Project Assessment Day Treks

Last week, I went to Beajah, Bomi County and Gbarma (not to be confused with Gbarnga), Gbapolu County. We went out and met with community members to assess potential projects in the counties. I’m working with the County Development Support Secretariat (CDSS) within the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). CDSS works along with Liberian Decentralization and Local Development (LDLD), which is a joint MIA/UNDP (United Nations Development Program) effort to increase the capacity of local government and community structures. There are 15 counties within Liberia, and this project is focused on 6 pilot counties. Each county is allocated US$100,000.00 to start a variety of projects. Within each of the six counties, one “growth center” has been selected. The growth center is a village or town that is a hub (or potential hub) of economic activity within the county. They’ve already done 1-2 site visits to each village to give some background and let community members know what’s happening.

So now we’re going into the villages and sitting down with groups of community members to assess the feasibility of a variety of projects within each county. UNDP has hired three Liberian consultants who have expertise in implementing these types of projects and can assess the economic feasibility: rice/cassava/plantain/pineapple farms, rice/cassava mills, vocational training centers, and cold storage units (more on cold storage later….). I have a bunch of concerns, to be honest – number one: we are assessing, not promising. But I’m not sure how clear that is to community members. No matter how much you explain that, I fear there might be some confusion there. And I’m really not sure how clear this is being made to begin with. Also, if multiple projects are deemed “feasible” and implemented in the same village – will there really be the capacity to manage more than one project? It’s often hard to find the people to manage one project, let alone multiple ones. I’m not sold on the strategy of implementing multiple projects in one village at the same time.

The mandate of the LDLD/MIA Project is to build local capacity. That’s the primary goal – not poverty reduction, not income generation. Build the capacity of the local level governments. I’ve mentioned before how Monrovia was a city built for 200,000, but with internally displaced people (IDPs) fleeing to the capital during the war and never going back, the population has soared to 1.5 million – in a county with a total population between 3 and 3.5 million. Much like the population, all the government activity and power is in Monrovia. Local leaders have very little power to make and enact decisions without either coming to Monrovia to get a signature or approval of some sort. Ellen’s government has really been pushing for “decentralization” – there’s legislation pending in the Senate right now which should be passed before I leave. Anyway, this project that I’m working on is a direct response to the need for decentralization: we’re trying to give local governments the capacity to not only make decisions, but to actually carry them out. Another element of my work that is related to decentralization is creating a template Ordinance that can be used throughout the various counties to dictate how decisions are made at the local level.

With that in mind, the approach is somewhat different than that of an NGO. An NGO might show up in a village and ask: What do you need? It might be a well, or a school, or a clinic, or a farm, or a cold storage unit. If any of them is identified as the primary need, the project is (ideally, but not always) formatted to create structures that will support said project. What we’re doing is going in to communities and trying to figure out what community or management structures already exist – and then introducing projects that will give those structures the opportunity to gain more experience and build capacity. Do they have a farming cooperative already? How can we help that be more efficient?

It’s interesting to look at development from this angle – having the priority of building local capacity and community structures, with poverty reduction as a secondary objective. We are basically bolstering up projects that would exist (in theory) whether or not we come in with money or not. It’s not the poverty reduction isn’t important or valuable, it’s just not the focus of these funds. It does make sense, too. If the community structures are stronger, if the management is reliable – the projects will be more sustainable and poverty reduction will be achieved. There is a place for the other approach too, if it’s done “well” – which is really hard to define. . . Another concern of mine is that community members will – justifiably – tell you what you want to hear in order to get projects in their communities.

So we’re going in, identifying projects and assessing their feasibility: economic as well as in terms of management capacity. We are not implementing these projects - of course, training is part of the budget, but the communities are in charge. They have the local knowledge and local capacity, and we’re just assisting them with some guidance/training in management. It’s great in so many ways – it’s very Chambers-ian (for any Morfit grads reading this). Buuuuuut at the same time . . . we are depositing US$100,000 into a community bank account? And allowing the community to disperse these funds? Hm. That’s really the way it should be. And it does work towards building the management and accounting capacity of local governments. But I question whether Liberia is at the point where this is going to be an efficient approach. Or if $50,000 is going to slowly disappear. . . But, that’s our mandate (a word used ohhhhh so often in magic UN world…and a word that often seems to justify decisions that don’t otherwise make so much sense...). The funds will be monitored of course, and the projects followed up on, so it’s not like we’re throwing money in a bank account and walking away. I feel like such a pessimist – maybe everything will run smoothly! :)

Back to cold storage. This, clearly, is not my area of expertise. Luckily, we have a consultant who knows his stuff! He was trained in Syracuse on the technical side of refrigeration and he knows it inside and out. He’s good. I don’t know how to make a refrigerator, he does. And that’s cool. However, there are multiple gaps in his understanding of our project that are seemingly insurmountable. So while he really really does know how to make a refrigerator, I now am apparently the one assessing the management/economic viability of the cold storage projects.

That’s completely fine. Now, the two towns we went in to last week didn’t seem like the best candidates for cold storage. It would certainly help them – there’s no doubt! But in terms of how we’re approaching this: does the structure exist to support this project from the beginning. No, neither made sense at all. Cold storage dramatically improves the fishing industry in villages. However, the two we went to last week don’t even have fishing industries! They are hubs where people who actually fish come to sell their fish – but the number of fisherman in the villages: 0. The UNDP argument is that a cold storage in these places would be great, no doubt, but would require the formation of a fishing cooperative that doesn’t exist, therefore it doesn’t fall into the infamous mandate. I agree – but the cold storage consultant is not getting this. It would be great for the consumers and the community – no one is arguing that – but it doesn’t fit the goals of LDLD.

When I try to explain to him that it’s not really viable with what we’re trying to do, he asks: “why don’t you want to help these people? Why can’t you see this will help them?” I try to explain – “I know this will help them. An NGO can come in and do it. Or WHO or FAO. It would be great. But it’s not in our mandate.” I instantly feel lame throwing out mandate mandate mandate, but it’s completely true. He just shakes his head and starts over, “But why don’t you want to help these people?” We had this discussion for about an hour yesterday. It’s frustrating because we’ve done these site assessments, but I’m pretty positive he didn’t assess – but told people they were getting it. Concerning, no doubt. I worked with him on Wednesday’s site visit, trying to get some information from community members – how many fisherman in the village (0); how many fish sold in the market weekly (not clear); how much do fish cost (varies). Whoi! A little difficult to put together a report on economic viability with that info – but it says a lot about the fact that the community probably isn’t ready for a cold storage unit in terms of management.

This LDLD Project is a big project, it’s “real” – run by the Government and UNDP – not run by some clueless Peace Corps volunteer alone in a village looking for something to do…but it kind of feels the same way at times. I do have to keep in mind, these were the first two treks, and myself and the consultants are still learning the process – so hopefully next week will be smoother. We’re heading to Grand Bassa County and River Cess from Monday to Wednesday, I’m really excited to get out for a couple days and see a little deeper into the countryside . . .