.
This document is produced by
Foundation Connect International www.connectinternational.nl
Table of contents PART I EoP Global
1
1
Introduction
1
2
Role and functions
3
3
2.1
Form a group of Managing partners
3
2.2
Fundraising
4
2.3
Capacitating
4
2.4
Networking, connecting & promoting
5
2.5
Monitoring
5
Principles, norms and values
6
PART II Managing partners
7
4
7
Role and functions 4.1
Internal organization
7
4.2
Fundraising
10
4.3
Accountability
13
4.4 Monitoring & evaluation of the Executing partners 4.4.1 Monitoring the Executing partners 4.4.2 Evaluating the Executing partners
14 14 16
4.5
Capacitate the Executing partners
17
4.6
Take active part in the EoP network
18
PART III Executing partners
19
5
19
Role and functions 5.1
Internal organization
19
5.2
Fundraising
21
5.3
Accountability
23
5.4
External relations
23
5.5 Monitoring & evaluation 5.5.1 Monitoring 5.5.2 Evaluations
26 26 27
5.6
Develop a community development system
28
5.7
Facilitate community development in villages
31
5.8
Take part in the EoP network
32
PART IV Community development
35
6
37
Basis development 6.1
Select the region to work in
38
6.2
Invite villages to apply
38
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6.3
7
8
Selection of villages
38
6.4 Household surveys 6.4.1 SMART Survey 6.4.2 Assist method
38 39 40
6.5 Village self assessment 6.5.1 Appreciative Inquiry (AI) 6.5.2 Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
41 42 43
6.6
44
Community development planning and contracting
6.7 Capacitate PO’s and village leaders 6.7.1 Capacitate village leaders 6.7.2 Capacitate Village Development Societies (VDS’s) 6.7.3 Capacitate Village Action Groups (VAG’s)
46 48 50 51
6.8
Capacitate community coaches
53
6.9
Capacitate community centers
54
6.10
Village exchanges
54
Infrastructure
55
7.1
Infrastructure surveys and planning
57
7.2
Capacitate Infrastructure Committees
58
7.3
Social Housing
59
7.4 Groundwater points 7.4.1 Hand dug wells 7.4.2 Hand drilled boreholes 7.4.3 Machine drilled boreholes 7.4.4 Pumps 7.4.5 Training of groundwater point caretakers
62 64 65 66 67 69
7.5
70
Pipeline water systems
7.6 Water treatment plants 7.6.1 Slow sand filtration 7.6.2 Reverse osmosis
72 73 73
7.7
Rainwater harvesting
75
7.8
Water storage and recharge
76
7.9
Rehabilitation of existing water systems
78
7.10
Household water treatment systems
79
7.11
Toilet facilities
81
7.12
Rural buildings
83
7.13
Roads and drainage
87
7.14
Dikes
88
Healthcare services
89
8.1 Healthcare survey and planning 8.1.1 Healthcare system survey 8.1.2 Individual health survey
89 90 90
8.2 Capacitate village healthcare actors and institutions 8.2.1 Capacitate Village Health Committees (VHC’s) 8.2.2 Capacitate Village Health Workers (VHW’s) 8.2.3 Capacitate Home Based Care (HBC) Volunteers 8.2.4 Capacitate Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA’s) 8.2.5 Capacitate health clinics
91 92 92 93 94 95
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8.3 Specific health interventions 8.3.1 Health promotion campaigns 8.3.2 Health check-up camps 8.3.3 Mobile clinics 9
96 96 97 98
Education services
100
9.1
Education survey and planning
101
9.2
Capacitate Village Education and School committees
102
9.3
Capacitate Childcare Centers
103
9.4
Capacitate Pre-schools
104
9.5
Capacitate Primary schools
105
9.6
Capacitate out of school youth clubs
108
9.7
Capacitate transitional Education Centers
109
9.8
Capacitate Vocational Training Centers
111
10
Economy
113
10.1
Economic survey and planning
115
10.2
Capacitate Economic Committees
116
10.3
Capacitate Credit & Savings Groups
117
10.4 Capacitate Farmers 10.4.1 Operate demonstration farms 10.4.2 Execute farmers training camps 10.4.3 Capacitate farmers clubs
119 120 121 121
10.5
Irrigation development
122
10.6
Capacitate individuals to set up a business
123
11
Social services
125
11.1
Social care survey and planning
125
11.2
Capacitate Committees for social services
125
11.3
Capacitate PLWHA clubs
125
12
Ecology
127
12.1 Watershed development 12.1.1 Tree plantation and Village Forestry
127 129
PART V Data systems
130
13
130
14
Monitoring systems 13.1
Introduction
130
13.2
Types of monitoring data
131
13.3
Software for monitoring data
132
13.4
Minimum standards for monitoring systems
134
13.5 Developing the monitoring system 13.5.1 Develop the QUA monitoring system 13.5.2 Develop the Numbers monitoring system
136 136 136
13.6
Collection of monitoring data
137
Baseline and evaluation systems
138
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14.1
Social Return On Investment (SROI)
138
14.2
SMART Survey
140
14.3 Collection of baseline and evaluation data 14.3.1 Who should collect the data? 14.3.2 Preparations 14.3.3 Execution of surveys
145 146 146 146
14.4
Follow up surveys
148
PART VI Sector capacity building
149
15
149
Capacity building for services to villages 15.1
Capacitate SMART Tech companies
149
15.2
Capacitate systems for financial products for villagers
150
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Table of Contents
Glossary of Terms AI
- Appreciative Inquiry
ARV
- Anti-Retro Viral
Assist
- Executing partner in India
CBF
- Centraal Bureau Fondsenwerving
Connect International
- Foundation Connect International
EoP
- End of Poverty
HBC
- Home Based Care
IRC
- International Water and Sanitation Center
LFA
- Logical Framework Analysis
M&E
- Monitoring and Evaluation
MACTS
- Mutually Aided Cooperative Thrift and Credit Society
MFI
- Micro Finance Institute
MVC
- Most Vulnerable Child
NGO
- Non Governmental Organization
NWP
- Netherlands Water Partnership
O&M
- Operation and Maintenance
PLWHA
- People living with HIV/AIDS
PMI
- Product Measurement Indicator
PNI
- Product Numeric Indicator
PO
- People’s Organization
PQCI
- Product Quality Critical Indicator
PQI
- Product Quality Indicator
PRA
- Participatory Rural Appraisal
PUCI
- Product Utilization Critical Indicator
PUI
- Product Utilization Indicator
QUA
- Quality, Utilization and Amount
SA
- Savings Association
SHG
- Self Help Group
SHIPO
- Southern Highlands Participatory Organisation, the Executing partner of Connect International in Tanzania
SI
- SMART Info, software for Monitoring and Evaluation
SROI
- Social Return On Investment
TEC
- Transitional Education Center
UNDI
- United Nations Development Index rank (177 countries)
Glossary of Terms
Page v
VAG
- Village Action Group
VDS
- Village Development Society
VEC
- Village Education Committee
VHW
- Village Health Worker
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Glossary of Terms
PART I EoP Global 1
Introduction
The End of Poverty is a network, providing an umbrella of services for a number of Dutch Development Foundations that are members of the EoP network (we call them ‘Managing partners’). They contract implementing partner organizations in developing countries (we call them ‘Executing Partners’) to execute the projects, control progress and account for the results to the Funding partners (provider of the project funds and involved through guiding, visiting and/or auditing the project) and other parties involved. At all levels often specialized organizations are contracted to execute specific tasks, assisting with the analysis and (co-)design of projects, executing evaluations, auditing the finances, and sometimes implementing certain parts of projects (these are the ‘Third parties’). Another important stakeholder is the authorities, with whom projects need to be planned, who should give input in the choice of communities to target, provide permissions for certain works and for instance for expatriates to work in the projects, and decide about tax exemptions and other tax issues. The Target communities are the final beneficiaries of all works done. They are involved as much as possible in the prioritization, planning and execution of the activities at the community level and should be the owners of the development process they initiate in their communities with assistance from the Executing partners and other parties. The goal of EoP and its members and partners is to contribute to the global end of poverty. We aim to do so by enhancing integrated development in villages in developing countries. EoP and many of the Managing partners are run by a Dutch group of entrepreneurs with a business minded attitude towards development aid.
EoP Global – Introduction
Page 1
Vision The End of Poverty. EoP wishes to contribute to the end of poverty worldwide and calls for worldwide action to make it happen. EoP is inspired by the book 'The End of Poverty' by Jeffrey Sachs. This book brilliantly proposes that a fundament for development needs to be laid in developing countries to end poverty through a multitude of initiatives with integrated development at the local level being a main strategy as indicated clearly by Sachs (summarized): “To end extreme poverty it is first of all necessary that the poorest get a foot on the development ladder. But the first step is too high and the poorest can’t reach it. They miss the minimum capital required and therefore need a small push. The poorest miss six important forms of capital: human capital (health, nutrition, skills), productive capital (machines, facilities, ..), infrastructure (roads, energy, water and sanitation facilities, ..), natural capital (agricultural land, good soils, biodiversity, ..), institutional capital (right of commerce, judicial systems, labor laws, ..), knowledge capital (scientific and technological know-how increasing productivity and physical and natural circumstances)�. Four of the above six points are implemented mainly at the community level while one (knowledge capital) is a combination between field level and research work. We also acknowledge that time is required to create knowledge, understanding and motivation and assist people to grow towards a reinforced culture of hope for the future, believe in the possibilities to achieve better health, wealth and happiness, and a business mind to achieve this. We therefore try to find and implement per selected community a series of interventions that follow up on each other in a logical sequence to enhance village development in the most cost-effective and durable manner possible. The interventions and their sequence are fully customized to the circumstances. The approach for delivering customized optimal development aid to communities is largely generic (with selected preferred methods and procedures) as described in this EoP umbrella document. Mission Facilitate Management Organizations and their Executing Partners in developing countries to effectively introduce optimal integrated development in the communities they support and develop their organizations to a capacity level that enables them to effectively do so.
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EoP Global - Introduction
2
Role and functions
We consider our role to be: A facilitator of a high quality network of stakeholders to implement optimal integrated community development approaches that make an end of poverty and enhance sustainable local development and economic growth in developing countries. We consider our functions to be: • Grouping. • Fundraising. • Capacitating. • Networking, connecting & promoting. • Monitoring.
2.1
Form a group of Managing partners
EoP wishes to have Managing partners (and their Executing partners) that are active, actively support the idea of integrated community development, have a proper internal organization and are able and motivated to properly fulfill their roles and functions. For this reason EoP has developed the following selection criteria for new Managing partners: • Embraces the Vision, mission, role and functions of the EoP network. • Embraces the role and functions of a Managing partner as determined by EoP and is able to carry these out properly (fulfilling quality criteria and norms as defined in the part on Managing partners in this document). • Has a proper internal organization (or is capable and motivated to realize a proper internal organization within two years), including (but not restricted to): an accountability system fulfilling EoP criteria, a good HRM manual of which the procedures are properly followed (including policies and arrangements for volunteers and a salary, social security, pension and secondary advantages system for paid staff, contracts for staff, consultants and volunteers that abide the laws of the Netherlands government), proper and legal contracts with different parties (e.g. Funding partners, companies contracted for certain inputs, etc.), a proper system for planning tasks of the organization, a well functioning and good quality internal monitoring system, proper accommodation, equipment, machines and furniture for the tasks of the organization and its staff and volunteers. • Has one or more Executing partners that embrace the role and functions of Executing partners as determined by EoP and have the motivation and capacity to execute these. Aspirant managing partners that forwarded a request to become a member of EoP will be assessed against the above criteria while at certain intervals all Managing partners and their Executing Partners will be evaluated against the above criteria as well. In case certain organizations do not (any more) fulfill one or more of the criteria they will have to build capacity and/or motivation to do so (again). EoP will offer to assist in the process if possible.
EoP Global - Role and functions
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2.2
Fundraising
EoP will use its network of contacts to bring the Managing partners into contact with existing and potential Funding partners. EoP and Managing partners can and should develop custom strategies to interest potential Funding partners to fund projects of the Managing partners. The strategies should fit to the structure, history and network of EoP. A good fundraising strategy may for instance be to invite directors of Dutch companies to visit one or more projects of the Managing partners (this is likely to be effective as EoP is a network formed by business people, with a no-nonsense and business oriented approach, which is likely to be attractive for other business people in the Netherlands). Additionally EoP will initiate joined fundraising initiatives for large Funding partners (e.g. the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the EU). For this purpose EoP will investigate on an ongoing basis the funding opportunities through internet searches and through integration in the development sector. Whenever opportunities are found Managing partners will be informed about it. Furthermore EoP will train the Managing partners that require assistance in this respect how they can search effectively for funds and assist them to make and implement an effective fundraising plan. This service is offered to the Managing partners and their Executing partners free of cost.
2.3
Capacitating
EoP offers the Managing partners and the Executing partners the possibility to get assistance with building capacity for their role and functions. This may include: • Assistance with the development (or adaptation/expansion) of a community development system that fits to the capacity, experience and resources of the involved parties. • Training courses on specific topics that are in high demand. • Information. EoP will accumulate all relevant information for its stakeholders, including documents produced by external parties, documents produced by the stakeholders, and documents produced by the network (such as this document). All documents will be offered to the stakeholders through the website of EoP. The part of the website containing these documents will only be accessible for those organizations officially connected to the EoP network. These organizations will also have the possibility (and be asked to actively do so) to give inputs in the documents and write comments and case studies and add these to the documents or to new documents that can be placed on this part of the website (Wikipedia model). Some of the key documents will be printed and offered to the different stakeholders. Especially the Managing partners and the Executing partners are expected to use the documents intensively in order to learn and improve their functioning and results continuously. Documents can be manuals, drawings, fact sheets, but also software (in some cases available software will be provided through separate sending, often combined with some from of training). This service will be offered to the Managing partners and their Executing partners free of cost. Other parties wishing to use one or more of the documents will have to pay for the service.
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EoP Global - Role and functions
2.4
Networking, connecting & promoting
EoP will facilitate involved stakeholders to network with and connect to other stakeholders in the EoP network so parties can support each other to solve problems, learn, find solutions etc. with each other. EoP will periodically organize conferences that mainly aim to promote integrated community development but will also function as a ground for networking and connecting with internal stakeholders of the network, with Funding partners and other parties.
2.5
Monitoring
EoP plans to monitor the Managing partners on the following issues: • Annual reports. These will need to fulfill a number of determined standards. • Governance. Each Managing partner should have a Board of at least 4 persons that meets at least 4 times a year, proper statutes, proper guidance by the Board, etc. • Progress reporting by the Executing partners. Each Executing partner will need to report progress quarterly and each progress report will need to fulfill a number of standards that will be monitored by EoP. Additionally EoP may decide to send monitoring and/or evaluation missions to the Executing partners of Managing partners or advice Managing partners to evaluate themselves or their Executing partners and assist in doing so, whenever EoP feels this is necessary. For monitoring systems see the Data systems part of this manual.
EoP Global - Role and functions
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3
Principles, norms and values
In this chapter we describe some principles, norms and values that form a basis and rules of conduct for the EoP umbrella network, the Managing partners and the Executing Partners.
•
Investment per community. The investments are based on the following criteria: - Investment per beneficiary. Recommended range: 5 – 50 Euro/beneficiary/year (2009 value). The range is based on: (a) avoiding to boost development too rapidly (realizing results communities cannot sustain due to lack of resources or organizational infrastructure, results not fitting sufficiently to the needs or priorities, or providing wrong technical solutions, etc.), (b) investing sufficiently to be able to work cost-effectively and facilitate people to make considerable progress each year, (c) not investing all money in a few communities only (so more people benefit), (d) not discouraging local authorities to take their responsibilities in the development process (invest too much per community and their motivation to invest as well may decrease). - Required results. Per community it is investigated what results are required to assist people to make a structural end of their poverty. The priorities of the people in combination with the possibilities to achieve effective and sustainable results form a lead for the investment decisions. For priority needs that cannot be fulfilled in an effective or sustainable way temporary interventions may be introduced if this is useful and funds are available. Temporary interventions should be avoided if possible though as they stop to benefit people when they end. It is acceptable that certain priority needs are not or only partly covered if it is difficult to fulfill them in a sustainable or affordable way. - Duration of the project. Minimum is three years, but ideally cooperation with a community should continue 10 years or longer to ensure that achievements and results are anchored solidly and structurally in the local society and economy, and adjust things that appear not to be sufficiently sustainable. - Social and/or commercial return on investments. If it is clear that high investments will yield a very high social and/or commercial return on the investment this can be an argument to raise the investment per community. - Preferences and capacity of the Executing partner. The preferences and available capacity of the Executing partner are often an important factor. - Funds available. Try to convince donors to accept the investment criteria used.
•
Cooperation & coordination. Cooperation of organizations attached to the EoP network will be active and complete. This means that organizations actively communicate with each other about the work they do, the methods, approaches and insights they develop and make all these available to each other. Cooperation also means that new developments are put together in consultation with all organizations and roles and tasks are divided between the organizations. The organizations also coordinate their actions and work together on further insights and commonly shared and applied approaches.
•
Trust. Organizations involved in the EoP network will trust each other share any information with each other. If the information is sensitive (for instance about poor financial results or disappointing achievements of an organization) it is shared with the EoP umbrella organization which then decides to what extent the information needs to be shared with the other involved organizations. All organizations commit themselves to not bringing such information to the outer world.
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EoP Global – Principles, norms and values
PART II Managing partners 4
Role and functions
Managing partners fulfill the following role: Facilitate the Executing partners to fulfill their role and functions properly. We recommend that Managing partners fulfill the following functions: • Internal organization.
• • • • •
Fundraising. Accountability. Monitoring & evaluation of the Executing partners. Capacitate the Executing partners. Take active part in the EoP network.
4.1
Internal organization
Although may be not a real function in itself it is of utmost importance that the organization in its basis functions properly in order to be able to execute its real functions properly. Therefore we have included it as a function. For proper internal functioning we recommend the following issues: •
Good governance. This can include: (a) a good Board with people having a network, time to fulfill their Board tasks, some with specific skills important for the work of the Board (e.g. the treasurer), and who do not require payment for their inputs, and (b) proper statutes. We recommend that both the Board and the statutes fulfill the requirements of the CBF (see below).
•
CBF quality brand. The Central Bureau Fondsenwerving has two quality brands (‘CBF Keur’ and ‘Verklaring van Geen Bezwaar’, the first one for larger and the second for smaller organizations). Both brands constitute a guarantee that the organization having such a brand fulfils certain basic criteria, especially with regard to good governance (a Board that fulfils certain criteria and proper statutes), a good financial year report and limited expenditures for fundraising. See www.cbf.nl. Having a CBF quality brand may for Funding partners be a factor in their decision making whether or not to fund your projects while it also gives confidence to the public.
•
Good leadership. A good leader of an organization functions as a facilitator and monitor rather than a dictator, while being able to take tough decisions without loosing the respect of his or her team. A good leader oversees all different aspects of the organization and rather prevents than solves problems. A good leader is able to motivate his or her team and shares decision-making as much as possible with the team. We recommend in this context the leadership style described in Covey’s ‘Seven habits of highly effective leaders’.
•
A good team and spirit. People are the organization! Without good people you can have fantastic systems, equipment and other things, but the organization will fail. In Managing partners – Role and functions
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order to get a good well functioning team you need proper leadership (see above) and good Human resources management, including: a good system for selecting new staff, reasonable salaries (+ fringe benefits and incentives), career opportunities, clear regulations and procedures for staff functioning, contracts that fulfill the laws of the country, task descriptions, etc. Volunteers are also part of the team, so a proper volunteers system is required, including procedures and regulations for their guidance, equipment and training. A good HRM manual for Dutch Managing partners can be obtained from Connect International. •
Proper financial system and good financial management. You need a professional financial software system with an administration programmed in it that fulfils general accountancy requirements and the requirements of the ‘Centraal Bureau Fondsenwerving’ (CBF), and that fits to the structure and way of working of your organization. You will probably need to hire professional experts when you start with new financial software to (a) program a proper financial administration in the software that fulfils these requirements, and (b) train your admin staff to work with it (alternatively you can buy the same software as one or more of your fellow Managing partners have and ask them to help you out with this, as they already have the knowledge inside their organizations1). Enter all finances in the system, preferably on a daily but at least on a weekly basis, with at the end of each month a control of all financial entries and the financial reports (Balance, Profit & Loss, grant reports). Have proper financial procedures and regulations and have qualified finance/admin staff. The manager(s) should check the finances monthly, with a more in-depth check quarterly and an annual check when making the annual report. Main issues to check: project grants (are these in line with the contracts and planning, have the Executing partners reported in time and are the results good enough to justify the grants?), Balance sheet (is the amount of cash enough to cover the cash flow the coming period, debts not too high, etc.), profit & loss overview. The finances should also be assessed against insight in the income that can be expected in the coming periods.
•
Tasks management system. In principle the same system can be used as described for the activities in community development programs (see the Executing partners part of this document). It is handy to group the activities, for instance in the following groups (these can be the departments of your organization and as such also form a basis for the design of your financial administration) and sub-groups:
Group 1 - Capacity building of the Executing partners (sub-groups: office-based, staff missions, contractors).
Group 2 - External relations (sub-groups: networking & forums, public fundraising, fundraising among non-sector organizations, fund-raising among sector organizations).
Group 3 – Internal organization (sub-groups: governance, finance, human resources, logistics, culture & celebrations).
1
Group 4 - R&D.
Connect International has professional financial software in English, French and Spanish, that Executing partners can get for free, including a programmed administration and a custom made users manual.
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Managing partners – Role and functions
•
Project management. Develop a project management system in which all important project related actions to be executed by the Managing partner are entered. In this system issues like the reporting intensities demanded by separate Funding partners, specific wishes of and agreements with stakeholders (regarding reporting formats, intensities etc., or other issues) and required follow up of communications with stakeholders, should be entered. The Managing partner should introduce a procedure to ensure that all required project related actions by its organization are properly entered in the system (for instance by taking this up as a daily, weekly or monthly task in the tasks management system). Below is a design for a simple but good project management system.
•
Internal monitoring. Develop an overview of the ‘products’ realized by your organization and then indicators for both the activities that realize the products and the finalized products. This can be done with SMART Info (see Part V in this manual on data systems). Develop norms for the frequency of monitoring and decide who will do the monitoring, then ensure to implement the system correctly.
Managing partners – Role and functions
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4.2
Fundraising
Each Managing partner develops its own ways to raise funds. Some may do so through donations and project funding by for instance companies that wish to contribute or foundations. Others try to motivate the Dutch public to donate money or for instance schools to set up fundraising activities for a project. All this requires proper activities which requires time and effort by different people attached to the organization. In many cases these will be volunteers but they can also be paid staff. Important in the search for funds is to develop the contacts with parties that can potentially contribute to the projects. This is called networking. Networking is a profession in itself, some people are good in it by nature and have the contacts already, others need to learn how to do it. Some tips for good networking: •
Don’t be afraid to explain people that you search for funds. They usually understand and respect it (they will not see you as a beggar!).
•
Use your personal network. Ask friends, family etc., not to donate money (although you can tell them they are welcome to do so), but to bring you into contact with persons, organizations, companies, etc. whom they know and feel may be interested to support your projects financially. Most of your personal contacts will be OK with
•
this as long as they don’t feel you press them to do so. Set up public fundraising activities. Raising funds among a larger public than your own network (and possibly the networks of some of your friends and family) requires professional strategies and methodologies (e.g. data mining in contact databases bought from commercial companies). These are often expensive (and even more expensive if you need to hire external experts to execute the actions involved) and need to fit to your organization. Example: doing a mass mailing campaign or a national advertisement campaign on television can be a hit for a well known organization (as it has a known and respected brand name) but will usually end up in a large disappointment for organizations less well known among the public. Other examples: money collections door to door (requires permits from the local or even national authorities; you can hire specialized companies to organize this for you, but this is quite expensive), poster advertisement (for instance at train stations or at bill boards in main town; expensive and only effective for organizations already well known among the general public). More effective for smaller organizations can be limited actions such as being present at fairs etc. in your own and neighboring towns (effective especially when you have volunteers who like to do this). For large public fundraising activities it is required that our organization has a well known brand name (which usually consists of or includes the name of the organization, for instance ‘Coca-Cola’, or ‘the Novib method’, but sometimes also a name separately from the name of the organization, like ‘STOP AIDS NOW!’). If the EoP network grows it could be a proper strategy to launch EoP as a brand in the Netherlands. But this will require
•
large/expensive campaigning over a long period of time through different media. Work together with EoP. The EoP network has a lot of contacts and may be able to help you. EoP can train you with regard to fundraising and assist to develop a fundraising plan that fits to your organization, experience and ambitions. Additionally EoP
•
will undertake joined proposals in which you may participate. Visit events where persons gather who represent potential Funding partners and who
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Managing partners – Role and functions
are in a decision making position (for instance business gatherings at town level visited by directors of local companies; phone the business umbrella organization in your town and ask to be invited or even to be allowed to give a presentation). Other ways to raise funds include: •
Approach companies, schools, etc. This requires a custom approach. Sending standard letters to large numbers of school, companies or even the public, will in almost all cases yield poor results. Contacting potential Funding partners specifically, for instance by phoning them or sending custom made letters, or by just passing by and ask for a short meeting with the right persons (preferably after studying the organization, so you can adapt your explanations to what you feel the contacted persons may be interested in) can have good results but requires a long term approach and a lot of patience and energy.
•
Set up a proper website and make sure that if people search through Google with certain words the chance is high your website is high up in the appearing list. There are several tricks to achieve this. One is to update your website regularly. Another is to ensure that certain key words appear a lot, especially in the headings of the web pages. A proper webpage with vacancies for volunteer jobs can for instance be very effective to find sufficient good volunteers (who can raise funds or do other important
•
things). Cherish those who already support you. It is easy to forget about them but if you give them enough in terms of proper feedback about the results of the projects supported by them and general information about your organization (e.g. send a newsletter twice a year to the persons and organizations supporting you) plus custom information adapted to the specific wishes and demands of Funding partners, this will increase the chance that they will continue to support you and even increase their funding support.
•
Invite key persons (e.g. directors of local companies) to visit your projects and ask them afterwards to either fund a (part of a) project or start raising funds for one or more of your projects. It is also often effective to send Dutch volunteers to visit your projects (at their own costs). It raises motivation and some of them may also become ambassadors of your organization and start to raise funds after coming back.
A different way to raise funds is to write quality proposals for professional donors, like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, professional foundations, or even the EU. However, this requires a good understanding of how to write proposals, using the Logical Framework Analysis (LFA) method (see the Box on the next page). You will also need to show a track record and make sure to keep exactly to the proposal format required by the donor. It is possible to hire professional consultants to do this work for you. A first challenge is to know in time which proposal opportunities there are. Internet searches can help but good contacts within the development sector are also important in this respect. Again you may hire consultants for this work, but keep in mind that if your organization is not integrated in the development sector the chances may be slim to get such funding. You can also join efforts with other Managing partners of the EoP network and develop proposals together if there are opportunities to do so. The EoP network puts in efforts to have an overview o the serious professional opportunities for larger fundraising. Keep contact with EoP if you are interested to be involved in such joined initiatives.
Managing partners – Role and functions
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The Logical Framework Analysis (LFA) method LFA is a method for planning, designing, implementing and evaluating projects, executed together with as many stakeholders as possible. The method comprises three stages: I Situation Analysis •
Stakeholders Analysis - analysis of the problems, fears, interests, expectations, restrictions and potentials of all stakeholders who may influence the project or be affected by it.
•
Problem Analysis – developing a problem tree with the main problems the project should be addresses, the problems underlying those problems etc. Problems are always a negative statement (e.g. ‘People do not have enough food to eat’).
•
Objective Analysis – transforming the problems tree in an objective tree. Objectives are always positive statements (e.g. ‘People have enough food to eat’). After choosing a Goal, one or several project objectives should be chosen that, if achieved together will contribute significantly to the Goal.
II Strategy Analysis Development of a strategy to achieve the determined project objectives. To achieve an objective, often more than one strategy can be followed. The team should therefore try to select the most optimal strategy, based on the own knowledge of the team members, investigation reports, available resources, and so on. With the chosen strategy the Expected Results are formulated. From the Results the products can be derived (e.g. each school building is a product, or may be the schools can be divided in different products, like a teachers houses, classrooms, offices, etc.). The products under a Result should together form the Result. Per product a set of activities should be formulated that together realize the product. III Project Planning Matrix The project planning matrix puts all determined issues together in an overview that includes: Goal
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What the project hopes to contribute significantly to, including objectively verifiable indicators, means of verification and assumptions.
Objectives
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What the project hopes to achieve (the impact), including objectively verifiable indicators, means of verification and assumptions.
Outcome
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How the output will be used, the effects it will have.
Expected Results and products
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What the project can reasonably be expected to realize (the output), including objectively verifiable indicators, means of verification and assumptions. Achieving the Results should likely achieve the project objectives.
Activities
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The actions that realize the products, including per activity the required inputs, objectively verifiable indicators, means of verification and assumptions.
Objectively verifiable indicators should be SMART, meaning: Specific captures the essence by clearly and directly relating to the subject it belongs to. Measurable : there are practical ways/methods to measure the indicator Achievable : the indicator is formulated such that it can be achieved Relevant : the indicator is relevant for the subject it belongs to Time-bound : the indicator indicates the timing of what needs to be achieved The means of verification specify the format in which the information should be made available (e.g. reports, records, research findings, publications), who should provide the information and how regularly it should be provided. Assumptions assess the potential risks, and provide a basis for necessary adjustments within the project whenever required. If approved by the Funding partner your organization cannot be blamed if due to assumptions not met a project fails or performs less than planned. Further information: The Logical Framework Approach (LFA) (Norad).
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4.3
Accountability
With accountability we mean being accountable for the results of both the own organization and those of the funded projects to involved stakeholders. The main stakeholders we mean here are: the Funding partners and the EoP network (beneficiaries and local authorities are other important stakeholders but these fall under the accountability responsibility of the executing partners). Accountability in our definition includes: liaison with, provision of clear periodic narrative and financial progress reports to and also, where possible and desired, involvement of the identified stakeholders. Good accountability practices for the Managing partners include: • Obtain a narrative plus financial progress report for each project from your Executing partners every quarter. Analyze the reports. If something is not OK, communicate this with the Executing partner and let them improve it. Present the information (possibly in a summarized form) to the Board of the organization so they are properly informed about all projects. Make sure appropriate measures are taken if from the reports it appears that there are certain problems that need to be solved. Use the progress reports from the Executing partners to produce proper narrative and financial project progress reports fulfilling the wishes and demands of the Funding partners (as laid down in your project management information system). The financial reporting should distinguish different costs groups and admin & overhead costs with a sub distinction between costs made for the project by the Executing •
partner and costs made by the Managing partner. Control and give follow up to the issues registered in the project management information system at least once a month and ensure that all required project related actions by the organization are properly entered in the system. Ensure especially that Funding partners get project progress reports in time in accordance with their wishes/demands and, if they have no specific wishes/demands about it, in accordance
•
with your own internal regulations for progress reporting to Funding partners. Produce an annual report each year no longer than 5 months after the start of the new book year, comprising a narrative part and a financial part, and of which the financial part is controlled and approved by a recognized and respected accountants firm. Make sure that all Funding partners receive the report. Also put the digital version of the report on your website so people can download it. The annual report should also contain an overview and descriptions of each project under implementation. It is good to follow the guidelines and criteria of the Transparency price (www.transparantprijs.nl) in this respect to ensure a proper quality annual report, and participate in the Transparency price contest.
•
Agree and organize with your Executing partners that photos, films and promotional material are made about ongoing and realized projects, especially if it is known that involved Funding partners appreciate this. Make sure the Funding partners get the material customized to their wishes (e.g. a short film they can put on their website, or a promotional text + photos for their company journal, written specifically for their employees and/or their clients).
•
In case of important immediate problems (for instance when news comes in that a project has a large problem) always inform the involved Funding partner as quick and
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completely as possible (make sure to communicate properly so those you inform really understand what the problem is, to what extent this is your fault or a problem caused by other factors, etc.). So, be fully open and admit it if mistakes have been made. After that communicate with all involved stakeholders (a) how the problems can best be solved, and (b) how such problems can be prevented in the future, and then put a lot of effort in taking all required measures together with those who are/were involved in the problems. You may actually end up getting more trust and respect from your Funding partners as they see you are fully transparent about it and really trying to solve the problems (but it is also well possible you will loose some Funding partners, which you will have to take for granted). How transparent and accountable should you be? If you are fully transparent about each and every little problem, Funding partners may get a feeling you are not performing properly while in actual fact you may be performing even better than other organizations that are only not as transparent as you are. The way to deal with this properly is to distinguish what is really important to share with the Funding partners and also with the public and what is not. As said really large problems should be communicated immediately. Things that are not clear or not fully in order may be given time to evolve, so you can follow what is happening, while trying to assist solving the problems etc. but not (yet) informing the external world about it. You will have to keep a proper balance in this. If you are too open you risk being punished undeservedly but if you are too closed with your information and accountability you risk getting large criticism when this comes out (usually after a large problem which may be a burst out of a lot of smaller problems that have accumulated during the years and which you have always hidden) and then suddenly loose a lot of your Funding partners (who will then probably also never come back to you any more).
4.4 4.4.1
Monitoring & evaluation of the Executing partners Monitoring the Executing partners
You may want to monitor: • The results and progress of the projects funded by your organization. • •
Your internal organization. The general functioning of your Executing partners.
We recommend to do both. In that way you get to know your Executing partners better so you will be better able to understand their strengths and weaknesses, support them better and know what you can expect from them. First it is important to facilitate the Executing partners to develop their own (improved) monitoring system if necessary. You can then agree with them what they will report to you and when and put this in the contracts you have with them. We recommend that the Executing partners will quarterly report to your organization in an agreed standard format that contains all information you need. We recommend that you agree the following issues with your Executing partners:
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•
The format in which your Executing partners will report quarterly to your organization(take such agreement up in the MoU you have with them or in the project contracts). The format should cover the projects (and the products realized with the projects) funded by your organization and additionally some key information regarding the internal organization of the Executing partner.
•
The Executing partner sends its monitoring database each quarter to you so you can look into the actual data they have entered in this system.
•
The Executing partner sets up a Department specifically for monitoring, evaluation and quality control. This Department should ideally be funded by your organization as a project with staff full time in it who are only involved in data collection, storage and analysis, and not in any implementation of projects or other activities.
Facilitating the Executing partner to develop or improve its monitoring system includes determining the products they are realizing (in the projects and in the internal organization). Then per product type indicators can be formulated for the activities realizing the product and for the finalized product. See further the chapter on monitoring systems in the Data systems part of this document. When the monitoring system of the Executing partners are to standard you can develop the indicators of your own organization for monitoring the work of the Executing partner (you can use the same software system for monitoring data as the one used by your Executing partner; it is good to use the same software as it makes exchange of data more easy). We recommend to work as follows: •
Read the quarterly project reports of the Executing partner. Enter in your own monitoring system the scores for the following indicators (the product type here is ‘Quarterly report’): - Progress reports cover all funded projects with per funded project all agreed products and the agreed product quality and utilization indicators with scores for each (or almost each) indicator. Per product the reports also provide the numbers
-
-
realized against the planning. Progress reports arrive within two weeks after finalization of each quarter. Progress reports provide realized against planned cumulative expenditures to date for the different parts of each funded project. Progress reports contain proper textual explanations especially about problems experienced in funded projects, including proper plans and time schedules for solving these problems. Progress reports also contain a section about the organization in general providing the Balance and profit & Loss sheet of the Executing partner and a textual explanation of the main problem in the organization as a whole plus the plans for solving these problems.
•
Communicate with the Executing partner about the things in the progress report of which you want to know more, that may not be correct, or regarding which you want to provide advise on how to improve things or solve problems.
•
If you are OK finally with the progress report and the communications about it with the Executing partner enter in your task management system that you have controlled and approved the quarterly report of the Executing partner. We recommend that
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you agree with your Executing partners that requests for financial instalments of contracted projects will be taken into consideration by your organization only after you have received and approved all required reports and data from the Executing partner. In this way some pressure is on for the Executing partners to be accountable and deliver all and proper quality reports and data in time to your organization. •
For the annual report you control similar things, but you also go more into depth with regard to governance and leadership, staff, finance, etc. You may want to first communicate with the Executing partner what subjects, products and indicators should be covered by the annual report and support them to develop an improved standard format for it. You will also need to develop indicators for the control of the annual reports of Executing partners. See Part IV for an example. After reading and controlling the annual report communicate things again with the Executing partner and finally indicate in your task management system that you have controlled and approved the annual report of the Executing partner.
•
Beside controlling the indicators in the progress and annual reports received from the Executing partners it is also necessary to regularly monitor whether the monitoring and reporting done reflect the actual situation. This requires regular monitoring visits to the partners (by staff or by hired consultants). In order to make these visits effective it is a proper Terms of Reference (ToR) should for each visit be prepared. The ToR defines what the specific objective of the mission is and what exact activities will be executed. You should also define what will be measured and how these things will be measured.
4.4.2
Evaluating the Executing partners
Periodically also an evaluation should be done. An evaluation usually has a specific objective (for instance to check the results and impact of a finalized project, or the internal functioning of an organization). A distinction is made between internal evaluations and external evaluations. Internal evaluations are executed by staff or volunteers of the Managing partner itself (or even by staff of the Executing partner, or a combination of both) with these organizations deciding whether or not they want to avail the evaluation report to the external world. An external evaluation is often done on request of a party not belonging to the core group of stakeholders involved in the realization of the project, like a Funding partner, authorities, etc. External evaluations are more threatening as they can potentially be used by the external party to judge the Managing partner and/or the Executing partner, deciding whether or not to continue support, give permits for works to be executed under the projects, etc. However, although possibly felt as a threat (even an internal evaluation may be felt as a threat, especially by the Executing partner), a main objective of each type of evaluation is always to learn lessons for the future so that mistakes made and weaknesses found can be avoided in future projects and activities.
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4.5
Capacitate the Executing partners
It may be necessary to capacitate the Executing partner if it does not have sufficient structure, resources, tools or skills yet to function sufficiently well or expand its activities. Preferably capacity building activities should be agreed in a MoU with the Executing partner, while it is also possible to agree on continuous capacity building through one or more expatriates stationed with the Executing partner. Forms of capacity building include: •
Training and workshops (through missions to the partner, partner staff coming to the Netherlands, or by full time stationed expatriate staff on site). These can be events specifically for one Executing partner or also for other organizations (Executing partners or not). Having low-cost international workshops with the Executing partners from different nearby countries in one of those countries is often very effective in boosting knowledge, exchange of information and ideas, motivation and so on. It is good to properly document training courses and workshop formats so they can later be used again. In many cases such documents are already available with EoP or with its stakeholders, so before starting to put a lot of time and energy in developing these documents it is good to inquire among these parties what is there already.
•
Guidance and feedback (through e-mails, during missions, by expatriates on site, based on observations, questions posed, progress reports, monitoring data, etc.).
• •
Funding (project grants, but also funds for new developments and investments). (Assistance with the) development of guiding documents, monitoring systems and other documents for the Executing partners (e.g. software they need, manuals, fact sheets, drawings, project proposals, etc., usually with active involvement of the partners). Inquire first what other organizations have and use this to develop your own documents. It will improve your documents and spare you a lot of time.
•
Sharing of ideas and information. Be active in doing so, not only with your own Executing partners but also with other stakeholders in the EoP network.
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4.6
Take active part in the EoP network
A Managing partner should be active in the EoP network, especially with regard to the following subjects: • •
Sharing of ideas and information (see also former paragraph). Development of common EoP network standards and norms for the work done of both the Management and the Executing partners and introduce the relevant ones actively in the own organization and stimulate the Executing partners to introduce the ones
•
relevant for them. Development and introduction of common EoP guiding tools. (in the own organization
•
and in the Executing partners). Take part in EoP events, such as EoP workshops, gatherings and meetings.
• •
Joined fundraising initiatives. Support to other Managing partners in need (within reasonable limits).
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PART III Executing partners 5
Role and functions
The Executing partners fulfill the following role Facilitate poor communities to develop themselves in a most optimal and sustainable way in the given circumstances through an integrated community development process. The Executing partners fulfill the following functions: • •
Internal organization. Fundraising.
• •
Accountability. External relations.
• •
Monitoring & evaluation. Develop a community development system.
• •
Facilitate community development in villages. Take active part in the EoP network.
5.1 •
Internal organization
Good governance. This includes: (a) a good Board with people having a network, time to fulfill their Board tasks, specific expertise (e.g. financial), and who do not require payment for their inputs, and (b) proper statutes. It is good to have Board members who have no interest whatsoever in a payment for their inputs as Board member. This will prevent pressures for payment and tendencies to corruption.
•
Good leadership. A good leader or the organization functions as a facilitator and monitor rather than a dictator, while being able to take tough decisions without loosing the respect of his or her team. A good leader oversees all different aspects of the organization and rather prevents than solves problems. A good leader is able to motivate his or her team and shares decision-making as much as possible with the team. We recommend in this context the leadership style described in the Seven habits of highly effective people (Covey). It is also possible to introduce shared leadership, for instance by having decisions made by a management team. In some cases such a team can be facilitated by a person whose task is only to stimulate proper functioning of the team, monitoring its effectiveness and reporting to the Board about this.
•
A good team and spirit. People are the organization! Without good people you can have fantastic systems, equipment and other things, but the organization will fail. In order to get a good well functioning team you need proper leadership (see above) and proper Human resources management. Proper Human resources management includes: a good system for selecting new staff, reasonable salaries (+ fringe benefits and incentives), career opportunities, clear regulations and procedures for staff functioning, contracts that fulfill the laws of the country, task descriptions, etc. Volunteers are also part of the team, so a proper volunteers system is required, Executing partners – Role and functions
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including procedures and regulations for their guidance, equipment and training. Good HRM manuals for Executing partners can be obtained from SHIPO and Assist. •
Proper financial system and good financial management. A professional financial software system is required with an administration programmed in it that fulfils general accountancy standards, and fits to the structure and way of working of your organization. You may need to hire professional experts when you start with new financial software to: (a) program a financial administration in the software that fulfils these requirements, and (b) train your admin staff to work with it (alternatively you can buy the same software used by other Executing partners and ask them to help you, as they already have the knowledge). Enter all finances in the system, preferably on a daily but at least on a weekly basis, with at the end of each month a control of all financial entries and the financial reports (Balance, Profit & Loss, project reports). Have proper procedures and regulations with regard to working with finances and make sure to have proper staff qualified to work with finances and the financial software. The involved manager(s) should check the finances monthly, with a more in-depth check quarterly. The annual report should fulfill additional criteria. Some main issues to check: project expenditures (are these in line with the contracts and planning), Balance sheet (is the amount of cash enough to cover the cash flow the coming period, debts not too high, etc.), profit & loss overview. The finances should also be assessed against insight in the income that can be expected in the coming periods.
•
Logistics. The organization should posses the basic logistic means and structure necessary to operate properly and efficiently. Adequate quarters, equipment and transportation are necessary in order to support the work of the staff. Issues as proper purchase and storage of goods and materials, control of fuel use, maintenance of cars, other vehicles and other equipment, etc. should be covered by the logistics system.
•
Tasks management system. In principle the same system can be used as described for the activities in community development programs. It may be good to group the activities, for instance per Department of your organization and where required sub-divide in sub-groups (which can then also form a basis for the design of your financial administration). An example:
Group 1 – Department Admin & Organization. Divide in External relations (subgroups: networking & forums, fundraising among non-sector organizations, fund-raising among sector organizations) and Internal organization (sub-groups: governance, finance, human resources, logistics, organization culture & celebrations).
•
Group 2 – Department Community Development & Health.
Group 3 – Department Infrastructure.
Group 4 – Department Education.
Project management. Use the planning and management system described in the chapter about the development of a community development system in this part.
•
Internal monitoring. See the paragraph about monitoring and evaluation in this chapter.
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5.2
Fundraising
In order to be successful with fundraising there are some points to follow up:
•
Find new donors. Even if currently there is sufficient funding it is good to continue building contacts with potential new donors. Donors currently providing funding may suddenly stop (even if there is a contract with them!) which may cause a huge problem especially if such a donor was the main or even the only donor. But most organizations are in a position that they need more donors or wish to have more to be able to grow and assist more beneficiaries. How to find them? Some tips: - Networking. See the fundraising paragraph for the Managing partners. Additionally current donors can be requested to either increase their funding or, better even, to help you with finding other donors (they often have a lot of contacts through their network and if they are happy with the work of your organization it is very well possible they may want to network for you among
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other potential donors). Internet research. Through the internet you may be able to find new funding opportunities. Examples: (a) country EU Delegations often have country calls for proposals, (b) look at the websites of other NGO’s, as often you can find there which donors they have for which types of projects, then visit the websites of those donors and assess whether you could have a chance for obtaining funding from them (look at their criteria and after that at their procedures for funding requests and follow these).
-
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Apply for membership of large donors. Example: you may for instance apply to become a local USAID member. This is a lot of work but once you are in you may get a lot of funding from such donors. Visit international organizations. Visits to embassies, World Bank, UN, USAID and other organizations in the capital town of your country will probably not yield direct results but the persons you speak with are likely to come up with ideas and suggestions that may in some cases be worthwhile to follow up. It may also help in the longer run: once you have spoken to a person of an organization this person is part of your network and he or she will also remember you. Include their details in your database, including details about the person, what you discussed during the meeting, when you met, as well as what you think this person and/or his/her organization could possibly mean for your organization.
Once you have found new potential donors make sure you send proposals that comply exactly with their criteria and conditions (read them very carefully and develop your proposal in such a way that you are sure it fits fully to these), and proposal formats (if a donor prescribes a certain format stick to it to the point). This also requires a good understanding of how to write proposals, using the Logical Framework Analysis (LFA) method (see Paragraph 4.2 for a short introduction to this method). You will probably also need to include a track record of your achievements to date. It is possible to hire professional consultants to do this work for you.
•
Keep your current donors happy, informed and involved. This is about Executing partners – Role and functions
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accountability; see next paragraph.
•
Ensure longer term and more diverse funding security from donors. Try to slowly but surely obtain funding covering longer term periods. You can do so by discussing the need for this with your current donors (asking them to fund longer term programs instead of projects), by searching for donors that typically fund longer term programs, and developing project and program proposals that stretch out over longer periods than the proposals you made before.
•
Develop alternative income sources. You may be able to invest in a business which has no direct link to your work and mission but that will yield funds you can use for it. Be careful with this! You would not be the first organization to end up spending more time in running the business while hardly working on the mission of your organization any more. Example: A Red Cross branch in a small town in Ethiopia had invested quite some money in a coffee plantation as they thought this would bring them easy money but they ended up working hard with all their people to keep the plantation going while not having sufficient time anymore to do the things a Red Cross branch is supposed to do. A positive example is an organization that used money to construct a central building in a small town that needed but didn’t have such a building yet, and rent it out. The difference is that once the building is there, renting it out and maintaining it, brings relatively large amounts of cash each month (especially if full renting out is secured if a building is located where there is high demand for such a building), while costing relatively little time from the key persons in the organization (the organization can simply employ one or two persons for operation and maintenance of the building, while the administration can very simply control each month whether all tenants have paid the rent).
•
Set up and maintain a proper website. Make sure that if people search through Google the chance is high your website is high up in the list appearing. Also ask other organizations you cooperate with to insert a link towards your website in theirs. See the fundraising paragraph of the Managing partners chapter for more details.
•
Invite key persons to your projects. Invite for instance directors of local companies and directors of donors, but also representatives of authorities etc. to visit your projects and ask them afterwards to either fund a (part of a) project or use their networks to bring you into contact with potential donors. Also volunteers and visitors from Western countries should be received enthusiastically and shown around (try to get an idea what specifically they want to do or see or experience and try to make that happen). Once back home it is very likely they may set up fundraising activities for your projects (ask them to do so and discuss together what they would like to support; often people like to raise funds for a specific small tangible project, like the implementation of a water system, or the construction of a school; let these persons visit the village and discuss with the villagers what they need and make plans, this raises enthusiasm on all sides and will activate these persons to really start raising funds).
•
Raise funds together with others. Join efforts together with other organizations you trust and respect to be able for instance to apply for large funding if there are opportunities to do so.
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5.3
Accountability
Accountability means being accountable for what you do and achieve to different stakeholders. The most important stakeholders to be accountable to are: •
Beneficiaries. Make sure they get the results of surveys and village status reports and are stimulated and facilitated to use this information to further adapt and improve their village development plans and take further action. They should also be enabled to react on your accountability and criticize it if they feel it should be done better.
•
Authorities. These should be informed regularly about progress, challenges and planning. Ideally planning of actions in villages should be done in coordination with authorities as well.
•
Managing partners of the EoP network. They should get quarterly reports with per project the output realized versus the planning, the quality and utilization of the output, the bottlenecks with regard to the output, organizational bottlenecks and challenges, financial progress versus planning, and other issues of importance. The Managing partners should also receive the data files with all monitoring data to enable the Managing partners to study all details.
•
Funding organizations.
5.4
External relations
Develop proper relations with all stakeholders involved in the organizations. Examples:
•
Existing donors. Understand what they want. Beside the official requirements (fulfill these properly!) donors also have ‘hidden’ wishes which you can get a feeling for by having regular contact with them, formal and informal, instead of e-mailing call them once in a while (e.g. with Skype which is without cost), etc. Such ‘hidden’ wishes are often about communication. A lot of donors like it if they are also informed in between the official progress reports, especially if problems arise. In case of large problems always report it immediately to the involved donors (and to other stakeholders). You risk them being mad at you but if you don’t immediately report and they find out later they will probably quit the support to your organization. Be open and if possible suggest how you feel the problem may be solved. Ask their advice and involve them! Beside the relation with the donor as an organization don’t forget that you develop a personal relationship with the contact person(s) at the donor. This person may have personal interests or wishes and it is good to know them. Often it is also about being well informed and building a good relationship through calling or at least e-mailing with each other regularly and in a friendly way (never fight via e-mail; it will make things worse! Call each other, or, if possible, come together to discuss things in person).
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A Dutch government organization funded a NGO to investigate the possibilities for introducing household water filters for the poor in a country in Africa. The contact person was married to an Eritrean woman. They were going to her country soon to visit her family. The NGO learned about this and gave, without him asking for it, two filters to bring to the Eritrean family (total cost: 14 Euro). The contact person appreciated this enormously. Not a bribe (the cost of the gift was too low for that), just a nice gesture that improved the personal relation between the involved persons and gave a ‘smile’ to the work. (If in doubt whether a gift could be unacceptable, ask official permission both from your own Board and from the organization of the other person).
•
New donors. We mean here your efforts to find new donors, how to interest them in the work you do and motivate them to fund your organizations and your projects.
•
Authorities. Local authorities are a fundamental stakeholder. They can hold back the implementation of a project or, on the other hand, contribute to increase its impact and sustainability. They are also the final responsible body for the development in the area. Therefore, it is important to plan, coordinate and cooperate intensively with them and motivate them to take up the responsibility of the development of local communities in their area and be involved as much as possible in the whole process. Consult them with regard to planning of actions in new communities, make sure they know what you are planning and doing in the different communities and ask them to contribute in human resources, equipment and labor where possible. In fact, the aim of an NGO should not be to substitute government institutions, but instead to provide support where, and until when such institutions are lacking. One day implementing partners and donors will phase-out from the villages, while local authorities will remain. Before visiting a community it is usually important to first visit the lowest level authorities to make sure they are aware about your visit.
•
Beneficiaries. Involve them intensively. They should do everything they can themselves, and also take decisions themselves based on proper insight in the needs and priorities of all community members. It is the task of your organization to facilitate beneficiaries to indeed get proper in-depth and complete insights in this regard and use this to come to balanced and well informed decision-making. They should also get feedback about such things as the results of surveys executed and the progress measured, not only progress with regard to output realized and organizations formed but also about the improvements in the community in health, well-being and welfare. This information they can then use to further adapt their plans and take further action. Beneficiaries ca also be given influence in the decisionmaking in your own organization, for instance if the Board of your organization invites a group of villages to elect a representative to become a Board member or if for instance an advisory committee is formed consisting of elected representatives from the villages that advices the Board and the management of your organization in the
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name of the involved villages. This can also be done informally if fieldworkers can voice the findings and feedback they get from the villages during their work towards the management and the Board. Beneficiaries will often need assistance with building up and maintaining their external relations such as for instance contacts with local authorities to mobilize government funds.
•
Other NGO’s and NGO forums. Be active in the contacts with other NGO’s in the area in order to cooperate, plan and coordinate actions to prevent overlap or duplication, increase effectiveness and efficiency and reinforce each other’s efforts, learn from each other, support each other in advocacy efforts towards authorities, etc. It is good to form an NGO forum with them if such a forum is not there. In such forums attend the meetings and be open about what you are doing, invite others to come and look, and be eager to learn from what others are doing. Use the forums to effectively coordinate actions and make agreements about assistance to each other, doing things together to be efficient, etc.
•
Private sector (third parties). These may be Third parties such as local contractors, shops, factories, banks, etc. Keep good contact and build up professional win-win relations with all of them. Also assist beneficiaries to build proper win-win relations with private parties they interact with, as far as required.
•
Other institutions (e.g. universities, research centers, specialized private or public institutions). These can be sources of great knowledge and experience. Being often based on theories more than on practice, they can sometimes highly appreciate field experiences and can therefore be willing to collaborate in the implementation of projects. Such collaborations can increase the quality of the intervention and lead to innovative solutions.
How external relations solved corruption problems An Executing partner was losing cement without noticing it because a fieldworker and a community coach had made a deal together to report on latrines constructed that were in actual fact not constructed at all. The fieldworker went to the shop where the organization was usually buying its cement and tried to sell the bags of cement he had stolen back for half of the price to the shop. The shopkeeper, knowing the people from the Executing partner and having a good relationship with the organization, became suspicious. He contacted the organization about it and the corruption was discovered. The Executing partner used the incident to also look into its control systems, finding out how this could have happened and what needed to be done to prevent it from happening again in the future. It implemented a better control system due to which the organization now is less susceptible to corruption. The fieldworker and the community coach were sacked.
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5.5
Monitoring & evaluation
5.5.1
Monitoring
Monitoring is important because you want to know if activities are carried out properly, if things realized function properly and are used properly and if progress is sufficient. If any of these things is not OK immediate measures need to be taken. This is the main function of monitoring. By sending staff with monitoring forms to visit activities and finalized products (for instance a finalized borehole with hand pump or a finalized building, or a finalized training course) you ensure that people check whether things are OK. Important is of course that those who do the monitoring (we call them ‘monitors’) fill in the monitoring forms properly and that each time they find something which is not OK they act immediately with appropriate measures to solve the problem. Beside the above described collection of data, the data should be stored and structured into monitoring reports for analysis by managers, fieldworkers etc. to learn about what is going on, whether progress is sufficient, whether the quality of products in total is OK, what measures need to be taken, etc. See the part on Data systems in this manual for further information. An organization that monitors properly will learn better and quicker and solve its problems quicker and more effectively. Result: better projects, better organization, better reports, better accountability. Your beneficiaries will benefit more and your donors will be convinced about the quality of your work which will lead to more respect, trust, and … hopefully also more funding. The Executive partner should monitor: • •
The results and progress of the projects of your organization (project monitoring). The general functioning of your organization (internal monitoring).
Furthermore in monitoring systems we distinguish: • •
Qualitative monitoring, Quantitative (or ‘Numbers’) monitoring.
Steps to develop a Qualitative monitoring system: •
Develop an overview of the ‘products’ realized by your organization both regarding the projects often carried out and regarding your internal organization.
•
Per product determine the activities that realize the product.
•
Per product develop questions for the activities that realize the product and for the finalized products (if your organization chooses to work with the SMART Info system each question should be formulated such that it can be answered only with Yes or No, while for activities only qualitative questions need to be determined and for finalized products qualitative and utilizations questions plus numeric and other types
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Executing partners – Role and functions
of questions). For each new project that includes new products you will need to determine those products, and the indicators for the activities that realize the products and the finalized products. •
Enter the questions in monitoring forms and enter the products in your monitoring database.
•
Train fieldworkers to collect the data and use the data to improve things and take measures to correct things whenever necessary.
•
Monitor and guide the monitors.
•
Collect filled monitoring forms in a structural way and enter the data in your monitoring database system.
•
Use the database system to analyze the data and produce reports.
•
Send the reports to the different stakeholders on a regular basis.
Steps to develop a Numbers monitoring system: -
Determine the product groups (groups of products realized in the same type of locations, or by the same type of actors; e.g. products realized in communities are a product group, products realized by the organization itself are a product group, etc.).
-
Per product group determine how numbers of products realized can be monitored, through which process steps. Example: numbers of community products can for instance be counted and recorded in forms by Self Help Groups and/or by community committees. The numbers can afterwards be copied into community level forms which sum up the numbers reported by each group. These forms can be sent to the office of the Executing partner.
-
Per product group develop the monitoring forms needed in each step of the process and the activities and timing of each process step.
-
Field test the process steps (execution, timing) and the reporting forms, and adapt to the circumstances where required.
-
Enter forms and procedures in the manuals of the different involved actors and staff.
-
Enter the product groups in a proper way in the Numbers database.
See further the part in this manual on Data systems.
5.5.2
Evaluations
While monitoring is a regular ongoing process which is needed to control continuously whether progress, qualities and quantities of activities and realized products are sufficient and take immediate measures if not, evaluations are executed periodically to look back on what has been done and achieved and what lessons can be learned from that for the future part of the program or for future programs. Evaluations usually also focus on one or several specific aspects, often the impact and sustainability of program results, but also relevance or other aspects. We distinguish between internal and external evaluations. Internal evaluations are evaluations executed by your own organization, mainly to learn and use the outcome of the findings to improve your organization and
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programs. External evaluations are carried out by experts hired usually by a donor or other stakeholder who wishes to get an independent judging of the subjects investigated. Evaluations normally make use of monitoring data as a first base of information and complement this by interviewing key persons throughout the chains of activities, observe realized products and collect additional data in other ways. In community development programs it is good to use household surveys as a tool for evaluations and compare the results of such surveys with household surveys done at the beginning of the program (the so-called ‘Baseline’).
5.6
Develop a community development system
An organization that wishes to develop (or adjust) a community development system should investigate what is required in the concerned villages, plans and actions of other parties, etc. The organization should also consider to what extent it wants to customize the interventions to the circumstances of each village. A fully customized process per village would potentially yield the most optimal results and provide the opportunity to design the process with the villagers, increasing their feeling of ownership over and motivation for the process. But it would also imply different process steps and different activities per village, and in different following orders. This would result in a complex and costly operation. Therefore most organizations will standardize the process to a certain extent. This is usually feasible because villages in one area may need several interventions customized to the specific circumstances, but the general circumstances are usually sufficiently similar to allow for a standard process of community development interventions executed in the same or a highly similar way and timing in each village. The design of this standard process will depend on such issues as the experience of the organization that will facilitate the process, the degree to which society (authorities, institutions, companies) can deliver and already are delivering support to and inputs in the villages, the starting level of development of the villages themselves, and the extent to which the circumstances in the villages differ from each other. Based on the above considerations we propose the following road map towards a proper design of standard basis development interventions in the villages in a certain area and good insights in other interventions that will often be needed: 1. Initial investigations. Assess the situation in villages in the area through talks with village leaders, women groups, key actors, district authorities. Ask questions about: •
The needs regarding basic aspects like water, sanitation, education, reproductive health, curative healthcare, accidents, nutrition, agriculture, business, etc.
•
What is already done by the villagers, other organizations and authorities.
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Executing partners – Role and functions
•
Priorities (ask the people to mention what is most important, what comes next etc, ask men and women separately in small groups).
•
What organizational structures and leadership there are (like committees, women groups), what they do, how active they are and what they have achieved so far.
•
The quality of the leadership: are leaders trained by the authorities or others, have they been properly elected, are the villagers happy with them, do they have the potential to become good leaders if further training is done?
2. Have sessions with key persons from the villages about the process to follow and its features. Main focus: what can the villagers do themselves, who should manage the funds and material support, what rules of the game should be put up. 3. Discuss the findings of the investigations with the authorities and key persons from the villages to verify whether they agree with the priority needs, the management of the process and parts of it, and the conclusions, and what they do and can do to support the villages. Discuss how they feel the Executing partner can best assist the villages with regard to priority subjects and with regard to capacity building of governance and village organizations. (later, when the process has been designed and villages selected etc. you can make agreements with the district authorities on how to cooperate with them, fit the district planning and your plans to each other and ensure that what you will do is taken up in and fits to the district planning). 4. Make a limited report in which all findings are described, including what other organizations and authorities do in the area and plan to do, including a description of organizations often found in the villages and their capacity and activeness as well as the leadership (activeness, motivation, potential to capacitate, elected?), how to deal with the funds per village (will the village manage the funds or the program and what rules will be attached to getting loans or subsidies for specific interventions, etc.). 5. Design the standard basis interventions for all villages based on the findings and the general knowledge and preferences of those involved. Involve representatives of the district authorities and of (a selection of) the villages. The standard basis interventions should include reinforcement of village organizations and governance. Based on the basis interventions an overall planning can be made for the standard basis interventions in all the villages together. See an example of such a planning on the next page (the date of this planning is September 2008; the colour green indicates that an activity has been executed, orange indicates it has been partly completed and red means it has not yet been worked on; such a planning is usually made in Excel). Each organization should customize the basis and other interventions it wishes to implement to its own capacity, experience and resources. Especially for organizations with a limited capacity it is better to start with a simple, straight forward interventions. Summarizing the above information, per village we distinguish:
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•
Standard basis interventions that lay a basis for the development of each community. These are usually interventions with regard to the general assessment of the circumstances, general development of required community organizations, leadership improvement, and planning of the other interventions required.
•
Custom interventions (interventions executed only in the villages that need them and for which the resources are available), especially with regard to:
Infrastructure
Healthcare services
Education services
Economy
Social services
Ecology
The custom interventions are selected based on the priority needs, the visions of the villagers, and the resources available both among the villagers, the Executing partner and other parties (e.g. the authorities, other NGO’s) for these interventions. The information needed to select per village the custom interventions can be derived from the village self assessment reports, the community development plans, the outcome of the household surveys, reports and feedback about plans, resources and preferences of authorities and other organizations for inputs in the villages, and insight in the capacities and resources of the Executing partner. It is also important to realize that a certain sequence and coherence of activities will lead toward better and more sustainable development. Experience has taught it is important that the general social, organizational and governance structures in a village are improved to form a solid basis for all the other developments in the village (therefore a lot of the standard interventions fit in this group). Beside this it is good to initially focus on the implementation of prioritized infrastructure such as school buildings, water and sanitation systems, proper housing, health clinics, etc. as these form a pre-condition for improving aspects as healthcare, education, etc. (without a water system it is difficult to improve water related health and without a school building it is possible but not optimal to provide primary education to pupils). After that it is logical to focus on healthcare as healthy people learn better, work better and are more likely to be happy in life. In other words, proper healthcare puts a basis under things like education, economic development and well-being (although all these issues of course interact with each other as well). After that education systems, economic development and well-being are topics that can and should be given attention in order to improve things really and structurally. Of course the specific circumstances and priorities may lead to other following orders of interventions. But it is good to keep in mind that there is something like a logical sequence and coherence of fields of attention and try to build this into the programs as far as possible
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Executing partners – Role and functions
and logical. The coherence and interaction of intervention results is visualized in the overview below. In this overview the required inputs from outside the community are divided in inputs delivered typically by NGO’s or local authorities (lowest blue block) and commercial and semi-commercial services (upper blue block). The overview also forms the basis for the structure of this document.
An organizational infrastructure is needed that fulfils the needs of the community development process. Further on we present an example organogram of an NGO fully specialized in integrated community development.
5.7
Facilitate community development in villages
This is of course the main function of the Executing partners. In order to facilitate villages in a proper way it is important to follow the community development process as designed including required quality controls and monitoring. Part IV of this manual provides short introductions to different interventions you may want to include in the process and the different methods that can be used in the interventions. You can use these to make choices about which interventions to include and what methods to use. In the descriptions you will also find referrals to further literature that will give you more details about the subjects covered.
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5.8
Take part in the EoP network
•
Take part in EoP network events for which the organization is invited.
•
Exchange experiences actively with the EoP network and with other EoP stakeholders in order to enhance learning and improvements among the own organization and among other EoP stakeholders.
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Example – Part of annual planning and management system for basis village interventions in a program in Mozambique Activity Initial investigations Inform 36 villages +invite to apply Receive and analyze community requests and select 24 villages Facilitate community self assessments in the villages Select 6 community coaches VAG’s + village committees formation Community and VAG contracts
Who is responsible? Manager + CDO’s CDO’s Manager + CDO’s CDO’s Manager + CDO’s CDO’s CDO’s
Train VAG Leaders (community coaches also take part)
CDO’s (+ senior community coaches)
Train community coaches
CDO’s
Monthly meetings with coaches, regular coaching visits and daily to weekly communication with them
CDO’s
Monthly staff meetings (just after coach meeting) – get reports, discuss progress + planning next month Train household surveyors, supervise surveying, data processing, analysis Facilitate community dev. planning
All program staff, headed by program manager Manager + Quality officer CDO’s
Train village leaders (+ the members of the village governance body)
Manager + 2 senior CDO’s
Monthly community meetings
Community coaches
Monthly coach meetings Bi-monthly community visits to check the monitoring data, observe and discuss bottlenecks.
CDO’s CDO’s + community coaches
April08
May
June
July
August
Sept.
Done in 40 villages Complete - 35 villages were informed Request received from 26 villages Self assessments done in only 20 villages (remaining 4 now planned for October) Coach selected in each of the 6 areas. Done in 18 villages In 18 villages 3 x training 2nd VAG topic (1 day). Training on monitoring skills and …
Commdev. leader skills training (3 days). Not done Meeting held, each coach visited, coaches visited office twice Done. Reports discussed + planning made Selection and training household surveyors + household surveys in all villages Community development planning by each village 2 day introd. Training postponed All reports received Done 12 communiti es visited
3 x 3rd VAG training (2 days). Training on … skills
1 day training / workshop. Not done All reports received Done 12 communities visited
Nov.
still 4 villages
3 x 1st VAG training. Only 2 done
Workshop
Oct.
Reports received 5 reports poor Done Only 8 community visited due to lack of time
Training on … skills
1 day training / workshop All reports received Done 12 communities visited 4 x 1st ICR meeting (April-Aug)
Facilitate Inter-community review (ICR) meetings (quarterly)
CDO’s
Train committees (health, watsan, construction)
Involved departments
4 trainings
Qualitative monitoring of community beneficiary products
Staff
Water point monitoring
4 trainings - 3 executed. Nr. 4 still to be done No monitoring executed
4 trainings
Almost all output monitored
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Example - Organogram of a local NGO specialized in integrated community development Commdev Program in Nampula Province, Mozambique Phase 1 – Program set up and Socio–Educational Development Phase 2 – Infrastructure Development Phase 3 – Economic Development
Logistics 1. Purchase of required items.
Admin 1. Admin of center (salaries, finance, annual report, payment of invoices, etc.).
Executive director, Financial director
M&E & Quality control Officer
Economy & business development
Infrastructure
1. Training & guidance of Umbrella Associations for Village infrastructure funds.
1. Training & capacity building of NGO's & companies with regard to SMART Techs.
2. Maintenance of center buildings & compound.
2. Provision of funds for filling of village infrastructure funds.
2. Construction/rehabilitati on of program buildings.
3. Operation & maintenance of program vehicles.
3. Monitoring the correct functioning of the village infrastructure funds.
3. Implementation of infrastructure in the communities.
4. Logistics support to ADPP Itoculo program.
4. Training and guidance of farmers clubs (in cooperation with Clusa on value chain development).
4. R&D regarding SMART Techs
5. Management of stores for umbrella organizations of farmers associations and program items.
5. Connection of farmers clubs to farmers associations (like the cashew associations under the Miruku umbrella).
6. Training, guidance and facilitation of parties involved in agro-business initiatives (by Cluso and others). 5. Business facilitation in the communities.
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Commdev & Health 1. Standard community development interventions (starting in 10 communities around Meconta town and in 10 communities around Corrane). 2. R&D regarding guiding documents for community development & health
Marketing 1. Marketing & sales of Siphon water filters and other products important for the BoP to middle parties. 2. Marketing & sales of Siphon water filters and other products important for the BoP to end clients in the program (as long as not reached by middle parties). 3. Advocacy of SMART Techs among authorities (including assistance to draw up acknowledgment procedures, policies etc. for SMART Techs). 4. Marketing & hosting of group visits for getting acquainted with SMART techs and agro-business issues demonstrated in the center.
PART IV Community development This part provides overviews of interventions that organizations may want to include in their community development programs. Important in this context is to realize that programs and specific interventions always need to be adjusted to the context. Also the selection of interventions and methods depends on the context. As an example we present here under some general characteristic differences between sub-Sahara Africa (Ethiopia and Tanzania) and South Asia (India and Sri Lanka): Ethiopia and Tanzania Wealth is geographically spread. • Wealth mainly in urban area (cities) • Poverty mainly in rural area (villages)
Spreading of wealth
Aim for help
In general help aims to improve wellness/wealth and health of entire villages. • Traditional/ existing (power) structures can be used to make development work sustainable. • Often basic business and infrastructure (like roads, electricity, supply chain, etc.) is missing. • Poor people can get land for farming. • Help is welcome for entire village. • Low cost technical solutions that can be produced with local skills and materials are welcome.
Results
India and Sri Lanka Wealth is spread between groups of people not so much geographically. • Wealth mainly with few people in higher castes. • Poverty mainly with people of lower castes in the same area. In general help is focused on how to uplift / empower the people from lower castes in a village or town. • Existing power structures are often not useful for ground level development work. • Basic business infrastructure (roads, electricity, supply chain, etc.) is often available in the area. • Land is not available to poor people. • Aid organizations are a threat to existing power structures. But their cooperation is curtail. • Low cost technical solutions can help people from lower casts but it will also enforce the image difference between casts.
Projects are also influenced by the level of development of a continent, country or region. Statistics show that in South Asia extreme poverty (income <1.25 $/day) has reduced strongly from 60% to 40% of the population between 1981 and 2007. In sub-Sahara Africa however, extreme poverty is decreasing much slower as shown below. This means lower purchase power and therewith more difficulties to develop local markets and local businesses in Africa compared to South Asia.
[% ] Population in extreme poverty
70% 60% 50% 40% 30%
South Asia
20%
Sub-Saharan Africa
10% 0% 1981
1984
1987
1990
1993
1996
1999
2002
2005
Community development – Social and organizational interventions
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In both continents populations grow rapidly but Sub-Sahara African populations clearly grow faster than South Asian populations. This means more rapidly increasing pressure on natural and other resources, thus even higher challenges in terms of development and ecological sustainability than in South Asia which will definitely form a leading factor in the set up of community development programs, interventions and methods and techniques.
[% ] Growth in population compared to 1981
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
South Asia Sub-Saharan Africa
1984
1987
1990
1993
1996
1999
2002
2005
Source: http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/povDuplic.htm The numbers of people living in urban compared to rural areas also shows differences. In both continents people are moving from rural to urban areas. But in Ethiopia the percentage of people living in rural areas remains higher then in India (about 13%). See the graphic below. A positive explanation for people moving to urban areas is that the needed amount of work in farming is reducing because people have enough to eat and prices therefore drop. A negative explanation could be that urban areas are developing faster then rural areas and therefore people prefer the urban area. Probably both effects are active.
[% ] Rural and Urban population 90% 80% 70% Rural Ethiopia
60%
Rural India
50%
Urban India
40%
Urban Ethiopia
30% 20% 10% 0% 1981
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1984
1987
1990
1993
1996
1999
2002
2005
Community development – Social and organizational interventions
6
Basis development
This chapter describes basis interventions that prepare the community development process, lead it into a proper direction, and build and improve basic general village organization and governance structures required for proper community development. These interventions are imperative and lay a basis for all the other community development interventions. Therefore organizations often include a number of these interventions as standard interventions that are executed in each involved village. The basis development interventions described in this chapter are: Intervention Region selection Invite villages to apply Village selection Household surveys
Village self assessment
Capacitate PO’s and village leaders
Community development planning
Suitability
Focus
For new programs for which the region has not been determined yet. For new programs or programs that wish to expand/take up new villages.
Select the most suitable (often the most needy) region. Villagers take the initiative to fill in a program application signed by all households in the village. Select villages with high potential for success + high development needs. Execution of surveys in all or part of the households in villages involved in the program. Participatory methods that facilitate villagers to assess their problems and needs and prioritize them, develop a vision for the future and become enthusiastic for the program. VDS and other key people use all information from household surveys self-assessments etc. to rank problems and opportunities and fill in a development planning form. Motivational training and building of relevant knowledge and skills. Training and coaching regarding governance, planning and leadership issues. Training and coaching regarding the specific role and tasks of each committee. Training and coaching of VAG leaders to use fact sheets and drawings to facilitate VAG members to teach and learn among themselves and take action.
For new programs or programs that wish to expand/take up new villages. Where up to date information about household health and well-being, economy/welfare is unavailable. Where villages do not have sufficient insight yet in their priority problems, needs and also their vision for the future. For villages that do not have a proper planning for their development yet.
Capacitate village leaders Capacitate Village Development Societies Capacitate Village committees Capacitate Village Action Groups (VAG’s)
Capacitate community coaches Capacitate community centers
Where village leaders are weak, lack skills or may block the process. Recommended for all villages
Recommended for all committees covering priority subjects in villages Where development within households is required and the capacity to assist households through other structures is limited.
For all community coaches covering all villages. Where there is a need and priority wish to establish a central meeting point for meetings, celebrations, festivals etc.
Intensive training and coaching to ensure them to properly guide and monitor the communities Strong community structures. Training and guidance of the PO’s managing the centers, with bookkeeping, planning and organization of events, etc.
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6.1
Select the region to work in
If your organization can work in different parts of a country and wishes to assess which region of that country is most in need of a community development program, you can assess for each of the potential regions which of these is suffering most from disparity in terms of social, political, economical and cultural aspects. The regions can then be prioritized on the basis of points for each aspect of disparity.
6.2
Invite villages to apply
Having selected the region with the highest points of disparity, villages in that region can be pre-selected using the same or a similar scoring method. The villages which have the highest disparities can be considered for inclusion in the program. Ideally the initiative should be put at this stage with the community, inviting the selected villages to apply for taking part in the program. For this purpose, village leaders and other key people in these pre-selected villages are explained about the program, its potential, how it will function, the main activities of the standard process as well as the possibilities for custom interventions, the implications for the leadership and village organizations, and so on. If these persons are interested, ideally they are informed about the procedure how their village can apply for taking part in the program (not all programs include such a procedure and start the program from there on with the village).
6.3
Selection of villages
Based on the information obtained a final selection can be made of villages to be invited to take part in the program. Recommended method: Focus When Suitability
6.4
Ranking Providing points per variable in order to get more idea/overview of the strong and weak scores of a village As part of the village selection process, usually just before the start of activities in the villages Especially suitable where rather large numbers of villages need to be screened and quite a few need to be thrown out.
Household surveys
Household surveys are executed in a number of or all households of a community, asking questions to a household member and doing observations in and around the household regarding important subjects. A first household survey is usually executed to provide baseline information about the situation in a community just before or at the time of the start of the project. The information obtained can be used (in combination with other information such as the results of a village self-assessment; see next paragraph) to design project activities, fitting them to the needs and problems found. Depending on the aim of the household survey, the same household survey can be executed again later (for instance after 1 or 2 years, or even every few years) to evaluate the outcome and impact of the project by determining trends between the baseline situation and the situation at the time of the latest survey.
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Recommended methods: SMART Survey Normative household survey to signal problems and determine outcomes and impacts at community level.
Focus
When
Just before or at the beginning of the project in a community and after every two years.
Suitability
Identifies the situation in a community, before, during and at the end of the project, covering many topics, providing a baseline and trends with regard to the topics. Can be adapted to the local circumstances. No need for programming, reports automatically generated. For programs that (a) wish to determine the support and activities required in the community without going into the specifics of each and every family, and (b) determine outcome and impact trends in the communities without any need for programming.
Assist method Detailed survey to determine per family what the situation is and what the needs and support requirements are. Just before or at the beginning of the project in a community and after every year. Get in-depth information with regard to each individual household in the selected communities with a main focus on the economic situation and aspects of the household. For programs that wish to determine in detail what support each family requires especially with regard to the needs and wishes for household economic activities.
A negative experience with household surveys by FD Kilimanjaro in Tanzania Health impact is not accurately measured through the household (baseline) survey. In Mtakuja/Tanzania we conducted a full baseline survey (visiting about 90% of all households). Unfortunately the health data seems to be most unreliable/least factual, reflecting the community members’ limited understanding of their own health situation, particularly in terms of diseases and disease histories. Of course the survey may provide meaningful insight in the community’s perception of their own health, and also shed light on such things as accessibility and usage of the healthcare system.
6.4.1
SMART Survey
SMART Survey is a system for surveys executed in 2 to 5% of the households in each village involved in the community development program. A first household survey is executed to provide baseline information and afterwards every one and half to two years during the project period to evaluate trends in outcome and impact. SMART Survey works with standard topics with under each topic a maximum of 5 questions. Each question has 4 possible standard answers and the surveyor has to choose which of these fits best to the answer given by the respondent or the observations done in relation to the question. The answers go from score 1 (always representing a bad situation regarding the question) to score 4 (good situation) with the border between still not good to just acceptable always between score 2 and score 3. The data are entered in a programmed Excel and/or SPSS administration which produce a multitude of highly interesting and user friendly standard reports. The system comes with a good manual explaining completely how to work with the system. The questions and the answers in the survey can be adapted to the situation without the need for programming while the summary reports can still be compared to the summary reports from other areas where other questions and standard answers were used. Additional detailed surveys for obtaining information and understanding about identified problems in the village are executed after the household surveys (these surveys are described in the chapters about custom interventions). Role of the Executing partner: Select proper surveyors, train and monitor the surveyors properly, enter the data in the computer, analyze the data, provide the results of the surveys in easy to understand reports to the involved communities, report the results to other different stakeholders Community development – Social and organizational interventions
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(donors, managers, authorities) in reports that are easy to understand for them and provide the information they need in a properly structured manner, ensure that appropriate action is taken with regard to problems and needs found. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Survey development (determine topics, questions and standard answers, field-testing, translate in local language, put both in the SMART Survey Excel file and in Word, print paper copies of the survey). 2. Select proper surveyors each time before a survey is executed . 3. Train supervisors and surveyors each time before a survey is executed. 4. Execute the survey in a-select trekking of 2 to 5% of households in each community. Supervisors guide + monitor surveyors. 5. Data entry in SMART Survey Excel and/or SPSS, followed by quality-control. 6. Provide customized reports to authorities, donors and other involved organizations. 7. Use the reports to improve things and tackle problems found. 8. Execute household surveys every 1,5 to 2 years, enter the results in the data system, analyze the generated reports, and discuss/analyze the results with each village. 9. Execute detailed subject surveys for the identified priority problems in the village (see the surveys described in the chapters about custom interventions in this manual). Cross cutting issues: Interviewing is done preferably with the oldest women in the households surveyed.
•
Limitations: • SMART Survey can not be used to determine the needs for each individual household. • The method signals problems but only provides limited insight in the specific causes of the problems (hence the need for detailed subject investigations afterwards). Points of attention: • Select proper surveyors. They should have the potential and be motivated to execute the household surveys properly! • Train the surveyors properly! Also monitor whether data collection is done properly. Poor quality data are of no use! Further information: SMART Survey manual and SMART Survey software of Connect International.
6.4.2
Assist method
An intensive household baseline survey. Detailed information is collected on issues as education, livelihood and demography. Following, detailed village surveys are conducted to understand the problems prevailing in the community. These surveys are done in a participatory manner so that the community is involved in collecting the data and understanding the causes for their underdevelopment. After the survey, the problems are identified by conceptualizing the data and presenting them to the community along with possible solutions. Then the project is presented for support to begin the process of social transformation in the particular community. The participatory approach helps the people to quickly assess the prevailing situation and also leads to serious discussions on the reasons for such a situation. Both surveys are undertaken annually. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Develop the survey. 2. Select and train the surveyors. 3. Execute the household survey in each household. 4. Execute the participatory village surveys (see the surveys described in the chapters about custom interventions in this manual).
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5. Data entry in Excel files. 6. Analyze the reports to determine what support per household is required and what other solutions are needed. 7. Present the data to the community and facilitate discussions between community members to yield lists of most suitable solutions to the problems identified and plans to implement the solutions. 8. Discuss the plans with village leaders and assist them to formulate their role in these plans, including supervision, facilitation, monitoring and evaluation of the activities. 9. Repeat the survey annually to measure the results of the development process and adapt the community development plan based on a detailed analysis of the data. Limitations: The method is labor intensive because all households are surveyed. The method does not cover health impacts, health outcomes and social issues. The method does not signal qualitative and utilization problems.
• • •
Points of attention: • Same as for SMART Survey. Further information: ASSIST Baseline survey format.
6.5
Village self assessment
A village self assessment is a meeting in which a reasonable representation of all village members look in different ways at their lives and formulate their problems, needs, priorities and sometimes also hopes and dreams for the future. It is important that each village does a village self assessment as early as possible in the process for the following reasons: 1. Create motivation among the villagers to work with the Executing partner. 2. Get the Executing partner and the village introduced to each other. 3. Assess whether the village is sufficiently motivated and in need of assistance. 4. Get insight in the problems, needs, priorities, potentials, opportunities in the village. 5. Get information about the prioritized subjects. This can be used to better fit the support to the circumstances. The information may later also be used in evaluations. 6. The village may erect one or more people’s organizations. Role of the Executing partner: facilitate the meeting with one or two well trained and respected facilitators (speaking the local language and understanding the local culture) and write a proper report about the outcome of the assessment. Recommended methods: Appreciative Inquiry (AI) Focus
Develop a vision about how the village can look in ten years from now and the priority actions required for it.
When
At the start of the program with a village To focus on what is needed for realizing a positive future. A bit more advanced and more based on group discussions than participative actions (as in the PRA). Very suitable when a village has already done a PRA or other type of self assessment in the past.
Suitability
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) Develop an overview of the most pressing problems and the priorities regarding these problems. A PRA helps outsiders to understand the village systems, dynamics, and politics. At the start of the program with a village To assess the priority problems in a village based on the needs and priorities of different groups (men, women, elderly, etc.) in the village.
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Cross cutting issues: • Involve all groups in the village (also women, elderly and children). They all should get ample opportunity to voice their ideas, knowledge, needs and priorities. The assessment methods used should enhance this and facilitators should continuously stimulate especially the most vulnerable groups to come forth with their input. Limitations: Village self-assessments do not usually yield an overview of all problems and/or dreams of the villagers. Villagers will probably come forth with general priority problems and issues they would like to work on, but will not touch upon deeper laying problems and issues, especially if these comprise taboo subjects or subjects individuals or groups are ashamed of. They are also unlikely to come forth subjects that need attention and that cause poor health but of which people are not sufficiently aware of. These issues will come forth through other activities later, either by the people themselves or actively stimulated by the Executing partner. Remember that the main objective of the self assessment is to enhance enthusiasm and trust and respect between the Executing partner and the village and create a good start for the community development process. Points of attention: • The facilitators need to be capable to facilitate the self-assessment in a proper way, and should be respected and trusted by the people. They need to make notes that are complete and of good quality, reflecting the situation found. They should be able to stimulate all involved groups to participate properly and create understanding among all about the importance of having all groups being equally involved. • If a community does not show sufficient motivation to show up and participate actively they can be given one more chance by agreeing on a new date for a self assessment but if they again fail the village should be rejected from the program (e.g. for at least one year after which they may be allowed to apply for inclusion in the program again). Limitations of village self assessments by FEMI and FD Kilimanjaro in Tanzania I think it would be important to touch on the challenge any facilitating NGO will run into, in particular in countries/communities that are used to see outside NGO’s come “seeking to help” namely community/potential beneficiaries guile to speak to what it believes are the NGO’s priorities, main interests. In other words, potential beneficiaries may try to answer in such a way that they believe will result in the best/most support it may get from the NGO. Especially difficult is probably the reliability of debts people have/don’t have. Debt restructuring or repayment programs have therefore in India not yet been applied due to the danger of fraud.
6.5.1
Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Introduction & prayers 2. Present earlier identified priority development subjects by the community 3. Facilitate prioritization of development subjects (small male and female groups write down their priority subjects and then put points in front of the 6 most important subjects to get a prioritization). 4. Facilitate building a Community Vision (groups play how the village will look in the future). 5. Facilitate group discussions on selected program issues (small groups fill in questionnaires on specific subjects and one or two groups make a village map, all Page 42
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6. 7.
8. 9.
10. 11. 12.
information later summarized in a list of subjects on which all people agree that in ten years time from now this should be reality in the village). Explain the MDG’s (presentation plus discussion used to check whether all priority subjects have been identified). Explain the opportunities for cooperation with your organization (looking at what the integrated community development program can do and what village organizations it will cooperate with). Explain the conditions and restrictions of your organization (making clear what your conditions are and what the restrictions of the program are). Possibly: facilitate the proper election of PO leaders and suitable coach candidates (depends on available information on existing and required PO’s and the wish of the community to erect these now or later; see further the chapter on PO’s). Close the meeting. Focus group discussion (with key people and elected leaders to summarize and further discuss the priority subjects). Report writing and entry of results in management information database.
Further information: CDO manual of Connect International.
6.5.2
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Introduction & prayers 2. Facilitate villagers to draw up a historical timeline (people describe the disasters that have affected them in the past, sometimes they timeline also includes the main achievements by the village) 3. Facilitate villagers to make a village and social mapping (male and female groups draw a village map with infrastructure, demography, socio-cultural characteristics and any other features) 4. Facilitate villagers to develop a seasonal calendar. This is to determine seasonal patterns related to rainfall, farming practices, employment etc. Seasonal calendars also demonstrate the level of livelihood opportunity during normal season and off season 5. Facilitate villagers to make a Venn diagram. This is to get the villager's perspective of the impact / influence of the local and outside institutions in a particular area. It also identify the usefulness of linkages with different organizations / departments in their development activities 6. Take villagers for an exploratory transect walk through a certain area. This is an exploratory walk by the fieldworkers along with the villagers to observe and add in minute details and differences of a particular area. Transacts are also used to cross check the information’s derived from the discussions and the other exercises done. 7. Facilitate wealth ranking. Wealth ranking is a process by which members of a community jointly determine the relative wealth of all its members by taking into all assets, sources of income and liabilities of an individual family. Wealth ranking exercises were conducted in all the villages and generally the community identify 3 general classes of wealth: rich, medium and poor. 8. Facilitate villagers to make a matrix. Matrix is summing up of all the information’s gathered and categorizing it. This helps in prioritizing the problems and leads to further discussions on the solutions. Once the solutions are determined again prioritizing the interventions required. Villagers’ preference and attitude towards a particular topic of interest is revealed by this technique. It helps to understand farmers' priorities in crop varieties, vegetables, tree species, livestock, soil and water conservation techniques, irrigation methods etc. The reasons for the liking and the disliking and the subtle differences in choice and priority among the villagers can also be understood to prioritize and determine the strategy. This provides an opportunity to think and look at things from new angle and perspective.
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9. Report writing and entry of results in monitoring/management information software. Further information: • PRA manual of Connect International. • PRA manual of Assist. • http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x5996e/x5996e06.htm • http://www.childsurvival.com/connections/Chambers-AnalysisExperience.doc
6.6
Community development planning and contracting
A Community Development Plan (CDP) is a plan made for the development of the community. The plan is made, for instance after the village self assessment, household surveys and other investigations about priority subjects have been executed, during a meeting in which VDS members, village leaders and possibly other key persons (for instance VAG leaders) are represented. The plan is based on information about the priority problems of the community obtained through household surveys, selfassessments and possibly other surveys and other information. The plan forms a basis for more detailed plans made later by the different community committees and also VAG’s. The plan is adapted to the changing circumstances regularly (for instance once a year). When a proper plan is made the Executing partner can sign a contract for the implementation of the plan with the community. Role of the Executing partner: facilitate involved community members to make the plan by one or two well trained and respected facilitators (speaking the local language and understanding the local culture). Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Preparations 2. Introduction 3. Presentation of the baseline survey and self assessment results so the participants understand the outcome. 4. Facilitate a discussion that will yield a list of the priority problems (from outcome of self assessment, household surveys etc.) and a priority ranking per problem by filling the form for priority problems together (see the below example). 5. Facilitate a discussion during which the participants fill the community development plan format (see the below format). 6. Facilitate the VDS to have a community meeting that has a reasonable representation of all layers of the community, to explain and get feedback on the plan. If the plan is acceptable to the community a contract with the community is signed for its development based on the development plan which includes the role, tasks and responsibilities of both the community and the Executing partner, including the consequences if a party does not fulfill its responsibilities sufficiently. 7. Facilitate the community to discuss and evaluate the plan once a year in a community meeting. After the community meeting the responsible village organization should adapt the plan based on the results of the discussion and other relevant information (e.g. trends in health etc. derived from the second round of household surveys done). Example – Filled form for priority problems (advanced format) Problem
How common
How serious
People’s concern
Drunkenness Pneumonia Diarrhoea Cholera
++ ++++ ++++ ++++
+++ ++++ +++ ++++
+++ ++++ +++ ++
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How much it affects health or causes burdens or other things ++ ++ ++
Possibility for teaching prevention or improve situation ++++ +++ ++++ +++++
Community development – Social and organizational interventions
Importance to be given in the CDP 14 17 16 15
Chronic ill people No permanent toilets Illiteracy
++ ++++
+++ +++
+++ +
+++ ++++
++++ +++++
15 15
+++
+++
+++
++
++
13
Community Development Plan format IMPORTANCE
PROBLEM
PLANNED ACTIVITIES
RESPONSIBLE PERSON(S) OR COMMITEE
BUDGET
WHO PAYS?
TIMING
1 2 Etc.
Cross cutting issues: • Ensure sufficient input by women and inclusion of gender issues in the plans. • Include plans for environmental awareness and protection. • Include HIV/AIDS awareness and consider People Living with HIV/AIDS, Orphans and Other Vulnerable children in the community. Limitations: Does not automatically lead to improvements. Needs active follow up and regular updating and discussion. Points of attention: • Sometimes the best solution for a problem is different from what people think of. For instance, if the problem is water related diseases, also health and hygiene promotion could help to diminish water related diseases (this is important because education is something that can be done even if only few financial resources are available). • Often a combination of solutions is appropriate. • Make sure that the participants discuss things intensively before determining a solution. Unrealistic solutions will raise expectations that cannot come through leading to disappointments! • Make use of all information and expertise available (e.g. self assessment report, household survey reports and expertise from the participants themselves)! • The plan should be used to evaluate progress. Often the village tends to forget about the plan and continue its development process without looking back to what it had planned to do. The plan should be used as a tool to evaluate and adapt the process from time to time. The Executing partner should facilitate the village to do so on a regular basis (for instance once a year). • During this intervention again if participants and/or other community members do sufficiently participate in the different parts of the intervention this may lead to rejection of the village from the program. It should be made clear in advance to the villagers that their active participation in all parts of the program is a prerequisite for continuation in the program. Further information: SD3.1 CDO manual (Connect International).
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6.7
Capacitate PO’s and village leaders
People’s organizations (PO’s) enhance and facilitate community development in different ways and from different positions. They are groups formed by people with a common aim. PO’s can facilitate other PO’s to function properly, identify problems and implement solutions or organize the community to do so, mobilize resources to execute and create facilities and services, provide loans and subsidies for income generation or health improving facilities, educate and advise people regarding important subjects, assist people to build up important skills, etc. Village leaders are imperative for the community development process. Strong, motivated village leaders can influence community members to be active. Contrary, weak and/or unmotivated leaders can block the process. Existing (government) structures for village governance and leadership are very important. If such structures are to some extent effective it may be better to capacitate them rather then to establish new PO’s. A situation where a structure separate from government structures was set up As we – within the Mtakuja Dev Project in Tanzania – are now moving into a phase that includes the creation of formal “People Organizations”, the first being a Water Users Entity, we have decided together with the community, that the committee should be separated from the existing government structures, with public office holders in local government explicitly barred from taking leadership roles in the PO. This reflects a level of mistrust in the community towards government, but is an important aspect to be aware of, for better or for worse.
Each PO will need custom training and coaching. We distinguish the following PO’s:
•
Village Development Society (VDS) – this is an umbrella organization overlooking the development process in the village in general and overlooking, controlling and facilitating the other organizations and groups in the village. In some countries the Village Development Society is part of the government structure and is also called the village leadership. The VDS can also be referred to as the ‘governance’ of the village.
•
Village committees – these organizations plan and take action per sector. Often there is a health committee, a watsan committee, and depending on the problems and opportunities also other committees (e.g. an orphans committee, a housing committee, a credit & savings committee, school committees, etc.). Village committees detail/fine-tune and implement the plans formed by the community and the VDS. They are accountable to and operate under the supervision of the VDS.
•
Self-Help Groups (SHG’s) – these are groups of households, women or other individuals that have organized themselves for a common purpose. We distinguish: - Village Action Groups (VAG’s). Groups formed by representatives of 20 to 30 households that together undertake action to improve their health and livelihoods. - Credit & Savings Groups. Groups of individuals who bring together money (for instance weekly) which the group can then give as a credit or a donation to one of the members, each week another member. The member receiving the money can use it to do an investment for an income generating activity or to buy something which he/she needs but would normally not have all the funds for at once. - Other SHG’s. Groups focusing on one or a few specific topics. Examples: a group of women who form a weaving business together, farmers clubs, etc.
Role of the Executing partner: (a) facilitate proper election of PO members and/or PO representatives (see the below Box), (b) train the leaders/group coordinators/ representatives (and where required the individual members) of the people’s organizations and the village leaders; (c) coach, facilitate and monitor PO’s and village leaders.
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Community development – Social and organizational interventions
Election of members in VDS’s and Village Committees The village should elect the members of VDS’s and Village Committees to ensure these members have the support of and are accountable to the village. The tasks of the Executing partner in the election process are as follows: 1. Facilitate the community members to discuss the role and tasks of the PO. 2. Ask the community what kind of people members of the PO should be (for instance: the members should be trusted and respected, able to read and write, sufficient time available, not likely to move out of the community in the coming years, etc.). If needed ask questions such as: ´Do you want a PO member who has only very little time for this function?´, ´Do you want a PO member who will only fulfill this function if he gets a payment for it from you?´. 3. Explain the method of voting. The community members can nominate persons or persons can volunteer themselves for each position in the PO. The community can approve or disapprove the candidate. One way to do this is that the candidates for a position stand in front of the group with their backs towards the group so they can’t see the people. The people can then vote for their candidate by raising hands when the facilitator points his/her finger to the candidate. 4. Ask per candidate who is in favor of that candidate (explain first that people can only vote for one candidate). When the people vote you can ask them to close their eyes so they cannot look who raises his/her hands for which candidate. The candidate with most votes is elected. If this person is a man, it is good when the vice-candidate is a woman and the other way around (example: if the chairman is a man, the vice-chairman should preferably be a woman). 5. Let the whole committee present itself in the end.
Leadership training Each PO leader and each village leader should take part in a leadership training course. Such a training course may cover the following subjects: • • • •
Qualities, duties and responsibilities of a good leader. Who should be a leader, tasks, responsibilities and relationship of a leader Group dynamics and different strategies to be followed by a leader at different times. Managerial tasks to be performed by a leader.
The trained leaders are expected to disseminate their learning to others in their respective village in their regular meetings or special orientations. Recommended methods: Village leader commitment workshop
Focus
Timing
Suitability
Creating village leaders’ commitment for the community development process. At the beginning of the process, before the final selection of the villages
Facilitate democratic erection of VDS and village committees Per PO: (Re)election by village members of Chair, vice-Chair, Treasurer, vice-Treasurer, Notary, members. During or shortly after the village self-assessment during one or several events.
Every village leader should take part.
Each village to erect committees for priority issues.
Facilitate erection of SHG’s
Training of PO’s and village leaders
Formation of SHG’s and election of SHG leaders.
Effective learning though adult learning cycle training.
After the village selfassessment
Ideally each PO and village leader should be trained bimonthly.
Weekly to monthly throughout the process
SHG’s can be formed as desired.
Train every PO and village leader regularly.
Coach/monitor every PO + village leader regularly.
Community development – Social and organizational interventions
Coaching + monitoring of PO’s and village leaders Ongoing guidance to ensure things go well
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The adult learning cycle – a method for effective training of adults Experience
Apply
•
Experience. Create or simulate an experience, or have participants describe what they experienced, related to the topic.
•
Reflection. Reflect on the key experiences and discuss.
•
Generalization. Generalize about what happened, considering what knowledge, attitudes, or skills they can learn from it and integrate new information into their knowledge base.
•
Application. Apply the learning to other situations to see if it holds true. This provides a new “experience” and the cycle begins again.
Reflect
Generalize
Cycle steps Have direct experience
Reflect on the experience Generalize about the experience Apply what has been learned
Trainer’s role Structure the experience – present objectives, instructions, and time frame Help the learner to focus on key points and share ideas/ reactions with others Guide the learner to new insights based on experience and discussion Coach the learner by providing feedback, advice, and encouragement
Methods
• • • • • •
Small-group work
• • • • • • • • • •
Participant presentations
Case scenarios Role plays Skills practices Games & group exercises Small and large group discussions and reporting Individual exercises Large Group discussion Interactive presentations Demonstrations Small Group activities Action planning Skills practice, role play Field visits Discussion
Questions for trainees What is the purpose of this activity? What else do you need to know to carry out this activity? How is it going? How much more time you need? What happened? How did you feel when…? What did you notice about…? How do others feel about…? Why do you agree or disagree? What did you learn from this? What are some major themes we’ve seen here? What are the implications for other issues? How will you apply this? What do you think will be most difficult when you use this? How can you overcome barriers to applying what you’ve learned?
In this paragraph we further describe the capacity building of VDS’s, village leaders and VAG’s as these are occupied with basis development. Capacity building of village committees and SHG’s is described in the chapters covering the topics these PO’s focus on.
6.7.1
Capacitate village leaders
The training, coaching and monitoring of village leaders is often combined with the training, coaching and monitoring of VDS coordinators and members. Activities by the Executive partner:
• Commitment workshop. Invite village leaders, execute the workshop, leaders
present a commitment protocol to the village, assess the performance and motivation of each leader and use this as a criterion in the selection of the villages for the program (this activity to be done preferably before the official selection of villages).
• Regular training of village leaders for their specific role, starting with a leadership
training course (see the box on this subject some pages back). Monitor the functioning of village leaders in the training courses and give them feedback about it.
• Regular coaching and facilitation of village leaders. Regular visits by community
coaches to village leaders, discussing progress and problems, providing advice and assistance, for instance helping the village leader to assist him/her to explain things to community members. Also fieldworkers should visit, coach and assist village leaders.
• Monitor the functioning of village leaders. Page 48
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Points of attention: • Village leaders may feel threatened if others start to organize and plan activities. They may be afraid to loose control and start to frustrate progress. If training and coaching does not solve this (despite meetings etc to boost things again) the village should be put out of the program and be told they can only apply (after 6 months or longer) to be allowed back in the program if they have solved their internal problems and can convince the Executing partner that they will perform better (don’t say anything about the internal problems otherwise your organization may become part of the conflict; it is up to the village to take action). • Leaders may be incapable to read or write which may form a challenge for developing a good leadership training course. Working through the principles of the Adult learning cycle (see former page) may overcome this to a large extent. • Talented people often rise from the bottom of a SHG to the top of a VDS or even higher (beyond the village boundaries; see the Box below). Capacity building of leaders should therefore also enhance new people to become leaders. Cross cutting issues: • Village leaders should preferably include a good number of women. • The training of village leaders should include issues of general interest for the community as the problems encountered by women and children, the importance of preserving natural resources, proper health and sanitation practices, etc. Limitations: Village leaders may be there traditionally or as elected leaders. In the first case it may be more difficult to assist villagers to change and improve things (although of course not necessarily so; it depends very much on the person). But also an elected leader may function poorly and be difficult to replace for the villagers. Be careful though not to be come part of their internal fights over such an issue. AN ORDINARY WOMAN BECAME THE PEOPLE’S REPRESENTATIVE - A story from India Sujatha, a poor woman from a poor Caste, worked as agricultural laborer. During off seasons she and her husband and child had to migrate to nearby towns in search of work. Sujatha joined a self-help group, and slowly got interested in its activities, especially the savings and internal lending. Her active participation with ability to handle the group functions made her the group leader. She was performing her tasks as Group leader efficiently and got appreciation from the members and also from Government officials and People’s representatives. Once the SHG’s in the villages were strengthened, some formed Mutually Aided Cooperative Thrift and Credit Societies (MACTS). Accordingly, Mitra MACTS was formed with 350 members from the surrounding villages. Seeing her functions as the group leader and the savings the group could mobilize, the members of the group proposed her as the MACTS leader. After attending a leadership training camp which increased her confidence and management skills Sujatha became the Director of Mitra MACTS. Her performance in MACTS gave her due recognition and respect. She was known to every family. When the government declared the schedule for local elections, many members wanted Sujatha to be elected as Mandal President. Her leadership qualities and management skills was the prime reason for her being considered by the community. Further her openness and transparency gave her an opportunity to be considered even by the upper caste families. With the support of the members and general public she got elected with a huge margin of votes. In her first speech made after becoming the Mandal President, she recalled her experiences in being trained by ASSIST (that had supported the forming of SHG’s and MACTS) and termed it as a process in which she got empowered to become a good leader and also taught her the need for serving to all.
Further information: PO manuals of Connect International and Assist.
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6.7.2
Capacitate Village Development Societies (VDS’s)
A VDS is the governance structure of the village. It sets the rules, facilitates community development and monitors progress of all developments. It also is the body that takes care of accountability to different stakeholders, liaison with stakeholders etc. Specific responsibilities include:
-
Preparing bye-laws (Rules and Regulations, etc.).
-
Setting up procedures.
-
Community development planning (+ regular evaluation/adaptation of the plans).
-
Monitoring and supervision of the village committees.
-
Organize and chair monthly community meetings.
-
Account for progress made to villagers, authorities and Executing partners.
-
Liaise with all involved stakeholders.
Role of the Executing partner: (a) facilitate village to properly elect the VDS members; (b) train, coach and facilitate the VDS members.
Activities by the Executing partner:
• Facilitate the proper election of chair person, treasurer, secretary and other VDS members. Sometimes also a vice chair person, a vice treasurer and/or a vice secretary may be elected. Often the chair person is the village leader. Two persons are chosen as group coordinators. These persons will be trained by the program and act as representatives of the VDS toward the program.
• Train the VDS group coordinators regularly (ideally monthly), starting with a leadership training course.
• Assist the VDS members to formulate and take up personal tasks. • Coach the VDS through periodic meetings. • Monitor the functioning of the VDS. Discussion - should the village leader be the chairman of the VDS?
Whether the Village Leader should be the chair of the Village Development Society, I would at least put that up for discussion, whether the Village Leader is always the right person. That said, any PO should of course have the support/blessing from the local leaders and cooperate with the village/ward/district governments to the extent feasible. Cross cutting issues: Stimulate villages to elect at least as many female as male members in the VDS. Limitations: If there is already a local government structure or VDS, the focus may have to be on how to increase this capacity, sometimes under less favorable circumstances (for example if village leaders and VDS members were elected without following proper procedures). If this does not work out well one may decide to focus more on VAG’s and other SHG’s instead of community governance. Page 50
Community development – Social and organizational interventions
Points of attention: • Members of the VDS should be elected in a participatory way in order to get VDS members who really represent the people, are respected and trusted by the people, are capable to fulfill their VDS tasks and are ready and motivated to volunteer these tasks for the community. • The members of the VDS are volunteers. Therefore their tasks and responsibilities should be clear and limited. If their tasks become too time consuming, decentralization of the system should be considered either through additional village committees or establishment of Village Action Groups. • At the area level VDS’s may form umbrella organizations (see the Box below). Formation of APEX Bodies as umbrellas for VDS’s Once the village-level organisations such as Self-Help Groups and Village Development Societies are functioning successfully, the next step is to federate these Self-Help Groups and Village Development Societies to a larger (APEX) bodies either at cluster level or area level based on their geographic situation. At the beginning they will take up common issues pertaining to the area and conduct awareness camps, lobby with government with regard to problems faced by the farmers in agriculture such as supply of seed, fertilisers, power, pesticides, water and marketing of produce. These bodies can register themselves as entities with due representation to all the Groups or Societies and develop linkages with the government and financial institutions. It is achieved by constant trainings and monitoring support by NGO coordinating staff. In the end a big national farmers organization might become strong enough to pressure authorities to make decisions like blocking subsidies import of (unfair competing) agricultural products. (Info: ASSIST).
6.7.3
Capacitate Village Action Groups (VAG’s)
VAG’s implement and achieve household improvements themselves, even if village committees, village leaders or other institutions are not active. VAG’s learn and come to take action through a self education and activation approach, where people discuss, become aware and motivated about priority subjects and decide themselves what actions they wish to undertake and then execute these actions. A main advantage of these groups is that people become more motivated for action and improvements than when a committee, leader or institution starts telling people to do things. Typical subjects covered by VAG’s include: improved water and sanitation, health education, agriculture and where desired also income generation. Groups are formed by representatives from 20 to 30 households usually all living in the same area in a village. They meet weekly or bi-weekly to discuss priority topics and formulate and undertake action with regard to these topics with and for the involved households. Within VAG’s social responsibility for each other and involvement with each other are central themes which result in stronger households in a VAG also assisting the weaker ones. VAG’s may also become Credit & Saving Groups (see the chapter on Economy in this document). Activities by the Executive partner: • VAG formation with representatives from 20 to 30 households (1 person/household). • Election of 2 to 3 VAG leaders who will be responsible for facilitating the meetings, guiding the VAG members and monitoring actions. • Training VAG leaders (ideally once a month), starting with a leadership training course. • Stimulate and monitor that VAG’s meet weekly or bi-weekly, each time discussing a subject using a fact sheet and drawings belonging to the fact sheet. • Facilitate that VAG members investigate priority problems and opportunities. • Stimulate and monitor VAG’s to undertake actions to improve the situation of the VAG members, usually in collaboration with the village committees. • Monitor that VAG’s report monthly in a community meeting what they have done and what results they have achieved as well as the problems encountered. Cross cutting issues:
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Stimulate PO’s to elect one woman and one man (or two women) as group coordinators. Limitations: VAG’s are often unable to organize the set up of systems required for undertaking activities (e.g. the set up of a slab production centers for latrine slabs). For this they depend usually on village committees or other structures/organizations. Points of attention: • A VAG should not cover more than 30 households to be effective. • If a household chooses not to become VAG member this is of course their right. Important is though that such households are considered a part of the VAG area and that the VAG will monitor also the progress of these households with the realization of health facilities (e.g. latrines, water points) and other health improvements. The VAG should also always be open for these households to join if they change their mind. • Executing partner staff will facilitate the formation of the VAG’s, stimulating people to discuss what a VAG is and why it is good to be a VAG member. • Sometimes VAG’s do not value the advise of a community coach until they see he/she is fully supported by the organization on his/her actions. Therefore organization staff should regularly visit the communities together with the coaches to show the support. Further information: VAG Leader manual (Connect International) • VAG Leader training manual (Connect International) • Fact sheets about different subjects + drawings to support the fact sheets (developed for Africa; see below two fact sheet drawings; Connect International). •
Fact sheet drawing about Family hygiene
Fact sheet drawing about Family planning
(© Foundation Connect International)
(© Foundation Connect International)
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Community development – Social and organizational interventions
6.8
Capacitate community coaches
Community coaches are contracted representatives of the Executing partner. The role of a community coach is to assist a small group of villages (usually two to four) with their development proces by channeling communication and information from the Executing partner to the villages and from the villages to the Executing partner, and provide guidance to the different PO’s and leaders in the villages. A community coach lives in one of the villages he or she assists. Each community coach is selected by the Executing partner from a group of potential candidates, which have been elected by the communities in participatory meetings. Community coaches are regularly trained and intensively supervised/coached by the Executing partner. They are probably the most important part of the chain in many community development programs. To be able to effectively assist communities to develop themselves it is important that a community coach masters a number of ‘coaching skills’. The most important coaching skills are: 1. Facilitation skills 2. Teaching skills 3. Investigation skills 4. Advisory skills 5. Conflict mediation skills 6. Monitoring and reporting skills 7. Learning skills Activities by the Executive partner: • Facilitate involved communities to select several proper community coach candidates. • Select a proper community coach from the candidates. • Train the community coaches regularly. • Guide and monitor the coaches regularly. • Have monthly meetings with the community coaches in which they each time provide their monitoring data for the former month per each assisted village and make a planning for the assistance to each village for the coming month. • Assist the community coaches with expert inputs when needed. Cross cutting issues: Try to end up with groups of coaches with a gender balance (no. of women coaches at least the same or more than the number of male coaches). Limitations: Community coaches have limited capacity and knowledge. It is therefore good to monitor, train and guide them properly. If they do not function well they may need to be replaced. It is therefore also good to focus in the community development process on specific topics each month or period and train the coaches intensively on each topic just before they will work on the topic with the villages. Points of attention: Community coaches need to travel between the villages and may therefore need a bicycle which can be given to them on the basis of a contract that they will continue to work as coach for two years minimum and will operate and maintain the bicycle properly and at their own costs.
•
Further information: • SD2.1 Community coach manual (Connect International). • SD3.2 Manual for training of community coaches (Connect International). Community development – Social and organizational interventions
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6.9
Capacitate community centers
The promotion of community centers is an effective way to stimulate a strong community structure. Community centers can function as meeting points for villagers and their organizations, and can be used for various types of village meetings, cultural festivals, village celebrations, etc. They can also function as small income generation units when hired out to private people or organizations outside the village (e.g. for marriages). For the construction of a community center usually a rural building is made. The center will need to be properly managed, usually done by volunteers from the community. Role of the Executing partner: Help raise initial funding for start up. Facilitate finding and training of two volunteers to manage the center. Assist creating a management structure involving the Village Committee. Monitor the center and performance of the managers over some years. Cross cutting issues: Since a community center is a place where all kinds of people from the community meet, it can be used to promote all kind of (development) subjects. Points of attention: Volunteers should ideally receive a small incentive to keep up their motivation. Further information: Assist
6.10
Village exchanges
Villages can learn from each other and motivate each other. Villages that are successful can function as ambassadors for change to other villages. Role and tasks of the Executing partner: enhance villages to exchange information, ideas and experiences with each other, take leaders of successful villages to new and unsuccessful villages to explain what they have done, make promotion films in which successful people and successful villages explain ab0utr what made their success and show it in less successful and new villages. Recommended methods: Focus
Timing
Suitability
Village exchanges Exchange of ideas, knowledge, experiences and/or information between villages or groups in villages Any time during the process after the start of the program.
Promotion film Promotional film that shows how good development can be realized by those who are motivated. Shortly after the start of the program.
Ambassadoring Bring good leaders from successful villages to less successful or starting villages to boost their motivation Shortly after the start of the program and when a village needs motivation building.
If villages are interested or may benefit from it.
Especially for starting villages.
Especially in villages that lack motivation.
Points of attention: • Organize the exchanges with involvement of/agreement by the district authorities. • Village exchanges may be held to increase motivation but may also aim to for instance have a specific committee trained by a committee in another village that has a lot of experience and expertise. Further information: Assist. Page 54
Community development – Social and organizational interventions
7
Infrastructure
Once committees, PO’s and groups have been formed and become active, the community is ready to start with priority interventions. Often one or more high priority infrastructure interventions are among the first interventions communities wish to execute. Reasons: (a) infrastructure interventions often lay a basis for other types of interventions (for instance it is difficult to work on the improvement of primary education if there is no school building), (b) infrastructure interventions usually are very motivating (you can see and touch what has been accomplished) and usually deliver results everybody likes. Infrastructure interventions should be implemented in close cooperation with local authorities to ensure the interventions fit in the planning and priorities of the authorities and do not overlap with or cross through other initiatives. Authorities may also be willing/capable to contribute with expertise, labor, transport or even money. The beneficiaries should be fully involved in the process, doing everything they can themselves and be largely responsible for and in the ‘drivers seat’ of project planning, monitoring and evaluation. Involved village committees should be properly trained on issues like bookkeeping, stores management, and technical issues related to the implementation, monitoring, and finally O&M of the realized results. Only infrastructure should be realized that can be operated and maintained by either the beneficiaries themselves or by existing organizations in the area that are willing and capable to do so in such a way that beneficiaries can make optimal use of the facilities realized and afford to do so. In order to be able to realize infrastructure in a village it is often necessary to have the following external services available: •
Companies that produce (parts of) the infrastructure required (examples: a company producing boreholes and placing hand pumps, a company producing hand pumps, a company producing latrine slabs, etc.), and
•
Credit services to: (a) enable a community or individual households to buy products from the above companies (for instance a group of households that want to contract a company to drill a borehole and place a hand pump will need a credit to do so), (b) enable local companies to pay the required investments for setting up the production of required infrastructure items.
If in an area production of required infrastructure items and/or credit services are not available the program may have to include initiatives to capacitate local companies and institutions to start producing such infrastructure items and/or delivering credit services. Such interventions (outside the village but executed to create services and production for villagers) are described in part VI of this document. BIO gas plant in India producing gas for cooking out of organic waste like human excreta, food waste, farm waste etc. while the material remaining after the digestion process is highly useful as organic manure for growing crops. Specialized companies are need though to produce such facilities. In India, Bangladesh and many other Asian countries such companies are often available. In Africa very often it is needed first to capacitate people to form a local company that produces such facilities. (Source: Assist).
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The infrastructure interventions described in this chapter are: Intervention Infrastructure surveys and planning Capacitate Infrastructure Committees
Social Housing
Groundwater points
Pipeline water systems
Water treatment plants
Rainwater harvesting
Water storage and recharge
Renovating existing water sources Household water treatment
Toilet facilities
Rural buildings Roads and Drainage
Dikes
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Suitability For all communities where infrastructure interventions are needed and a priority subject. For all communities where infrastructure interventions are required and are a priority subject of the people. Where poor families have no or poor housing and who give a high priority to improving this. Where groundwater development is the most optimal way to obtain the amounts of water needed.
Especially gravity systems are suitable for poor communities, if higher up proper sources are available. Where community drinking water systems need water treatment and communities are motivated and capable to O&M the plant. Where groundwater and surface water development are not an option or more expensive than rainwater harvesting Where water cannot constantly be guaranteed by a source while there is a continuous water demand. Where water infrastructure needs to be repaired while the causes for not repairing it can be solved. Where proper water quality at the household level cannot be guaranteed by a good water system. Required for each and every household to preserve hygiene and prevent open defecation. Where a simple building is required for important activities Where communities need to upgrade roads to improve their connection to towns and other villages. Where villages need to protect their land against flooding or inundated land against loosing the water.
Community development – Infrastructure
Focus Assess the needs and opportunities regarding required infrastructures. Regular training, coaching and monitoring of the different committees. Self-help construction or construction by a contractor (preferably assisted by the beneficiaries). Drilling boreholes or digging wells as much as possible at locations preferred by beneficiaries (especially women) and equipping them with a proper type of pump. Construction of intake, tank and tapstands and laying of pipes with a high level of beneficiary participation. Treatment of water to an acceptable quality for drinking, managed by a properly capacitated community organization. Caching runoff rainwater from different types of surfaces
Storage of water in different types of reservoirs and stimulation of water to enter in the underground and recharge groundwater tables. Repair of broken facilities plus solving the causes for village organizations not repairing them. Different low-cost methods for treating water by households themselves in their houses. Household stand alone toilets not connected to any kind of sewage system. Simple one story buildings in rural areas. Mainly unpaved roads.
Small soil and stone dikes
7.1
Infrastructure surveys and planning
For each type of prioritized infrastructure or topic that will need some kind of infrastructure development (e.g. ‘drinking water’) usually a separate investigation is needed. The investigations primarily focus on hardware (e.g. irrigation canals, groundwater points, school buildings) but are usually also combined with social and managerial aspects involved. For example: if good primary education is prioritized and the community has indicated it needs a school building, a school investigation will be executed focusing on school buildings, but also on issues such as O&M of the buildings, school management, motivation and capacity of the teachers, etc. Furthermore, infrastructure surveys also assess what the requirements and possibilities are with regard to funds (as grant, credit or subsidy, or a combination of these) needed to realize the desired infrastructure works and what can be done if funding is difficult to get. Executed usually after the village self assessment and after election of one or more infrastructure (or project) committees. Role of the Executing partner: • Execute infrastructure survey(s), together with members of the involved committee (s), and possibly with VDS members and other representatives of the village. • Analyse the surveys together with key persons from the community. • Produce plans with realistic solutions (including alternatives if possible) to the main problems that remain within the budgets available. • Prepare the involved committee(s) to present the options to the community (so they understand the solutions and the consequences of them in terms of investment costs and input by the villagers, O&M costs and organizational aspects, the fact that if investment is high probably other needed works will have to wait till new money becomes available, etc.) and together select the most wanted solutions within a realistic and available budget and take ownership[p together over the decisions made. Cross cutting issues: • Infrastructure surveys should start to investigate what is included in other survey reports (e.g. the self assessment report) about infrastructure needed/prioritized. • Women should be involved in identifying the locations where they prefer facilities such as water points, latrines, kitchens etc. and ideally be involved in preparing the designs for these facilities, as they are the persons often making most use of these facilities. Technicians should explain properly and try to come to an understanding and agreement with the women if the desired locations or designs wanted by the women for technical reasons are not possible, and in that case try to find suitable and acceptable alternatives together. This will need awareness creation among technicians who may be tended not to take women serious in their wishes, knowledge and interests. Points of attention: • Low cost solutions are very welcome. However people might prefer more expensive solutions to overcome imago differences between lower and upper casts, poor and rich, etc. • When the survey presents a water treatment plant as a possible solution, alternatively household water treatment solutions should be considered as well. The community needs to know all investment and running costs of the presented solutions to decide and take ownership of the decision. • Each survey should look into landownership issues. If infrastructure works are planned to be executed on certain locations it should be investigated who owns the land, can/will this/these person(s) make the land available and for how long and who will be the owner after that period. The survey should develop a landowner agreement and investigate whether the agreement is acceptable to the involved landowners. Further information: • Connect International infrastructure survey manuals. • Statement of Consent (agreement between landowner and village in an irrigation project; Femi).
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7.2
Capacitate Infrastructure Committees
Different committees may be needed (e.g. a WatSan Committee, a Housing Committee, etc.). The community may also decide to erect a general Infrastructure Committee to work with sub committees for the different types of infrastructures to be implemented. Role of the Executing partner: Training, facilitation, coaching and monitoring of the committees. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Facilitate the community to elect the members of the Infrastructure Committee and possibly also members of sub-committees for priority infrastructure interventions. These have to be active people because the committees will be very busy if the interventions materialize. Two persons are to be chosen by the members of each committee as group coordinators who will be trained by the program and act as representatives of the committee toward the program. 2. Assist the committee members to formulate and take up personal tasks. 3. Train the committees for their roles and tasks (ideally one day every two months with a general introductory training of 3 to 4 days). Training may cover: bookkeeping, stores management, leadership and organization + planning skills, monitoring, facilitation, specific knowledge regarding the interventions for which the committees have been erected, etc. The committee coordinators/leaders should follow a leadership training course. Some training courses may best provided to the other committee members (e.g. the bookkeeping and stores management training should probably best be provided to the elected Secretary and Vice Secretary of the committee). 4. Coach committees regularly (discuss progress, provide advice, visit intervention sites, etc.) and monitor their performance (use a monitoring form and fill it during each visit). 5. Assist the committees with contacts with involved authorities to coordinate interventions, ask for support, etc. Activities by the Committees: 1. Assess in the community and with authorities and other stakeholders in the area the problems and needs regarding different infrastructures, and also the plans of authorities and others for working on these issues. 2. Prepare, supervise and monitor the infrastructure interventions/projects. 3. Communicate and liaise with district authorities about the interventions. 4. Act on problems and, if felt necessary, communicate with the Infrastructure Committee, VDS and/or district authorities. Points of attention: • Infrastructure interventions are susceptible to corruption. People can steel from the stores or claim materials were not good any more. Therefore tight control systems are needed especially regarding financial bookkeeping and stores management. • The community will need to be informed about progress regularly, for example by reading the financial accounts to the community during community meetings. • In each village there are so-called ‘vulnerable families’, like one or no parent families, elderly people or families with very ill or handicapped people. These families will not be able to provide much input. Therefore they need to be exempted and if it concern works at the households (for instance social housing initiatives) people from other families should be found to assist these families with the works. The infrastructure committees need to be aware of this and prepare for it, by making lists of vulnerable families and facilitating the community to determine appropriate solutions. Further information: • ASSIST • WatSan Committee manual (Connect International).
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Community development – Infrastructure
7.3
Social Housing
Social housing provides scope for poor families to build or rehabilitate their house. It gives people a sense of pride, dignity, self respect and belonging which ideally sets the stage for tackling other problems, such as health and education. Proper housing also greatly benefits health (protection against cold and rain, avoiding crowded situations, and reduced smoke in improved kitchens). Social housing should be done with and by the house owners in order to create a feeling of ownership (more sustainable as people will take care of their house) and pride, and ensure that the house fits to the wishes and needs of the family. Social housing interventions can start whenever the village has a properly trained committee to organize it and the Executing partner has the resources to support it. Role of the Executing partner: Guiding and training the village development society (VDS) and involved project committee, assistance with finding construction experts or contractors, funding and monitoring. Recommended methods: Method Focus Suitability
House construction by beneficiaries Improving poor or no housing situations. When people need better housing, are able to construct themselves, can be expected to stay in their house, but lack financial resources and/or (some) skills to build or improve a house. A capable project committee and proper technical guidance are required. Vulnerable and weak households should be assisted by other households.
House construction by a contractor Same. When people need improved housing, are unable to improve their house or build a new house themselves, can be expected to stay for at least 25 years in their house, and lack financial resources to build or improve a house. Also a capable project committee is required to organize things.
Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Find out what the (local) government does regarding social housing. Try to get their cooperation and support (find out if there are government housing support programs from which part of the costs can be paid). Involve local authorities, and operate in accordance with housing regulations and construction permits. 2. Train the responsible Committee to manage the social housing project. 3. Identify target families together with the VDS and the Committee. In case of construction by the beneficiaries themselves: determine which households can construct/improve their own house and which cannot. Once the list is prepared crosscheck the socio-economic status of the target families. In case of any discrepancy, discuss it with the VDS and then finalize the list together. 4. Facilitate that VDS, committee, families and experts/contractors agree about how to set up the intervention at large, designs of the houses, labor organization, etc. The design, construction methods and materials should fit to the local needs and circumstances and cause as little ecological damage as possible (if burned bricks are used the households could for instance commit in their contract to planting trees to compensate for the firewood used to burn the bricks). 5. Assist the VDS to request the necessary documents and permits from the authorities.
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6.
Make sure that each target family signs a contract, stating their duties and rights: House construction by beneficiaries
House construction by a contractor • The family will be involved in the design of their house. The houses will be disaster resistant, include a sanitary installation. The houses will comply to government regulations.
•
A building expert will create a list of required materials together with the family and will advice about the design (to ensure proper construction, disaster resistance, a proper toilet, and compliance with government regulations etc.), the way in which their house can best be rehabilitated/constructed, all in good discussion, coordination and consent.
•
Received but not applied materials will be returned to the program.
• Same.
•
The family will build or repair its own house or hire people to do so (unless identified to be unable to do so, in which case other community members will do so). If identified to be capable to construct or repair the own house the family will also provide labor for assistance to assist incapable households to build or repair their house (following the planning for this by the involved committee).
• The contractor builds the house,
•
The building expert monitors and advises on the work. The Executing partner will also monitor the intervention (including how the expert functions).
•
The Executing partner will monitor the work done by the contractor.
•
The family pays a contribution on beforehand and/or regular installments afterwards during a certain period of time (unless exempted from this).
•
Same.
•
The family is responsible for proper use and maintenance of the house, and for all costs involved.
the family provides unskilled labor (unless identified unable to do so, then other community members will assist). The family will also provide labor to assist incapable households (following the committee’s planning).
• Same.
7.
Monitor and if required guide and supervise the proper construction of the houses. Ensure proper fulfillment of the own responsibilities as laid down in the contracts (e.g. delivery of materials, experts, transport, etc.).
8.
Handover ownership and responsibilities of finalized houses to the involved families.
Cross cutting issues: • When creating new houses it is also good to evaluate and improve roads and water points (see further on in this chapter). • Providing a credit, possibly partly subsidized, instead of a full donation can be a good solution to enable people to realize a house fully (or partly) themselves, which will reduce costs and increase sustainability. A Micro Finance Institution (MFI) may be capacitated to manage a specific credit/subsidy fund for this purpose in the villages involved in the program (see also the Economy chapter in this document). • For technical construction issues see the paragraph on construction of rural building in this part of this document. Limitations: Social housing is costly and therewith competes with other activities as resources are usually scarce. Therefore the challenge is to search for the most cost-effective way to assist people to build a proper house (e.g. by providing families slightly subsidized materials with which they can build or improve their house themselves) and only do so if improved housing is really required and has a high priority (meaning that people are clearly affected in their health and/or well being due to their poor housing and that people prioritize improved housing highly). Points of attention: • Land possession. Is the land on which the house is build owned by the family? If not, this may be a reason not to invest in housing on the premises as it may be taken away by the legal owner of the land unless the owner agrees to donate the land to involved households (in that case make sure that a proper legally sound contract is made and
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Community development – Infrastructure
• •
signed by landowner and households for this purpose). Financial and labor contribution by the beneficiaries. If a family contributes significantly financially to their house and all debts are paid the family should be free to do with the house as they please (no 25 year restriction). Often the authorities can assist with subsidies, provision of land, permits, etc.
Further information: ASSIST
Houses constructed by a contractor in a village in India
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7.4
Groundwater points
Groundwater points are wells or boreholes equipped with a pump. The wells and boreholes are best realized during the dry season when water tables are lowest. A system with people taking water with a rope and bucket from a well is highly susceptible to contamination which we therefore do not promote (although it may be an emergency solution when a hand pump on a well is temporarily broken). Groundwater points can be purchased by individual households, groups of households or by a whole community, while often there are organizations that subsidize the water point or pay for it entirely. In general private ownership and (a large proportion of) own payment leads to better sustainability. Often the involved WatSan committee fulfils an advisory role and may assist with finding the proper contractor, monitoring of the works, selection of groups of households to be allowed to buy a subsidized water point, organizing, training and monitoring water point committees that operate and maintain the water point, etc. Often groundwater points are also used, beside household water uses, for irrigation (if the water yield is enough). Role and activities of the Executing partner: • Assist the beneficiaries to select the best technical option (type of digging or drilling method, type of pump). • Assist WatSan committee and households to select a proper company for implementation of the water point, with experienced diggers or drillers and proper equipment. • Support the committee to explain involved households what their responsibilities are in realizing the water point, especially in terms of their labor and financial contributions. • Assist the WatSan committee, involved households and involved company to draw up a proper contract and sign it (offer a standard contract form to be used by them). • Facilitate, train and coach the village water and sanitation committee to supervise and monitor the realization of the water point. • Monitor and evaluate the realization of the water point. • Train and coach caretakers and involved committee to properly operate and maintain the water point and monitor their performance regularly. Recommended methods: Hand dug well with hand pump Focus
Suitability
Low-cost, low tech, cheap, stores water, with hand pump. For following situations: • Low cost, low skills, local materials, cheap or community labor. • Difficult/expensive to drill (e.g. stones in soil). • Soil allows for digging. • Water table depth (usually) < 20-25 m. • Limited water required. • Water table not expected to drop (often) below the well bottom. Especially suitable if also:
• Low permeability (store water flowing into it by night, a borehole can’t). • Backup for if pump breaks (rope + bucket). • Maintenance should be little, easy and cheap.
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Hand drilled borehole with hand pump Low cost, low tech cheap hand drilled, equipped with a hand pump. For following situations: • Low cost (often cheaper than wells), local material, cheap/community labor. • Soil types: - Loose soil (e.g. cohesive sandy soil; gravel/stones may occur if they can be loosened and removed. - Medium to heavily compacted and highly cohesive soils without stones (e.g. sand and tuff stone, sand/clay layers). • Skilled hand drilling team. • Water table depth < 40 m. • Limited water required. • Water table will not drop (often) below bottom. • No back up need for pump. • Enough groundwater flow.
Community development – Infrastructure
Machine drilled borehole with pump High(er) tech, (more) complex soils and/or deep groundwater. For following situations: • Funds or cheap equipment available. • Difficult soil and/or water table >40 m. • Enough permeability for yield required. • Proper equipment and drilling team available and can reach the drilling site. Especially suitable if also:
• High yields needed (machine drilled are often wider than hand drilled boreholes + go deeper). • Commercial/government rules enforced.
Cross cutting issues: • Groundwater points are often also used for small scale irrigation if the amount of water is enough. The water points are usually realized near the houses of the people. Gardens near the houses are often owned and managed by women who for instance grow vegetables on such plots. Therefore the realization of a groundwater point with hand pump which is also used for irrigation can lead to increased income for women (if they can sell some of the crops on the local market for instance) and besides that improved nutrition of especially children. Points of attention: Well trained drilling or digging teams are required. Don’t give water points for free as people will not maintain the point. Ensure access to micro credits with which people or the community can purchase the facilities, where required combined with material or financial subsidies. • Toilets and other (potentially) contaminating sources and facilities should preferably be at least 30 m away from a groundwater point. • Select water point sites based on user request, hygiene (no animals) and hydrogeological conditions, ideally near people’s houses (within 250 meters from the users houses). Selection of sites is to be done together with the women of the households (for as far as hydro-geological conditions permit; otherwise proper explanation about the limitations is required, and based on that sites selected that have people’s consent). • Make sure that the landowner has signed a proper agreement allowing those who paid and the users to own and use the water point. • Waste water should be properly drained. Make a fence and a water trough if there are animals, and encourage people to make the site nice, not only through a proper slab but also by bricks further around the slab, nice plants and flowers, etc. • Community water points should cater the needs of a minimum of 150 people or 30 families and be open to all people in the community irrespective of caste or creed. • Make clear contracts with the clients in which role and tasks of the Executing partner, role and tasks of the contractor (including after sales services) and role and tasks of the beneficiaries (including provision of unskilled labor) are laid down and signed by all parties, including clauses about the consequences if a party fails its responsibilities. • The water point owners will need to have a system for maintenance and collecting the money needed to pay for operation and maintenance costs. • Caretakers need to be trained for water point and pump maintenance. • With areas becoming drier water recharge mechanisms connected to groundwater points becomes more important.
• •
Further information: • Manuals on Hydro-geology and site selection (ST1.1), Rota Sludge hand drilling (ST1.2), Baptist hand drilling (ST1.3), Finalization of boreholes (ST1.4), Hand digging (ST1.5 and ST1.6), and Rope pump production (ST2.1 and ST2.2) of Connect International. • ST1.99 Conventional drilling (Connect International). • For overviews of drilling technologies, hand pumps and motorized pumps see www.akvo.org and Small Community Water Supplies (IRC, Technical Paper Series 40).
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7.4.1
Hand dug wells
A hand dug well normally has a diameter of 0.8 up to 1.5 meter and varies in depth, depending on how deep water is found. When using a ventilator for fresh air during digging, it becomes even possible to dig down to 30 meter or more. A hand dug well can be made in hard soils as well as in soft soils as long as it can be dug with a pick. The soil structure and water level determines how to support the walls. Safety is an important issue in well digging. As air tends to rest on top of other gasses, people descending into a well for further digging may suffocate due to lack of air. For this reason all kinds of ventilator methods are available that can be used during digging.
1 Start with digging by using the long chisel to loosen the soil. Use a hoe to put the soil in a bucket. These tools make it possible to dig wells with a diameter of only 0.8 meter.
Limitations: • Limited depth (usually max 30 m). Points of attention: • Safety needs attention. • Dug wells can be deepened in many cases which is an advantage in areas where groundwater table can be expected to drop in the coming years Further information: • ST1.5 Hand dug wells (Connect International). • ST1.6 Finalization of hand dug wells (Connect International).
3
2 If you are digging deeper, install a windlass to lift the bucket with soil. The windlass can even be used to bring the digger up and down. Continue digging till you find water. The water table should be at least 0.5 meter in the dry season. If it is not possible to install a windlass, lay down a horizontal beam and attach a rope to get the bucket + tools up or down. Use a ladder or make food steps in the well shaft to climb up and down. Ensure the shaft cannot collapse where the beam is. If you are not sure about this, dig until you find a hard layer and lay the beam on this layer.
4 After you found water, lower the well rings. Using well rings is necessary if you expect that the well shaft can collapse. How to make well rings is explained in chapter 3.2. Tie a rope at sticks and tie the rope at least at four points for optimal stabilization and security. Lower the well rings with the use of the windlass (see also the picture on page 10). If you are not using a windlass, lower
Part of the Well digging manual of Connect International
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Community development – Infrastructure
7.4.2
Hand drilled boreholes
Of the hand drilling techniques the Rota-sludge and Baptist method are the most recent options, drilling down to 40 m or more in relatively soft soils. They are based on Indian sludge methods and are made of locally available materials. For instance the hardened drill bit is made from used truck spring blades. As drilling fluids water mixed with fine clay or organic matter is used. It lifts the sand and heavy parts from the borehole and avoids collapsing. In the Rota sludge method the drill pipe is closed at the top by hand, in this way creating a vacuum. The Baptist method has a valve at the bottom of the drill pipe. A borehole is made by lifting up and down the drill pipe with a wooden lever (Rota Sludge) or a rope and pulley (Baptist). On the downward stroke, the drilling fluid flows into the sink pit where heavy particles settle on the bottom while the “clean” drilling fluid flows back into the hole. As the hole gets deeper, new pieces of threaded pipe are added. There is also a semi mechanized Rota Sludge technique which can drill in hard layers to depths of 50 to 80 m. On hand drilled boreholes usually locally produced hand pumps are placed, such as the Rope pump.
Rota-sludge hand drilling in Mozambique
Costs: 200 – 500 Euro incl. Rope pump (with 50 beneficiaries, the cost is 4-10 Euro / capita). The low cost allows small groups of households per pump or even ”private ownership”. Families pay up to 30% of the costs, provide (or pay) unskilled labor and execute the maintenance (O&M). Limitations: • Hand drilling is usually only feasible in relatively soft soils and down to limited depths (typically 40 m maximum). Points of attention: Hand drilling equipment can be produced by simple but good local mechanical workshops as can be found in most small district towns in developing countries. Ensure proper welding! • In case drilling fails (e.g. due to hitting a rock or water being to deep) the drilling team may have to start all over again, or apply another method. • A hand drilling technology but with a small motor attached is also available for where hand drilling or digging cannot be applied and machine drilling is too expensive. It is called MacPerfor (ask Connect International for further information).
•
Further information: • ST1.1 – Geology and Site Selection (Connect International). • ST1.2 - Rota Sludge Drilling (Connect International). • ST1.3 - Baptist Drilling (Connect International). • ST1.4 - Finalization of the borehole (Connect International).
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7.4.3
Machine drilled boreholes
Mechanical drilling techniques can largely be divided in: cable tool drilling (percussion) and rotary drilling. With the cable tool method the borehole is made by the lifting and dropping of a heavy drill stem and drill bit with a swivel socket. The drill bit is pulverizing the rock and soil until 1-2 meters of loose material fills the hole. The cuttings are removed from the borehole by a bailer or sand bucket. With the rotary method cutting of rock and soil is achieved by rotating bits of various types. Pre-mixed mud is forced down the hollow drill pipe and comes out to the surface on the outer side of the drill pipe, carrying up and removing the cut rock and soil particles. A so called Down the Hole hammer uses compressed air instead of mud. Machine drilling can go as deep as 200 m or more, depending on the type of machine used and the hydro-geology. Machine drilled boreholes may either be equipped with hand or with motorized pumps. Cost: 3.000 – 10.000 Euro including Piston pump (with 150 beneficiaries, cost is 20 – 70 Euro /beneficiary). Due to the high cost these water points are often public facilities. This requires a community organization for fee collection and O&M. Limitations: • Extensive abstraction of water especially by a motorized pump may cause a borehole or well to run dry. This causes big problems to the community. Therefore it is wise to pump test a borehole in the dry period before starting to use it. If the plan is to implement a motorized pump make sure a model is selected that cannot pump more water than the source can supply. Further information: • ST1.99 - Conventional drilling (Connect International). • Drilling Boreholes for Handpumps (Peter Wurzel; SKAT).
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Community development – Infrastructure
Machine drilling in progress
7.4.4
Pumps Hand pumps Rope pump
Afripump
Picture
Privately or group owned low-cost groundwater points Suitability • Where a borehole or well is available and a limited water yield is sufficient (60 liters/minute at 5 m deep, 10 liter per minute at 35 m deep). • Where there is a suitable aquifer within 40 m from the surface. • Where there is little money (cost is typically 70 – 100 Euro). • Where the owners can be expected to provide regular simple maintenance. Lifetime 3 – 10 years More info • ST2.1 – Rope pumps A-model (Connect International). • ST1.2 – Rope pumps – Windlass model (Connect International). Focus
Publicly owned groundwater points where maintenance is difficult to safeguard • Where a borehole or well is available and a limited maximum water yield is sufficient (typically 30 liters/minute). • Where there is a proper aquifer (sufficient yield, potable water) between 40 and 100 m from the surface. • Where there is money for purchase of the pump (cost is appr. 1.500 euro). • Where proper regular maintenance cannot be guaranteed. 2 – 20 years Fairwater
Motorized pumps Pump with fuel engine
Electrical pump
Picture
Irrigation of farms, other productive uses or water supply to larger communities. Suitability Where the following issues are available: • A high yield borehole or well. • High investment (350 Euro or more) plus funds for maintenance and fuel. • Absence of stable electricity supply. • Spare parts for the pump and engine. Details • More expensive fuelled pumps can reach deeper and need less maintenance. • When maintenance is needed, often a part of the pump has to be replaced (expensive). Focus
Lifetime More info
Irrigation of farms, other productive uses or water supply to larger communities. Where the following issues are available: • A high yield borehole or well. • Stable supply of electricity. • Investment ranging from 150 Euro (40 m 20L/min) to 450 Euro (100 m - 20L/min). • Continuous budget for electricity. • More reliable than fuel engines. • Costs depend on needed power, water production and water level. • Can run over 5 years without problems. If maintenance is needed, often pump parts need to be replaced which is expensive. Variable. Water cooled 2-5 years, oil cooled 5-10 years. • Connect International rope pump manuals for engine driven rope pumps • Manuals of pump producing companies • Small Community Water Supplies (IRC, Technical Paper Series 40).
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Limitations: • Hand pumps often fail due to poor operation and maintenance. Causes often include: unavailability of spare parts, too high prices of spare parts, unavailability of or too expensive repair services, improper organization or neglect of water point maintenance (especially in public facilities and where there is a lack of ownership feeling). We therefore recommend: (a) to implement water points on demand of the people and that are as much as possible privately owned and have been paid fully or to a large extent by the owners themselves (assisted to do so if needed with a credit, possibly to some extent subsidized), (b) to place only hand pumps for which there are affordable spare parts available or spare parts that can be produced easily and cheaply locally and that can be easily and cheaply repaired in general, and (c) if proper maintenance of the hand pump cannot be guaranteed or there will be very heavy use of the pump (more than 250 persons for instance) place an Afripump because it does not need maintenance and continues to operate for 20 years (disadvantage: high cost of approximately 1.500 Euro). • Motorized pumps often fail, especially in rural areas, because of poor operation and maintenance. Main bottlenecks: insufficient funds for the required spare parts and/or electricity or fuel, poor motivation and/or organization of the community, unavailability of spare parts, tools/equipment and/or expertise for O&M. Points of attention: • Locally produced pumps are often highly sustainable as they can be repaired easily and at low cost. However, they can fail, e.g. due to: improper training of caretakers, low quality production (a major cause of failures in the past, e.g. in Ghana), stealing of the rope or other parts, neglect of maintenance. Rope pumps can (and in more than 80% do), if properly produced, operated and maintained last for 5 to 10 years. • Rope pumps can be produced by local mechanical workshops as can be found in most small district towns in developing countries. They need to be properly trained, coached and quality controlled though. • Motorized pump are often placed on groundwater points especially where higher amounts of water need to be abstracted, for instance for larger scale irrigation or for supply of piped water systems from a groundwater point. Groundwater points need to have sufficient capacity hence machine drilled boreholes as these are often wider than hand drilled boreholes. But motorized pumps may also be placed on hand dug wells if these yield enough water.
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7.4.5
Training of groundwater point caretakers
After a borehole or well has been realized and the pump is placed, caretakers will need to be trained to operate and maintain the water point and its pump. Usually at least two caretakers are trained. Of course the contents and length of the training depends on the O&M requirements, which again depends on such issues as the type of water point and the pump system installed. Role and activities of the Executing partner: 1. Train the trainers. 2. Develop proper Operation and Maintenance manuals for caretakers, in case such manuals are not available, and make sure they get the manuals they need and that the training of caretakers includes the proper and regular use of these manuals. 3. Regularly monitor the proper training of the caretakers. Cross cutting issues: • Caretakers typically are members of the water committee and as such bring in important issues and observations but are also directly controlled by the committee. Points of attention: • Ensure that caretaker manuals are in the local language. If caretakers cannot read and write make sure the caretakers manual mainly consists of clear photo’s and drawings with arrows to indicate things (see left for an example of part of the caretakers rope pump manual). • Continue to monitor the proper training of caretakers as this is of crucial importance for the sustainability of the pump and water point. • Ensure the training of at least two caretakers so if one leaves or stops to function at least another is still there (who can then train a new second caretaker again). Further information: • Connect International Rope pump manuals.
•
•
Small Community Water Supplies (IRC, Technical Paper Series 40). www.aidfi.org (especially for RAM pumps).
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7.5
Pipeline water systems
A pipeline water system is most feasible where ground water or other water sources (e.g. rainwater catchment) are technically or financially unfeasible (e.g. due to very deep aquifer or hard underground, limited rainfall, etc.). Even if a pipeline system is more expensive than other options one may choose for implementing a pipeline system because: • Especially gravity fed systems are usually highly sustainable, often lasting more than 40 years even in very poor and remote villages, with people usually being highly motivated to continue to operate and maintain the system as well as possible. • Investment costs (cost per beneficiary per lifetime year of the system, including interest) are often acceptable to low (especially for gravity pipeline systems). There are many types of pipeline water systems. The design depends on the morphology, hydro-geology, water quality and yields of potential sources, budgets available, and, the capacity and motivation of the community to organize and pay for O&M. From the water source to the water taps the following parts may be included: 1. Intake which collects water from a source feasible for drinking purposes (e.g. canal, river, spring, borehole, well, depending on the most logical and best quality source). 2. A slow sand filter or other treatment plant may need to be installed to purify the water. 3. The water flows by gravity or is pumped through a main pipeline, usually to an Over Head Storage Reservoir (OHSR) situated above the village (either on a hill or on a tower), or, in some cases, straight into the distribution lines. 4. After the OHSR, gravity supplies water through distribution pipelines to community and/or private taps. Role of the Executing partner: • Find experts for topographical survey, design and supervision of the construction works. • Facilitate the survey and design (possibly district water authorities can assist). • Explain the community what labor and funding they need to contribute. • Supply required additional funding, materials, equipment, etc. • Train and coach the project committee. • Support the committee throughout the entire project. • Assist with setting up an operation and maintenance plan for the system. • Monitor and evaluate the intervention. • Monitor the functioning of the water system and water organization in the long run. Recommended methods: Pipeline Picture
When Suitable
Lifetime Cost
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Gravity fed pipeline water system
Pump driven pipeline water system
Water committee is ready, intervention is planned, funding (donation/credit/subsidy) and other required external support (e.g. expertise) are available. If there is a proper source in the hills that If a proper source is far from or lower than can be protected for a long term and a the community, but a highly motivated motivated community are available. community, capable to pay for O&M. 15 – 50 years. 2 – 50 years. 50.000 – 100.000 Euro (with 3.000 60.000 – 200.000 Euro (with 3.000 benebeneficiaries, cost is 17 – 33 ficiaries, cost is 20 – 67 Euro/beneficiary, Euro/beneficiary). but also high O&M costs).
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Activities by the Executing partner and involved committees: 1. Preparation: • water and topographical survey, • election and training of the community project committee, • assess the peak and total water quantities needed, based future population and livestock numbers (total quantity before the OHSR, peak quantity after the OHSR), • identify the most water source(s), • select OHSR location - as high as possible to ensure proper distribution to all households by gravity. OHSR capacity is based on daily water need and source yield, • determine locations for sump well (near the source), filtration plant, pumps (before OHSR) and community taps (after and below OHSR), • prepare technical drawings (designing), • request for water rights and permits from government authorities. 2. Facilitate the community to sign contract(s) with stakeholders (with responsibilities and sanctions when a responsibility is not taken). 3. Request tax exemption for purchased materials from the government (if possible). 4. Community collects or prepares local materials such as hard core, aggregate stones, gravel and 5. 6. 7. 8.
sand needed for constructing the water supply system. Purchase of the required materials (pipes, cement, etc.). Construction (intake, filters, pumps, motors, power units, tanks, pipe lines, taps, etc.).
Monitor construction and, when ready, the proper O&M of the system regularly. Preparation of Operation and Maintenance plan including the collection of monthly/annual contributions from the community, registration of a water users organization, monitoring the water quality, etc.
Points of attention: •
Waste water at tap points should not attract animals and be properly drained.
•
Often treatment of the water is required.
•
Frequent water quality testing avoids health problems within the community. Especially bacteriological testing is required (less necessary if proper chlorination is executed).
•
A branched type of distribution system is less reliable then a network grid.
•
In hilly areas it may also be possible to use RAM pump driven water systems. RAM pumps use the energy of a quick flowing river to pump up about 10% of the water to a higher altitude (about 120 altitude meters maximum). Because RAM pump “wastes” 90% of the collected water, the filter system should be placed after the pump. RAM pumps made by the Philippine organization AIDFI cost as little as 150 Euro.
Further information: • Connect International, pipeline systems manual. • Book pipeline systems from Nepal. • Small Community Water Supplies (IRC, Technical Paper Series 40). • Engineering in Emergencies (RedR). • www.aidfi.org (especially for RAM pump systems).
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7.6
Water treatment plants
Water treatment plants are usually owned by public utilities (for instance a community water organization) and part of a larger system, usually including pipelines and water tanks. Water treatment plants usually have the capacity to treat large enough quantities of water to supply a whole community with its drinking water and often also water for other household uses. Different types of water treatment plants exist. The selection of the most suitable type depends on: contaminants in and salinity of the raw water, quantities of water required per day, available infrastructure, financial resources (investment capital, running costs), expertise, organization level and motivation for operation and maintenance, availability of spare parts and required chemicals, and water quality regulations and requirements (or wishes). A water treatment plant can deliver water to a pipeline or community members can collect clean water with cans from a tank. Role of the support organization: Support the village water and sanitation committee by training and funding. Help finding experts on required topics. Monitor and evaluate the process frequently. Recommended methods: Method Picture
Reverse Osmosis
Focus
Suitability
Communities having access only to brackish / salty water for drinking or water contaminated with element that are difficult to remove otherwise. For villages faced with saline drinking water, excess fluoride and/or other dangerous chemicals in the water, and where required funds for purchase and O&M, spare parts, electricity and expertise can be made available.
Slow sand filtration
Communities where the drinking water is bacteriologically contaminated.
Where bacteriological contamination of drinking water is the main issue, proper sand for the filter can be made available, the water does not contain high levels of suspended solids or turbidity (otherwise pre-filtration is necessary), and the community is sufficiently organized and motivated to operate and maintain the plant.
Water treatment plants often consist of different filters in line with each other to avoid rapid clogging and insufficient filtration.
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Limitations: Each type of treatment plant has its own limitations. The limitations should be studied carefully before selecting a plant. Treatment with different types in stages might be necessary (see above for an example). Points of attention: • Many types of water treatment exist (e.g. also rapid sand filtration etc.). Analyzing the available qualities and quantities of raw water is an important step before deciding what type of water treatment should be used. • An, often better, alternative to a treatment plant may be household filters or other household treatment options, especially if the contamination problem is bacteriological. Further information: • Small Community Water Supplies (IRC, Technical Paper Series 40).
7.6.1
Slow sand filtration
Slow sand filtration is a biological process whereby microbial removal occurs due to a ‘slime layer’ (Schmutzdecke) that develops within the top few centimeters of sand in the filter. Microbial reduction can be over 99% if the filter is properly constructed, operated and maintained. Often however, construction, operation and/or maintenance are not good and the microbial reduction then is much lower. Slow sand filtration plants can be made as household installations or as community plants. A problem with slow sand filters is that they get easily clogged, especially if the rough water is turbid. Therefore community plants are often combined with roughing filters (see the drawing on the former page). Role of the support organization: Investigate the feasibility, support the village water and sanitation committee through training, expertise, guidance and access to funding, monitor the proper operation and maintenance of the plant frequently. Activities by the support organization: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Investigate whether slow sand filtration is the most optimal solution. Investigate required capacity an other parameters needed for the design of the system (e.g. turbidity, source, etc.). Design and budget the system with an expert, including source site and intake, main pipeline, pre-filters, slow sand filter, storage and, if required, distribution lines and taps. Monitor and guide villagers to collect required local construction and filter materials. Select, purchase and transport to the site, the required materials that cannot be provided by the villagers. Obtain tax exemption and other benefits from the authorities. Try to get authorities Ensure a proper expert to guide construction of the system by the villagers (as much as possible) and provide other epxert labour for as far as needed. Train some communitee members in operation and maintenance and monitoring water quality. Monitor proper operation and maintenance as well as water quality regularly.
7.6.2
Reverse osmosis
In case drinking water is too saline or contaminated with excess fluoride and/or other dangerous chemicals a reverse osmosis plant may be required. However, because the initial Community development – Infrastructure
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investment and operating costs are very high and O&M requires high-tech inputs and spare parts, reverse osmosis should only be applied in areas where (a) other water technologies are really not feasible, (b) the funds required for investments and for O&M, and (c) the expertise, electricity and spare parts needed can be made available. An alternative may in some cases be rainwater harvesting, where the harvested rainwater can, if required, be mixed with saline water to obtain water which still has an acceptable salinity level. The reverse osmosis technique removes: • salinity. • pathogenic organisms, • color, turbidity, taste and odour, • dissolved gases, • suspended, colloidal and dissolved substances, • corrosive and tuberculation properties of water which affect the pipes. Role of the Executing partner: Investigate the feasibility, support the village water and sanitation committee through training, expertise, guidance and access to funding, monitor the proper operation and maintenance of the plant frequently. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Investigate all alternatives and if really needed, the feasibility of a reverse osmosis plant. 2. Ensure proper design and budget for the system (to be done by an expert, including a design for the organization and funding of O&M). 3. Select the plant site together with involved expert, villagers and local authorities. 4. Assist the village to obtain required permissions and develop and sign contracts (with land owner, authorities, involved village committee, involved support organizations, etc.). 5. Develop the water source and, if required, implement the water transportation system towards the plant and from the plant towards the beneficiaries, all according to the design made. 6. Implement the plant according to the design. 7. Ensure that communitee members are properly trained to operate and maintain the plant and water transport system. 8. Monitor the proper functioning of the system and the water quality regularly and ensure regular checks by an expert.
Further information: Small Community Water Supplies (IRC, Technical Paper Series 40).
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7.7
Rainwater harvesting
There are many different ways of rainwater harvesting. Methods include: • Roof harvesting, for example from galvanized iron or corrugated iron roofs. • Paved surface harvesting, e.g. from a cement stone catchment. • Surface harvesting, for example from a (part of a) rain catchment area. • Riverbed harvesting, for example from a sandy dry riverbed. The harvested rainwater will need to be stored in a reservoir or tank or be used to recharge the groundwater table. See the next paragraph on water storage and recharge. Role of the Executing partner: Investigate the feasibility, support the village water and sanitation committee through training, expertise, guidance and access to funding, monitor the proper operation and maintenance. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Investigate all alternatives by an expert together with the villagers. 2. Investigate the parameters needed for the design by an expert together with the villagers (features of catchment area, longest dry period to be covered vs. water demand, etc.) 3. Ensure proper design of and budget for the system (to be done by an expert). 4. Assist the village to obtain required permissions and develop and sign contracts (with land owner, authorities, involved village committee, involved support organizations, etc.). 5. Facilitate and monitor the villagers to collect required local materials. 6. Monitor the proper construction of the system under the supervision of an expert (for construction of storage see next paragraph). 7. Ensure that communitee members are properly trained to operate and maintain the system. 8. Monitor the proper functioning of the system and the water quality regularly. Limitations: Rainwater catchment systems may not provide sufficient water to cover the dry period in which case an additional solution may need to be created (sometimes the alternative solution may make the rainwater harvesting solution redundant). Further information: • Small Community Water Supplies (IRC, Technical Paper Series 40). • ST 3.2 - Roof top catchments (Connect International).
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7.8
Water storage and recharge
Water storage is important in almost all systems while water recharge can be an important method to improve water availability where groundwater tables drop structurally or seasonally. Even wells can be regarded as a form of storage as water seeps in overnight and can be withdrawn from the well during the day. In this chapter we focus on some of the most important water storage and recharge methods, including common ones like above ground water tanks and dams, but also currently less known but upcoming methods like groundwater storage. Role and activities of the Executing partner: Support the village to select the most suitable method and train and support (expertise, loans, funding, materials, equipment, etc.) them to realize the water storage facility, assist with obtaining permissions, train the involved committee for organization of the intervention and for O&M, monitor and evaluate the intervention and later the proper O&M of the water storage facility. Recommended methods: Method
Above ground tank storage
Underground tank storage
Above ground dam
Subsurface dam
Groundwater recharge
Water available without pumping, sometimes irrigation. Ground, footage or tower. Where water for household uses or irrigation should flow out under gravity or where underground works are too difficult/expensive.
Mainly for drinking water storage. Usually pumping is needed. Where underground water storage is OK, and/or where space is limited.
Collect water for irrigation, household use, and/or energy generation. Where a dam can stop and store runoff water. Often in arid and semiarid areas for direct use or to recharge the groundwater.
Collect water for drinking purposes or irrigation.
Recharge of groundwater tables.
Where impermeable rock underlies proper soil suitable for subsurface dam. Often in arid or semi-arid areas.
For recharging groundwater around groundwater points.
Picture
Focus
Suitability
Limitations
• Limited storage capacity.
• Limited storage • Proper geological capacity.
• Pumping is
usually needed.
conditions needed.
• May affect communities downstream.
• Water is polluted. • High evaporation. Further information
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• ST3.3 Cement
Storage Tanks (Connect International)
Small Community Water Supplies (IRC, Technical Paper Series 40).
Small Community Water Supplies (IRC, Technical Paper Series 40).
Community development – Infrastructure
• Proper geolo-
gical conditions required.
• Needs water
pumping (unless part is above ground)
• Needs regular maintenance.
• Relatively little
recharge (may or may not be enough to cover the dry period)
• www.env.go.jp • ST3.4 • www.brainwork Groundwater recharge er.ch
• www.protos.be
(Connect International)
Water recharge in groundwater points With the climate change and unreliable rains there is an increasing need to store rainwater. Well known options are plowing on contours, sand dams and deep root plants as Vertiver. Another option is the so called Tube recharge which is used in compact soils where most rainwater runs oft to rivers. The Tube recharge combines a shallow pond of 1 to 5 m3, a 2 inch hole of 8 meter deep filled with gravel and a sand filter. With every rain, 1 to 5 m3 of water seeps back into the ground. Families in Zimbabwe, who after training, made this system themselves, now have water in their wells that before dried up at the end of the dry season Cost: 5 Euro/system.
Storage capacity 10 -100 m3.
Upper photo: drilling of a hole 6 to 8 m deep with a step auger. Lower photo: make a recharge pond of 1 m3 with sand and cloth filter
Subsurface dams A subsurface dam is a system to store groundwater by a “cut-off wall� (dam body). It stores shallow groundwater, In case of a dam to store very shallow groundwater like underflow in a current river sediment, part of the dam is sometimes exposed above the ground surface. Because the dam is constructed under ground water-pumping is required. The water is filtered through natural ground layers and is therefore usually of good quality. The evaporation losses are low. Usually the dam is very solid as it is buried in the underground (no dangers of collapse). Challenges include proper siting and design of the dam.
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7.9
Rehabilitation of existing water systems
Poor maintenance of existing water systems is often a major problem in rural areas. Renovation of existing water sources is therefore often a priority of the people. Most problems with existing water sources that require rehabilitation works are broken platforms, damaged hand pumps, absence of proper drainage and stagnation of water around hand pumps. Before starting repair works it is important to get to know why the facilities are broken and not repaired and solve the involved problems. Rep[airing broken facilities knowing that soon after repair they will be broken and not repaired again does not make any sense (unless it concerns a temporary or emergency measure)! Role of the Executing partner: Investigate what has caused the existing water system(s) to be out of function, support the water and sanitation committees to solve the causes, execute the rehabilitation works, and train persons for proper O&M of the rehabilitated facilities. Activities by the support organization: 1. Investigate the problems together with the WatSan committee, focusing on: (a) the repair works needed to get the water system(s) to function again, (b) the causes for the non functioning of the water system(s). 2. Assist the WatSan committee to solve the causes for the non functioning of the water system(s) structurally 3. Assist the WatSan committee to repair the water system(s). 4. Train several persons for proper O&M of the system(s). Cross cutting issues: • Ensure that the causes of the non functioning of the system(s) are well understood and that the community is well aware of the importance to solve the involved problems structurally. A contract should ideally be signed between the community and the Executing partner about the commitment of the community to properly O&M the facility including consequences for not complying to the agreements made. • If the causes are beyond the capacity or influence of the community the Executing partner may try to assist the community to solve these but if they cannot be solved it will probably not make sense to rehabilitate the water system(s). • If a pipeline is causing problems then one might consider to improve the reliability of the system by connecting the system in a different setting (e.g. changing it into a network grid). Points of attention: • Every worker should feel responsible for the tools and materials he/she uses. • A small celebration or ceremony after successful completion of the project will get peoples attention, improve status of young people and motivate people to contribute in future activities. • Ownership and responsibilities for the water system should be ensured by the end of the project to prevent history from repeating.
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7.10
Household water treatment systems
Household water treatment is important where drinking water may be contaminated, especially if there is a danger for bacteriological contamination. This can be water from pipeline systems that for instance leak or in which the water is insufficiently filtered or chlorinated, water from contaminated surface or groundwater sources, etc. Role of the Executing partner: Train village water and sanitation committees and self help groups with regard to water quality and household treatment options and assist them to find the most suitable and affordable technical solutions (if necessary through micro credit, revolving funds, additional funding etc.). Recommended methods: Treatment Picture
Focus
Suitability
Household filters
Poor rural and urban households in need of an affordable effective household water treatment system they can cheaply buy.
• Filters 50 - 80 l/day • Log 4-6 reduction of bacteria + parasites.
• Removes viruses partly.
• Removal of turbidity, color and bad taste.
• Easy to use. • Ceramic element to be renewed every 618 months. • Some residual effect by colloidal silver in the filter element. Cost
3-8 Euro/family/year
Further • ST5.3 – Siphon filter information – Use & Maintenance (Connect International)
Boiling
Poor rural and urban households in need of an effective household water treatment system who have no access to any external systems. • If enough fuel for water boiling. • Kills all harmful bacteria. • Time-consuming to boil the water, and let it cool. • Gives a flat taste. • Danger of recontamination. • Relatively expensive or labor intensive - a lot of firewood is needed. 30 – 70 Euro/family/year • Marketing safe water systems (Urs Heierli)
Chlorination
SODIS
Poor rural and urban Poor rural and households in need urban families of an affordable in need of an effective household effective water treatment household system which is water treatavailable in the ment system shops free of cost • Few drops kills most • Where there is bacteria and viruses. enough • Very useful in sunshine and emergencies. PET bottles • Damages health if can be found. used long-term. • People need • Careful use and to take time storage required. daily to put • Leaves chlorine taste. filled bottles • 30 minutes contact for 6 hours in time before drinking. the sunshine. • Availability is often a problem. • People have to buy it regularly. 2-4 euro/family/ year • www.psi.org • Engineering in emergencies (RedR)
No cost, only little labor • www.sodis.ch • Marketing safe water systems (Urs Heierli)
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Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Select a water treatment system or a combination of house hold water treatment systems suitable for community (what are people willing to spent) and raw water properties, 2. Select and train two local volunteers to promote, educate, market and service systems, 3. Promote the selected house hold water treatment system in the community, 4. Sell the system and educate people on how to use it (after some time the volunteers should earn a compensation for their work), 5. Volunteers supply after sale and service by house consultation and checking of the systems in use. Cross cutting issues: Also see the paragraph on water treatment plants. Limitations: Every type of water treatment has its own limitations, they should be studied carefully before selecting a system. Main problem seems to be that each day action is required, which people resent.
Points of attention: • Ensure that the containers or bottles that are used for water fetching and water storage are kept clean and neat, and that families use the treated water the same day. • Testing water quality once in a while. The HACH test is relatively cheap (0.55 Euro) and shows results after 14 hours. This method is cheap but is has a disadvantage because it only detects good or bad. Testing the quantity of colifo (a common type of bacterial pollution) could be done by testing many smaller samples instead of one big sample (for example 50 samples of 2ml instead of one sample of 100ml) and compare the number of positive results in a MPN chart. Further information: • http://www.akvo.org/wiki • Marketing safe water systems (Urs Heierli, for overviews of and comparison between the different systems)
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HACH test for testing water on bacteriological contamination
7.11
Toilet facilities
Poor sanitary conditions is one of the most important causes for diseases. Therefore realizing proper toilet facilities needs a lot of attention. Role of the Executing partner: Support the village water and sanitation committees, train masons to produce slabs and other parts, when necessary supply additional funding or assist people to obtain credits, monitor construction and proper use of the toilets. Recommended methods2: Sanitation Picture
Description
Suitability
Advantages
Disadvantages
2
Simple pit latrine
EcoSan toilet
Widely used technology (usually with squatting slab, not as drawing). Excreta + anal cleansing materials (water or solids) are deposited into a pit. Pit lining prevents collapsing and provides support to the superstructure. An improved pit latrine has a vent pipe for avoiding insects and bad smells (ventilated pit latrine - VIP). For poor rural and peri-urban areas; in urban or dense areas it is often difficult to empty and/or have sufficient space for infiltration. Pit latrines are especially appropriate when water is scarce and where there is a low groundwater table. They are not suited for rocky or compacted soils (difficult to dig), or for areas that flood frequently or have a shallow water table. • Does not require water. • Suitable for all types of user (sitters, squatters, washers and wipers). • Can be built and repaired with locally available materials. • Can be constructed privately. • Low (but variable) capital costs depending on materials. • Small land area required. • With the vent pipe flies and odors are significantly reduced.
Ecological sanitation aims at recycling nutrients back into the environment and productive systems. One technique is urine-diversion, in which urine and feces are kept separate. In a second technique urine and feces are combined and transformed into humus through a composting process. EcoSan latrines are appropriate for rural and peri-urban settings, where there is thin human settlement. It is appropriate to construct EcoSan latrines in open fields where there is adequate sunshine. It is favorable to construct this type of latrine in farming communities where urine and feces can be used as fertilizers. This type of latrine is useful in places where there is inadequate water. • Does not require water. • Keeps feces and urine out of ground and surface waters. • Prevents disease by destroying or isolating fecal pathogens. • Production of manure. • Increases food security. • Relatively low capital costs. • Small land area required. • Can be constructed where difficult to dig or shallow groundwater tables.
• Sludge requires secondary treatment and/or appropriate discharge. • Costs to empty may be significant compared to capital costs. • Low reduction in biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and pathogens.
• Cost of construction higher than simple latrines. • Need to be careful about not letting water into the urine and feces chamber.
Just two methods are described out of many; see www.akvo.org for an overview of options.
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Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Investigate which technology is most suitable (if not yet done). 2. Train the village water and sanitation committee to implement and manage the project, 3. create awareness and demand if community health influenced by lack of proper sanitation, 4. find out what the community is able to add in terms of budget and labor, 5. agree with the community how to finance the facilities; own contributions, micro-credit loan or a revolving fund ( especially for individual household latrines), 6. get community members to agree on cleaning issues, 7. select the place based on user request, hygiene (no water collection in near area), 8. ask landowner to sign agreement, 9. monitor construction (by the community if possible), 10. monitor cleaning and maintenance. Points of attention: • Creating demand for sanitation is not easy. Many individuals that have never used appropriate sanitation facilities do not know what it is like and do not demand its provision. However providing with appropriate sanitation facilities would have a phenomenal impact in the individual’s quality of life, including health and the ability to work. • Make sure toilet facilities are not placed in the same area where ground water is collected (well or bore hole) following governmental guidelines. • Pure urine can be directly used to fertilize any garden. Solid human excreta disposal can be used to fertilize trees, but it may not be used to grow other plants (like vegetable) without composting it to humus for a long time. • Two dry toilets pits (no water flush) could be used in a composting setup. While one pit is being used, the other could serve as a composting chamber. The success of this method depend on the storage time. Adding organic matter (leaves, grass clippings, coconut, rice husks, woodchips, etc.) enhances the decomposition process and the storage time can be reduced. • If flushing water is available a flushing toilet with septic tank could be build. However once flushing water is used, it is much more difficult to compost the disposal.
Further information: • http://www.akvo.org/wiki/index.php/Portal:Sanitation • http://www.eawag.ch/index_EN • ST6.1 Manual for construction of pit latrines (Connect International)
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Community development – Infrastructure
7.12
Rural buildings
Rural buildings are simple, one level buildings. Often they don’t even have basic facilities such as electricity, water and toilets inside the building, but in some cases they do. Rural buildings can for instance be: • Pre, primary and secondary schools • Teachers houses • Clinics • Community centers Role of the Executing partner: Support and train village development committee, finding a qualified contractor or builders or train local masons, supply additional funding or credit. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Get cooperation/support from local organizations and government. Involve local authorities, and operate in accordance with building regulations and construction permits. 2. Train the village development society (VDS) to manage the building project. 3. Find local experienced builders or a contractor. 4. The organization that will use the new building should sign a contract, stating its basic duties and rights: • They have to be involved in the construction of their own building. In order to create a sense of ownership feeling, it is a must that they participate actively. • If the organization leaves the building within the first 25 years, it is given to the community and the VDS then has the right to reallocate it. • The target organization is free to choose their own design of the building, as long as it follows the government stipulations and remains within the available resources. • The target organization is responsible for the proper usage and maintenance of the constructed building, and for all the costs involved in that. 5. Seeking government support: Once the design and financial plan is ready, the VDS under the guidance and assistance of the Executing partner requests the necessary documents and permits. Find out whether the project can be exempted from governmental tax. 6. Construction of building: The design and choice of materials depends on the local needs and circumstances. Make sure the construction methods suit the local circumstances. 7. Handing over of the houses to the respective organization. 8. Preparation of Operation and Maintenance with the committee of the organization that will use the buildings, possibly together with the VDS The tables on the next pages present some properties of materials and building systems.
A technical drawing from the Connect International manual ST8.1 - Construction of rural buildings.
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hurricane
rain
+
Skilled labor
Masonry
+
±+
+
+
+
Semi-skilled labor Masonry skills
Excavation and tamping Masonry
-±
-
-
-
+ + -
±+
±+
± +
+
+
Concrete
Strongest
-
Skilled labor
++
++
+ +
+ +
+ +
Splitbamboo Wooden post
Used for subsoil stabilization Used for spot and pile foundations
+
Special training Carpentry and construction
Formwork, cement mixer Drop hammer Carpentry + masonry
+
+
+
+
-
All tropical
-+
-+
-+
-+
-
All except very wet
tools
earthqua
hurricane
rain
insects
Rammer/ vibrate plate; block press Masonry + concrete worker
-±
-
-
-
-
+ +
+
+
+
+ All
Semi-skilled, carpentry + masonry
Formwork, vibrator
+ +
+
+
+
+ All
Light, flexible, + replaceable For prefabrication, ± quick assembly Strong, durable and ± water-resistant
Traditional
Cutter + splitter
+
-
Carpentry
± + + -±
±
Carpentry
± + +
-±
Experience in use of sulphur
Mixer with heater
+ +
+
+
+
Warm humid - Warm humid + Good
hurricane
rain
insects
Stabilized earth Burnt clay and concrete components Precast concrete ceiling components Bamboo Timber Sulphur concrete
tools
skills Experience in soil constr. Masonry skills + semi-skilled
Special properties
costs
Natural local + material Simple -± prefabrication, rapid construction Simple -± prefabrication and installation
earthqua
Floor
Type
stability
Requirements
Walls
Stone masonry block Rammed earth Compressed soil block Bamboo reinforced earth Burnt clay brick Concrete hollow block Bamboo Timber panel Sulphur concrete Walls from Agro-waste
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Improvement of ± random rubble + masonry Impact resistance+ + durability Comparable to + burnt clay brick High earthquake + resistance Improved method of bricklaying Strong, light walls, rapid construction Light, flexible, great variety For prefabrication, quick assembly Cheaper alternative to cement concrete Use of local waste materials
Masonry
Experience in earth constr. Semi-skilled
Steel formwork, + ± + + + plate vibrator, + + + + + masonry tools Formwork, + + ± ± rammer ± Manual block + + + ± ± press Cutter, formwork, + + + tamper +
±
Traditional earth construction Masonry
-±
Masonry
+
Traditional
Simple frames + string holders Blockmaking + masonry tools Cutter + splitter
±
Carpentry
Carpentry
-±
Experience in use of sulphur Average construction
Mixer with heater
+
stability
tools
skills
Special properties
costs
Requirements Type
Only very dry Most except very wet All
Climate suitability
+
All
Wooden hand mould, masonry
Community development – Infrastructure
+ + + + + + + + + + + -± + +
+ -±
+ + + + + + + + + +
Dry
Climate suitability
Foundations
±
Climate suitability
earthquak
Where concrete is expensive Only used on dry sites Good alternative to concrete
Special properties
insects
skills
Natural stone Rammed earth Burnt brick
Type
stability
costs
Requirements
All
Hot dry, upland All except very wet All except very humid
+ + All + + + + All + + - Warm humid -± - Warm humid + + All + + ? ± All except very wet
Roofs
Pre-cast concrete channel Ferrocement Corrugated fibre concrete sheets Fibre and micro concrete tiles Thatch with stiff-stem grasses Bamboo Pole timber Bamboo and wood shingles Corrugated metal sheet
Building systems
Mud brick vaults and domes Earthquake resistant mud/bamboo Adobe brick
Modular framed earth block Lok bild
Concrete panel Ferrocement units Fibracreto Bamboocrete
Bamboo Prefabricated timber hut Timber house for flood areas RHA-Lime prototype
Promising, local, low-cost method
+
Excellent thermal and sound insulation High strength, flexibility Cheaper + stronger than swan timber Durable roof with replaceable elements Light roofs, quick assembly
+
+ ± + ± + ±
System without + centering or shuttering Self-help + construction with local materials Improved ± traditional building + system Quake resistance, + light frame, easy assembly Interlocking blocks, -± high strength, easy assembly Prefabrication, quick -± assembly Thin but very rigid ± wall construction + Comfortable -± housing Cheaper than other ± equally strong + structures Strong, flexible, ± numerous designs + Folding structure, -± quick assembly Elevated + floating ± structures + Substantial cement ± substitute
+
-
+
?
-
+
-
+
?
+
-
Climate suitability
tools
insects
Durable, waterproof ± cladding for sloped + High production -± rate, minimum formwork + space Higher strength: weight ratio than reinforced concrete Local, low-cost + method, durable
rain
Clay tile
Experience in earth constr. Average construction skills skilled
hurricane
Soil brick
Heavy, high thermal + capacity Simple self-help ± prefabrication +
earthquake
Earth reel
skills
Special properties costs
Type
stability
Requirements
Hot dry/ highland + Hot dry/ highland
Standard construction tools CINVA-Ram block press, beams formwork Clay tile prod., roof construction Special steel moulds
+ +
± + + +
+ + All + + + + All +
Formwork, masonry tools
+ + + + + +
+ + All + +
Locally made, transportable moulds Imported, transportable production kit Locally made thatching tools
+ ?
?
+ ?
+
+ All
+ ?
+
± ?
+
+ All
+ + + ?
?
± +
-
All
+
?
-
Warm humid
+
?
-
All
Bamboo cutter, shingle knife, hammer Carpentry
+ + + + + + +
?
+
-
-±
+ +
-
Special training
Masonry tools
+
-
+ +
Semi-skilled
Traditional
Traditional
Formwork for bricks + concrete equipment Soil block press + construction tools
Average construction skills Special training Thorough training + freq. Control Thorough training + freq. control Special training + experience Traditional Carpentry Traditional
Average construction
Cutting, splitting, tying tools Carpentry
+
+ + -± + + +
+
+
+
-±
± Hot dry + -
All except wet
Special framework
+ + + + + +
Average construction Average construction Masonry
Formwork
+ + + + + + + + +
+ + All except + + very hot/dry + + Warm humid
Masonry
+
+
+
+
+ All
Bamboo+ masonry
Carpentry + masonry
+
+
+
+
-
All except hot dry
traditional
+
?
-
Warm humid
+
?
-
All
Carpentry
Carpentry
+ + + + + + +
+
Carpentry
Cutting, splitting, tying tools Carpentry
?
+
-
Warm humid
Standard construction
Conventional tools
Simple tools
+
?
± All except + extremely hot dry ? ± All except + extremely hot dry + + All + +
Average construction skills Average construction
+
Warm humid+ highland + + Warm humid +
+ + + + + +
?
+ + All + +
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Cross cutting issues: When creating new buildings, also build water and sanitation facilities. In a dry area, it may be good to include a roof water harvesting system. See also the social housing paragraph. Limitations: Rural buildings are simple buildings, usually constructed with common building materials available in the area. They may not have such facilities as electricity, heating or cooling. Points of attention: • Foundations should resist: rain, wind, frost, groundwater, surface or seepage water, unstable underground, termites. • Ventilated roofs (for hot areas) and a ceiling (reduces noise of rainfall, especially if the roof is of sheeting, and the heat). • In general, timber should be dry before use. • A good design could prevent animals like rats or bats to nest in the building. • Does the area suffer from heavy rain, wind, earthquakes? If so find a location for the building where the dangers are as small as possible and protect the building, e.g. by small dikes, forestry to break the wind (especially a danger if he roofs are of sheeting). • The site should be on high grounds if flooding can be a threat (also during disasters people often flee towards public buildings that can be used for emergency aid). • Fire prevention: location of stove/kitchen, avoid spreading between buildings. Fire exits. • Enough light in the rooms (especially for classrooms). • Do not use asbestos or other materials known to harm human health! • Safety against criminals. Further information: • Appropriate building materials (SKAT& IT Publications, Roland Stulz and Kiran Mukerji). • ST8.1 - Construction of rural buildings (Connect International).
Primary school in Tanzania
Desalination plant house in Elachetladibba, India
Teachers house in Tanzania
SHIPO office in Tanzania
Private house under construction in Elachetladibba, India
Primary school in Tanzania under construction by the community guided by a professional mason.
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Community development – Infrastructure
7.13
Roads and drainage
Good accessibility for trucks and busses is one of the most important conditions to improve the overall economic situation of a remote area. The total amount of money circulating in poor areas can only increase when money comes in from other (richer) areas. This is mostly done by selling products from the poor areas on markets in more rich areas. That is why transport and therefore roads are crucial. However, construction of a new good quality road is a cost intensive event and in general a responsibility of the government. While authorities often lack all the resources to fulfill this responsibility NGO’s and villages do a lot to improve accessibility. For example: • Lobby at government and district level. • When a road is planned, help with preparation. • Repair roads. • Improve drainage at roads to prevent erosion.
Villages often provide labor to improve roads.
Role of the Executing partner: Support the Village Development Society (VDS) with lobbying at government level and finding external expertise for community initiatives to improve roads. Supply partial funding if needed. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Analyze existing infrastructure and find bottlenecks. 2. Facilitate involved villages to prioritize needed interventions. 3. Assist villages to find outside support (current owner, government, district, etc). 4. Plan the intervention (if needed with an external expert) and use maximum community commitment (like labor or collected funding). 5. When constructing a new road (even if it is a dust road), make sure required permits and land ownership is arranged. 6. Monitor and guide the interventions. Limitations: Constructing new roads is a responsibility of the government. However, villages can contribute their labor if the government does not have all the resources required. Points of attention: Specialist guidance is usually required. Further information: • ASSIST • PassionConnects • Engineering in emergencies (RedR) • Labor based road construction methods (Bjorn Johannessen; www.ilo.org)
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7.14
Dikes
A dike is build to (a) protect land against floods and erosion of a river, canal, lake or sea, or (b) keep water inside an inundated field for aquaculture or irrigation. Role of the Executing partner: Guiding and training the village development society (VDS), help finding experts on design and constructing dams, funding and frequent monitoring.
Recommended methods: Dike Focus Timing Suitability
Protection against water flooding or prevention of loss of water from inundated land. Before flooding occurs or before lands are inundated. When a river or sea may flood farming land or inhabited areas or inundated land may loose water, the village(s) involved are sufficiently organized and motivated, and the local government is willing to help and provide permission.
Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Find out what the (local) government seek their support and permission. Involve them as much as possible and try to convince them to contribute with money, expertise, transport, etc. Operate in accordance with government regulations. 2. Select an expert on dikes. 3. Train the VDS or a sub committee to manage the project. 4. Let the expert analyze (potential) constraints for other villages. 5. Let the expert design a suitable solution. 6. Construction under supervision and responsibility of an expert. Local communities supply unskilled labor. 7. Monitor the building process closely. 8. Let the expert train several community members in basic control and maintenance of the dikes. 9. Hand the project and responsibilities over to the committee or government. Cross cutting issues: See also the paragraph on watershed development. Limitations: A dike will have an effect on the target communities but potentially also on other communities, either positive or negative. Negative effects should be avoided as much as possible or be compensated for after consent with the involved communities before the project has started.
Dikes under construction in a village in India
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Community development – Infrastructure
8
Healthcare services
Preventive, curative and reproductive healthcare are very important in every community. It is recommended to investigate the healthcare system in every village and look into the priority that people give to the improvement of healthcare systems. This is then followed by a strategy and plan to improve things. We here describe some features of a healthcare survey and of healthcare interventions often implemented to improve the capacity for preventive, curative and reproductive healthcare in communities. The community healthcare interventions described in this chapter are: Intervention Healthcare survey and planning Capacitate Healthcare committee Capacitate village healthcare actors and institutions Health promotion campaigns
Health check up camps
Mobile clinics
8.1
Suitability
Focus
For all communities where healthcare interventions are needed and a priority subject. For all communities where healthcare interventions will be executed. For all communities where healthcare interventions will be executed. Where health awareness is limited
Assess the needs regarding required healthcare facilities and services. Regular training, coaching and monitoring of the different committees. Regular training, coaching and monitoring of the committee
Temporary measure to assist people during one or few events to be checked for their health. Where structural facilities are too expensive or difficult
Creating awareness about health and touching other strings that motivate people to take care of their health. Several medical specialist check all ill people. Clinic coming by periodically to provide healthcare services.
Healthcare survey and planning
It is the task of the village health committee in close cooperation with the VDS to make a healthcare planning for the community. They can do this based on information from community assessments, surveys and other information available. Most probably however, a specific healthcare survey will be required to get more specific and in-depth information about the healthcare systems in the village. Role of the Executing partner: execute the survey(s), together with elected health committee members or other representatives of the village. Recommended methods: Healthcare system survey Focus
Healthcare systems to which villagers have access
When
Just after election of the healthcare committee and the village self assessment Where beneficiaries indicate that the healthcare systems to which villagers have access are insufficient.
Suitability
Individual health survey Health status per household, including: • Age, gender, family planning, physically/mentally handicapped • No. of (safe) deliveries, maternal + infant mortality. • Prevalent diseases and most prevalent injuries. Preferably just after election of the healthcare committee and after the village self assessment Baseline of health issues for further planning of healthcare interventions. This may be a separate survey or part of a larger survey (e.g. a household survey).
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8.1.1
Healthcare system survey
Activities by the Executing partner: • Map all existing health institutes (hospitals, health centers, traditional birth attendants, mobile healthcare units, health committees practicing healthcare, but also Village Health Workers, Home Based Care volunteers, etc.) in the area. Focus on the quality of the services, the distance and transport issues to reach the services, etc. Discuss with people who work in/for these services what the most prevalent health problems are, what logistical and other challenges they or the patients that need to reach them face, etc. Also try to observe what the problems and weaknesses are. • Have focus group discussions, especially with groups of women to determine what is still lacking with regard to the healthcare systems they have or should have access to and how they consider the quality of each of these systems. Ask them to prioritize their main needs with regard to required improvements in healthcare systems. • Determine the gaps in healthcare systems based on the investigations. • Assess together with village health committee members and other interested villagers the possibilities to introduce sustainable improvements with regard to the most important gaps and shortcomings in the healthcare systems. Possibly also temporary interventions may need to be introduced. • Facilitate the VDS, village health committee and the Executing partner to use the collected data to create a suitable plan for required interventions related to preventive, curative and re-productive health care in the community. Before finalizing the plan it is important to present and evaluate it with the community (and adapt it if wished by the community). Further information: • ASSIST (regarding individual health surveys). • Report on Health Care in the Slums. VEDA Slum Services, Chilakaluripet. By: RRDF, the Netherlands, Geriska Poortman, pediatrician in November 2008.
8.1.2
Individual health survey
Activities by the Executing partner: As part of the Assist baseline survey (see the chapter on standard interventions) the following data are collected from all individual households in a community: Age, gender, family planning, physically/mentally handicapped, HIV status of population, number of deliveries, safe deliveries, deaths pf pregnant women, still births, infant deaths, diseases occurred in the family during last year. SMART Survey also collects such data but only in 2 to 5% of all households (unless it is decided to execute this survey among a higher percentage of the households). Alternatively one can contact existing health centers in the area to obtain information about the individual health of community members. Preferably the health center should then try to obtain the health data of the actual village members only and exclude the health data of people from other villages. Limitations: It is very difficult to get proper insight in the actual healthy situation in a village. Challenges include: people not telling the actual diseases they suffer from or not knowing what diseases household members suffered from or what had caused the death of a family member, persons with certain diseases not brought to health centers (e.g. children with diarrhea are often not brought to a health center, so the health center statistics do not represent this disease), etc. Further information: ASSIST (regarding individual health surveys).
•
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Community development – Healthcare
8.2
Capacitate village healthcare actors and institutions
There can be many different healthcare actors in villages. They all have their distinguished role and tasks in assisting community members to remain as healthy as possible, combat diseases and injuries and cover basic needs such as cleaning, feeding etc for those persons who can’t do this properly themselves anymore. Role of the Executing partner: •
Develop training manuals for trainers of healthcare actors and implementation manuals for the healthcare actors themselves.
•
Assist the village health committee to select required healthcare actors, where possible in coordination and cooperation with institutions and NGO’s that will capacitate these actors.
•
Link healthcare actors with existing health service institutions.
•
Select (and if required train), supervise/coach and monitor trainers who will train the healthcare actors (if not available through other institutions).
•
Train, coach, facilitate and monitor the village healthcare actors (for as far as not done by other parties, like other NGO’s, authorities etc.). Facilitation includes the provision (donation or on credit or subsidy basis) of materials and tools required by healthcare actors to execute their tasks properly. It is also good to give some incentives (such as a t-shirt stating the healthcare actor function and the name and logo of the involved Executing partner).
•
Monitor and evaluate all activities by the Executing partner regularly following proper protocols and using proper monitoring forms.
Cross cutting issues: Often gender is an important issue. In Village Health Committees it is good if during election the community concludes it is important to have at least 50% women in the committee because women are much involved in health issues such as maternal and child health. Also healthcare actors such as Traditional Birth Attendants and Home Based Care volunteers are often women. Points of attention: For the capacity building of healthcare actors very specific and often intensive and longer term capacity building interventions are required. These need to be well prepared properly and sufficient resources are required to execute them properly over a relatively long period (usually at least several years). • Healthcare actors are in many occasions volunteers who may also stop, move out of the area, etc. Therefore healthcare actor capacity building interventions should ideally capacitate some more healthcare actors than required or keep up capacity for capacity building of new healthcare actors recruited later. • Often authorities or other NGO’s or institutions already capacitate healthcare actors. Instead of setting up a healthcare actor capacity building intervention yourself in such cases it may be better to reinforce the existing structures in order to enable these to also capacitate the healthcare actors in the villages. • Beside the village healthcare actors SHG’s often educate themselves and households and make plans for and take action with regard to healthcare topics. They usually interact with the Village Health Committee on these topics and this committee may also monitor their progress with such actions. • Healthcare actors can be trained by professionals or by experienced volunteers (from the community) that have been trained to educate others on the required health issues. But the program should always ensure that trainers are properly performing by monitoring, facilitating, coaching and training them.
•
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8.2.1
Capacitate Village Health Committees (VHC’s)
A VHC is a people’s organization specialized in health that takes the lead in identifying needed healthcare interventions and makes sure the plans are implemented. It oversees and possibly also runs healthcare interventions in the community and therefore becomes more and more experienced as time goes on. Village Health Committees can form sub committees that are assisted by specialized community healthcare actors (often such actors also become members of the VHC or a VHC sub-committee). Role of the Executing partner: train, coach, facilitate and monitor the VHC. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Facilitate the community to elect the VHC members. 2. Train the village health committee regularly for its role and tasks as laid down in the healthcare plan (ideally at least one day every two months with an introductory training of 4 to 6 days for all or most members of the VHC). Training may cover such aspects as: knowledge of diseases, skills regarding diagnosis and treatment of the main basic diseases, referral to other healthcare systems, management of a village health post, bookkeeping and stores management for committees, leadership skills, healthcare bookkeeping, preparation and execution of health promotion campaigns, monitoring, facilitation, supervision and motivation of other village based health actors, facilitation and motivation of village groups undertaking health activities. 3. Visit the VHC members regularly to coach them (discuss progress, provide advice, visit health services together, etc.) and monitor their performance (use a structured monitoring form and fill it during each visit). 4. Assist the VHC with contacts with involved authorities and health systems outside the village to coordinate interventions, ask for support (e.g. provision of medical kits with basic medicines for Home Based Care volunteers, visits to the village by mobile clinics), and discuss such issues as referral services, current health issues and bottlenecks, etc. Further information: ASSIST
8.2.2
Capacitate Village Health Workers (VHW’s)
Village health workers (2 persons per village, 1 man and 1 woman) educate and promote general health topics in the community like hygiene, drinking water, sanitation, nutrition etc. They are usually under the direct supervision of the Village Health Committee and are often themselves members of this committee. They also monitor whether households keep their environment clean, use toilets, dish racks, garbage pits, etc. and practice what they have learned. VHW’s also need to have educational skills. They can assist a mobile clinic when it visits the village to measure growth of babies, or assist in monitoring pregnant woman, mothers and young children. VHW’s may in some cases also be trained to diagnose and treat basic diseases and simple injuries. Role of the Executing partner: train, coach, facilitate and monitor the VHW’s (for as far as not done by other parties, like other NGO’s, authorities etc.). Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Train the VHW’s regularly for their distinguished role and tasks. 2. Visit the VHW’s regularly to coach them (this can be done simultaneously with the coaching visits to the Village Health Committee). Further information: Where there is no doctor. • WHO guidelines • Report on Health Care in the Slums. VEDA Slum Services, Chilakaluripet. By: RRDF,
•
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Community development – Healthcare
the Netherlands, Geriska Poortman, paediatrician in November 2008
VHW’s but also TBA’s (see further on) may work with Weight charts for babies.
8.2.3
Capacitate Home Based Care (HBC) Volunteers
Home based care (HBC) volunteers (1 per 15 clients) are trained volunteers who supply basic healthcare to chronic ill, old and disabled persons who are unable to leave the house and/or do not have the money to visit a healthcare institute. Several types of assistance can be executed by HBC volunteers, like: • Helping with daily routines like washing and eating. • Basic health care and psycho social support to People Living with HIV/AIDS or other chronically ill people, disabled people, elderly people, etc. • Refer clients/patients to specific service institutions whenever needed. Most important is the monitoring function. A HBC volunteer visits patients frequently and therefore notices rapid changes in health. He or she can initiate more specialized help if needed and available and refer people to other health service institutions, including legal support, professional psycho-social support or support from church organizations. Role of the Executing partner: train, coach, facilitate and monitor the HBC volunteers (for as far as not done by other parties, like other NGO’s, authorities etc.). Facilitation also includes provision of incentives (e.g. a t-shirt), transport means and assistance with required contacts with for instance institutions to which patients need to be referred. When: Throughout the community development process, starting usually a few months after the start of the community development process. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Assist the community to elect proper HBC volunteers. 2. Train the HBC Volunteers regularly for their distinguished role and tasks. First a training camp is held during which the HBC volunteers are educated all the basics of HBC volunteers work. This is followed by regular (e.g. once every two to three months) one or two day training courses during which specific topics are covered and HBC volunteers also provide feedback about their work, discuss issues with each other, develop ideas for improvements etc. 3. Supply transport (e.g. a bicycle) and basic materials to each HBC volunteer. 4. Assist the HBC volunteers and the VHC to identify the persons in the community who require HBC services. 5. Visit the HBC Volunteers regularly to coach them. 6. Organize HBC celebrations regularly (for instance once every 6 months) during which each time one or more HBC volunteers are praised for their activities and given some price or reward. Such celebrations are usually combined with a training of the HBC volunteers. 7. Assist the VHC to monitor the HBC volunteers on how and how often they do the Community development – Healthcare
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regular home visits and get feedback from the VHC and the HBC volunteers about their functioning, the weaknesses, bottlenecks etc. and follow up on this (e.g. though further training of HBC volunteers, etc.). 8. Support and strengthen the communication between HBC volunteers and health service institutes, government authorities, and other professional referral organizations. Limitations: A HBC volunteer is not a doctor. HBC volunteers should therefore not perform medical actions and should be trained to refer patients in need of medical actions to professional doctors or other professionals whenever needed. Points of attention: • Although there might be external funding for HBC services to HIV/AIDS patients, it is important to also target other immobile patients like mentally or physically disabled persons, chronically ill and elderly people and possibly also the referral of orphans or people temporarily suffering from malaria, dysentery, dehydration, etc. • Mobile clinics and health service institutes should be aware of the existence of HBC volunteers so they can refer patients, that belong to the target group, to the HBC volunteers and vice versa. Further information: • WHO Community Home-based care in resource-limited settings (isbn9241562137). • Documents of SHIPO Tunanjali program.
A HBC volunteer helps an old person
8.2.4
Capacitate Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA’s)
TBA’s assist women during child delivery and in the immediate post-partum period. They may or may not be integrated in the formal healthcare system and often serve as a bridge between the community and the formal health system. Most work in rural communities, where there are no nearby health facilities. In order to provide optimal care the following issues should be considered: integration of traditional healers into the formal health care system, conditions for referral, access to equipment, adequate transportation, and other related issues. Role of the Executing partner: train, coach, facilitate and monitor the TBA’s (for as far as not done by other parties, like other NGO’s, authorities etc.). When: Throughout the community development process, starting usually 6 to 18 months after the start of the community development process, depending on the level of priority it has among the villagers. Activities by the Executing partner:
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1. Train the TBA’s during a 24 days training course by professional midwife trainers. 2. Re-train each TBA each year or each second year (refresher training courses). 3. Monitor the performance of the TBA’s following a proper monitoring protocol and using proper monitoring forms. 4. Visit the TBA’s regularly to coach them. Part of the monitoring can also often be done during such visits. 5. Hold TBA competitions, each year selecting one or a few TBA’s who perform best, providing them some incentives in a celebration during which many TBA’s come together. Further information: Connect International TBA training module.
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8.2.5
Capacitate health clinics
In general capacity building of health clinics is a responsibility of the government. However in rural areas authorities often do not have the capacity to do so and NGO’s may take over this role. However to create a sustainable new clinic is not easy. Instead therefore it may be a better strategy to advocate the need for a clinic at local government level to try to persuade them to build and run one. Sometimes it can be an option for a community to construct a health clinic itself (if required supported by the Executing partner) if authorities commit to the provision of staff and medicines once the clinic is ready. The Executing partner may also offer to train clinic staff, provide (part of) the required equipment, etc. and assist with other capacity building actions to improve and safeguard its efficiency and quality. Role of the Executing partner: • Assist the community and clinic management with lobbying at local government level. • Assist the responsible authorities and the community with construction and equipping of the clinic. • Assist with the capacity building of clinic staff and management. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Assist the VHC and (if relevant) clinic staff to analyze the needs and bottlenecks with regard to the health clinic, and develop plans to tackle the problem. If necessary invite (ad contract) external experts to assist with the analysis and development of plans. Also make operation and maintenance (O&M) plans. 2. Advocate among local government: discuss bottlenecks and proposed plans, try to get maximum support and their expertise, try to get their commitment for taking up long term support (payment of clinic’s staff salaries) of the clinic and resources for construction/expansion/improvement of the clinic. Assess whether they are ready and capable to make qualified health personnel and medicines available. 3. Draw up a clear contract between the community, the authorities and the Executing partner agreeing clearly on each other’s role, tasks and inputs. The contract should also clearly determine which party will be the owner of the clinic, who will pay the clinic staff salaries, who will maintain the equipment, etc. 4. Monitor works done for realizing, improving, expanding the clinic. 5. Build capacity among the clinic staff. 6. Evaluate the support provided and evaluate the function of the clinic regularly.
Points of attention: • Existing government health structures should not be undermined by setting up own structures, even if the authorities services are not working perfectly. Better offer to assist with capacity building and other support within the existing structures. • If the management of a health clinic is not willing to cooperate it is not advisable to Community development – Healthcare
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start any intervention in the clinic. In that case it may be better to focus on other health interventions. Sometimes small interventions like logistic restructuring or improving the way medical records are used can have a big impact on the quality of the clinic. Often it is good and important for sustainability if the clinic can raise money for covering recurrent costs. This usually means payment by the beneficiaries for the services which may be small contributions that help to pay part of the costs or higher contributions paying for large part or all of the costs in case the clinic has no or only little income from other sources. Make sure beneficiary contributions are affordable for people and the income generation system fits in the official structures for clinics. The clinic should inform the Village Health Committee on a regular basis on health issues to focus on during health campaigns.
Further information: • The Well Foundation • RRDF, the Netherlands
8.3 8.3.1
Specific health interventions Health promotion campaigns
As part of its role and tasks the VHC, often together with other healthcare actors, may execute health awareness campaigns from time to time. Together they decide what topics should be addressed, like: • family welfare • HIV/AIDS • environmental sanitation and personal hygiene • malaria • mother and child care • immunization • drinking water • dehydration • nutrition • prevention of alcohol and drugs abuse • care for orphans and other vulnerable children (incl. handicapped) • patient care • etc. Role of the Executing partner: • Assist the VHC and other health actors to prepare the campaigns (selection of topics and promotion methods, preparation of promotion materials. etc • Monitor whether health promotion campaigns are implemented properly and receive reports from the community. • Monitor the increase in awareness on health and hygiene among community members. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Facilitate the VHC and other involved healthcare actors to select the topics that need attention and determine the gaps per topic in Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP), for as far as this has not been determined through any of the surveys already done. 2. Assist the VHC to decide on the target groups (for example, mothers, youth, children, people’s organization) and one or more locations suitable to address the target group (for example, child care center, school, community center), 3. Assist the VHC to determine the promotion methods and messages per topic.
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4. Assist the VHC to prepare the campaigns and create educational materials. 5. Monitor the health promotion campaigns. 6. Evaluate the campaigns together with the VHC and involved other actors and assist them to adjust the campaigns and materials if needed. Adjust the involved manuals and education materials as provided by the Executing partner as far as needed based on the results of different evaluations of health campaigns. Points of attention: • Also self-help groups (see the former chapter) may work on the health topics covered by the campaigns. This may cause overlaps, but often this is not a problem as most topics are so important that approaching people from different sides regarding these topics can’t harm. • Some health awareness campaigns can be combined with health check-up camps (see further on in this chapter). • It is good to combine a health awareness campaign or any other health education and learning action with one or more health improvement actions related to the topics covered. For example if ‘environmental sanitation’ was the topic of a health campaign it could go along with a clean up campaign in the community. These actions can be organized through involved village committees or through one or more self-help groups in the community (or a combination of the two). Further information: Report on Health Care in the Slums. VEDA Slum Services, Chilakaluripet. By: RRDF, the Netherlands, Geriska Poortman, paediatrician in November 2008
4. Give Zinc
3. Keep on breastfeeding • reduces duration of diarrhoea • reduces severity of diarrhoea
2. Continue normal feeding 1. Give much fluid, use ORS
• reduces new episodes of diarrhoea • recommended by the WHO and Unicef
• give as much fluid as the child wants • and extra fluid for the losses
A health promotion campaign (drama performance)
8.3.2
Some health promotional material.
Health check-up camps
Health check-up camps are one or a few day events, executed periodically, where gynecologists, cardiologists, orthopedics and other medical specialists are present to check the health of the villagers. The camps are usually executed in remote areas where people cannot visit a medical specialist. The involved medical specialists usually come from urban areas or from outside the country. In most cases they provide their services on a voluntary basis. The camps are useful where the available medical system cannot provide the specialist services of the health check-up camps. The camps will assist people with problems at that moment, but in the long term it is not a sustainable solution unless the organization is able to continue with the camps regularly in the long run. Role of the Executing partner: Select required specialists and execute the health check up camps. Community development – Healthcare
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Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Select and recruit the medical specialists required based on an understanding and knowledge of the health problems in one or more villages. 2. Announce the visit of the specialist to the community so they are informed and in agreement with the time and place of the camp. 3. Make sure the specialists are equipped with all they need, including materials, equipment (also a generator for electricity if required). 4. Make sure the village will provide proper food and drinks for the specialist as well as the accommodation needed for the work and for the specialists to spend the night. 5. Transport the specialists to and from the camp. 6. Officially thank the specialists for their cooperation. 7. Monitor and evaluate the camp and adjust script for the next camp if needed. Cross cutting issues: While people meet to attend a check-up, it is also a good opportunity to do some education on health topics. Further information: Assist
Villagers are eager to use the services of a health check-up camp in a village in India.
8.3.3
Mobile clinics
A mobile clinic visits communities that have no or very limited access to regular health services to supply general healthcare on a regular basis (e.g. once a month). A mobile clinic usually is a vehicle that goes to a village for one day, with one doctor and several health workers. They provide analysis, check ups, and medicines. The focus is on basic health problems and referral of other and severe cases to hospitals. They may also identify the people that are not sterilized (in India) and are motivated to do so. Role of the Executing partner: Select target villages, support the mobile clinic organization, assist in communication with targeted village health committees, supply (partly) funding if needed. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Select target villages in coordination with local authorities and the mobile clinic organization. If there is no mobile clinic service yet plan and budget a new mobile clinic if feasible, but only if running costs can be covered, also in the future. 2. Analyze the main healthcare needs of target villages, 3. Equip the mobile clinic and train its staff to target these basic needs (e.g. child vaccinations). 4. Implement a healthcare record system which can be used during every visit and Page 98
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which is also accessible by other health workers or specialists if needed, 5. Monitor the service and improve it in cooperation with other involved stakeholders. Activities for each targeted village health committee: 1. Communicate with the mobile clinic. 2. Facilitate that village health workers assist the mobile clinic workers during the visit. 3. Organize food and drinks for the mobile clinic personnel. 4. Organize a proper venue. 5. Make sure the villagers are informed and in agreement with the time and place of the mobile clinic visits. 6. Ensure electricity if required and assist with fulfilling other requirements of the clinic and its personnel as far as possible. 7. At the end of the visit thank the clinic personnel for their efforts and cooperation. 8. Evaluate the functioning of the health workers and the VHC during the clinic visits regularly and adjust the way of working during next visits if needed. 9. Give feedback to the Executing partner about the functioning of the mobile clinic. Limitations: Mobile clinics are normally equipped to provide normal healthcare. They are usually not equipped for specialized treatments. Points of attention: • Keeping health records accessible at any time by any one is a challenge. • Workers of a mobile clinic can identify if patients need specialized treatment and refer them to a hospital. If more patients need the same type of specialist, the village health committee can organize a health-camp (see before). Further information: www.mobilehealthclinicsnetwork.org
A mobile clinic car.
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9
Education services
Education is the backbone to each society. And it makes people happy! Parents find education of their children important and it is therefore often appearing high on the priority lists in village self assessments. We describe here what can be done in terms of education for children. This should start with a proper education investigation and planning. Each village should preferably have an education committee. We have not included secondary education as we consider this to be a subject beyond the boundaries of integrated community development (although organizations are often involved in contacts with authorities to advocate the need to make secondary education available in certain areas). In case school buildings are required we refer to the paragraph about rural building construction in the Infrastructure Part of this document. The education interventions described in this chapter are: Intervention Suitability Education survey and planning
For all communities where education is a priority subject.
Capacitate Education and School committees Capacitate Childcare Centers
For communities where education is a priority subject. Where a public facility for the care for children 2 to 3 years of age is a priority. Where school facilities for children 4 to 5 years of age are a priority.
Capacitate Pre-schools
Capacitate Primary schools
Where formal school facilities for children 6 to 12 years of age are a priority.
Capacitate out of school youth clubs
Where there are many children 12 to 21 years of age who need guidance to prevent them from making problems and/or developing wrongly. Where 6 – 14 year old children have not been able to join the formal educational system and enrolling in that system could cause integration problems For adolescents and adults with little or no education and no chance to obtain a skilled job. Especially where unemployment and illiteracy is a problem while job opportunities exist for people with certain vocational skills.
Capacitate Transitional Education Centers (TEC’s)
Capacitate Vocational Training Centers
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Focus Assess the needs and opportunities regarding general learning by children, social and communication skills, and vocational skills Capacity building of voluntary committees Capacity building of volunteers regarding the care of very young children. Capacity building of volunteers regarding the care of young children. Capacity building of school management, teachers, parents committees and/or inschool youth clubs. Capacity building of voluntary youth workers to assist/guide the clubs and capacitate the clubs in other ways. Assist 6 – 14 year children who missed formal education to get back into that system without problems Provide adolescents and adults who have no or little formal education with specific vocational skill training as well as non-formal education to improve their job opportunities and/or become self-employed
9.1
Education survey and planning
In case education issues are given a high priority by community members or are found otherwise to be a subject in need of attention one can assess the information already collected about the education systems during surveys done to determine what education interventions are required. But it is likely that a specific education survey will need to be executed to get to know all the details about the education systems in place, how they work, who has access to them, what their quality is, and what issues are involved that hamper proper education. The ASSIST baseline survey collects useful information for education projects like: Age and gender of the community population and for groups of 0-5 and 6-14 years information on: labor work, school enrolment, drop outs. The school survey of SHIPO focuses on primary education. Role of the Executing partner: execute the survey(s), together with elected education committee members and/or other representatives of the village. Activities by the Executing partner: Have focus group discussions with groups of women, teachers and others to assess what they feel is missing and what the weaknesses are with regard to education, including such issues as: education for adults, access to primary and secondary education, drop outs, child labor and other factors preventing children to attend school, extent to which early marriage is a factor leading to drop outs, access to vocational training for children and adults, etc. • Execute specific investigations in the schools to which villagers have access. • Contact the local district education office to discuss findings with them and ask their perspective on problems and weaknesses as well as their capacity/possibilities to assist in improving the situation. • Determine the gaps in the education systems based on the investigations and discussions. • Discuss together with Village Education Committee (VEC) members, teachers, other interested villagers, and possibly also representatives from relevant local authorities what possibilities there are to improve the highest priority issues in education in a sustainable way. • Facilitate the VEC and other stakeholders involved to use the collected information and results of the discussions to create a suitable plan for required education interventions. Before finalizing the plan it is important to present and evaluate it with the VDS and with the community (and adapt it if wished by the VDS and/or the community). It should also be presented to involved authorities and adapted to their ideas and wishes.
•
Points of attention: Education is principally a task for the government. • If the government does not provide the required input while teachers and school management are willing to learn and improve, the Executing partner can offer to provide capacity building within the existing education system. • If required a private school can be established. (Over 50% of all education is nongovernment, e.g. run by religious institutions). Sometimes private schools have a policy where school fees provided by richer families make it possible for orphans to enter school for free. Once the local government education system has improved the private school can be handed over to government and become a sustainable public school. Further information: ASSIST. SHIPO primary education survey.
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9.2
Capacitate Village Education and School committees
A Village Education Committee (VEC) is a PO specialized in education that takes the lead in identifying education needs and facilitating that they are implemented. It oversees and possibly also runs educational development projects in the community. Beside having a Village Education Committee it is advised that each school should have its own School Committee to function as a Board of the school. In the School Committee usually the head teacher is the Secretary while further there are parents elected to be members and the Chairman being an elected person from the village. Role of the Executing partner: Training, facilitation, coaching and monitoring of the Village Education Committee and School Committees. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Facilitate the community to elect the members of the VEC and the members of School Committees. 2. Train the VEC regularly for its role and tasks (ideally at least one day every two months with an introductory training of 3 to 4 days for all or most members of the committee). Training may cover such aspects as: bookkeeping and stores management, leadership skills, and monitoring, facilitation, supervision and motivation of School Committees and education interventions. 3. Train the School Committees regularly for their role and tasks, including: bookkeeping and stores management, monitoring and facilitation of head teacher and other teachers, monitoring of school results, drop-outs and other issues affecting education of especially children, and decision-making skills. 4. Visit the committees regularly to coach them (discuss progress, provide advice, visit schools together, etc.) and monitor their performance (use a structured monitoring form and fill it during each visit). 5. Assist the committees with contacts with involved authorities to coordinate interventions, ask for support, discuss such issues as the need for other education systems (e.g. if there is no secondary education system in the area yet), etc. Activities by a Village Education Committee: 1. Assess in the community, at schools and also with relevant authorities in the area the problems and needs regarding education, and also the plans of authorities and others for working on education issues. 2. Prepare, supervise and monitor education interventions/projects. 3. Participate in the development of Operation and Maintenance Plans for each school. 4. Monitor the performance of the schools in the area. 5. Communicate and liaise about education issues with VDS and district authorities. 6. Etc. Activities by a School Committee: 2. Develop an annual Operation and Maintenance Plan for the school. 3. Collect parent/community contributions and keep a transparent financial book. 4. Supervise, facilitate and monitor the implementation of the plans. 5. Monitor and ensure proper school management. 6. Monitor the school environment. 7. Monitor the quality of education. 8. Act on problems and, when felt necessary, communicate with the VEC, VDS and/or district authorities. 9. Attend school committee meetings. 10. Organize exchange visits with other schools in order to learn from each other. 11. Etc.
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Points of attention: An important common problem identified especially in the rural areas is the lack of goodwill among the teachers towards the villagers and vice versa. The teachers complain that the parents are not showing interest in the education of their children and the villagers complain about the performance and seriousness of the teachers. One needs to develop a cordial relationship between teachers and parents in order to promote better education facilities to the children of the particular village. This could be accomplished by: • Organizing training camps for teachers and members of the VEC and/or School Committee specifying their goals and necessity to work in a good environment to promote the literacy level in the target villages. • Creation and support of a parent teachers association (PTA) at each school. • Convincing the community that “good leadership” is practiced at the school, for example by reading the annual financial accounts to the community. Further information: ASSIST, Connect International
9.3
Capacitate Childcare Centers
A child care center is a center for taking care of the youngest children 2 and 3 years of age. Its purpose is more social then educational. Child care centers improve: • Social and communication skills of children, • Women empowerment (women can leave their children at the center and therewith get more time, which they may also use to further develop themselves), • Family income generation. The fact that children taken care of in a center ensure that women (and man) have more time to generate money for the family, • Increase enrolment in pre-schools. Role of the Executing partner: Facilitate the selection of voluntary teachers and the election of a committee for the child care center, train, facilitate, assist and monitor the teachers and committee members, assist the committee to develop contacts with other stakeholders such as district education office. Activities by the Executive partner and the Education Committee: 1. Facilitate the community to discuss and agree on the need for a child care center. 2. Assist the community to find a location for the center and, if needed, request for support for construction materials, basic playing materials, tools etc. from the Executing partner and/or other stakeholders (e.g. district education office). 3. Assist with obtaining permission from the authorities for construction and/or operation of the center and agree with the authorities on their contribution. 4. Facilitate the community to select 2 voluntary care givers (one care giver per 6-8 children in the center). 5. Facilitate the community to elect Childcare Center Committee members. 6. Train the volunteers in child care issues and hygiene on a monthly basis. 7. Support the center with construction materials, and basic playing materials. 8. Facilitate the Childcare Center Committee to develop an Operation and Maintenance plan, a responsibility structure and a sanction system to maintain the building and a clean school environment, furniture and playing materials etc. together with the VEC. 9. Provide relevant manuals and education material to the volunteers. 10. Facilitate the Childcare Center Committee to start income-generating activities at the center to compensate the volunteers. 11. Monitor the center. 12. Build capacity within the community to take more action with and for the children.
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Cross cutting issues: • A childcare center is a place where all (new) mothers meet to bring or collect their child. Therefore it is a good place to organize workshops for health and other topics of particular interest for women/mothers. • If a building is required see the paragraph about construction of rural buildings in the Infrastructure chapter. Limitations: A childcare center will, in general, cost more then the funds it can generate. Communities or government must therefore be prepared to support the center financially in the long run. If government is unwilling to do so the center should be supported financially by the community or be run and maintained entirely by volunteers from the community. If no solution can be found for covering the costs/inputs required for operation and maintenance one should not start a child care center. Points of attention: • Proper hygiene should be kept to prevent diseases spreading between the children. • Proper plans and arrangements are needed for feeding the children. • Capable care givers should be found who are trusted and respected. • The center should be owned officially by the community. Agreements with authorities and land owners are needed to ensure this. Further information: ASSIST
9.4
Capacitate Pre-schools
A Pre-school prepares children of 4 and 5 years of age for Primary school. Lots of playing is combined with bits of learning in a fun way. The Pre-school helps to ensure that children become better learners due to stimulation at an earlier stage and exposure to the national language (if at home another language is used; this is important as all formal education is usually in the national language), and increase primary school enrolment. The community can set up and manage its own Pre-school in case a regular pre-school system is not available. Role of the Executing partner: Facilitate the selection of voluntary teachers and the election of a Pre-school Committee, train, facilitate, assist and monitor the teachers and committee members, assist the committee to develop contacts with other stakeholders such as district education office. Activities by the Executing partner and the Education Committee: 1. Facilitate the community to discuss and agree on the need for a pre-school. 2. Assist the community to find a location for the center and, if needed, request for support for construction materials, basic playing materials, tools etc. from the Executing partner and/or other stakeholders (e.g. district education office). 3. Assist with obtaining permission from the authorities for construction and/or operation of the center and agree with the authorities on their contribution. 4. Facilitate the community to select 2 voluntary teachers (one teacher per 20 children). 5. Facilitate the community to elect Pre-school Committee members. 6. Train the volunteers in teaching methods on a monthly basis. 7. Check the existence of a country wide policy and support, including an existing curriculum, for pre-schools and assist the Pre-school Committee to work with these. 8. Support the pre-school with construction materials, and basic playing materials.
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9. Facilitate the Pre-school Committee to develop an O&M plan, a responsibility structure and a sanction system to maintain the building and a clean school environment, furniture, learning and playing materials etc. together with the VEC. 10. Provide relevant manuals and education material to the volunteers. 11. Facilitate the Pre-school Committee to start income-generating activities to compensate the volunteers. 12. Monitor the pre-school. 13. Build capacity within the community to take more action with and for the children. Cross cutting issues: • A pre-school is a place where all (new) mothers meet to bring or collect their child. Therefore it is a good place to organize workshops for health and other topics of particular interest for women/mothers. • If a building is required see the paragraph about construction of rural buildings in the Infrastructure chapter. • Sometimes parents withdraw their child from education after Pre-school to work. Assist the Pre-school and the Primary school Committees to prevent this. Limitations: A pre-school will, in general, cost more then the funds it can generate. Communities or government must therefore be prepared to support the pre-school financially in the long run. If the government is unwilling to do so the pre-school should be supported financially by the community or be run and maintained entirely by volunteers from the community. If no solution can be found for covering the costs/inputs required for operation and maintenance one should not start a pre-school. Points of attention: • Proper hygiene should be kept to prevent diseases spreading between the children. • Proper plans and arrangements are needed for feeding the children. • Capable teachers should be found who are trusted and respected. • The pre-school should be owned officially by the community. Agreements with authorities and land owners are needed to ensure this. Further information: Pre-school manual ADPP Mozambique
9.5
Capacitate Primary schools
A primary school teaches basic knowledge as well as basic social and communication skills to children of 6 to 12 years. Capacitating primary schools includes such issues as training, facilitating and coaching of school management, parents committees and teachers to improve didactics, teaching quality, school hygiene, peer education, parents awareness and motivation for their children to complete primary education, etc. Role of the Executing partner: • Facilitate communities to erect Primary School Committees and parents to erect Parents Committees. • Facilitate, coach and train school management, the committees and the teachers with regard to their roles and tasks. • Facilitate committees and teachers to have contact and exchange ideas, plans etc. with other stakeholders (e.g. teachers from other schools, local authorities etc.) and obtain support from stakeholders like the authorities and other NGO’s. • Monitor the interventions executed in each school. • Monitor the functioning of the schools.
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Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Facilitate the Education Committee and, if already existing, the Primary School Committee and Parents Committee, to analyze the problems and needs with regard to primary education system (as laid down in the education survey report; if the report does not provide such information or not enough, a specific primary education survey will need to be executed) and develop detailed plans for priority improvements (if not already laid down in the education survey report). Also liaise and agree on planned actions with the authorities (they should provide a permit for building a school if required and commit to employing and paying the salaries of required teachers). Specific attention should be given to: early drop-outs, children taken from school to work, girls taken from school to be married out, nutrition during school time, sexual abuse by teachers or between children, lack of motivation of parents to send their children to school due to poor quality teaching, or high costs involved, quality of teaching, learning results of the pupils, numbers of boys versus numbers of girls in the school, etc. 2. Ensure that proper contracts are made and signed between the involved stakeholders for the planned interventions (e.g. with contractors, authorities, Executing partner and community). Agree to assist with funding if this cannot be obtained from other parties (but only if authorities or other parties commit to employ and pay teachers salaries). 3. Facilitate stakeholders to bring all resources together for execution of the plans (expertise, funds, guiding tools, equipment, etc.) within the boundaries of the contract(s). 4. Facilitate communities to erect Primary School Committees and Parents Committees. 5. Assist the Education Committee, the School Committee or another PO to organize and execute an awareness generation camp for parents if required. 6. Sponsor and evaluate specific awareness and leisure events in and for the schools. 7. Monitor families with most vulnerable children (MVC’s) and provide assistance. 8. Facilitate, coach and train school management, the committees and the teachers with regard to their roles and tasks. 9. Facilitate committees and teachers to have contact and exchange ideas, plans etc. with other stakeholders (e.g. teachers from other schools, local authorities etc.) and obtain support from stakeholders like the authorities and other NGO’s. 10. Facilitate the Primary school Committee to develop an O&M plan, a responsibility structure and a sanction system to maintain the building and a clean school environment, furniture, learning and playing materials etc. together with the VEC. 11. Provide relevant manuals and education material as far as possible or bring the Primary school Committee in contact with other parties that can help in this respect (if needed). 12. Facilitate the Pre-school Committee to start income-generating activities to have funds to cover the costs of operation and maintenance of the school if required. 13. Monitor the interventions executed in each school. 14. Monitor the functioning of the schools following a proper monitoring protocol and assist VEC and the Primary School Committee to take over this function in the long run. 15. Build capacity within the community to take more action with and for the children. Cross cutting issues: • A primary school is a place where children could be motivated to take part in youth clubs (which will need to be organized properly), and be informed about and inform each other about the dangers of HIV/AIDS, sexual abuse of girls, etc. • Check if enrolment of local pre-school is continued at primary school and children continue to finalize primary school. Some parents might withdraw children (especially girls) from the educational system once they are old enough to work or to be married out. Assist the Pre-school and the Primary school Committees to prevent this. • If a building is required see the paragraph about construction of rural buildings in the Page 106
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Infrastructure chapter. Limitations: A primary school will, in general, cost more then the funds it can generate. As funding of primary schools is generally seen as a key responsibility of the government it is imperative and logical that the government should support the primary school financially in the long run, and provide and pay the salaries of the teachers. If the government is unwilling to do so it will probably not be feasible to run a primary school in the community unless the community is able to find the required funds elsewhere for a long-term period. Points of attention: • In the long run schools should motivate parents to keep children in the educational system mainly by delivering quality education. • Proper hygiene should be kept to prevent diseases spreading between the children. This is especially so where children take their food (also if they bring it from their home). • Proper plans and arrangements are needed for feeding the children (follow government guidelines if available). • Capable teachers should be found who are also trusted and respected. • The pre-school should be owned officially by the community. Agreements with authorities and land owners are needed to ensure this. • Communities may emphasize the need to build a library and teachers houses in addition to building a school. The library is required if children do not own teaching material. They then need the library to be able to read teaching books and learn from them. Teachers houses can be an enormous motivation for teachers to perform properly. If they live in a proper house where they can also properly accommodate their families the chance they will perform well increases. All buildings should be owned by the community. If a teachers moves to another job he also looses the house. Good teachers houses also have the effect often that school because of them are able to attract better teachers. • Fit to, coordinate with and do not overlap with or work against capacity building, guidance and supervision by for instance the involved authorities while the national curriculums for primary education will need to be respected and followed. • Other parties that may need to be involved in one or more of the activities can be: the teacher training college in the area, community elders, local religious leaders (especially if the school is part of a specific religious group), the community library. • Primary schools should undertake sports events in the school and if possible also with schools in nearby communities. Children and sport Sport is essential in the development of children. Beside the positive effect on the health and motorial development of children, sport also helps to develop a positive and healthy mind, a healthy sense of competition, comradeship, communication skills, and it learns children to shift their boundaries and develop targets/goals.
Further information:
• • •
Manual Connect International: The social phase for school projects. ASSIST manuals SHIPO, Tanzania – Tunanjali program for identification and support to MVC’s
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Children in a new primary school building in a village in Malawi. It is important that there is enough light, the building can be left easily (in case of fire or other hazards), classes are not too full, teachers are happy and motivated and pupils get some food during school hours.
Some education materials for a primary school in India.
9.6
Capacitate out of school youth clubs
A youth club is a place where young people, age 12 to 21, can meet, learn skills, enjoy activities and obtain psycho-social support. Youth clubs are especially suitable when people experience problems caused by youth on the street outside school hours. Young people can drop into a youth club center any time when they are bored after school time or do not have any other facilities to meet other persons or enjoy themselves. Youth workers, who can be paid workers or volunteers from the community, provide guidance, encourage youth to join in the club's programs, etc. There are often activities specifically for young girls/women. Youth can be educated on life skills and obtain psycho-social support when needed. If there is not a physical center where young people can go to, a youth club can also exist without a building or make use for instance of a school building after school hours. Preferably however youth clubs should have a proper building as a center for their activities and social interactions. Page 108
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Role of the support organization: Select and train voluntary youth workers, facilitate the club to make an activities plan, assist with funding, facilitate the club to set up income generation to pay for the running costs of the club, monitor and evaluate the clubs. Activities by the support organization and education committee: 1. Select voluntary youth workers in the community. 2. Train and coach the volunteer youth workers in youth matters and activity planning on a monthly basis. 3. Monitor the volunteer youth club coaches to train especially the club leaders and give guidance to the club. 4. Support the club with construction materials and basic materials for several activities. 5. Assist the youth club to develop a plan, responsibility structure and sanction system for the operation and maintenance of buildings, furniture and materials they use in coordination with the Education Committee and community center (if there is one). 6. Assist the youth club to make plans for activities they wish to carry out and become peer educators. 7. Assist the community to start income-generating activities at or for the club to pay compensation to the volunteers. 8. Monitor the youth club. Cross cutting issues: • A youth club is a good place to contact youth and educate them in an informal way on youth matters like HIV/AIDS. • Youth clubs are frequently sponsored by a community center. • Some activities of a youth club could be helping the community like assisting with renovation of for instance water systems, possibly assisting elderly people, or for youth to learn income generating activities (e.g. tree nursery, gardening, livestock keeping), etc. Limitations: A youth club will in general cost more then it can generate. Communities or government must be prepared to support the initiative financially on the long run or to provide a youth club with a starting capital to start incoming generating activities. Points of attention: Finding and training motivated and capable youth workers on a voluntary basis might be
•
difficult especially in areas where youth have a bad reputation. •
Youth clubs should be stimulated to undertake sports events, within the community, but also between for instance youth clubs in different nearby communities (see also the Box on children and sports in the paragraph on primary education).
9.7
Capacitate transitional Education Centers
Transitional Education Centers (TEC’s) rehabilitate working children age 6 to14 (even young children have to be motivated because some of them have already dropped out of normal primary school after a few months or are at risk of dropping out, or sometimes a TEC is available nearby the community while the government school is far away). Once the parents and the children are convinced and the children are withdrawn from the work they will be admitted into a TEC. If they would be admitted directly into a normal school they may feel shy because of their age and there is a higher danger that they would drop out. Hence TEC’s act as a bridge school for working children and school dropouts. Often the
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Government schools are rigid and it is difficult for children to accustom to the atmosphere and adjust to its formality. TEC’s are often initiated by village members. It is their own center, operated by them and therefore much more suited to the needs of their children. These centers provide a realistic alternative to work and create an opportunity for education for poorer children for whom an official school may not be a possibility. Once the children are accustomed to come to these centers, their skills, knowledge and talents will be improved through non-formal education methods. Through this, within a short span of time the level of children is upgraded and later they can often be admitted into an official school. TEC’s are set up in the communities for several reasons: • Ensure Education access to the children between 6 to 14 years of age. • Teach children regular basic knowledge (like reading and writing), good habits, sports, games, songs and dances. • Promote the development of individual talents and competitive spirit. • Motivate the parents to send their children to school and create awareness among parents about the importance of education for their children. Role of the Executing partner: Assist the village to investigate the problem, plan the action and find the required external support with other parties (e.g. by facilitating contacts with district authorities), funding and other support if this cannot be obtained from other parties, monitoring and evaluation of the centers. Activities by the Executing partner and the Education Committee: 1. Investigate the possibility to set up a TEC with the community, including long-term funding. Then design and plan the center. 2. Assist the community to establish/elect a parent teacher association and/or a school parent committee. Involve stakeholders like: • Village Education Committee (VEC) • • 3. 4. 5. 6.
District education office Local teacher training college
• Community elders Check country wide curriculum for primary schools. Ask government teachers to teach in the center, if not available than list volunteers, Train and coach teachers and management of the center. Monitor the center.
Cross cutting issues: Ensure enrolment of girls in need of education (convince parents and village members about it). • Development of income compensation and income generation to be able to operate the center in the long run will probably be necessary. • If a building is required see the paragraph on construction of rural building in the Infrastructure part of this document.
•
Limitations: A Transitional Education Centers will in general cost more then it can generate. Communities or government must be prepared to support the center financially on the long run. Points of attention: While non-residential centers are feasible in villages, it is extremely difficult to run nonresidential centers in the squatters, as the environment in these squatters is most hazardous (in India). It is therefore advisable to start educational centers with a residential Page 110
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complex for children living in the squatters. Residential centers create a good environment to promote working children to stream into official schools. Further information: ASSIST: Fr. Innaiah Residential study Complex Manitese.
Children assisting at the farm of their parents, while they should actually attend school.
9.8
Capacitate Vocational Training Centers
Vocational training centers can educate both young and sometimes also adults. Often they are full-board hostels for persons who have had little or no education and no chance of an opportunity of obtaining a skilled job. They receive a relevant and vocational training designed to provide a high chance of employment or starting a successful business. Therefore focus is on skills that have a high market opportunity. Typical skills taught are: • •
Carpentry Masonry
• •
Medical Lab Technology Tailoring and Embroidery
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Cement fabrications Radio and television mechanism
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Motor Winding Computer Applications
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Plastic molding Electrical wiring
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Four Wheel Driving Corporate Employability Skills
• •
Metal works Water and sanitation techniques
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Weaving Toys making
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Leather works
In addition to skill training, the students are exposed to required managerial skills, marketing skills and other general skills and techniques. This training also provides an opportunity for young students to mix with one another and learn to live with community spirit and good manners and habits. A training course at a Vocational Training Center typically takes 6 to 12 months. Graduated students are usually assisted and followed afterwards to optimize the chance they find proper work. Role of the support organization: Support villagers who need it to attend vocational training in a vocational training center in the area and/or set up and manage a vocational training center or support another organization or authorities to do so. Activities by the support organization and community committee: 1. Assist villagers in need of vocational training to attend a vocational training center (assist involved village committees to select candidates, fund the costs for training and
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2.
3. 4.
5. 6. 7. 8.
9.
possibly accommodation fully or partly, assist with contacts with and application for trainee ships, etc.). Identify which vocational training centers there are and whether new centers are required, and if so how these could best be realized and by which organization such a center should best be set up and managed. Assist the managing organization, if needed, to explore the best local job opportunities, and the vocational skills for these jobs. Assist the managing organization, if needed, to obtain information on government policies and requirements for starting a vocational training center, like available curriculum, teachers etc. Facilitate the managing organization to develop training materials, get tools, teachers, etc. (if buildings are required see the chapter on Infrastructure). Assist the organization to investigate trainee positions with local businesses. Monitor and support the institute so it can provide six to twelve months training courses in various needed skills + training in marketing mechanisms, etc. Assist the center to guide pupils after successful completion • placement of pupil in a trainee position with a local business, • or assistance to establish either an individual or a group work unit to enhance the economic status of their families, Evaluate and monitor the center.
Cross cutting issues: Other interventions (like water and sanitation projects) might create jobs and require specific skills which could be taught in the center. However there should be no compromise in quality of the skills and work hence it would endanger the other project. Points of attention: A good understanding and acceptance of local business is essential because pupils need to find a job with them or work as colleague businessman on the same market. • Focus on local market and job opportunities. • Develop training (curriculum) in conjunction with local experienced businesses.
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Further information: Humana/DAPP.
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10
Economy
To break the poverty cycle, it is often necessary to assist poor people to develop sustainable income sources. These may create economic stability and improve household income. It enables people to pay for O&M of for instance water systems, send their children to school instead of work, etc. Interventions may focus on agriculture, livestock, business development and other economic activities, and on consumer market development. The possibilities for economic development in a village depend on: a. the skills, motivation and capabilities of the target population, b. the availability and affordability of training courses and guidance through which the poor can obtain skills and knowledge they do not yet have but need for the development of potential food and income sources, c. the available funds and subsidies and the availability and affordability of credits, d. the available raw materials and other natural resources, e. the demands of markets that can be reached, f. the initiatives for (the further) development of the markets that can be reached (for instance through improving the availability and/or affordability of consumptive credits and subsidies, so the demand for certain products increases), g. the possibilities to reach/open other Delivering goods to new markets has benefits but markets and the demands of these usually also requires investments, such as the markets. purchase of a truck for transporting goods to that market.
One challenge when trying to enhance economic development in villages is to avoid ‘replacement economy’. Example: if a household obtains a credit to open a small shop and this shop competes with the shop around the corner of the street which finally due to this competition disappears, the net result is limited or even counterproductive. Another challenge is to avoid that capacitating people to increase production leads to reduced prices for the product affecting people’s income. This may be avoided if simultaneously also other businesses are developed in which people can generate income. Also the effect on product prices of small scale initiatives is usually limited. In short, economic development initiatives should take into account potential negative effects and try to avoid these. The process to enhance economic development in a village includes: (a) one or more economic surveys, (b) development of economic development plans, (c) capacity building of PO’s (e.g. Savings & Credit Groups and Village Banks) and individuals to take up or enhance economic development activities, for example through training and guidance. Also loans and grants can be provided that give PO’s and individuals access to credits, pass-on loans, revolving funds and/or social funds which can be used for such things as the realization of irrigation facilities, sustainable farming practices, small business development, financial support of vulnerable households, purchase of consumer goods, improvement of housing, etc. Instead of providing grants and loans directly to stakeholders in the village the Executing partner can also choose to capacitate Micro Finance Institutions and/or Savings Associations to do so. This is a more structural intervention that leads to sustainable organization infrastructure for credits, savings and possibly insurances and social security Community development – Economy
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funds. The intervention takes place outside the village but is meant to assist villages in a wider area. As it is an intervention beyond the boundaries of the villages supported, the capacity building of MFI’s and Savings Associations is described in Part VI of this manual. In this chapter we focus on the interventions that can be executed by Executing partners at the village level in order to enhance local economic development. The economic interventions described in this chapter are: Intervention Suitability Economic survey and planning Capacitate Economic Committees
Capacitate Credit & Savings Groups
Capacitate Farmers
Irrigation development
Capacitate individuals to set up a business
For all communities where food and income is a priority subject. For communities that wish to coordinate economic development at the village level and/or set up a Village Bank
When individuals and groups want economic development, but have limited access to finance and finance institutions and therefore need to organize themselves to obtain credits. For all communities where farming is a major source of income/livelihood. Where crops can yield much better harvests if irrigation is practised and where irrigation is feasible When individuals have the wish and the potential to set up a commercially viable business
Focus Assess the needs and opportunities regarding economic development and food production. Village forms an elected committee that facilitates economic development through coordinated efforts, assistance and enhancement of economic PO’s and forming of economic institutions at the village level Villagers form groups (generally women) of 10 to 15 members that bring together money and use it as rotating and revolving funds. Also umbrella societies can be formed covering several community groups. Capacitate farmers to learn from each other and others and improve their agricultural practices. Capacitate farmers to irrigate crops and set up the organizational structures required for it. Train and guide individual into the aspects of a proper business, profits, bookkeeping, contents of the business they want to set up, and other issues they need for a successful business
While it will prove too utopian to create communities in which all members benefit equally from development, and while we in certain situations may even have to start our income generation focused interventions with those who are not the poorest of the poor (in terms of education and experience level, access to land, etc.), we want to also focus on spreading the wealth. Just increasing the total amount of money is therefore not sufficient as a goal in itself. (FEMI).
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10.1
Economic survey and planning
An economic survey assesses which economic activities will have the highest potential in the village. The findings are used to make one or several detailed economic development plans. The survey is executed by the economic committee of the village (or a group of people elected to do the survey if such a committee does not exist) and possibly other key people of the village, supported by one or more experts of the Executing Partner. In most rural areas the survey will focus on the utilization of land, water and human resources available within or near the village and the markets in and nearby the village that can be reached, as these are most easily at hand for generating income. Furthermore it is investigated what skills and knowledge people already have, which ambitions, etc. Additionally it may be useful to execute one or several specific economic surveys with regard to specific topics identified to (possibly) have a high potential for income generation. Such surveys may for instance focus on the possibilities to reach other markets or on opportunities in the region and country the village can possibly anticipate on to boost its economic development. Such surveys will usually need to be executed by experts and will often oversee a whole are of villages instead of only one. Role and tasks of the Executing partner: execute a standard economic survey focused on resources available to the village already and nearby markets together with selected beneficiaries, and, if believed beneficial, execute one or more specific economic surveys (to be executed by experts), assist the village and its PO’s to assess and appreciate the outcome of the surveys and use these to plan and implement economic initiatives. Points of attention: • The results of an economic survey might suggest an intervention like training people in a particular skill. However this will lead to overproduction of certain products and prices to drop too much. In such case it is better to train people in different skills. • Crop production and livestock keeping will in rural areas usually encompass major entry points for boosting economic development. Beside increasing production advantages can also be gained by making production less labor intensive so people have spare time for other activities, for instance by facilitating concentrated cropping systems nearby people’s houses. • The survey should take into account the potential danger of increasing local competition in an unfair way (e.g. by giving some businesses credit and others not), or practicing so-called ‘replacement economy’ (e.g. providing a loan to a family to set up a small shop that then pushes an already existing small shop in the village out of business). • Beside a standard economic survey focusing on relatively straight forward opportunities within and nearby the village other economic investigations might be useful focusing on finding other opportunities, e.g. adding value through local processing of farm products, reaching new markets, etc. Such surveys should also analyze success and failure of existing or completed initiatives in the country, potential risks and bottlenecks, etc. Further information: Economic parts of the Assist baseline survey which collects data per household on: • Land, crops and storage of food grains: acres of land with water facilities and type of facility, acres of dry land, acres of waste land, crops on owned land and leased land, acres of owned land, acres of leased land, production period, total investment, total kilograms yield, kilograms storage for domestic and sales purposes, sales rate per 100 kg and total amount of sales. • Occupation, income and expenditure per member: occupation/resource of income,
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• • •
no. of working days in a year, wages per day, annual income, yearly expenditure on occupation, net annual income and number of days that migration is needed. Savings and loans: amounts, dates, interest rates. Livestock: number and type of live stock. Skilled persons in traditional occupations: name of person, occupation and experience.
10.2
Capacitate Economic Committees
A Village Economic Committee is a PO that takes the lead in identifying economic development opportunities and facilitating that they are implemented. It stimulates farmers clubs and savings groups to be erected and be active, liaises about economic development with district authorities, possibly sets up a Village Bank, etc. Role of the Executing partner: Training, facilitation, coaching and monitoring of the Economic Committees. Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Facilitate the community to elect the members of the Economic Committee. 2. Train the Economic Committee regularly for its role and tasks (ideally at least one day every two months with an introductory training of 3 to 4 days for all or most members of the committee). Training courses may cover such aspects as: bookkeeping, leadership skills, and monitoring, facilitation, supervision and motivation of Credit and Savings Groups, farmers clubs and economic interventions. 3. Visit the committees regularly to coach them (discuss progress, provide advice, visit Savings groups together, etc.) and monitor their performance (use a structured monitoring form and fill it during each visit). 4. Assist the committees with contacts with involved authorities to coordinate interventions, ask for support, discuss such issues as the potentials for district economic development initiatives, etc. 5. If desired facilitate the committees to set up Village Banks by providing training and guidance to those managing the bank and training the committee members to supervise and monitor the banks. Activities by a Village Economic Committee: • Execute a standard economic survey (see former paragraph). • Prepare, supervise and monitor economic interventions/projects. • Facilitate the erection of economic SHG’s such as Savings and credit groups, farmers clubs, etc. • Set up a Village Bank if desired. • Facilitate and monitor the economic SHG’s and their economic initiatives. • Monitor the economic development in the village in general. • Communicate and liaise about economic issues with the VDS, district authorities and nearby villages and make plans together for new or further economic development initiatives. Points of attention: The Executing partner may not have enough capacity to capacitate both an Economic committee and all kinds of economic SHG’s in a village. One may choose to only focus on for instance capacitating certain economic SHG’s. Alternatively one may capacitate an Economic Committee to such an extent that this committee is capable to properly train and facilitate certain economic SHG’s in its village. The most suitable strategy depends on the capacity of the Executing partner and the circumstances in the villages. Further information: ASSIST, Connect International Page 116
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10.3
Capacitate Credit & Savings Groups
When people see the potential for economic development, but have insufficient access to required funds they can start a Credit & Savings Group. It is recommended that these groups have at least 5 to 6 members. The groups work as democratic, self-managed, grassroots organizations; they elect their own leaders, select their own members, create their own bylaws, do their own bookkeeping, manage all funds, disburse and deposit all funds, resolve loan delinquency problems, and levy their own fines on members who default or fall behind in their loan repayments. The groups can work with different credit and saving systems, mainly rotating funds and individual micro credits. If desired and possible a Credit & Savings group may also develop a social security system for financial aid to vulnerable households in the group such as single or no parent families, elderly households and households with severely ill or handicapped persons. The groups may also organize themselves at higher level forming a Savings Association which has the advantage that these umbrella structures can get larger credits from MFI’s and banks, and because of that invest in larger projects (e.g. a grain store in which farmers can store their grain to wait for the market prices to rise) and channel grants, credits, subsidized credits and/or social security support grants to the Credit & Savings Groups. Savings Associations are described in Part VI of this manual. Role of the Executing partner: facilitate the erection of Savings & Credit groups, their proper election of leaders and facilitate, train, coach and monitor them regularly, in some cases providing grants. Recommended financing methods that can be used by the groups: Rotating fund Individual Revolving fund micro credits Focus
Suitability
Members provide their weekly or monthly contributions to one member, each time another one. The member receiving the money uses it for an income generating activity or buy things he/she needs but would normally not have the funds for. To enable the individual members to meet certain individual needs or start small income generating activities where no other possibilities are to get a loan, subsidy or grant.
Loans provided by a MFI, village Bank or Savings Association to group members that need to be repaid and over which interest is paid. Repayment of the loans plus interest is enhanced through group pressure (the group pays if the individual fails). To enable poor individuals to get a loan. The credits may be subsidized by external sources with attached specific conditions and restrictions (see Part VI).
Members contribute money to which an external party adds a grant. The total is deposited in a bank account of the group and is used to provide loans to the members that need to be repaid with interest, so the fund can grow. Repayment is enhanced by social group pressure. To enable poor individuals to get a loan. The credits may be subsidized with attached specific conditions and restrictions (see Part VI).
Social security fund Members save money for assistance to vulnerable families. Alternatively these savings can be subsidized or the whole fund is granted by external parties (e.g. an NGO, authorities, etc.)
Where there are vulnerable households such as elderly, single or no parent households, and households with severely ill or handicapped people, who are unable to sustain themselves sufficiently.
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Activities by the Executive partner: • Facilitate the erection of Credit & Savings Groups. Members of the groups are admitted with a membership fee and there after each member is encouraged to deposit their savings fixed amount monthly. • Facilitate the election of group leaders. The leaders have the responsibility of maintaining the records and registers with all the details of the members and their savings. • Train and coach the leaders regularly, starting with a leadership training course. • Facilitate the groups to create bylaws, do their own bookkeeping, manage all funds, and resolve problems. • Facilitate the groups to open their own bank accounts (operated jointly by both leaders per group). The savings can be lent out to the members for investments, consumption and for covering emergency needs. • Facilitate the groups to meet monthly and discusses their problems and difficulties and collect their savings and loan repayments. • Encourage those groups that have regular savings and timely repayments of internal lending in different ways: matching grants for revolving and rotating funds, becoming member of a Savings Association, linkage to a bank for major loans. • Monitor the groups. Cross cutting issues: • Stimulate the Credit & Savings Groups to elect one woman and one man (or two women) as leaders. • Credit & Savings Groups are often relatively successful because they function on the basis of social pressure/control. People know each other and have all kinds of relationships with each other. Therefore they will try their best to pay back a loan to the group, otherwise they know they will disadvantage the other persons in the group. Limitations: People can take advantage of financial systems. Good monitoring should be prevent fraud and corruption. • Many Credit & Savings Groups consist of women while the experience with male groups is limited. Women seem more regular in monitoring the savings, while men, for instance because they often travel outside the village for work, take less time in records work. • Individuals or groups of individuals who wish to set up a small business usually need very good training on the contents of their business, but also on issues such as bookkeeping, official registration, laws they will have to abide to, the principle of profit and profitability, management of a business, etc. It may take longer than a year to prepare people for all this.
•
Points of attention: Great attention has to be paid to the monitoring of Credit & Savings Groups especially at the beginning. Loans should start with little sums of money that will be increased at the second or third loan, after repayment of the fist ones. • The groups should have proper regulations what they will do if someone is unable to pay back a loan. Special attention should hereby be given to what to do if persons fail to pay back due to factors outside their direct influence sphere and what to do if persons fail due to their own (avoidable) mistakes or even their reluctance or refusal to pay back because of unwillingness to do so.
•
Further information: Assist, SNV, WorldGranny (with regard to pension fees).
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10.4
Capacitate Farmers
Farmers often lack knowledge, skills, inputs such as seeds and fertilizers, and tools, to practice more optimal farming systems. In order to change this, it is important that they learn about improved techniques etc. and ideally organize themselves in farmers organizations to keep learning, organize themselves and exchange experiences. Some effective methods to capacitate farmers are discussed here. Role of the Executing partner: Train and build capacity among the members of farmer organizations, monitor and guide/advise, provide financial support either as loans or as donations, or as a combination of the two. Introduce organizations to each other to explore synergy and take things to a next level. Recommended methods: Method Demonstration farms Focus
Suitability
Show and teach farmers the latest technical know-how on sustainable and profitable farming practices and let them experience these in practice. Where new know-how can improve farming in practice of a poor farmer.
Farmer training camps Intensive 6 day training camps to boost the knowledge and skills of selected farmers who can then implement the farming practices they learned on their farms and advocate these to others. Where the taught topics are not known and farmers are willing to attend a training camp.
Farmers in India looking at a new Cassava variety at a demonstration farm.
Farmers clubs Regular coaching and short training courses to groups of farmers who have erected a farmers club together.
Where farmers have different knowledge and skills and are willing to share and cooperate with each other through regular meetings and activities.
Women in Zambia irrigate their vegetable gardens with water from a hand dug well with rope pump.
Cross cutting issues: See also the paragraph on irrigation development. Points of attention: Often combinations of the above methods are applied. A training camp for instance could initiate a farmers club. Farmers clubs could start a demonstration farm or a training camp, etc. • Training could also focus on topics like simple calculating financial profit, needed
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•
• • •
savings for next season, storage or local marketing opportunities. Often it is just knowledge, awareness and skills the farmers need. This may not even provide them income (if they eat the crops themselves) but may help them to avoid having to buy food during food scarce periods (thus indirectly providing income by avoiding expenditures). Example: potholing of maize and having animals in sheds and using the dung easily collected in the sheds as fertilizers may boost maize production and production of other food crops considerably. Possibly a farmer may sell some of the surplus harvest and then also actually really get additional income. Farmers may be stimulated to start producing new crops for which good markets exist in towns in the country or even internationally. This will require access to such markets though. For livestock (sheep and goat rearing, poultry boxes, dairy, etc.) a pass-on loan scheme can be initiated, whereby in principal the loan is paid by handing over offspring to the next family(s). After the harvesting season market prices may go up, so fresh or dried storage will add value to the product. Developing storage facilities can be done for some crops by households themselves (simple wooden maize stores for instance) while for other types of storage larger or more complex stores are required. Such stores may be accomplished by for instance Savings Associations (see Part VI of this manual).
10.4.1 Operate demonstration farms Demonstration farms can show farmers all kinds of farming methods, crop patterns and crop varieties, but also, livestock rearing practices and types of livestock that are of interest to farmers. The farmers can be partially trained as well at demonstration farms. Demonstration farms can be started at any time, but it is good to have one such farm in each area where activities with and for local farmers are executed as part of community development programs. Role of the Executing partner: set up and run demonstration farms or support other parties to do so, and facilitate farmers to visit the farms. Activities by the Executing partner: • Investigate local knowledge, awareness and practice (KAP) gaps regarding farming practices and at what level education can be absorbed. • Set up the farms with different units, each unit showing a different high potential agricultural system. For example: tree nursery, organic farming, vermi-compost, dairy farm, social forestry. Alternatively: support other parties (e.g. authorities, other NGO’s) to set up the farms with (part) funding, advise, expertise etc. • Invite farmers organizations to come and visit the farms. • Offer visiting farmers a full program, visiting the units and learning and experiencing about the issues involved. • Provide farmers proper self-instructive educational material, with regard to the farming practices. • Answer questions by farmers who visited the farms. Further information: Assist, Humana
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10.4.2 Execute farmers training camps Where intensive work with farmers is part of integrated community development farmers training camp can be executed once a year in each involved village while for instance twice a year an area level camp can be held for progressive farmers. Training sessions in such camps often relate to: soil management, crop rotation, seed production, weeding, water management and drainage, integrated nutrient management, integrated pest and diseases management, marketing of agricultural products, orchards, floriculture, vegetable growing, agro based products, cattle, poultry, livestock pests and diseases. Role of the Executing partner: organize the training camps and make sure participants are well trained and have the chance to practice skills taught etc, in accordance with the adult learning cycle, guidance afterwards to assist farmers who try to practice the knowledge and skills taught. Activities by the Executing partner: • Investigate local knowledge-gap and at what level education can be absorbed. • Prepare the training camps (make training schedules, select trainers, develop training curriculums and provide proper educational material). • Select per village 10 farmers (each year different farmers may be selected). • Execute a training camp in each village, training the 10 farmers during 6 days following the proper training schedule. Provide the farmers with proper educational material regarding the subjects covered. • Select the most progressive farmers from the village camps and invite them to take part in an ‘area camp’. Further information: Assist.
10.4.3 Capacitate farmers clubs Farmers clubs are SHG’s focusing on farming issues. They can start at any time after the village self assessment and first surveys in the village, and continue for as long as the members want it. They exchange experiences and try out different agricultural techniques and practices (e.g. pit farming, making contours, compost making and low cost technologies for irrigation), crops and crop varieties. Role of the Executing partner: facilitate the erection of farmers clubs and train, coach and monitor the clubs and facilitate their active participation in different events (e.g. visits to demonstration farms, specific training courses etc.). Activities by the Executing partner: • Facilitate the erection of farmers clubs. • Stimulating farmers clubs to visit good farmers • Provide self-instructive discussion and learning material. • Train farmers club leaders to lead and facilitate their clubs. • Stimulate rotating and revolving funds among the farmers clubs. • Stimulate field visits by farmers clubs to learn about monitoring and acting upon pests. • Regular one day or even few hour training courses on specific subjects. • Attending club meetings to monitor and advice (on demand). • Setting up demo plots with farmers clubs. • Setting up compost demo’s with the farmers clubs. • Facilitating farmer clubs to visit farms (clubs) in other villages. • Assisting farmers clubs to set up mechanisms for buying cheap seeds, fertilizers, sharing expensive equipment, etc. Further information: Assist, Humana Community development – Economy
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10.5
Irrigation development
Water sources may also be used for irrigation. Irrigation, if properly used, can boost crop production enormously, but attention is regarded for dangers such as salinity building up, large water losses and high costs. Role of the Executing partner: Train and build capacity among farmers and members of the irrigation committee (if applicable), monitor and guide/advise, provide financial support either as loans or as donations, or as a combination of the two. Economic development within an irrigation project in Tanzania Looking at our own situation in Mtakuja/Tanzania, for the immediate future I see the goal to develop a reliable (high quality) supply sector of agricultural produce for sale at existing markets in nearby population centers, leveraging existing infrastructure to reach these markets. Over time, we should encourage members from the target community to develop spin off activities to leverage new economic activities, ranging from such things as post-harvest handling of produce to transportation or managing and leveraging market information to improve sales. Activities by the Executing partner (in case of a large irrigation system): • Facilitate farmers to form small geographical groups and request for and irrigation scheme. • Feasibility study: A team of engineers from the Irrigation Department visits all the villages and conducts a feasibility study of the proposed schemes. The farmers participate actively, by discussing the schemes and their role in completing the schemes. • Government approval: Approach the government to get the assistance to start the schemes. Approach the elected representative of the area and the concerned government officials to ask for a financial contribution. If possibly obtain water rights to secure the water supply for future. • Formation of Farmers associations. They are responsible for mobilizing the farmers in the execution of irrigation schemes, organizing regular meetings with all the farmers to review the work of all the schemes, contacting the concerned government officials from time to time to get the sanctioned amount of irrigation water as well as technical guidance, mobilizing the resources from the villagers, management and monitoring of the scheme. • Execution of the schemes: Construction of pump house, digging pipeline trench, laying pipeline and fitting them in order, covering the pipeline, efforts to get the power supply, purchasing the material required, fixing the motors, commencement of the schemes. • Training camps; training of farmers on various aspects, e.g. how to strengthen the Farmers Associations, soil and its varieties and its suitability for growing crop, alternative cropping pattern, integrated pest management for each and every crop, optimum utilization of water, sustenance of the schemes. • Handing over the irrigation schemes to a Water Users Association, in which the beneficiaries are represented. The Water Users Association are responsible of management en maintenance of the system. Cross cutting issues: • Before deciding on the type of system (drip, sprinkle, surface irrigation) to implement, it is important to take into account the following issues:
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• •
• Location: inland, coastal/transportation services; • Extent of land available owned by the community; • Terrain: its nature, whether slope or plain; • Access to fresh water: surface/underground; • Type of soil: quality and its feasibility; • Hazards likely to be faced by this land: floods, salt water, tides, etc.; • Mineral resources available in the land: from soil testing; For technical design and realisation see technical handbooks. The Water Users Association is often a group of farmers and could therefore be a target group for capacity building on farming see the paragraph on capacity building in farmers organizations.
Points of attention: • After successful completion of an irrigation project it is good practice to share experience and motivate others. For instance farmers from other villages can be encouraged to visit the project area. • Flexible hoses for drip irrigation can be cheaply produced with the same machine that makes satchels of drinking water or ice, Further information: ASSIST • www.practicafoundation.nl • Technical handbooks for the construction of irrigation systems. •
10.6
Capacitate individuals to set up a business
People who want to set up a business should be capacitated how they can best do so, including the specific issues of the business they want to set up, general business issues such as management and bookkeeping skills, and access to funds for the required investments. Businesses may produce for different markets: •
•
•
Replacing imported goods for the local market. For instance, if the village often buys blacksmith products from far outside the village it may be an option to train a blacksmith in the village and provide the person a loan to set up a blacksmith workshop. This blacksmith will probably not only sell goods to the villagers but also to inhabitants of other nearby villages. Value additions to products for local and/or external markets. A bottleneck of the poor even if they have the skills and knowledge is the lack of marketing and product upgrading techniques. For instance, the packing of the product is a great art and it attracts the consumer. Consumer is tempted to buy a product which is neat and tidy. Hence, the producers in the communities have to be oriented towards product marketing and proper presentation. Also products can be upgraded, often in rather simple ways. Example: if a nearby marmalade factory needs apples of a certain variety and certain dimensions, the farmers can start to grow this variety and sort out the apples that fit to the requirements of the factory. In this way they will probably be able to sell the apples and get a better price than if they would not deliver the proper variety or the proper dimensions of the apples. Adding goods to the local market. Sometimes small loans and a simple bookkeeping training may be enough for people to start their own small business, especially if they already have the required knowledge and skills with regard to the business. Example: after the Tsunami many fishermen had lost their boats. It was enough to provide the fishermen new boats against soft loans to get them into business successfully again. Also the little companies that made the boats only need some soft loans to set up their business again and start producing the boats.
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Role and tasks of the Executing partner: assist individuals to determine proper businesses to develop, train, coach and monitor the individuals with regard to the business contents and general business issues, assist the individuals to find their way to institutions that provide credits for the required investments. Cross cutting issues: Often women and women groups are the focus of small business development initiatives. Points of attention: Further information: ASSIST • Femi. •
Setting up a flour mill business in India Mrs. Bala Nagamma is one of the members of an SHG promoted by the organization Assist. She did slate quarry work along with her husband and two daughters. During 20 months Bala Nagamma saved an amount of Rs.1,000/-. In this period she also attended a 12-day training course on "Micro Entrepreneurship Development" conducted by ASSIST. Then she started searching for ways to set up an enterprise to improve the economic status of the family. Finally she decided to start a flourmill in the village. She made a budget to start the unit with an investment of Rs. 10,000/- and contacted the local Government officials for assistance. She got Rs. 1,000/- from the Child Labor Project as matching grant. Prakasam District Rural Development Agency sanctioned Rs. 7,000/- as grant. Another Rs. 1,000/- was given by ASSIST as grant. She again attended a two days training course on “How to operate the unit”. She gave wide publicity in the nearby villages. The unit was established with all the equipment to grind the different varieties of the flour required for the preparation of food items as well as to grind the feed required for the buffaloes. Daily she is now getting very good orders from her village as well as from nearby villages. On an average she earns Rs. 70/- daily from the unit. Previously with the hard work in the slate quarry her monthly income was Rs. 900/-. Her present income is Rs. 2,100/- per month. Her husband is still attending the quarry work and earning Rs. 1,500/- per month and their total family income is Rs. 3,600/-. She attended the night school in the village run by the teacher working in the NCLP School and became literate. She is now able to manage the flour mill on her own. Her second daughter went to school and within 20 months came to 4th standard and got admitted in the mainstream of Government school. Bala Nagamma regrets that she arranged her first daughter's marriage when she was so young. She hopes her second daughter will continue her education as far as possible. Her income has increased and she also helps the community by cooking food for the children studying in the school. Her family's living standards have improved and she is making efforts to admit the remaining child laborers into schools. She has become a model member to the other Self-help groups in the village.
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11 11.1
Social Social services Social care survey and planning
A social care survey assesses which social issues need attention and action, like care for orphans and vulnerable households, work with and for people living with HIV/AIDS, etc. The survey is executed by the VHC or by a separately established Social Care Committee. Role and tasks of the Executing partner: execute a standard social care survey, assist the village and its PO’s to assess and appreciate the outcome of the surveys and use these to plan and implement social care activities. Points of attention:
• Social care activities are ideally combined with social security funding that provide for •
instance vulnerable families some income which they may effectively use to prevent malnourishment of children en ensure that children can attend school. Social care activities may have to focus a lot on preventing stigma around vulnerable people (especially PLWHA) and a feeling of social responsibility for those most in need.
Further information: International HUMANA People to People Movement (especially on surveys regarding PLWHA and orphans).
11.2
Capacitate Committees for social services
These can be for instance Committees for Orphans and vulnerable children And Committees looking after the well-being of elderly people in the community. The Executing partner can facilitate these committees to be erected after the social care survey has shown their importance and/or after community members have prioritized certain social care subjects highly. Inputs can consist of training, guidance and monitoring, connection to social welfare funds, awareness building within the community through training and guidance of for instance social facilitators or health actors in the community.
11.3
Capacitate PLWHA clubs
Role and tasks of the Executing partner: The Executing partner can facilitate support for PLWHA in the community and can facilitate and capacitate clubs for people living with HIV/AIDS as follows: • Facilitate the community to discuss openly about people having HIV/AIDS and the need to support them. • Stimulate people to have themselves tested. • Facilitate PLWHA to come forth and be open to admit in front of the community to be infected with the virus. • Facilitate clubs for PLWHA to be erected and actively supported by the rest of the community.
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• Assist members of the clubs for PLWHA to follow the ten rules of survival for PLWHA (to keep the body, mind and soul healthy):
• •
Drink clean water Keep Helminths infections out Eat well and balanced Take vitamins and micro nutrients Maintain a proper personal hygiene Control TB Control malaria Control passing on the HIV infection Control infections with antibiotics Use ARV’s consequently. Assist the clubs for PLWHA to develop income generating activities and food production. Assist the community to assist the clubs for PLWHA with the above issues.
Further information: Child Aid manual of the International HUMANA People to People Movement
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12
Ecology Ecology
The ecological intervention described in this chapter is: Intervention Suitability Watershed development
12.1
•
Where soil errosion or drought due to water losses is or could become a problem.
•
Where land is not or poorly used for farming because of lack of water or poor water management.
Focus Put a halt to erosion and water losses and increase retention of water in water catchment areas.
Watershed development
A watershed is an area from which rainwater remains in the area or streams to one outlet point, for instance through a river that comes out of the area. In case a watershed is affected by such things as tree cutting, poor agricultural practices (for instance on sloping land) this can result in rainwater to runoff more quickly causing erosion and less water infiltration and storage in the watershed area itself. Watershed development to the contrary focuses on restoring the capacity of watersheds to catch and contain rainwater and reduce erosion, groundwater dropping, etc. Watershed development involves introduction of proper agricultural and livestock practices that do not harm the land, or even revive the land (e.g. erosion prevention by planting of proper varieties of erosion control grasses along contour lines, cattle in cattle sheds, production of natural fertilizers by cattle in sheds), planting of trees that hold soil and prevent erosion, infrastructural works to prevent erosion, creation of no-use land (especially for parts of watersheds that are vulnerable to erosion), etc. Beside the protection of watersheds these measures often lead to higher productivity of the land as well, like contour grass lines producing fodder for live stock, trees providing fire and construction wood. Role of the Executing partner: Train and build capacity among the members of PO’s that wish to work on watershed development, monitor and guide/advise, provide financial support either as loans or as donations, or as a combination of the two. Recommended methods: The selection of the most suitable methods for watershed development depends mainly on parameters like: presence of a river in the area, slope of the land, soil structure, land uses and weather conditions. On the next page a few watershed development methods are shortly presented as examples.
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Ditch and furrow: slightly sloped land with access to a river.
Surface catchment: slightly sloped area for rainwater collection. Bench terracing & Contour bunding: sloping land
Small dam systems: access to a river or slightly sloping area for rainwater collection.
Recharge basin: access to a river
Sub-surface techniques: when there are layers of permeable material (like sand) and less permeable material (like clay).
Activities by the Executing partner: 1. Find out what the (local) government can do. Try to get their maximum cooperation and support. Involve local authorities as much as possible, and operate in accordance with government restrictions and permits. 2. Train the VDS or a framers sub committee to manage the project. 3. Select an expert on watersheds. 4. Let the expert analyze constrains to the project regarding communities downhill. 5. Let the expert design a suitable solution (there or many possibilities). 6. Seeking government support and permissions. 7. Construction should be done under supervision and responsibility of the expert. Local farmers are encouraged to supply labor. 8. Monitor the building process closely. 9. The expert must train the farmers in basic water management and maintenance of the constructions. 10. Handing the project and responsibilities over to the committee.
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Further information: • Assist • Connect International • Small Community Water Supplies, IRC Technical Paper Series 40 • www.wocat.org
12.1.1 Tree plantation and Village Forestry Growing appropriate species of trees or plants of economic value on degraded land that has been unutilized/ underutilized. The primary objective is to raise tree crops for firewood, fodder, timber and other non-timber forest produce. Role of the Executing partner: Train and build capacity among the members of the PO’s, monitor and guide/advise, provide financial support if needed. Recommended methods: Forestry Social forestry
Farm forestry
Agro-forestry
Combining food (annual) with tree crops(perennials) and/or livestock in the same unit of land, alternately or at the same time. This may provide better vegetative cover reducing soil erosion and raising farmers income. Where soil conditions unsuitable for regular cropping and water is limited.
Picture
Focus
Since 1976 Indiaas social forestry aims at taking the pressure off the forests and making use of unused and fallow land.
This involves forestation (turning bare land in to forest) on farm lands/ bunds/ boundaries of agricultural land lying barren and unutilized for many years.
Suitability
Unused and fallow land near villages.
For unprotected land suitable for farming.
Activities
• Land clearance & cleaning. • Leveling the land. • Restoration of seepage ditches for water sources: deepen the seepage ditches manually to increase the storage capacity of water • Planting of plants resistant to environmental hazards. Assist
More info
• Contacts with the department of Forestry for advice and permissions. • Selection of forest sites. • Nurseries. • Planting of trees. • Protect and grow the plants. www.nabcons.com
• PO’s select the sites • Select types of trees and plants to combine. • Nurseries. • Planting of trees. • Protect and grow the plants.
Connect International / Assist
Cross cutting issues: • Wastelands can also be developed on watershed basis. •
Training PO’s for watershed protection could be done in farmers training camps.
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PART V Data systems In this part of the manual we concentrate on monitoring, evaluation and baseline systems. For financial and other data systems we refer to specific manuals on these topics (e.g. Connect International’s SO3.1 Financial bookkeeping providing a custom made manual focusing on a financial administration made in the professional software system AccountView and on top of that covering all general financial bookkeeping principles, norms and activities).
13 13.1
Monitoring Monitoring systems Introduction
Monitoring is collecting information about how well activities are carried out, what the progress is and how well the things realized function and are used. The most important function of monitoring is that the information is used immediately to take required measured for the things found not to be OK. This means that the person who does the monitoring should have the mandate by his or her organization to take immediate measures when required. This may mean stopping the work or changing things on the spot that are not done properly. It is important that the persons doing the monitoring are trained for this and get information about what measures to take for the different problems they may find (ideally the person also has this information on paper). The collected data is written down in monitoring forms (basically these are checklists for the things to be controlled) and later entered in a software database that stores the data and structures these into different clear and easy to understand standard reports, that can be used for reporting to stakeholders like Funding partners, authorities, beneficiaries, and to key persons within the Executing partner itself (e.g. the fieldworkers, the managers) who use them to learn and improve the work in a structural way. Case – hand drilling team found not to function properly An Executing partner in Mozambique monitored all the groundwater points with hand pumps it had realized. The monitoring forms included ‘Critical indicators’. These are indicators that, if not OK, mean that a water point does not function well and should be rejected (example: if the maximum yield from a water point is zero or very low, the water point should be rejected). The Managing partner received the reporting about the water points and found that the percentage of water points with negative critical indicators (meaning water points that should be rejected) was relatively high. They therefore studied the more detailed report with water point critical indicators per village and found that in a small number of villages many water points in those villages had negative critical indicators. The Executing partner looked at this and concluded that in all these village one particular drilling team had been drilling the boreholes. They then studied the work of this drilling team and discovered the drilling team made some structural errors in their work. So, because of this monitoring it was possible to discover the problem easily and quickly and solve it (the drilling team was further trained). In this chapter we describe a generic monitoring system suitable for both Managing and Executing partners. We call it SMART Info. Initially we designed SMART Info behind our desks but then discovered it was not sufficiently user friendly and did not fit to the
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realities of the field (as we found out through observing our partner organizations and seeing how hesitant they were to work with the system). We therefore went back to the development stage and turned things around, looking first at how data are collected in the field, how monitoring forms of our partners looked like (and why they had the format they had), and how the partners entered data in their own systems. Based on that we redeveloped SMART Info into a generic system that fulfills the wishes and needs of both local and international NGO’s. An organization that wants to monitor properly has to integrate it into all its interventions and structures. This is not easy. It requires dedication and discipline. But, please keep in mind, that if your organization is able to do so properly, you will have all you need to improve your organization rapidly and be ahead of all other NGO’s, therewith also attracting more donors, especially once they start seeing that you send high quality reports reflecting the actual situation, react to and even prevent problems on the basis of your monitoring systems, and improve your organization and projects so that the number of problems arising diminishes fast and project quality, sustainability and costeffectiveness of realized results and the impacts of your projects improve continuously. SMART Info is a simple, though effective tool, to assist you to get to this state. Further information: SO1.1A SMART Info Excel, and SO1.1B SMART Info SPSS (Connect International).
13.2
Types of monitoring data
SMART Info is based on what we call ‘products’. Products in SMART Info are the things realized by activities and interventions executed. A product can be such thing as a borehole with a hand pump, a school building, or a manual. But it can also be the knowledge increase in a person due to a training course, the improved management of a school due to guidance by a support organization, or a certain completed period of governance by an organization. In order to realize a product we need to execute certain activities. Therefore in SMART Info a distinction is made between: •
Product activities – the activities that realize the product. The activities need to be monitored to check whether they are properly executed, whether the materials, tools and equipment used are of the proper qualities and quantities, whether the progress of the activities is in line with the planning, etc. Therefore the monitoring data comprise: progress data and qualitative data.
•
Finalized products – the products when they are ready. It needs to be controlled whether the realized products function properly, are used in a proper way, how many products have been finalized and whether this is in line with the planning, how many people use the products, and possibly other quantitative details (e.g. area irrigated from realized water points, depth of a realized well, maximum yield of a borehole, etc.). Therefore the monitoring data comprise data about numbers of products realized and what we call QUA data. QUA data include: Qualitative data, Utilization data and Amounts data. Amounts data are divided in: Measurement data (amounts for which it is no use to count them up, like the depth of a borehole or the yield of borehole), and Numeric data (amounts for which it does make sense to count them up, e.g. the number of beneficiaries per realized water point or the number of square meters of land irrigated with the water from such a point, as these amounts are used to calculate average amounts per realized product).
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13.3
Software for monitoring data
As said we here describe the SMART Info system. The software involved is Excel in which we have programmed two different files: • SI Numbers – for entering and structuring data about the numbers of products realized. Organizations starting to use this files will also through its use find guidance on how to set up the Numbers data collection.
•
SI QUA – for entering data about the progress and quality of product activities and data about the quality, utilization and amounts of realized products.
SMART Info stores the data and structures them in a number of standard reports. SI Excel can produce a restricted number of reports, while if the SI Excel files are loaded up in SI SPSS a much larger and more sophisticated number of reports can be generated. Organizations working with SMART Info enter the monitoring data in the above mentioned Excel files. They can send these files to Connect International that uploads the files in SPSS, generates the SPSS reports and sends these to the involved organization. An example of a SI Numbers report for products realized in rural communities from the start of the book year up to March of that year (structured per area named after the responsible fieldworker): Tippy tap
Simple improved pit latrine (with concrete slab)
Traditional latrine
Water filter
3.261
61
2
259
12
253
8
5
2.868
34
1
357
3
454
0
1
Fatima
1.990
19
5
275
5
298
1
0
Felizmina
2.892
11
8
210
4
244
0
0
Felizardo
3.153
22
1
221
5
211
0
2
Laurinda
2.764
15
18
332
6
597
0
0
Nunes
2.575
48
13
143
25
189
2
1
Nunes2
2.672
67
3
144
0
194
0
0
Seleman
2.669
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
24.844
277
51
1.941
60
2.440
11
9
950
650
2.000
1.000
9.500
27
17
No. of households
Jacinto Altovino
Name of the area:
Totals realized of all locations up to date Planning for all locations till end of year
Mosquitoe net
New borehole with rope pump
New well with rope pump
On the next page an example is presented of a part of a quarterly progress report (with cumulative figures since the start of the project) structured with SMART Info SPSS (the report also includes financial data obtained from the organization’s financial system). The colors represent ‘Good’ (green), some attention needed because not all is OK (orange) and ‘not good’ (red). These have been derived from the standards defined in SMART Info). They enable the user of the report to see immediately where problems are.
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Project: TAZAMO Tanzania (PMSHI). Project start date: 01/01 2006. Report date: 31/03/2009. Result
Product type
Water points
New hand drilled borehole with rope pump New dug well + rope pump New protected spring Rehabilitated well with new rope pump First self assessment Specific investigations First community development plan Community coaches trained (coach training days)
Community develop ment in 200 villages
No. of monitoring actions product activities
Quality of product activities
Quality of approved realized products
Utilizati on of approved realized products
No. of locations with finalized products
No. of locations with product activities
No. of beneficiaries
23
12
0,73
0,94
0,90
14
3
3.545
2
8
3
0,86
0,63
0,83
6
0
425
3
1
3
4
0,78
0,67
0,76
3
0
210
4
6
0
10
23
0,83
0,87
0,77
4
1
422
180
230
2
182
182
0,92
0,82
0,89
180
0
220.500
119
150
3
122
122
0,82
0,80
0,92
76
0
220.500
67
85
2
69
69
0,77
0,84
0,91
67
0
220.500
610
650
0
460
460
0,88
0,86
0,55
3
0
84
No. of approved realized products
Planning approved realized products
No. of rejected realized products
24
17
2
7
12
3
No. of monitorring actions realized products
Realized expenditure (Euro)
Planned expenditure (Euro)
Progress realized exp. vs. progress realized products (%)
23.731
22.460
120
17.789
13.685
145
Explanation of (potential) problems and plans to solve these
•
No. of beneficiaries of new boreholes with rope pumps is high (average: 148 beneficiaries/water point while 100 is the maximum). This leads to rapid deterioration of the water points. Our plan is to stimulate villages and groups to construct more water points. This may be difficult though as people do not have money.
•
Rejected wells with rope pump – 2 were rejected due to social problems within the community (landowner signed a contract allowing his land to be used for the water point and now refuses people to use it). We are working on this with the watsan committees and village leaders and hope the community will solve the problems, so in some months these water points will be used.
•
1 protected spring had to be rejected as the water has changed its course after the protection was realized so now the water source stands dry and idle. We study how this could have happened and hope to prevent this problem to arise again in future spring protections.
•
Utilization of knowledge and skills by community coaches obtained through training courses is very limited. We feel this is caused by relatively few possibilities that arise in which the coaches can use the knowledge and skills. For instance they have learned how to facilitate a community to make a community development plan but this activity has not been done since the training. This indicates that the training courses are not in line with the activities executed in the project. We will work hard to change this by adapting the training schedule for the coaches.
•
Progress expenditures versus progress realized products is too high, indicating that the products have been realized against much higher costs than was planned. This is mainly due to the costs of the training courses for which external consultants have been hired who were very expensive. This was necessary as we were already behind schedule and did not have any trainers. We are now recruiting a trainer and hope to be able to reduce the costs of the training courses though that.
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13.4
Minimum standards for monitoring systems
As internationally acknowledged minimum standards do not exist we have developed some initial minimum standards ourselves. They are presented here under: •
Numbers of products realized – for each product type the numbers realized are counted each month and entered in a system that includes: The numbers of products planned up to the end of the month or up to the end of
-
the year. Names of the monitors who collected the data and controlled the counting to be
-
properly done. -
The projects under which the products have been realized.
-
The numbers of products realized up to that month per location, per group of locations, and for all locations together.
•
Quality, Utilization and Amount (QUA) details of finalized products, including: -
General data per each monitored product: date, district, location, longitude, latitude, name monitor, name producer of the product, project, product type, product name/number/code, number of months since the product was finalized.
-
Product Quality Critical Indicators (PQCI’s).
-
Product Utilization Critical Indicators (PUCI’s).
-
Product Quality Indicators (PQI’s).
-
Product Utilization Indicators (PUI’s).
-
Product Measurement Indicators (PMI’s), e.g. how much water does a water point produce, how deep is a well, etc.
-
Product Numeric Indicators (PNI’s), e.g. no. of persons using a product, etc.
-
The monitoring intensity and numbers of QUA indicators for realized products fulfil the following minimum standards:
Product Monitoring cost intensity (Euro)
No. of No. of No. of PQCI’s PUCI’s PQI’s
No. of PUI’s
No. of PMI’s
No. of PNI’s
0 – 15
5 – 15% of all products 10 – 20% of all products 50% of all products Each product
1
1
2
1
0
2
1
1
3
1
0
2
1
1
4
2
0
2
2
2
5
3
1
2
Each product
2
2
8
3
1
2
Each product
2
2
12
3
1
2
15 – 50 50 - 100 100 – 600 600 – 5.000 > 5.000
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•
Quality and progress of product activities, including: -
General data: date, district, location, longitude, latitude, name monitor, name producer of the product, project, product type, product name/number/code, to what extent the product is ready (in order to be able to get an approximation of the progress of product realization and projects in general).
-
Activity Indicators (AI’s; these are quality indicators). Activity monitoring forms include appropriate measures per indicator if observed
-
or measured to be not good. If during data collection something is observed or measured to be not good
-
(either through the indicators or in any other way) the monitor immediately takes appropriate measures to improve the situation in an as structural way as possible and assesses together with other stakeholders how the problem could have emerged and what further action is required to avoid the problem to arise in the future again. -
The monitoring intensity and numbers of Activity indicators for realized products fulfil the following minimum standards:
Product cost (Euro)
Monitoring intensity
0 – 15 15 – 50 50 - 100 100 – 600 600 – 5.000 > 5.000
Once in 2% of all products Once in 5% of all products Once in 10% of all products Each product at least once Each product at least twice Each product at least twice plus at least one more time per each additional 5.000 Euro product cost.
No. of AI’s 2 3 4 5 8 12
The organization has and uses a database for entry, storage and structuring of monitoring data that fulfills the following criteria: -
All monitoring data are entered in the database.
-
Databases with monitoring data are kept for at least 7 years and are made available to any auditor (sent by donors, authorities, official control institutions, or by the own organization) on request.
-
A back up of the database is made at least monthly. All back ups are kept in another place than the original database, and in a safe place.
-
The entry of monitoring data should be controlled by at least one person who signs for agreement with the controlled data. The document with signatures of data entry controllers is kept for at least 7 years after the data entry control has been done and will be made available to any auditor (sent by donors, authorities, official control institutions, or by the own organization) requesting for it.
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13.5
Developing the monitoring system
13.5.1 Develop the QUA monitoring system -
Determine the types of products your project will realize. Follow the Logical Framework Analysis (LFA) method. This method will finally yield the Results and per Result you can determine the types of products that will be realized.
-
Per product type determine the activities required to realize the product.
-
Per product type determine who will do the monitoring (usually a staff person with a lot of knowledge regarding the product) and the monitoring procedures to be followed. Enter the monitoring tasks and procedures for the different product types in the manuals of the staff who will do the monitoring.
-
Per product type develop monitoring forms for: a. the quality and progress of the activities that will together realize the product, b. the quality, utilization and amount (QUA) details of the finalized product.
-
Develop the SI QUA Excel file by entering all the product types, and per products the indicators in the General sheet of the file, plus also the involved locations, districts, monitors, etc.
13.5.2 Develop the Numbers monitoring system -
Determine the product groups. Product groups are groups of products that are realized by the same groups of people or organizations (e.g products realized in/by communities, products made by one type of SMART Tech companies, etc.) and of which the data will be entered in the same SI Numbers file. This will determine how many SI Numbers files you will need to make.
-
Open the Numbers Excel file you have received from Connect International, enter the language in the General sheet, save the file and then use this file to generate Numbers files for each product group by clicking on File – Save as and then type the name you want to give to the file (make sure you save the files together in one folder).
-
Per SI Numbers Excel file determine: b. The areas. These are for instance areas with each a different group of communities, or if you have made an SI Numbers file for a group of SMART Tech companies each area can be one of those SMART tech companies, or if you have made an SI Numbers file for the products realized by your own organization internally each area can be one of the organization departments. The names of the areas determined by you will become the names of the data sheets (so you can determine not more than 12 areas). c. The process for monitoring and reporting the numbers of products realized. d. The reporting forms for each step in the monitoring and reporting process. e. The activities and timing of each process step.
-
Field test the process steps of the monitoring and reporting process (execution, timing) and the Numbers reporting forms, and further adapt things to the circumstances where required.
-
Enter monitoring forms and procedures in the manuals of the different involved actors and staff.
-
Develop the SI Numbers Excel files required: enter the monitors, areas, projects etc. in the General sheet, rename the data entry sheets with the area names and enter in the yellow box at the top of each data entry sheet the area name of that sheet.
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13.6
Collection of monitoring data
This is the most difficult part of monitoring. We found out that monitoring of the numbers of products realized is often done differently and by different actors than the QUA monitoring. Numbers monitoring is often done by involved stakeholders who make the products, and controlled in intervals and usually ad randomly by staff of the support organization. See below an example of the data collection and flow with regard to Numbers monitoring for products realized by communities:
QUA monitoring may be done by stakeholders like beneficiaries (e.g. the Watsan committee in a village monitoring the latrines constructed by the villagers) but will more often be done directly by persons with specific expertise with regard to the involved products. Ideally these persons are not responsible themselves for the QUA aspects of the products as this entanglement could potentially jeopardize their QUA monitoring. Therefore also the call in this manual for Executing partners to set up a separate department for monitoring and evaluation in the organization (which is only judged on the quality of monitoring and evaluation done and not on the progress, quality and costeffectiveness of realized products and activities).
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14 14.1
Baseline and evaluation systems Social Return On Investment (SROI)
In commercial investment settings the Return On Investment (ROI) method is often used. With the ROI method the amount of money invested in a project is compared to the increase of profits because of this investment over some years. Poverty is often measured in terms of income per person. If income is the main purpose of an intervention then the ROI model would be a proper method to determine the level of success of an investment. When calculating the total investment, also labour (converted to local standards) and the use of available equipment and buildings should be added expressed in money. The increase in income can be measured by a baseline survey and an end of project survey. Example North Chinandega Nicaragua:
Social aspects (with ‘Social’ here we mean such issues as Health, Hygiene, Social relations, etc.) often have a limited direct influence on income (or an indirect influence which is often not measured, such as avoiding costs for medicine and doctor visits when avoiding diseases through preventive health measures) and therefore a limited effect on the ROI. The direct effects of social improvements, for instance where healthier and happier people are more productive, are part of the ROI though. However, better health, or (even more difficult) an improved feeling of dignity might be much more important to people than increased income. Therefore only the increase of income (money) may not represent the true value of an intervention. That is why the Social Return On Investment has been designed. Social Return on Investment (SROI) is a method similar to the Return On Investment (ROI) method. However, SROI is aiming to also measure and value the benefits in more social areas (like increase of health, dignity or well being) which might be more important to people than the increase of income (money). Social outcomes of interventions are given a value representing the importance to the community (sort of weighting factors). Aside from asking what is important (A), the community is asked to indicate how important a certain social outcome is to them (B). This is done by using money as a comparative measure. For instance one can mention
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local products on the market (like: eggs, cars, chicken, etc.) – of which people know the value in money - and ask them to prioritise among them, how much value the determined social outcomes have for them as compared to other products or services one could buy or have. Another method is to ask stakeholders to indicate how much they would be willing to invest (in terms of money, time or products) to achieve a certain social outcome. Using these methods, one finds a value expressed in money that people attribute to these social outcomes. Then some attributions (percentages) (C) are needed to represent the influence that a stakeholder through its intervention has on the increase of a social outcome (the product of impact and attribution). This is needed because some outcomes may increase due to external actors. The SROI can then be calculated by comparing: - the sum of the investments (money, including labour and the use of available hardware, such as equipment and buildings), and - the sum of the growth in social outcomes (priced in money (B) and multiplied by the stakeholder influence factor (C)) before and after the intervention. If one of the main goals is income generation, it fits better to include this as well in the SROI. This way the SROI number is a blended value. The growth in social outcome could be measured by surveys. The reproducibility of these surveys is – like with any other research - an issue and needs major attention. Many external factors can influence answers on surveys. When surveys are carefully executed before and after an intervention then an increase or decrease in the priced social outcome (B) could be calculated for each stakeholder. Conclusion: The SROI number can help decision makers enormously. That is also the danger of it. However we have to keep the reliability of SROI numbers in mind: • Every intervention will have positive and negative outcomes, are all of these included? Some might be unknown at the beginning of a project. • Impacts can change over time, but a thorough verification can take this problem out. When one starts an intervention, one should know what the goals are and when it’s a success. • All negative as well as positive impacts should be included in the process. • The value/price of a social outcome in terms of money will be different from time to time and from person to person. That’s why one needs to interrogate a sufficient number of persons. Also the results of the survey might be influenced by unknown external factors. These uncertainties have a great and direct impact on the SROI and could therefore have a dramatic influence on decisions like for instance whether or not to fund a proposed intervention. In the decision making process it is important not only to offer the SROI number, but rather the whole impact map. This offers a clear understanding of the aspects on which the project will create most value, and at what points a lower value. As such, SROI be used in decision making whether or not to fund a project or to adapt the project design (to increase the SROI) and as a tool in evaluations of projects. Further information Ms. Linda Blank
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14.2
SMART Survey
SMART Survey is a tool for the development of normative surveys, the storage of data from such surveys and for reporting. With normative surveys we mean surveys that investigate how good or bad the situation is regarding subjects covered by the survey questions and what we consider is good and bad with regard to those subjects. Example: If a question in a normative survey is ‘How much time does your household spend daily for the collection of water?’ we may define the following norms: 2 hours or more per day = very bad, 1 to 2 hours per day = bad, 30 minutes to 1 hour per day = reasonable and less than 30 minutes per day is good. The surveyor chooses the norm fitting best to the answer of the respondent. This in contrast to informative surveys that focus on gathering information to which no norms are attached. Example: ‘What sport do you practice most?’ with possible answers like ‘football’, ‘hockey’, ‘volleyball’, ‘horse riding’ etc. The aim of normative surveys is to signal how good or bad the situation is or develops over time regarding covered subjects, not to obtain detailed information about the causes of the situation or reasons for improvements or deteriorations found. Such information may be obtained later through other investigations. Standard issues covered include: district where the person lives, name of community or group of communities, tribe, religion, sex, age, household size, household composition, education level, education level of most educated person in the household. These issues are used to be able to make cross investigations, for instance how bad (or good) the drinking water situation is for households composed of one parent with several children. SMART Survey can be used to generate baseline information for planning and prioritization of interventions, to assess outcome and impact of projects and programs, and to execute research. There is a SMART Survey Excel and a SMART Survey SPSS version. SMART Survey Excel consists of one Excel file. This file (SS.xls) contains the household survey questions grouped under standard topics. Per topic a maximum of 5 questions can be included. Organizations that choose to work with the standard topics can adjust the survey questions to their preferences while still being able to compare the results with survey reports based on surveys also adhering to the same topics but with other questions. Organizations that want to change the topics loose the above advantage but still benefit from the advantage that SMART Survey can easily be adjusted without the need for statistical or specific survey expertise while obtaining sophisticated and in the same time user friendly survey reports.
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SMART Survey has been developed to get a better insight in the living conditions (physical and mental health, economic circumstances, watsan, nutrition, housing, etc.) of households involved in integrated community development programs but can also be used in other contexts. With household surveys in community development programs the idea is that the surveys are executed before, during and after the start of the program activities in a village. In this context SMART Survey is used: 1. by involved villages - to identify and prioritize household level problems, develop activities to solve these and evaluate progress made with regard to the problems, 2. by implementing organizations - to identify a program baseline and assess program achievements and required adjustments, and 3. by other stakeholders such as donors and researchers - to identify the level of success of the program and execute research. At present SMART Survey includes 192 questions related mainly to health and hygiene. The questions are divided over 36 standard topics and 4 custom topics. Examples of standard topics: Toilet Facilities, Drinking Water Sources – Rainy Season, Personal Hygiene, Malaria, Nutrition, HIV/AIDS Awareness. The scale of measurement is ordinal: Per topic up to five questions can be formulated with each question having five standard answers that always go from very poor (score 1) to good (score 4), and score 5 for ‘no answer’. The turning point from bad to good is between the scores 2 and 3. Figure 1 on the next page presents one such topic with questions and possible answers. Figure 1. Topic 27. ‘Knowledge regarding Malaria and Diarrhoea’. 27
Knowledge regarding malaria and diarrhoea
How can one 27.1 prevent malaria?
Score 1 - very poor
Score 2 - poor
Score 3 - reasonable
Score 4 - good
Score 5 No answer
Does not know or answers referring to local beliefs, witchery etc. that are harmful
Answer refers to beliefs, witchery practises etc. that are in itself not harmful but don’t help to prevent malaria
Mentions one or two effective methods, e.g. use bed nets, spray the walls, cover the body with long sleeves by nightfall, take preventive drugs, drain water pools.
Mentions three or more effective methods from the list.
No answer
All or most proper answers, incl. go to health centre-clinic, give malaria drugs, get rest.
No answer
Does not know or answers How can one referring to 27.2 treat malaria? local beliefs, witchery etc. that are harmful
Answer refers to beliefs, witchery Some proper answers practises etc. that are like go to health centrein itself not harmful clinic, give malaria drugs. but don’t help to treat malaria
How can one 27.3 prevent diarrhoea?
Does not know or answers referring to local beliefs, witchery etc. that are harmful
Answer refers to beliefs, witchery Some proper answers practises etc. that are like wash hands, drink in itself not harmful clean water, etc. but don’t help to prevent diarrhoea
How can one 27.4 treat diarrhoea?
Does not know or answers referring to local beliefs, witchery etc. that are harmful
Answer refers to beliefs, witchery practises etc. that are in itself not harmful but don’t help to treat diarrhoea
Some proper answers like go to health centreclinic, give ORS (solution of salt in water), get medicine from the clinic, etc.
All or most proper answers, e.g. wash hands, drink clean water, eat well No answer prepared food, use a proper and clean toilet, etc. All or most proper answers incl. go to health centre-clinic, give ORS (solution No answer of salt in water), get medicine from the clinic, etc.
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One of the most important features in SMART Survey is the use of topic scores. SMART Survey provides a report with for each topic: •
an average, representing the average score of the answers of all households to all the questions under the topic,
•
a <=2 percentage, representing the number of answers by households to all questions under a topic with score 1 and 2, compared to the total number of answers under that subject, and
•
a no answers percentage, representing the number of ‘no answers’ compared to the total number of answers to all questions by all involved households under a topic.
(With the calculation of the averages and the percentages smaller or equal to 2 the responses with score 5 are not included). These scores provide a quick, easy and still thorough way for field staff, project managers and other interested parties, to identify the current status of a project without having to assess the answers to all the questions in detail. One can find quick answers to questions such as ‘Which topics need attention?’, ‘Which topics show a positive progression?’, and ‘For which topics has there been no change or has there even been a deterioration over time?’. SMART Surveys stores data of surveys executed at the start, during and at the end of program activities and reports these data separately as well as trends (the trend from start to during, from during to end and from start to end) per topic. The example of the topics scores report on the next page gives an impression (including trends for the start to during period). During household surveys also other information is collected, like the household size, the educational level of the most educated person in the household, etc. This makes it possible to report on all kinds of cross relations (e.g. the percentage of households with less than 5 persons with a poor situation regarding malaria). These reports are not standard included in the Excel version of SMART Survey. The Excel data can be entered automatically in the SPSS version of SMART Survey though where such reports can be generated automatically.
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Topic no.
Topic Av.
Scores for all households together (TAZAMO Zambia) 486 301 88 Before During After % no % no %<=2 Av. %<=2 Av. %<=2 answer answer 82,1 29,7 2,2 55,9 12,1 2,8 25,6 52,7 32,3 2,8 36,6 19,3 3,4 16,7 38,5 1,5 2,7 43,3 2,2 3,9 2,3 46,6 2,0 2,8 37,8 3,3 3,9 1,1 71,3 1,6 2,5 63,4 2,0 2,5 60,0 46,8 0,6 2,7 42,1 3,0 2,9 30,2 43,1 8,8 2,8 32,1 7,7 3,6 1,2 29,7 29,3 2,7 35,4 18,3 3,4 1,1 65,5 1,6 2,6 41,8 1,3 3,4 0,0 42,2 11,1 2,8 29,0 5,5 3,5 3,7 64,3 14,9 2,7 48,7 15,8 3,2 26,2
Trend Before - During % no answer 9,1 14,0 0,0 0,0 9,1 2,3 3,4 0,0 0,0 0,9 2,3
Av.
%<=2
28,9 13,2 -1,7 8,0 5,8 1,5 9,9 -2,9 25,4 9,0 10,1
-32,0 -30,6 12,7 -18,9 -11,1 -10,0 -25,5 19,0 -36,2 -31,2 -24,3
% no answer -59,4 -40,4 52,4 66,4 21,1 384,4 -12,4 -37,4 -19,3 -50,4 5,8
-33,2 -9,2 -24,7 16,7 31,3 15,5 -28,0 -22,4 20,2 41,9 22,1 10,3 38,3 -34,2 -7,6 -15,9 -19,9 -20,9 11,5 -0,8 -3,8 -26,6 -24,4 -14,3 55,4
-1,9 14,7 25,9 20,5 5,2 13,3 -61,6 -29,9 12,2 -35,3 -27,9 20,4 61,5 113,5 43,9 -27,1 9,4 -9,1 -33,9 -30,1 25,3 -30,6 64,2 -13,8 40,6
-11,9
-14,8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Toilet facilities Toilet use Drinking water sources - rainy season Drinking water sources – dry season Who does the water collection Drinking water storage capacity Drinking water use Water point maintenance system Waste Hand wash and personal hygiene Malaria
1,7 2,5 2,8 2,6 2,4 2,7 2,6 2,8 2,1 2,6 2,4
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
Malaria prevention Diarrhea Cough or lung problems Other diseases and infections Malnutrition in under five children Nutrition and diet HIV/AIDS and TB awareness HIV/AIDS, other STD's and TB Vaccinations in the youngest child Mortality in <5 children Gender Mainstreaming Delivery Use of health facilities Knowledge regarding malaria and diarrhoea Social health Gardening Conservation farming methods Conserving natural resources Belongings (assets) Family income The house Kitchen Hygiene of the house and surroundings Involvement in community activities Mortality causes
2,1 3,0 2,5 2,7 3,0 2,5 2,4 1,8 3,5 3,8 2,9 2,9 3,0 3,1 3,2 2,3 2,4 2,2 1,6 1,8 2,4 2,3 2,5 2,2 3,9
63,7 32,0 54,9 42,9 33,8 49,1 59,9 73,4 9,2 8,4 28,6 36,1 15,4 9,4 21,4 62,1 59,5 63,8 80,3 76,0 50,0 59,1 47,7 58,3 3,3
7,6 16,4 13,1 19,8 21,0 2,4 9,5 6,8 19,5 35,6 6,9 18,1 1,0 1,8 3,0 19,0 7,9 5,0 6,2 12,8 4,7 13,6 4,3 3,6 6,9
2,7 3,1 2,8 2,6 2,8 2,4 2,7 2,2 3,5 3,7 2,9 2,7 3,0 3,2 3,2 2,4 2,6 2,5 1,3 1,7 2,4 2,5 2,7 2,5 3,9
42,5 29,0 41,4 50,0 44,3 56,7 43,1 57,0 11,1 11,9 34,9 39,8 21,3 6,2 19,8 52,2 47,6 50,5 89,6 75,4 48,1 43,3 36,1 50,0 5,2
7,5 18,8 16,4 23,8 22,1 2,7 3,7 4,8 21,9 23,0 5,0 21,8 1,7 3,7 4,4 13,8 8,6 4,6 4,1 8,9 5,9 9,4 7,0 3,1 9,8
3,6 3,4 3,8
4,2 14,7 6,4
11,7 10,9 2,3
3,4 3,1 3,1 2,6 3,8 3,9 3,7 3,6 3,4 3,5 3,7 2,3 3,2 2,8 1,1 2,0 3,1 3,1 3,2 3,2 4,0
6,9 15,7 19,5 49,4 1,1 3,7 1,7 0,0 0,0 0,3 8,0 53,6 18,9 32,8 94,9 54,0 5,3 5,6 2,4 16,3 0,4
0,6 0,6 0,4 1,1 0,0 8,0 0,6 12,6 1,1 2,6 3,0 5,7 1,9 4,2 0,0 1,1 0,9 3,2 6,4 2,3 14,8
23,8 4,0 11,2 -5,4 -7,8 -3,4 14,4 22,9 -2,1 -2,9 -2,6 -6,5 0,0 5,1 0,4 5,4 8,1 16,0 -17,2 -3,6 2,8 10,7 8,7 11,0 -1,0
Totals
2,6
47,7
11,9
2,7
42,1
10,1
3,2
17,1
3,9
4,6
Trend During - After
Trend Before - After Av.
%<=2
-54,1 -54,3 -94,8 -97,0 -5,3 -28,2 -96,3 -96,8 -100,0 -87,1 -46,3
% no answer -24,7 -27,3 -100,0 -100,0 356,1 -24,0 -55,7 -100,0 -100,0 -84,4 -85,6
66,9 36,3 40,3 46,9 4,4 8,7 42,4 22,1 65,5 34,4 30,6
-220,4 -215,0 -1592,6 -4002,3 -18,9 -54,8 -3560,5 -2514,8 -1030,0 -145,9
% no answer -24,7 -27,3 -100,0 -100,0 356,1 -24,0 -55,7 -100,0 -100,0 -84,4 -85,6
34,1 9,5 37,0
-90,1 -49,2 -84,5
56,3 -42,2 -86,2
66,1 13,9 52,4
-1419,8 -116,9 -758,6
56,3 -42,2 -86,2
22,1 28,7 13,5 18,1 9,2 5,8 27,5 35,4 14,7 7,6 16,5 -1,4 22,5 11,9 -14,6 16,6 26,4 23,6 17,8 29,6 2,9
-84,4 -72,3 -54,8 -13,3 -89,7 -68,9 -95,1 -100,0 -100,0 -95,3 -59,5 2,6 -60,3 -35,0 5,9 -28,4 -89,0 -87,0 -93,3 -67,4 -91,4
-97,4 -79,3 -89,6 -76,2 -100,0 -65,5 -88,6 -42,0 -31,6 -31,6 -32,2 -58,9 -78,1 -8,4 -100,0 -87,3 -84,6 -66,2 -8,0 -27,3 51,4
12,7 24,3 29,9 45,2 6,9 2,7 24,2 26,6 14,7 13,1 16,9 3,9 32,4 29,8 -29,3 12,4 30,0 36,8 28,0 43,9 1,9
-389,6 -212,3 -207,6 -48,6 -710,2 -126,8 -1567,6
-3135,8 -167,4 -15,9 -214,3 -94,6 15,3 -40,7 -846,5 -948,6 -1863,7 -258,4 -647,2
-97,4 -79,3 -89,6 -76,2 -100,0 -65,5 -88,6 -42,0 -31,6 -31,6 -32,2 -58,9 -78,1 -8,4 -100,0 -87,3 -84,6 -66,2 -8,0 -27,3 51,4
19,9
-59,2
-61,0
25,5
-178,4
-61,0
Av.
%<=2
29,5 20,4 42,8 36,1 -1,3 7,0 29,6 25,8 32,0 23,3 18,6
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Explanations: •
The colours indicate whether we feel the situation is bad (red), somewhat reasonable (orange) or good (green).
•
A division is made between surveys executed at the beginning ( ‘Before’), during (‘During’) and at the end (‘End’) of the program. Above these indications are numbers that represent the number of household surveys executed.
•
Trends are included for the ‘before to during’ period, the ‘during to end’ period and the ‘before to end’ period. Example: with the ‘Trend Before – During’ the trend between the Before and de During measurements is calculated as follows: 100 * (value of the During measurement – value of the Before measurement) divided by the value of the Before measurement.
•
The norms we have determined are as follows: Before, during and after surveys % no Average %<=2 answer 25 12,5 – Bad 0 – 2,3 100 100 12,5 Reasonable 2,3 – 3,2 5 – 12,5 25 0– Good 3,2 – 4,0 0-5 12,5 Situation judgment
Trends before-during and Trend before-after during-after % no % no Average %<=2 Average %<=2 answer answer < 2%
> -2%
> -2%
< 4%
> -4%
> -4%
2% - 6%
-2% - 6%
-2% - 6%
4% 25%
-4% - 25%
> 6%
< -6%
< -6%
> 25%
-4% -25% <25%
Exceptions are the norms for topics regarding mortality, diseases, <5 malnutrition. •
For mortality we use the following norms (trend norms are the same as above): Before, during and after surveys % no Average %<=2 answer 7,5 12,5 – Bad 0 – 3,1 100 100 4,5 – Reasonable 3,1 – 3,8 5 – 12,5 7,5 Good 3,8 – 4,0 0 – 4,5 0-5 Situation judgment
•
For the topics regarding diseases and under five malnutrition we use the following norms (norms for the trends are the same as above): Before, during and after surveys % no Average %<=2 answer 15 12,5 – Bad 0 – 2,8 100 100 Reasonable 2,8 – 3,6 6 – 15 5 – 12,5 Good 3,6 – 4,0 0–6 0-5 Situation judgment
The fact that there are different norms for the colouring of the cells depending on the topics, means that the colours, more than the figures, give a reasonable indication whether the situation is good or not.
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< -25%
For topics identified to (potentially) have a problem (red colour) one can assess the situation in more detail using one or more of the other standard reports produced in SMART Survey (Report-before, Report-during and Report-after). Because the above summary report works with scores and not with the actual questions one can put survey data together from different areas where different questions have been used under the topics and obtain a combined topic scores report without having a problem with the fact that different questions have been used. This can only be successfully done though if involved organizations formulate the questions and standard answers in a proper way3. There is also flexibility in the sense that each organization can choose to add new topics to the list or leave out topics it doesn’t want to include in the survey. Also topics scores reports can be provided for a number of specific subjects. There are for instance topic scores reports for the different household types distinguished, for the distinguished levels of education of the interviewee or for the most educated person in the household, for the different distinguished tribes, for the different religions, etc. However these reports can only be generated in the SPSS version of SMART Survey. Another important feature is that SMART Survey SPSS can provide its reports for any group of households desired. One can obtain for instance reports with the figures of one community, of a group of communities, of all communities in a district, all the communities in a country and even reports with the figures of all the communities in which surveys were executed in several countries together as long as the data are entered in the same SMART Survey administration (in the SPSS version of SMART Survey the possibilities in this regard are even larger). In the SMART Survey Excel one can easily divide between areas by saving the SS.xls file under different names and entering the data from the different areas in separate files. If you then also want to have an overview with reports covering all data together you can copy all data from all files into one overall file (see also the explanations regarding this topic further on).
14.3
Collection of baseline and evaluation data
In this paragraph we focus on data collection through household surveys. Further information: SO2.1 SMART Survey Handbook (Connect International).
3
Each question should be relevant for the topic and have approximately the same ‘weight’ compared to the other questions under the topic, while the standard answers for each question should follow the sequence of score 1 meaning a very bad situation to score 4 meaning a good situation with the change from not a good situation to a just acceptable situation between score 2 and 3 and with a score 5 for ‘no answer’.
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14.3.1 Who should collect the data? Surveys are to be executed by surveyors who:
•
Speak the local language and are likely to be trusted and respected by the persons they interview.
•
Have an in-depth understanding of the survey questions.
•
If the survey works with standard answers to the questions: Have an in-depth understanding of the standard answers per survey question, and well capable to select the standard answers fitting best to the answers of the person interviewed to the questions posed.
•
Are serious and dedicated to executing the surveys properly.
•
Are able to enter the data of the household surveys in SMART Info in a proper way.
For this purpose we feel that surveyors should be professional persons who execute surveys at least several times each month. We also feel that it is important that each Executing partner erects an independent Monitoring and Evaluation Department for data collection, entry and analysis.
14.3.2 Preparations Surveys need to be prepared as follows:
Agree on a date for the household surveys with the community leadership and others. Make sure that there are sufficient and properly trained surveyors Have enough household survey forms for all household surveys. Have a notebook and pen for each surveyor and for the supervisor(s). Make sure that there is transport to the community for the surveyors.
14.3.3 Execution of surveys Tasks of persons executing surveys
Select each household at randomly. It is important to select the households ad randomly because you may, without knowing it, tend to choose for a certain type of house, for instance the biggest ones or the most shabby ones. This could influence the outcome of the survey (e.g. in big houses probably richer people live with other health habits and problems than the people living in small houses). Each surveyor should work in a separate area of the community.
Find the female head of household, or, if she is not around, find another adult female person belonging to the household who can answer the questions. In case no female can be found you can do the survey with the oldest male you can find. Take courtesy rules into account. If the household consists of children do the survey with the oldest child. If you feel there is no person you can properly interview leave the house and try another ad random selected household.
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Execute the household survey. In each household visited:
Ask the questions included in the survey form and do the observations required.
Make sure to be accurate and get answers to all questions.
Ensure that each question gets an answer.
Fill all answers properly in the forms! Make notes on the back of the forms about things you find but that are not covered by the form.
Take the interview aspects and courtesy rules into account (see the below Box).
Take the filled household survey forms to a supervisor or to the office of your organization. Discuss the contents with the responsible person. Discuss problems encountered. Leave the filled survey forms at the office.
Assist with the structuring of data of the surveys if asked to do so.
Make sure that you understand the results of the surveys and discuss these with the involved communities.
Important aspects to take into consideration when interviewing people
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Always be courteous, polite, respectful, and non-judgmental.
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Before interviewing a person, introduce yourself and state the name of the organization you are working with and the general purpose of the survey.
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Maintain the confidentiality of the interview. If there are other people around the respondent, ask them politely to leave in an appropriate and polite way. Explain that the person can also decide not to take part in the survey and that the answers will remain confidential.
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For structured interviews: ask each question exactly as it is written. When someone does not understand a question you can repeat the question and, if necessary, pose the question in words that you feel are easier for the person to understand.
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Be careful that a person does not give answers he/she thinks you, the interviewer, want to hear but which do not present the actual situation or opinion of that person.
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Ask questions in a respectful way. Do not imply that some answers are better than others.
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If an answer seems inconsistent with previous information given by the person, or if there is some reason to disbelieve an answer, try to discover the truth by asking him/her another question or asking a question in a slightly different way.
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Make sure to pose all questions that need to be posed and obtain and register information as accurately and completely as possible.
Tasks of persons supervising surveyors
Observe the surveyors. Discuss if errors occur in his/her performance. Pay special attention to the proper filling in of the survey forms.
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Check the quality of the surveys. If information is incorrect or insufficient the surveyor should go back to the involved household to obtain more information.
In the office analyze the outcomes of the surveys and discuss this with all involved staff members, community coaches and surveyors. Do this as soon as possible.
Enter the numbers of surveys executed in the relevant monitoring form.
Enter the survey data in the database or ask staff trained for this to do so.
File the survey forms in the hard-copy filing system.
14.4
Follow up surveys
In order to measure and evaluate progress and detect successes and weaknesses, the surveys ideally have to be repeated periodically. Steps that can be followed include: -
A second survey is carried at least one year after the first round. It is carried out in the same way as the first survey.
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A third survey is carried out after the completion of the program.
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The results of the second and third round of surveys have to be compared with the results of the first round to see if there are any improvements. The results should be presented to and discussed with the beneficiaries as well.
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Community development – Evaluation and baseline systems
PART VI Sector capacity building Capacity building of different organizations and individuals within villages may lead to impressive improvements in terms of health, wealth and happiness for the inhabitants of these villages. However, often the possibilities and the results are hampered or limited due to absence of organizational structures outside the villages that are needed to boost development in the villages. Such organizational structures are often focused on one particular sector hence the name of this Part, ‘Sector Capacity Building’. Within this subject we distinguish between: • Capacity building of organizations providing/selling required services/products to the villages. • Capacity building for improving access to markets for products provided/sold by the villages (for better prices in more remote markets and/or increasing the total amount of products that can be sold, but requiring transportation, trading skills, dealers networks, etc.). In this part we describe the first of the above two points.
15
Capacity building for services to villages
Many different initiatives may be needed in this regard. In this chapter however, we focus on some specific initiatives that are often required as they concern capacity building of organizations providing products and services that are often highly needed in villages and highly prioritized by villagers and that, if not available, have a large negative effect on the development of the villages in terms of health, wealth and/or happiness.
15.1
Capacitate SMART Tech companies
We focus on the following types of companies: • Hand drilling and digging companies • Rope pump production companies • Toilet production companies These local companies need to be capacitated on the following issues:
• Knowledge about which SMART techs are appropriate for the operational area of the • • •
local company (execution of SMART Tech investigation). Skills required for high quality production of the goods they make (training + guidance of production staff). Investments required for setting up the production of the goods (access to credit and the tools and materials needed). Investments required for transporting the goods produced to the clients (if needed, access to credit).
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Sector capacity building – Capacity building for services to villages
• • • • •
Making a proper business plan (direct support with making the plan). Financial bookkeeping and management skills (training and guidance). Marketing skills (training and guidance). Certification and ongoing quality control/monitoring (periodic control of the quality of SMART Techs production and provision of a branded label for the SMART Techs). Obtaining payments from the clients (facilitating beneficiaries to obtain credits and other financial products they need to buy SMART Techs; ensuring payment to local companies if for instance drilling does not result in finding water, etc.)
Further information: Connect International SMART Tech implementation and training manuals.
15.2
Capacitate systems for financial products for villagers
While people’s organizations are the vehicles of development, access to financial products is the fuel to energize the vehicles. But in order for a poor person living in a rural village, earning no or very little money, to get access to required funds a cost effective Financial system is required. Once such a system is in place different types of financial products can be channeled to this target group. Such products may include: •
Credit & Savings products. These can be direct loans to individuals (e.g. by a MFI to an individual for setting up a small business), group loans or group subsidized loans (e.g. to a SA which channels these to SHG’s that channel them to their members), grants for enabling SHG’s to start revolving funds, etc.
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Social security fees. Providing households a social security fee periodically enables people to ensure that the most important health aspects of their and other families in their area are covered and/or that one is able to survive times of emergency, for instance when the yield of the main crop fails. Example: an NGO agrees to pay a certain amount of money per household in its target area per month through a MFI to SA’s that divide the money and provide this to the SHG’s that decide among each other how to divide the money over the SHG members and what conditions are connected to the fees. The NGO will also have a charter of conditions within which the SHG’s and their members have to operate with the application of the fees. A standard sum per household prevents the need for selecting households most in need of a social security fee, which is difficult and expensive, and felt unjust as usually all households in a SHG are poor anyway. The fees are non-contributory meaning that people have not contributed to a savings system for the fees. Social security systems are ideally implemented by the government (also in some developing countries, e.g. Bolivia, this is the case). However, in most developing countries such systems are not in place and NGO’s may therefore provide social security fees while advocating to the authorities to introduce a general social security system, and once a government starts taking initiatives in this direction assisting them and connecting to and reinforcing their system as much as possible.
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Insurances (for instance for businesses against theft or fire, for individuals for funerals, etc.). Insurances are usually conditional, meaning people have to pay to a savings system and fulfill other conditions in order to get the insurance payment.
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Pension fees. They function like social security fees but are targeted solely to elderly people. It is recommended to have untargeted fees, meaning each elderly family can apply for it whether rich or poor (as most people in targeted areas will be poor anyway and selection of most vulnerable elderly households is expensive and often felt to be unfair, leaving out elderly families who are also poor). Pension fees should be unconditional as well.
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Financial systems reaching poor people often need a chain of intermediary parties. The reason is that each part of chain fulfills an important function. For instance a large bank cannot provide a small loan to a person living in a remote rural area. The costs for provision, training the person to handle the loan properly and getting the money back would simply be too big while the risk is high as poor people have no assets to bring in as a security. But if the person is a member of a SHG that has succeeded to become a full member of an umbrella Savings Association, it is possible that the Bank can provide a relatively large sum of money as a loan to the SA which uses the money to provide loans to its member SHG’s and through this reaching the members with individual loans. This is the more likely if there is a party (e.g. a NGO) that guarantees the loan (meaning it agrees to pay the loan to the Bank if the reached beneficiaries don’t). Functions of an Executing partner can be: • Assist SHG’s to be erected and develop and later to establish proper Savings Associations and train, guide and monitor these and connect them to a bank or MFI. • Provide and channel subsidies on top of credits and other financial products (e.g. social security funds) to reach poor individuals. • Function as a guarantee to large banks to obtain loans from these banks that can be channeled to for instance SA’s with relatively low interest rates. There is a high security that the financial products will be correctly used as intended. A major factor assisting in this is that conditions are attached to each step in the chain. An individual can only obtain these financial products if he or she is a member of an approved SHG and fulfills a number of conditions drawn up by the SHG and fulfilling a general protocol of conditions. The SHG also needs to fulfill certain conditions, among others that it guarantees to repay all loans in time. The same for the SA and the MFI while the bank needs to make a profit to survive. So all parts of the chain are under pressure to use the money as intended, pay back the loans in time, etc. These social and economic control mechanism has proven to work out well and lead to usually over 98% of proper repayment of loans by the poor, IF ALL IS PROPERLY PUT IN POLACE, TRAINED, GUIDED AND MONITORED. The challenge is in the quality of setting up the chain and quality controlling and guiding and training all elements of the chain sufficiently. Here comes the function of NGO’s that can do so, often specializing even in capacitating only one or two of the elements of the chain. NGO’s may also add money to the system, so loans can be subsidized or revolving funds can be starting with an initial grant, or social security funds can be paid through the chain, etc. The chain may look as follows:
On the next page the SA and MFI are further explained. For the savings and credits a shandled by SHG’s see the Economy Chapter in this manual.
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Financing Focus & Purpose
Savings and Credit Society (SA) Umbrella of a group of SHG’s which can connect SHG’s to financial products provided by MFI’s, banks, NGO’s etc. ensuring money to come in the group in larger quantities than they could have brought together themselves. Savings is promoted compulsorily at SHG level and also at SA level. Since an SA is a registered entity having substantial share capital and regular savings on record, it attracts financial institutions to lend money at less interest. SA’s also create a platform to discuss vital issues hindering their growth and prosperity, developing as a cohesive force not only to demand but also to fight for their rights.
Suitability
There are several registered savings and credit societies. The officially registered groups have substantial share capital and savings on record, which attract financial institutions to lend money at less interest. In India Mutually Aided Co-operative Thrift and Credit Society (MACTS) are set up. • Group of SHG’s in a cluster of villages are facilitated to form a SA. The membership is to individual female members (representatives) of SHGs. • SA’s can represent 250 to 500 individual SHG members, and are managed by a committee of 7 to 11 SA members (1 for each SHG). A Chairperson, Treasurer and Secretary are elected among the SA members. • SA members meet monthly to discuss problems, difficulties and identify solutions to overcome their problems. • All SHG members make monthly savings in SA. • Loans are extended for income generation activities or for consumer goods important for health. • Tie-ups with banks and financial institutions are developed to obtain sufficient financial products for the SHG’s and their individual members. • SA’s assist individuals to identify viable income generating activities based on their skills, talents, raw material, market demands and profitability.
Activities
Micro Finance Institution (MFI) MFI’s give small loans to poor and low income clients or groups of clients (SA’s and/or SHG’s), who otherwise lack collateral or credit history to qualify for loans from Banks. To limit the risk some rules are introduced and people are trained. Rules include: • Micro credits are mainly for profit making activities to assure the loan will be paid back with interest (e.g. 12% to the bank + 6% to the SHG) and a profit is made. • Only invest in activities that use local knowledge + resources + have a demand • People can only get a loan if they are part of an SHG (especially women). One person receives the loan after training and has to pay the loan back before another member can get a loan (social/peer pressure). • Repayment on a monthly basis. Micro credit can be offered, often without collateral, directly to an individual or through group lending as in the case of communitybased loans and revolving funds. MFI’s can however also provide loans and channel other types of financial products to SA’s or SHG’s • •
• • •
•
Analyze the opportunities offered by different available MFI’s Analyze the financial situation of the target family, requested amount, planned activities and ability to pay off the loan. Present the most suitable possibilities to the target families. Advise the target family in their decision. Monitor once in a while the achievements of the family and support with advise if needed. Provide training before a loan is received (on micro entrepreneurship, required production skills for the business, bookkeeping, etc.).
It may take 2 years before all SHG members received a loan (unless the system is boosted through availability of more credits or subsidized credits). After that, the SHG can continue on its own.
Further information: • ASSIST • www.mifos.org • Smart finance solutions – Examples of innovative financial mechanisms for water and sanitation (NWP and IRC).
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Sector capacity building – Capacity building for services to villages