ataruo: installation of 14 community solar systems and management groups, provision of 470 solar lanterns Community capacity: community development and infrastructure planning; establishment and support of water and lantern management groups, agricultural training and environmental health training. Planning: Developed a participative methodology called Community Development Planning (PDK) that was implemented with suco councils. Community ownership of plans is high. Implementation: Contracted NGOs to support and monitor day-to-day implementation. UNDESA directly managed procurement processes. Monitoring: UNDESA and government officials monitoring of implementation. Operations and Maintenance: Considerable effort in establishing and supporting Water User Groups and Lantern Management Committees. Both groups need ongoing support from district level government officers for social and technical problem solving. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: Worked closely with all levels of government – national and local. At a national level coordinated with multiple government ministries and divisions for each area of implementation (water supply, electricity, rural development, agriculture, health and education). Local level coordination with district and sub-district officials ensured their support to key activities and that project didn‘t overlap with other local development efforts. Gender: Levels of participation of women in meetings and discussion was an issue. Sustainability: Technical sustainability likelihood is high, however the community level user groups require support from government technical ministries. Key Lessons Learnt  Planning process too complex for suco councils to implement independently. More appropriate for district and sub-district level government.  Expectations of government officials‘ roles and responsibilities in project implementation need to be clear to all parties. 64 Interview with Cindy Kushner, former Chief of Party, Meg Andreisson, Technical Adviser, Oscar da Silva, Field coordinator, Sarina Kilham, Chief of Party. Documents: Community Action Planning, Lessons Learnt. 67  There are a number of opportunities for value-adding to improve social and economic development, especially between water supply and health, water supply and agriculture that are not being exploited. At present, government does not have an integrated approach to community development programs.  Community management groups require considerable support and training after construction is completed in order to resolve social and technical issues. Some of the key issues they face are: o Collection of fees o Illegal private connections o Availability of spare parts o Technical issues beyond their capability 68 UNICEF65 Cost of Project: USD 1 million (2007) Scope of Project: 7 districts, 14 sub-districts, Number of Beneficiaries: 2,660 families, 30 schools, 1550 household latrines Project Inputs: Project Outputs: Community: voluntary labor, local materials, Physical: community and school water land, storage of materials supplies, household latrines Implementing entity: materials Community capacity: managing community Government: funds transfer to implementing work groups, technical capacity NGO Planning: Utilize CAP process – 3-5 all day meetings facilitated by DNSAS, and Local NGOs. Local NGOs complete system design. Implementation: Local NGOs contracted by DNSAS and UNICEF to manage implementation. Monitoring: UNICEF and government joint monitoring of implementation. Operations and Maintenance: GMF is formed and is responsible for ongoing maintenance with support from District SAS staff. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: At a national level, DNSAS are implementing partners with funding channeled through DNSAS systems. In the district, a water and sanitation community committee is formed. Gender: Attaining equality of opportunity in participation is recognized as a problem. Women attend meetings but decision-making is dominated by men. Sustainability: School program sustainability is low (around 50 percent) though expected to be higher for the community program implemented since 2006. Key Lesson Learnt  Sustainability of schools facilities is not high due to lack of attention to the management of maintenance. Considering schools as part of a broader community water system is expected to improve sustainability of school‘s water supply. 65 Interview with Bishnu Pokhrel, Water and Sanitation Specialist, September 2008. 69 Water Aid (Community Led Total Sanitation pilot)66 Cost of Project: USD 400,000 (total program cost incl. office/overheads) Funding: Water Aid Australia Scope of Project: 1 district, 1 sub-district, Number of Beneficiaries: 144 households Project Inputs: Project Outputs Community: land, labor (in-kind 30 percent Physical: sanitation, water supply of project cost) Community capacity: planning, prioritizing, Implementing entity: financial support, managing community work groups, financial technical support, local NGO facilitation management, hygiene education and health, support WSS technical maintenance Planning: Planning meetings were facilitated by the suco chief with the suco council and aldeia and suco. The community participated in the planning process with 75 percent of the beneficiary population involved. Minutes of meetings document the process and these are held by the GMF. Implementation: The GMF was responsible for managing the implementation, the community did the physical work, and the NGO implementing partner provided technical support. Finances were managed by Water Aid. Monitoring: The NGO implementing partner monitored the implementation. Water Aid and the district government also monitored implementation. Operations and Maintenance: The community is responsible for maintaining the infrastructure and formed a GMF to manage this. A fund with community contribution of 25 cents per household per month will provide the financial resources for maintenance. Cross-Cutting Issues Links with government: There are close links with all levels of government. Gender: women attend meetings and contribute to discussion and decision-making. Guidelines have been prepared to ensure that meetings are held at a time where women can be present. Separate meetings may also be held with women. Sustainability: 100 percent of the infrastructure is still functioning and expected to be functioning in three years. For the first two years after project completion, there will be six monthly workshops with the GMF. 66 Interview with Dinesh Bajracharya, Country Representative. 70 ANNEX II - Real Participation and Decentralization Real participation aims to reach all key stakeholders at the very outset by conducting a stakeholder analysis, using institutional diagnostics and toolkits. The World Bank‘s operational definition of stakeholder is, ―those affected by the outcome—negatively or positively—or those who can affect the outcome of a proposed intervention.‖ Key stakeholders are those whose real participation is essential for the initiative‘s success. Real participation means involving citizens at every stage and level. This includes the micro or community level, the meso or intermediate level (local governments, NGOs) and the macro or national/policy level (central government, World Bank staff). Real participation implies that development choices are taken under conditions of full information, full representation of all interests, and a hard budget constraint. These conditions can be met in substantial measure, if not fully, by good program design. Under these conditions, elites will be driven towards proposals that benefit all stakeholders, including poor and marginalized groups. If poor and marginalized groups are prevented from participating effectively, elite capture will follow and if community members dependent on natural resources and other environmental interest groups are inadequately represented, environmental degradation may result. Empowerment means real control by communities over resources, project/program design and selection, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation (M & E). A good test of whether a pilot program will foster empowerment is whether the community/local government have full control over the financial resources to be used in the program, that is, whether the money is in the hands of the community, and whether these resources are part of a single untied development budget, rather than earmarked for specific purposes. Shifting power from the top to the bottom requires strong political commitment. Good design is all- important: without it, power may simply move from ineffective central governments to ineffective local ones. Empowerment requires both political commitment and good design. These in turn should be used to ensure six critical factors. 67 1. Devolution of authority and resources Shifts in power relations are fundamental in CDD.68 Communities and local governments can be truly empowered only by giving them an assured flow of funds from the central government, as well as the authority to levy local taxes and user charges. Only then can they participate fully in development bargaining. Untied funds are crucial to enable communities /local governments to choose their own priorities, and create skills through learning by doing. It allows them to evaluate propositions against a single budget constraint, one of the preconditions of welfare improving social choice.69 Earmarking of resources is 67 Narayan, Deepa (Ed.). Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Sourcebook. The World Bank, Washington D.C., Dec. 2002. 68 Ibid. 69 World Bank. Community Driven Development: a Vision of Poverty Reduction through Empowerment. Washington, D.C., Dec. 2000. 71 justified only where community decision-making cannot take place under proposed bargaining conditions. For example, measures such as bio-diversity and soil conservation, since communities may ignore benefits to outsiders.70 Working towards a unified budget constraint implies that decentralization should give local governments a predictable, transparent share of revenue (including foreign aid), preferably by a legally-mandated formula. This will empower them with financial viability. Short-lived donor programs and ad hoc central grants cannot lead to empowerment.71 Decentralization should be based on the principle of subsidiarity.72 Responsibility for all tasks should be devolved to the lowest level that can effectively manage them. The subsidiarity principle improves efficiency and reduces fiscal costs by assigning tasks on the basis of comparative advantage. It is also a powerful design element to harness latent capacities, thus reducing program costs. Fiscal rewards and penalties can spur competition between local governments and between communities. They can induce accelerated skill development by providing incentives for improved performance. This reduces fiscal costs. Central programs will still be needed for issues/sectors that local governments may neglect or be unsuitable to handle. This includes trunk roads and canals cutting through several jurisdictions, and projects with environmental or social externalities. 2. Real stakeholder participation Participatory appraisal and planning (PA&P) by all stakeholders helps strengthen decision making at the community level. PA&P requires skilled external facilitators and is the starting point for acquisition of citizen information about options, resources, constraints, latent capabilities, and the likely consequences of each subproject for each stakeholder73. It helps bring about the conditions for optimal social choice discussed above. Based on an initial stakeholder analysis, ideally complemented by social and institutional analysis, key stakeholders are divided into relevant groups to analyze their constraints, aspirations, and options. Participatory workshops may then bring together all levels of stakeholder groups into a single event, or may be sequentially phased. These processes also strengthen or create a community development committee and relevant subcommittees, and identify group leaders and appropriate institutional arrangements. Through bargaining, key stakeholders approve a list of agreed projects. The respective sub-committees are then empowered to pursue these approved projects. Elite capture and social exclusion are ever-present dangers, and careful design of the participatory process are needed to check them. Communities and local governments need to be involved in the design, execution, maintenance and operation of projects. This improves ownership, and in many instances has reduced the costs of small infrastructure by 20-40 percent. In the past, infrastructure has suffered from poor O & M, for want 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 World Bank 2002. Village Level Participatory Approaches (VLPA). Washington, D.C. 72 of sufficient funding and motivation from central agencies. Local governments and communities have historically not been empowered to operate systems, levy user charges or undertake maintenance. Recent experience shows that communities are willing to bear the entire O & M expenses for rural water supply plus part of the capital cost. Process monitoring provides feedback to project authorities while implementation is in progress. This is accomplished through continuous observation, interpretation and institutional learning, involving participant observation and assessment. All stakeholder groups in a project see and judge it. Dynamics within and between stakeholders are usually not ‗visible‘, so PM helps reveal these. It looks at both internal and external processes, and helps analyze the interaction within and across groups and levels. Communities may be well placed to identify the most relevant and easily trackable indicators, and may be better motivated than government surveyors. Keep it simple. To enable village communities to participate fully, we need simple, transparent rules and procedures that can be easily replicated across large areas. Creating simple but appropriate rules/procedures is not simple at all: it needs much brainpower. But it is essential to ensure real participation. 3. Communication Information, education, and communication (IEC) activities have to meet awareness and learning needs, as also process monitoring needs. Equal access to information by all participants is critical for welfare-enhancing social choice. Decentralization, community empowerment and capacity building can be aided by a multi-dimensional communication program which will also contribute independently to information, voice and organizational capacity. A communication strategy should include the following elements: Communication rationale, target audience, types of message, strategic scope and delivery style, and creators of communication capacity. 4. Co-financing by communities To inculcate a sense of local ownership, communities should contribute to both capital costs and maintenance costs of projects meant for their benefit. Contributions can be in cash or kind (labor, materials). Where communities have no sense of ownership, assets may atrophy for want of motivation in O and M. In many countries, new rules/laws are required to devolve authority to levy local taxes and user charges. Local contributions mobilize additional resources, reduce the fiscal costs per community member, and ease the fiscal strain on central governments. Global experience warns us that devolving excessive funds to municipalities may induce the latter to reduce local taxes. Scaling up should be 73 based at least partly on matching grants, rewarding those municipalities/communities that make the most effort to raise own-resources. 5. Availability of technical assistance and facilitation To assist with participatory appraisal, planning and implementation, communities need external facilitators and technical specialists. The facilitators need to guide information gathering and processing, and provide fuller knowledge about the benefits and costs of various development projects, their technological options, and the consequences for the various stakeholders. They need to ensure real participation and empowerment. Communities and local governments already have latent capabilities, and empowerment will harness these skills and enhance them through learning by doing. This should be supplemented by relevant capacity building. Technical designs and assistance should be available on demand from formally trained specialists at local and higher levels. As communities take on increased responsibilities, the complexity of their technical needs will increase. So they need resources to upgrade the skills of community specialists, such as community health workers, and to purchase facilitation and technical inputs from different sources. In Northeast Brazil, communities proved they could cut costs greatly through innovative ways of procuring technical services. Sectors, in collaboration with the private sector and NGOs, need to strengthen or develop a continuous system of training and retraining of their sector specialists, and acquire the ability to respond to requests from communities. 6. Pro-poor market development Higher income is an essential form of empowerment, and requires pro-market policies that enhance the capacity of poor people to benefit from participation in provincial, national and global markets. Preconditions for these are good macroeconomic and sectoral policies and good governance and enforcement of property rights which encourage entrepreneurship. The Sourcebook on Empowerment and Poverty Reduction classifies pro-poor market development into three categories: access to information, inclusion/participation, and local organizational capacity. 74