Issue 39: September - October 2011 - Working with development partners

In this issue

The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness calls for the need to coordinate aid and work together with other development partners to achieve development results. Working together, whether through co-financing, sharing technical assistance or providing capacity building, can lead to common arrangements, simplified procedures, more efficient use of resources, and information sharing that can make development programmes more effective in assisting poor people.

IFAD’s Asia and the Pacific Division is committed to working together with development partners – national and international – to  find country-specific solutions that can increase rural people’s access to financial services, markets, technology and natural resources. This newsletter features some examples of partnership in the region and in specific countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Tonga and Viet Nam.

Thomas Rath talks about a variety of partnerships with developing partners for knowledge sharing and co-financing in Bangladesh. These partnerships remains the key entry point for innovation, knowledge, scaling up and the efficient use of scarce development resources to address the needs of poor rural people in the country and beyond.

Vikash Kumar describes a new partnership between New Zealand and the IFAD-supported Mainstreaming of Rural Development Innovation Programme Tonga Trust in the Pacific. The support will continue to promote self-sufficiency and sustainable livelihoods development among the isolated communities of Tonga.  

In Pakistan’s Azad Jammu Kashmir Community Development Programme, IFAD partnered with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to help communities  prepare their village development plans by capitalizing on local knowledge and needs. Muhammad Hussain Bhatti describes this partnership and how it helped change the relationship between communities and the public sector. Yet, working with development partners can be a management challenge. Atsuko Toda shares some of her insights from the Viet Nam Country Programme and describes some of these challenges.

Through a regional grant programme implemented by FAO, IFAD has supported project staff, and staff from partner institutions, to enhance their skills and understand the tools required to ensure that knowledge and lessons learned are adequately captured and shared. Denise Melvin shares some highlights of the programme.

The contrast between Asia and the Pacific having the largest number of poor people and having the strongest economic growth in the world led IFAD and FAO to implement a programme on Pro-Poor Policy Formulation, Dialogue and Implementation. Sumiter Broca argues that unless economic growth occurs in a policy environment that favours poor people, they are unlikely to fully share the benefits of economic growth.

Finally, Chase Palmeri introduces IFADAsia – a portal for networking, learning and sharing knowledge among IFAD-supported projects and programmes in Asia and the Pacific and beyond.

Martina Spisiakova, Newsletter Coordinator, Asia and the Pacific Division, IFAD

Working together in Bangladesh

   
 

Rita Begum and her mini-hatchery

 

In Bangladesh, IFAD has a long history of partnerships with a variety of development partners for knowledge sharing and co-financing. These partnerships remains the key entry point for innovation, knowledge, scaling up and the efficient use of scarce development resources to address the needs of poor rural people in Bangladesh and elsewhere.

Partners for knowledge generation and sharing include reputable research centres like the International Rice Research Institute and the World Fish Centre. Local partners include government institutions like the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Local Government with the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives, and the Ministry of Agriculture, to name the most prominent ones.

IFAD works successfully with the Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), which was established by the Government of Bangladesh in 1990 as a not-for-profit organization to undertake nationwide programmes for poverty alleviation. PKSF is carrying out successful microcredit programmes with its partner organizations such as the Coastal Association for Social Transformation Trust, a non-governmental organization specialized in  microfinance. Other partners include universities such as the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and research institutions.

Co-operation and co-financing with other development partners or donor agencies, including domestic ones, are important aspects of IFAD operations. Currently, co-financing amounts to US$ 607 million, which is 43 per cent of the total costs of the Bangladesh country programme (IFAD and co-financed). The Asian Development Bank is by far the most important co-financing partner for IFAD in Bangladesh.

Co-financiers of IFAD-funded projects in Bangladesh since 1978

IFAD co-financiers in Bangladesh

Amount
(US$ '000)

Asian Development Bank

227 429

World Bank

62 490

Japan

50 669

Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)/Sweden

43 645

Domestic financial institutions

39 404

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)/Canada

32 660

Netherlands

32 177

Spain

29 745

Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)/Norway

22 198

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)/Germany

13 410

Non-governmental organizations, local

11 742

Germany/KfW

10 770

World Food Programme

9 641

Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA)/Denmark

8 457

Other domestic

5 416

Ford Foundation

4 250

European Union

1 998

Private sector, local

1 525

TOTAL

607 626

Co-financing enables successful innovations for development to be replicated and scaled up. Moreover, jointly financing and supervising projects reinforces exchange and partnering on important aspects of development such as dialogue on strategies and innovative solutions to reduce poverty and increase food security. As in all countries, IFAD’s first partner is the government, with which IFAD agrees on its strategy and types of interventions. The government is the guarantee for continuation and the entry point for adjusting laws and regulations to create a conducive economic and social framework.
For example, IFAD’s long-standing support to poor people to access open water bodies, or beel, for fisheries has also been supported by the government through laws and regulations that have been adjusted in favour of poor fishers, both women and men. Partnering with the World Fish Centre has resulted in scientific support and advocacy for the community-based common property resources approach. It has also brought in the required scientific research demonstrating the benefits of such an approach, including sustainability.

Working with its development partners, IFAD is actively pursuing common approaches to agricultural development. The World Bank is a strong partner in the jointly funded National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP), which supports research, technology and improved delivery systems to farmers, while making new attempts for a functioning value chain for agriculture. The Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Fishery and Livestock are strong partners in the implementation of this project.

The Danish Development Agency (DANIDA) has been a strong partner in co-financing and through intensive consultations in the development of the poultry sector. PKSF and IFAD have recently completed the Microfinance and Technical Support Project (MFTSP), which supported the development of a strong smallholder poultry sector that has proliferated throughout the country and offers high-quality products, income and employment for many poor people. 

The Asian Development Bank is currently partnering with IFAD to scale up a sound participatory small-scale water resources management approach. The Netherlands works with IFAD to help the government in developing the Charland areas, bringing secure land titles, infrastructure such as roads, schools and health centres, markets and support to agriculture.  IFAD and its United Nations sister agencies partner under the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) to develop a joint strategy with the government to tackle the multifaceted problems of the country, such as the landlessness, lack of services and infrastructure and the exposure (especially of poor rural people) to frequent natural disasters like floods and cyclones.

Thomas Rath, Country Programme Manager, IFAD

Useful links:

A triple partnership is forged to achieve better results in Eastern Bhutan
   
 

SNV marketing specialist training the farmers

  

IFAD, the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) and the Royal Government  of Bhutan have been working together since 2000 to enhance the productive capacity of poor rural people in eastern Bhutan. Their joint efforts have brought significant results in the country’s development, especially in project and watershed management, rural infrastructure, participatory planning, capacity building, and marketing and enterprise development.

In October 2005 the Royal Government of Bhutan initiated the Agriculture, Marketing and Enterprise Promotion Programme (AMEPP) as a six-year follow-up project to the IFAD-supported First Eastern Zone Agricultural project (FEZAP) and Second Eastern Zone Agricultural project (SEZAP).  SNV, as a technical assistance provider, got involved as a development partner when SEZAP which started in 2000, and its input continued through the first half of AMEPP. The programme is in line with the Government’s policy of promoting regionally balanced socio-economic development, and enhancing the productive capacities of poor rural people. Valued at US$ 19.7 million, AMEPP is being financed by the Government, a US$ 13.9 million loan from IFAD and a technical assistance grant from SNV.

The programme aims to promote agriculture, the development of market infrastructure and the establishment of renewable natural resource-based enterprises such as dairy, poultry, non-wood forest products and agricultural produce processing units in the 70 geogs (blocks) in six eastern dzongkhags (districts) of Bhutan which remain the least developed part of the country.  The programme intends to benefit, directly or indirectly, 24,337 poor rural households, with women receiving a significant share of the programme investment. Eighty per cent of the households in the programme areas depend on agriculture.

   
 

Meeting with SNV Country Director at PFO

 

IFAD-supported projects and programmes in Bhutan have a history of partnership with SNV, which works to strengthen the capacities of local communities and organizations in various sectors. For the renewable natural resource sector, the partnership began with the IFAD-assisted Second Eastern Zone Agricultural Programme (2000-2005).

The AMEPP-SNV partnership is based on SNV providing technical assistance to build the capacities of project teams and communities in project management, watershed management, rural infrastructure, participatory planning, and marketing and enterprise development.

Since the start of the AMEPP project, the interventions in agriculture development have made significant contributions  to production and access to markets through the construction of farm roads and power tiller tracks.  Consumers have a variety of products from which to choose in the market, and the rural economy is now becoming increasingly monetized, with little or no barter system being used as in the past.

One significant impact of the project, which is highly appreciated by the rural farmers, is that rural communities now have access to road networks and means of communication such as land lines and cell phones, connecting them to urban/semi-urban areas. Moreover, livestock products are gaining momentum in the market through the improvement of breeds, management of herds and pasture development in the farmers’ fields.  Capacity building of both producer and co-workers is the central focus and long-term strategy of the partnership. 

AMEPP is an eye opener for the communities of eastern Bhutan. Before the project, farmers were using low yielding seeds coupled with poor management of water and farm lands. As a result, production was low and not meeting the standards and volume that market needed.  Farmers were not realizing the impact of AMEPP until they started being connected to the main marketplaces through farm roads and power tiller tracks. Wherever possible, farmers are being encouraged to mechanize their farming methods through the supply of power tiller machines and drudgery-reduction equipment such as oil expellers, rice crushers, maize crushers and threshers. In addition, small- to medium-size cottage industries have also been planned in order to take subsistence farming to a commercial scale.

   
 

Farmer training conducted by AMEPP-SNV

 

Through the partnership, SNV provided 148 man months of technical assistance to AMEPP in capacity building, designing the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation system, mainstreaming gender, reviewing banking and marketing guidelines, presenting case studies on the impact of farmer trainings and much more. Capacity building included workshops and trainings, and also providing technical guidance through national and international professionals. SNV’s assistance also benefited AMEPP’s other partners, such as Bhutan Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Regional Trade Office, Regional Marketing & Cooperatives Office, Bhutan Development Bank Limited and local government through advocacy, workshops, trainings and meetings.

AMEPP,  in collaboration with SNV, has significantly improved  the lives of the eastern Bhutanese people.  The living standard of the programme participants has improved dramatically, with almost 50 per cent of the target population  reportedly having a better standard of living compared to those who did not benefit from the project. In addition, the diversity of the staff  in terms of their background and experience has added a great learning atmosphere for both partners.

By 2010, SNV downsized its eastern office and support to AMEPP. Its priority has shifted from poverty alleviation through support to agriculture, to water supply and sanitation. The support it provided lacked an exit strategy. Therefore, AMEPP was required to build its own capacity in human resources and strategies on sustainable development.

Over time, SNV has demonstrated a strong and genuine partnership with AMEPP that is to be nurtured and cherished. The assistance of SNV in AMEPP has been one of the good examples of development partnership for Bhutan.

Sangay, Programme Director, AMEPP, Khangma, Bhutan and Jamyang P. Rabten, Planning Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, AMEPP, Bhutan

Pacific holds the potential for international agencies to directly engage with local partners

   
 

IFAD consultants undertaking field check to make sure that the project is appropriately targeted

 

In July 2011, New Zealand Aid Programme (NZAID) signed a grant funding agreement of US$1.8 million to provide financial aid to the Mainstreaming of Rural Development Innovation Programme (MORDI) Tonga Trust. The grant funding is to enable this local non-governmental organization (NGO) to continue to promote self-sufficiency and sustainable livelihoods development throughout the isolated communities of Tonga. Furthermore, New Zealand thereby reaffirmed its commitment to engage with local partners to deliver aid where it is most needed.

The value of partnerships

Partnerships between regional and international development agencies and local development organizations such as MORDI Tonga Trust establish a direct line of assistance for vulnerable communities. Such partnerships  help to continually expand community development initiatives and meet the needs of disadvantaged people.

The NZAID-MORDI Tonga Trust partnership, for example, has helped seven new rural isolated communities in Tonga to be part of the MORDI Tonga Trust’s development processes. Eleven community empowerment training initiatives have already been conducted in such topics as small engine repairs skills, leadership skills building, development planning, proposal writing, first aid and sea safety, and  funding amounting to US$200,000  have been used to implement eight village infrastructure and income-generating projects.

The benefits of partnerships are clear: without partnerships with international and regional development agencies, local development partners would struggle to support new development programmes and ideas. At the same time, without the direct involvement of community-based organizations and facilitators, international agencies with their “bigger picture” framework usually struggle to understand the local issues and concerns facing communities, and risk failing to address them appropriately.

With such clear, direct and mutually beneficial linkages, how can we improve relationships with international agencies and local grass-roots partners in the Pacific?

Opportunities for improving partnerships

   
 

Signing of Grant Agreement between NZAID Programme and MORDI Tonga Trust

 

It is often challenging for international agencies to work directly with local partners since most local partners lack capacity to administer the large programmes and grants that international agencies usually come with. This is certainly true in the Pacific context, where local conditions are not conducive to large programmes since project sites are widely dispersed and accessibility is difficult. Local partners lack human resources, facilities and systems to absorb these projects in their originally designed large packages.

Despite these challenges, partnerships can work in the Pacific and this is now being demonstrated by the joint partnership between NZAID and IFAD to support MORDI Tonga Trust.  How is this being made possible at the local level?

Firstly, the project design has taken local partners’ capacity and local conditions into account. The project is broken down into manageable sections and will be delivered at a rate that both the communities and MORDI Tonga Trust can comfortably handle.

Secondly, both IFAD and NZAID adjusted their own development agendas so that the priorities of the community take precedence. The key ingredient in reaching common ground was to take the community’s priorities as paramount and then organize their own agendas around that. International agencies must not be so stringent about their agendas that they are not able to see the priorities of the target beneficiaries.

Thirdly, agencies should agree to harmonize the financial and narrative reporting requirements so that one set of reports can fulfil the requirements of multiple agencies. Local partners are often caught in churning out different reports with different formats for different agencies, thus wasting too much human and time resources that otherwise could be used to implement activities.

Lastly, regular external technical support is being provided in the form of review missions, monitoring visits, and other support to provide the local NGO partner with capacity building and learning opportunities to strengthen programme delivery on the ground. This has enabled MORDI Tonga Trust, over the last three years, to arrive at a stage where it can administer fairly large grants.

Establishing a holistic approach to development partnerships

If the repackaging of large projects/grants into smaller more manageable portions for local partners is not an option, then the international agencies should consider drawing on the strengths of the civil society/ private sector/public sector partnership to manage larger projects in their original forms. Each sector contributes through their area of expertise and is able to handle a section of the project. This however, will greatly increase the role of the international agency in terms of coordination and harmonization among various partners. Managing such a set-up could be highly complex. However, once a rhythm is established, a genuinely holistic approach will be in place to address development issues in the scattered islands of the Pacific.

In order to ensure successful and long-standing community development results, it is essential for all development partners, especially international agencies, to adopt a holistic approach by continuing to facilitate and foster growing relationships between the communities, private sector, government and non-governmental organizations throughout the Pacific region.

Vikash Kumar, MORDI Learning Unit Coordinator

Useful links:

Empowering communities in rural Pakistan by understanding their needs
   
 

Community members working on their socio-economic needs to prepare CO plan. Mapping out discussions on a chart

 

Sustainable community development is not a matter of a year or two but is a long-term process. After implementing a year-long community development project to help beneficiaries work together for their socio-economic development, IFAD took the next step and started executing the Azad Jammu Kashmir Community Development Programme (CDP).  It partnered with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to help communities  prepare their village development plans (VDPs) by capitalizing on local knowledge and needs. The partnership also helped change the relationship between communities and the public sector by forming district teams – called “LADDERS teams” – consisting of their representatives.

The IFAD-financed CDP is a seven-year programme providing support to more than 3,000 community groups in rural Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK). The programme aimed at equipping communities to prepare VDPs and sought to understand their needs in a structured and participatory way. All stakeholders were invited to participate in training workshops to learn the process of preparing VDPs. Based on people’s needs as depicted in VDPs, the public sector service providers prepared the annual work plan and budget accordingly. Throughout this process, the planning culture shifted from “top down” to “bottom up”. The  partnership also worked at building the capacity of both the beneficiaries and the service providers to work together:

Tapping from the knowledge and experience of local communities to achieve development results

Although communities possess a wealth of knowledge and should without a doubt be considered as “local experts”, they do need support to structure, organize and process the information for their best use. FAO developed a training module to prepare VDPs, which was tested in the field before the CDP began in order to save time during programme implementation.

Making use of the module, which had been amended during several training workshops to be more practical, the most active members of community organizations (COs) nominated by their respective organizations were trained in grass-roots planning through a number of workshops that took them through real-life situations. Women were equally represented in these workshops to cater for their needs.

   
 

LADDERS team meeting to review and plan monthly activities

 

Since service providers were expected to use the development plans to prepare the annual work plan and budget, it was equally important to orient them to the concept of grass-roots planning. Hence, special sessions were held for them. In some cases, the service providers were encouraged to interact with beneficiaries and develop a relationship/partnership. The sessions also served to enable the service providers to backstop beneficiaries during the preparation of development plans.

The team for the preparation of VDP consisted of women and men members of community organizations, who collected the socio-economic and household data of their respective areas before the practical work began. Community members who had a better understanding of the concept of grass-roots planning were asked to support their neighbouring organizations in preparing VDPs.

COs have formed cluster organizations, which have in some cases been registered as non-governmental organizations. Along the course of implementing the grass-roots planning process, the partnership realized that it would be almost impossible to reach all of the COs to make their development plans within a limited time. Therefore, workshops were held to develop master trainers in grass-roots planning. At the end of the master trainers’ workshops, each participant prepared a schedule for the preparation of CO plans in his or her areas. The project staff  followed up the schedule and backstopped COs wherever needed.

The CO plans are playing a crucial role in the development planning process. CO plans become part of the VDPs, which lead to cluster plans and ultimately the district plan. These plans form the basis for the annual work plan and budget in the two-day district workshops held for this purpose and attended by the COs and public sector representatives. These “holistic” development plans are not being used only for the public sector but can be submitted to any donor for funding. A number of registered cluster organizations received funds from the State Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency on the basis of VDPs of their member COs; a few others are even implementing donor-assisted development projects.

Changing the relationship between beneficiaries and the “people in power”

Participatory planning coupled with proper implementation, follow-up and participatory monitoring can only yield the desired results. District teams, termed as LADDERS teams, consisting of CDP district component heads and representatives of cluster organizations have been established by the partnership  to build a private-public partnership in the process of planning and implementation of field activities. These teams meet at the start of each month to review the last month’s progress and plan for the following month.

The selection of team members from different cluster organizations has been critical. A large number of clusters and COs existed almost in all districts, making it difficult to decide who should be selected. It was decided that six women and six men would be selected as members. A number of one-day training workshops were held, grouping the clusters to finally arrive at a group of twelve women and twelve men whom the workshop participants had nominated.  The partnership organized and conducted a management course. At the end of the course, participants were asked to select  six women and six men to interact with the public sector representatives. The final session was held with all the team members, consisting of the public sector and civil society, to explain the concept of the LADDERS team. The civil society representatives are now playing a vital role in linking the communities with the public sector service providers, conveying to them the development needs and providing feedback in the monthly meetings about the activities being implemented in their respective areas.

Muhammad Hussain Bhatti, National Management Adviser, Community Learning and Action for Demand Driven Extension and Rural Services (FAO-UTF/PAK/096/PAK)

Useful links:

Working with development partners: a management challenge – a story from Viet Nam

   
 

The Programme for Improving Market Participation of the Poor participated in the knowledge market of the Country Programme Review in August 2011

 

In Viet Nam, the IFAD country programme promotes innovations around pro-poor value chain development and market orientation. To support the implementation of innovations, the Government has urged IFAD to find a bilateral partner to provide technical cooperation in capacity building. 

In the IFAD-supported ‘Improving Market Participation of the Poor (IMPP) in Ha Tinh and Tra Vinh Provinces’, technical cooperation has been provided by the GIZ-funded Poverty Alleviation in Rural Areas (PARA) Project from the outset. The technical cooperation has been crucial for capacity development for participatory market-oriented planning, pro-poor value chain development, improvement of market awareness among project management and line agencies, establishment and operation of a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system, and development of common interest groups and market linkages.

Cofinancing arrangements with a technical cooperation partner to build capacity of project management staff and implementing partners do help to carry out these areas of innovation. Under the IMPP, project activities are beginning to have an impact on the profitability of agricultural activities and employment opportunities.  The Results and Impact Monitoring System (RIMS) survey 2010 in Tra Vinh province indicated a yearly increase in income of about 5 per cent in the project areas.

However, there is a need to recognize the investment in project management time to address management challenges. Some of the management challenges include how to have a common vision and definition of the partnership, understanding different roles and responsibilities, managing expectations, carrying out joint planning, agreeing on reporting, results and indicators, and continuous communications. These challenges need to be worked out between the management team of the development partner and IFAD project management on a continuous basis during implementation.

Development partners must be carefully selected during project design on the basis of common development objectives to minimize the management challenges in the field during implementation. Ultimately, cofinancing can fuel innovation and help lead to the successful achievement of development objectives, if management challenges during implementation are addressed. 

Atsuko Toda, Country Programme Manager, Viet Nam

Useful links
IFAD in Viet Nam

Partnership with you - IFADAsia: Where we came from, where we are

Starting with partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in 1998, the network of IFAD-supported projects and programmes in the Asia and the Pacific Region continues. IFADAsia has replaced the Programme for Knowledge Networking in Rural Asia and the Pacific, known as ENRAP. More and more people use the IFADAsia portal every day to share their knowledge and learn from others.

When our partnership with IDRC in ENRAP began its third phase in 2007, we knew that while the partnership would continue, we would need to begin thinking about an exit strategy for the programme. The first grant to IDRC for ENRAP was made in 1998. ENRAP was already eleven years old and would be 13 by the time we finished phase III. We were concerned about the sustainability of the benefits ENRAP had generated in terms of skills, such as documentation of experiences, more effective writing, knowledge sharing and facilitation – referred to by IFAD’s Knowledge Management Strategy as  “soft” infrastructure. And we have continued training and other support to our counterparts, putting the skills they learned during ENRAP into practice. But we were also concerned about the sustainability of the online infrastructure, that is the ENRAP website, where a considerable amount of knowledge has been captured.

To avoid losing this valuable knowledge when the ENRAP programme closed, we wanted to create a space on the IFAD online environment Our technical advisors advised us to use the same “content management system” that IFAD uses. And so we did. Together with the IFAD Information , Communication Technology Division, the portal was built to be an everyday working site supported by IFAD technical staff and facilitated by people in operations throughout the region. This way it also functions as a permanent repository where anyone in the region can place materials and make them readily accessible to others at any time.

The best part of this effort to sustain the ENRAP benefits and materials was that it led us to build something much wider-reaching and more useful to you, our partners, projects and country programmes in your daily work. 

And all content is generated by YOU, the users, the people who are working on the front lines and behind the scenes, to help make sure that IFAD resources make a difference in reducing rural poverty. 

This is a place to capitalize on the wealth of knowledge and information being generated every day, all over Asia and the Pacific. Have a look.  If you have information, documents, ideas or materials that can help other people do work like yours, please post it. You may already find information that can help you do your work. On IFADAsia you can announce an activity that you are about to undertake, you can call a meeting, post an agenda, express your opinion in a blog, let people see who your project team members are, share a report or a great resource from another website, look for information or send out a query. The more we use this tool, the more useful it will become.

IFADAsia is for you. So please explore and give it a try. Happy navigating.…

Chase Palmeri, Knowledge Management Facilitator,  Asia and the Pacific Division, IFAD

Have a suggestion about what we can do to improve IFADAsia? Please write us: [email protected], [email protected]

Knowledge sharing in action

   
 

Closing Circle: Participants from the writing workshop in Nepal re-cap their experiences and discuss ways in which they will use new skills

 

In April 2010, IFAD and FAO  launched a new “Programme for the Development of Knowledge Sharing Skills in Asia and the Pacific”. To date, the programme has provided project staff, as well as staff from partner institutions, with the skills and tools required to ensure that project knowledge and lessons learned are adequately captured and shared.

“With agriculture increasingly becoming knowledge-intensive, the ability of various stakeholders in the value chain to acquire, organize and re-use knowledge becomes extremely crucial and facilitates better decision making” says Hiroyuki Konuma, the Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for the Asia Pacific region of FAO.

Indeed, both IFAD and FAO are involved in country projects that seek to reduce rural poverty and food insecurity in Asia and the Pacific. Project staff have acquired valuable knowledge and a wealth of practical experience. However, their knowledge is often not adequately captured and shared, and is often lost when projects end.

To build on proven successes, as well as avoid repeating errors, it is essential to capture and share project knowledge. Furthermore, projects operating in the same region can benefit from knowing more about what similar FAO- and IFAD-supported projects are doing.

What is knowledge sharing?

“Sharing knowledge is not about giving people something, or getting something from them. That is only valid for information sharing. Sharing knowledge occurs when people are genuinely interested in helping one another develop new capacities for action.” – Peter Senge, researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Building capacity of project staff to share knowledge more effectively

The Programme for Development of Knowledge Sharing Skills in Asia and the Pacific has run a variety of workshops to increase skills in sharing project-related knowledge. The topics covered include:

What has been done so far and future workshops

   
 

Participants are the true owners of valuable project knowledge! Besides learning new skills, they had the opportunity to share technical knowledge with peers

  

With a grant of US$ 950,000 from IFAD and US$ 225,000 from FAO, this programme has delivered eight regional workshops and two online courses. So far over 139 people from IFAD projects all over Asia have been trained. Training-of-trainer workshops are also being planned to build a pool of people who can further disseminate the techniques. By the end of the project, 229 people from IFAD projects will have been trained.

To build national and regional capacity in delivering the workshops, the programme has worked with partners including:

These training workshops are for staff and affiliates of on-going programmes and projects financed by IFAD or FAO in Asia and the Pacific. Participants include the staff of central and local government, non-governmental agencies, and other project beneficiary organizations. A cadre of national-level knowledge-sharing trainers and facilitators has been developed as part of this activity.

Training materials

A wealth of training materials has been developed for these workshops and will soon be posted on the IFADAsia Portal. Please feel free to use these materials for your own training needs. Materials will also be translated into Chinese and Vietnamese.

Find out more

If you want to find out more, visit our web page on the IFAD KS portal: http://asia.ifad.org/web/apr1179  

Denise Melvin, Progamme Manager, FAO, Rome, Gerard Sylvester, Lead Technical Officer, FAO, Bangkok, Chase Palmeri, Knowledge Management Facilitator, IFAD, Rome

IFAD and FAO working together on pro-poor policy formulation, dialogue and implementation at the country level

   
 

Ganesh Thapa, Regional Economist from IFAD's Asia and the Pacific Division speaking at a Pro-Poor Policy Workshop

 

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable”, as Adam Smith put it more than two centuries ago.  Today the Asia-Pacific region contains the largest concentration of poor and undernourished people in the world. Yet economic growth in this region has been among the strongest in the world in the past 20 years. It was against this backdrop that IFAD and FAO launched the programme on Pro-Poor Policy Formulation, Dialogue and Implementation at the Country Level, with the view that unless economic growth occurred in a policy environment that favoured poor people, they were unlikely to fully share the benefits of economic growth.

The Asia and the Pacific Division contains almost two-thirds of the world’s poor, and over three-fifths of the world’s undernourished. The majority of the poor and undernourished live in rural areas and depend, directly or indirectly, on agriculture for their livelihoods.

The IFAD/FAO programme on Pro-Poor Policy Formulation, Dialogue and Implementation at the Country Level ran from 2007 to 2010. It covered eight countries of the Asia-Pacific region – Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Viet Nam. Its goal was to assist these countries in reducing rural poverty through enhanced institutional capacity to analyse, formulate and implement pro-poor agricultural and rural development policies, as these were considered to be the key to swift poverty reduction. A crucial feature of the programme was that it not only covered analysis and formulation of pro-poor policies, but also supported implementation of those policies at the country level.

The objectives of the programme were to:

The core programme activities, in order of their implementation, were: (i) identifying national partners and policy issues; (ii) analysing and formulating pro-poor policies; (iii) promoting policy dialogue and capacity strengthening; (iv) disseminating results and sharing experiences; and (v) supporting the implementation of pro-poor policies.

Programme activities were implemented at the country level by the designated national focal points (NFPs) – who were generally senior government officials – and at the regional level by FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in cooperation with the Asia and the Pacific Division of IFAD. A Regional Advisory Group (RAG) composed of eminent scholars, policy experts and representatives of the donor community and national and international non-governmental organizations provided broad policy advice and guidance to the programme.

Following the identification of national partners and policy issues, lead agencies were identified in consultation with NFPs and other related stakeholders to conduct an analysis of the identified policy issues.  Altogether 23 issues were identified. The table below shows how these policy issues were distributed across countries.

Topics for pro-poor policy studies in the eight programme countries

Country

Pro-Poor Policy Issues

Cambodia

Farmer organization development

Agricultural land use

Strengthening agricultural  services delivery

China

East-West cooperation for poverty reduction

Integrated block development

Farmer organization development

India

Expanding rural non-farm employment for farm households

Agricultural infrastructure development for poverty reduction

Common pool resource management in tribal areas of Eastern India

Indonesia

Integrated support services for agricultural and rural sector

Empowerment of indigenous communities 

Agricultural insurance in rice farming

Nepal

Livelihood enhancement for rural youth, women and rural poor

Pro-poor research and extension

Public-private partnership and cooperative and contract farming

Pakistan

Market support for agriculture, including livestock and high-value crops

Targeting and community empowerment

Pro-poor agricultural extension and training

Sri Lanka

Empowerment of poor farmers

Pro-poor agricultural research and extension

 

Viet Nam

Land consolidation linked with labour transformation

Cooperative promotion

Public-private partnership in irrigation

Some common themes emerged, classified under four heads:

There were also some themes that were specific to individual countries – for example, East-West cooperation for poverty reduction in China and common pool resource management in India.

The analyses were conducted and finalized by the partner institutions in the programme countries, with technical backstopping from FAO. Policy Briefs, encapsulating the main findings and recommendations of the analyses for the guidance of policy makers, were also prepared and have been placed on the project website (see link at the end of this article).

As capacity strengthening was a key feature of the programme, two capacity-strengthening workshops were organized for NFPs and leaders of the study teams – the first in Bangkok, Thailand from 15-29 June  2009, and the second in Siem Reap, Cambodia from 30 August to 5 September 2010. These helped sharpen the focus of the analysis and strengthen the overall quality of the policy studies. The participants were enthusiastic and rated the quality of the training highly.

As regards internalization of the findings and recommendations of the studies, there is a good example from Viet Nam. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has integrated the recommendations of the study on land consolidation (regarding land ceilings, duration of land leases and land zoning for industrial purposes in rural areas) into a formal policy proposal entitled “Proposals to revise and amend the Land Law concerning agricultural and rural development” submitted to the Government. In addition, a network on agricultural land policy has been established to promote policy dialogue and sharing on the subject. The new land law is expected to be discussed and passed by Viet Nam’s Parliament in 2012. 

To wind up the programme, a Regional Pro-Poor Policy Consultation and High-Level Round-Table was organized in Bangkok from 29 November to 1 December 2010 to provide a venue for sharing the results, exchanging experiences in and best practices for rural poverty reduction, and reflecting on lessons learned at the country level.

Sumiter Singh Broca,Policy Officer, Economic, Social and Policy Assistance Group, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Thailand

Useful links:

Upcoming events and missions

Afghanistan

Detailed design mission – September – October 2011

Bhutan

Joint supervision mission – Agriculture Marketing and Enterprise Promotion Programme and Market Access and Growth Intensification Project, 23 October – 13 November 2011

Cambodia

Completion design mission – Project for Agriculture Development and Economic Empowerment, October 2011

China

India

Indonesia

Kyrgyzstan

Lao People’s Democratic Republic

Mongolia

Start-up mission and workshop – Project for Market and Pasture Management Development, 1-11 November 2011

Nepal

Pakistan

Start-up workshop – South Punjab Poverty Alleviation Project and Gwadar-Lasbela Livelihoods Support Project, September 2011

Philippines

Knowledge and learning market, October 2011

Sri Lanka

Supervision and implementation support mission – National Agribusiness Development Programme, 31 October 2011

Tajikistan

Implementation support mission – Khatlon Livelihoods Support Project and Livestock and Pasture Development Project, 17-27 October 2011

Viet Nam