institutional flexibility in crises and post-conflict...

INSTITUTIONALFLEXIBILITY IN

CRISES AND POST-CONFLICT

SITUATIONSBEST PRACTICES FROM THE FIELD

United Nations Development ProgrammeEvaluation Office

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 1

Preface 3

Executive Summary 5

Introduction 13

Chapter I. Post-Conflict Situations and the Nature of Post-Conflict Challenges 19

Chapter II. A Typology of Operational Flexibility 27

Chapter III. Best Practices and Lessons Learned in UNDP Operational Flexibility 45

Chapter IV. Flexible Response and Institutional Learning 55

AnnexesAnnex I. Country Office in a Box Concept (Prepared by BOM) 57Annex II. Terms of Reference: UNDP Crisis and Post-Conflict

Evaluation Programme 2001-2002 59Annex III. Bibliography 62Annex IV. List of People Met 71

© 2004 United Nations Development ProgrammeEvaluation OfficeOne United Nations PlazaNew York, NY 10017, USAhttp://www.undp.org/eo

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the member countries of the UNDP Executive Board or of those institutions of theUnited Nations system that are mentioned herein. The designations and terminologyemployed and the presentation of material do not imply any expression of opinionwhatsoever on the part of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or of its frontiers or boundaries.

Design: Suazion Inc., Staten Island, NYProduction: A.K. Office Supply, New York, NY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A multi-country comparative analysis such as this one requires aconsiderable investment of time and energy from a large group ofpeople. Close to 200 people in UNDP, government ministries andmunicipalities, donor agencies, UN agencies and international NGOsin eight countries agreed to meet the team for interviews and accompaniedthem on site visits. An even larger number of stakeholders and localpartners took time to meet with the team, sometimes at considerableinconvenience. First and foremost we would like to thank the evaluationteam for their invaluable work: senior consultants, Mr. Ken Menkhausand Mr.Ben K.Fred-Mensah and research assistants,Ms.Nadja Schmeil,Mr. Charles Tanzer, Ms. Jessica Smith, Mr. Amitabh Khardori. Anexcellent team of research assistants at UNDP and EvaluationOffice staff worked to collect relevant reference material and trouble-shoot as the project took shape. We are indebted to all, and thankthem for their time and energy, especially Mr. Douglas Keh, the taskmanager for this evaluation and the support team. The EvaluationOffice would like to extend special thanks to the Bureaux and all thecountry offices that participated in this study.

One aspect of the field research that was especially moving was thecombination of pain and determination that was encountered in thelocal communities recovering from armed conflicts. Though muchof this report deals with fairly mundane organizational issues, suchas accounting procedures, human resource management, project funding,the context in which these post-conflict programmes operate is anything but mundane. Most of the populations in the case studiesunder review have shouldered unimaginable losses. To meet with avillage of war widows in Kosovo on the same day that a witness fromtheir own region testified to a televised war-crimes tribunal in theHague about the massacre which claimed their husbands’ lives is toconfront a depth of sorrow which words cannot easily describe. Towitness these same community leaders set aside their sorrow, mustertheir strength, and organize their villages and neighborhoods torebuild and reconcile is an inspiration, and a reminder that externalsupport to these post-conflict processes cannot afford to fall short.The evaluation team and EO therefore wish to especially acknowledgethose local community leaders who are on the frontline of post-warrebuilding and reconciliation.

We hope that the report yields a dividend in lessons learned andbest practices which justifies the investment in the project.

UNV volunteers continue toplay a key role in re-establishing

social services and helpingaffected Kosovars, including

refugees and displaced persons.Photo: Ky Chung/UNMIK/DPI

OPERATIONALFLEXIBILITY INCRISIS AND POST-CONFLICTSITUATIONSLessons Learnedfrom the Field

Acknowledgements

1

PREFACE

FOCUS AND PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

This study is a comparative analysis of the work of UNDP in eightpost-conflict countries. It identifies emerging best practices and lessonslearned in order to improve UNDP’s organizational flexibility inresponding quickly and effectively to the special challenges of post-conflict rehabilitation. The report is also meant to support UNDP’sinstitutional learning process and internal discussions about itsresponse capacity. The study was not tasked with the responsibilityof recommending broad structural changes to improve UNDP’sflexible response. It was instead mandated to explore innovationsand adaptations to maximize institutional flexibility within the constraints of the organizational structure as it currently exists andhas come up with timely and valuable lessons for the organizationand its partners.

While this study was being conducted, UNDP was in the initialstages of developing a new approach to its business and managementpractices designed to increase efficiency and operational flexibility.The approach, which includes sharpening the programmatic focusof UNDP through the Multi-year Funding Framework, introducingresults-based management, and promoting cost recovery practicesthroughout the organization, is being implemented with the help ofa new strategic planning and monitoring software tool, Atlas. Thenew system which provides Country Offices with the capacity toreduce their response time to crisis, promises to have an importantpositive impact on UNDP’s performance as a development agency.

The Evaluation Office hopes that the lessons emerging from thestudy will not only contribute towards strengthening UNDP’sresponsiveness but will resonate with other partners working in thisimportant area of human security.

STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

The study is designed to accommodate the learning styles and needsof different sets of readers, ranging from generalists to seasonedexperts on post-conflict assistance. Chapter I places the issue ofinstitutional flexibility and post-conflict assistance in broader context,reviewing the common features of post-conflict settings and the

A UNDP-organised deminingprogramme in Mozambique

destroys unexploded mines.Photo: UNDP


Preface

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special constraints and challenges they produce.In other words, it consists of the “statement ofthe problem” to be managed. For readers withextensive experience with post-conflict settings,most of the material in Chapter I is familiarground; that section of the report is intendedmainly for the benefit of non-experts in post-conflict situations. Chapter II presents the com-parative assessment of UNDP’s institutionalflexibility in eight countries. It synthesizes themost promising and innovative policies andpractices which have enhanced UNDP’s flexibleresponse capacity in post-conflict settings, and isstructured to highlight specific “best practices”emerging from the field.

In addition, the report includes in the appendixin-depth case study summaries from each ofthe countries reviewed. These case summariesprovide a narrative approach to the specificchallenges posed by each situation and theflexible responses developed by UNDP staff to address those challenges. For readers whoprefer the case method of learning, the casesummaries in the appendix are designed tochronicle the recent history of each post-conflict situation and the innovations UNDPstaff generated to overcome constraints.

A bibliography and list of persons interviewedare provided to facilitate follow-up research.

METHODOLOGY

The project combined a review of in-housedocumentation, field-based data-gathering,and consultations with the major stakeholdersboth within the UN system as well as in hostcountries. Two senior consultants were engagedby the Evaluation Office to undertake six ofthe eight field visits (three per consultant),write up case summaries, and prepare the draft ofthe comparative analysis. The two consultantswere supported by four research assistants basedin UNDP, one of whom conducted fieldworkfor one country case study as well. The EOevaluation specialist overseeing the project alsoconducted fieldwork for one of the eight casestudies. Initial planning and conceptualizationof the project took place in a series of meetingsfrom December 2001 through February 2002,during which time the selection of case studieswas finalized, a division of labor created, and a template of common questions and issues

established, to render the field research conductedby different researchers as comparable as possible. An extensive literature review wasalso conducted during this period. Fieldworkwas conducted by the four researchers frommid-February through mid-March, with country field visits ranging from five to sevendays in duration. The sites selected includedKosovo, Macedonia (FYROM), Lebanon,El Salvador, Haiti, Rwanda, Mozambique,and Papua New Guinea. In the field, theresearchers met with UNDP staff members,visited project sites, and interviewed localauthorities, beneficiaries, donors, and peeragency personnel. A follow-up meeting inNew York on April 1-2 convened the four fieldresearchers for the purpose of sharing researchresults and identifying gaps in informationneeded to complete the study. Follow-upqueries by electronic mail to UNDP countryoffices were used to clarify or supplementinformation and analysis.

In the conduct of the fieldwork, a premiumwas placed on securing detailed narratives ofeach project’s history. This was considered tobe a critical aspect of the fieldwork methodologybecause the research project was seeking outinnovations and tactics that were as yet unknownand hence could not be anticipated in a pre-determined line of inquiry. By allowing different participants in a project to “tell thestory,” examples of post-conflict challenges and flexible response to them percolated out of the narrative, enabling researchers to captureimportant details and innovations that mighthave been lost in a more rigid questioning format. Close attention to the specific story-lineof each project also improved the researchers’ability to identify special cultural, social, or politicalsettings which might render the case unique andhence of limited value as a transferable tool offlexible response. This was of great importancein the drafting of the comparative analysis inChapter II. The research team was alert to theproblems of comparability across differentprojects and country settings. The rationale for including detailed case summaries in theappendix of the report is to further safeguardagainst over-generalization, and to allow readersto cross-check policies and practices that yieldedsuccessful flexible response to insure that theyare “exportable” to other settings.

OPERATIONALFLEXIBILITY IN

CRISIS AND POST-CONFLICT

SITUATIONSLessons Learned

from the Field

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EXECUTIVESUMMARY

Successful aid interventions in post-conflict situations place a premiumon rapid and flexible response by development agencies. The currentstructures and modalities of most aid agencies are not conducive toflexible and fast response. For its part, UNDP’s traditional role as aprovider of technical cooperation assistance has only in recent yearsexplicitly evolved into the area of post-conflict assistance and crisisresponse; this key phase in UNDP’s recent institutional evolutionhas brought to the fore the central importance of flexibility and rapidresponse capacity.

A range of tactics have been developed in the field to maximizeorganizational agility within the constraints faced by country offices.This study explores eight post-conflict situations and UNDP’s experience in developing and implementing flexible responses to thechallenges posed by these situations.

CHAPTER I: POST-CONFLICTSITUATIONS AND THE NATURE OF POST-CONFLICT CHALLENGES

SUDDEN CHANGES IN NATIONAL OPERATING ENVIRONMENT Countries emerging from armed conflicts are especially prone toshocks and setbacks, which can dramatically alter the operatingenvironment of aid agencies.1 Among the most common of theseshocks include the following:

Influx of returnees. Armed conflicts almost always produce largenumbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, oftennumbering in the hundreds of thousands or even millions.

Renewed armed conflict. “Post-war” countries may or may notbe at peace. In some instances, cessation of hostilities is imposed byexternal intervention, in which case national reconciliation effortsoccur simultaneously with rehabilitation and recovery programs. Inother cases, reconciliation has been achieved but produces a fragileand uneasy peace.

Collapse of the government. State collapse is a growing phenomenonin the post Cold War era and is almost always accompanied by somelevel of armed conflict.

Floods in Cap Haitien, Haiti,leave families without homes.

Photo: Michel Matera/UNDP


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1. Most of these shocks are not unique to post-conflict countries – they can and dooccur everywhere. But post-conflict countries tend to be much more vulnerable to dramatic and often negative changes in the operating environment.

National economic crisis. Because the riskof political reversals in post-conflict situationsis high, economic confidence is typically fragile,making post-conflict situations especially proneto sudden economic crises.

Change of national government. Post-conflict situations usually involve the rebuildingof political processes that include elections.When elections produce a transfer of power,flexibility on the part of external aid agencies is essential.

Military occupation or withdrawal. Civil warssometimes draw neighboring countries into the fray, creating unpredictable post-conflictsituations involving a sudden foreign militaryoccupation of part of a country, or a suddenwithdrawal of a foreign force.

Change or collapse of local interlocutors/partners. Local administrations and civil societyin post-conflict situations are often not highlyinstitutionalized, and hence vulnerable togreater levels of instability and change than isoften the case elsewhere.

Change of government policy. Sudden shiftsin government policy which can impact devel-opment programs and which require flexibleresponse by aid agencies are hardly unique topost-conflict situations; they are a commonchallenge in all development work.

Natural disasters. As with many of theseother challenges, natural disasters are notunique to post-conflict situations but tend tobe more disruptive and deadly when they occurin post-conflict settings, where local responsecapacity is weak.

ENDEMIC CONSTRAINTS IN THE OPERATING ENVIRONMENTIn addition to sudden surprises, post-conflictsituations tend to reflect a syndrome of politicaland economic features which pose constraints onconventional delivery of rehabilitation assistanceand which require operational flexibility on thepart of aid agencies. Some of the more significantof these features include the following:

Weak baseline data. A common characteristicof post-conflict operating environments isweak baseline data, often a result of destroyed,long-neglected, or politically distorted socio-economic information as a whole.

Multi-stage project approval and resourceallocation. Post-conflict assistance is a high-profile area of international cooperation, wherethe political stakes are high, and not only in thebeneficiary country.

High turnover among international staff.Another constraint intrinsic to post-conflictsituations is high turnover of internationalstaff. Far more so than in non-conflict countries,UN-affiliated staff are usually posted in thecrisis country for brief periods, due not least tothe challenges – physical and emotional – thatattend daily life in war-torn societies.

Limited public sector capacity. Governmentsin post-conflict situations are generally weak(especially when a civil war creates a brain-drain), politically tenuous and divided (if theyreflect a power-sharing arrangement), and notalways capable of extending their rule over former rebel areas.

Incomplete peace processes/divided com-munities. Post-conflict situations do not alwaysinclude a complete and comprehensive nationalreconciliation. Far from following peace accordsin a neat sequence, assistance programs oftenplay an integral role in the peace-buildingprocess itself.

Lawlessness and criminality. Countriesemerging from conflicts must demobilize militiaand re-establish law and order in regions wherewarfare created environments conducive to therise of armed criminality.

Erosion of trust and social capital. One recur-rent concern in the post-conflict reconstructionis the fragility of the local social environment.

CHAPTER II:A TYPOLOGY OFOPERATIONAL FLEXIBILITY

This chapter describes the broad categories offlexible response required at the country level –a general typology of operational flexibility definedby information gathered during interviews forthis exercise.

RAPID DEPLOYMENT OF UNDP EXPERTISE TO THE CRISIS AREAWhether in response to a cessation of hostilities,which may open up a given province to inter-national assistance, or the onset of a naturaldisaster, it is often the case that UNDP needsto mobilize and deploy expertise to an areawhere it has had no established presence – oreven contact – hitherto. The related challengesare many, including those internal to UNDPitself, which may or may not have the staff orexpertise readily available to occupy an “office”where none existed before.




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REORIENTATION OF PROGRAMMES TO INCORPORATE NEW GOALS One of the most impressive, widespread, andsuccessful examples of institutional agility inthe case studies under review was the ability ofUNDP country teams to adjust projects inorder to meet new and unexpected local needs.Because post-conflict situations are fast-movingtargets, original project documents cannot beexpected to predict changes in socio-economicneeds. The ability to “tweak” existing projectsor programmes to address an unexpected localneed or crisis rather than initiate an entirelynew project proposal or programme – whichcan take a considerable amount of time – gaveUNDP country teams the flexibility they neededto respond effectively.

SECURING START-UP FUNDINGRapid response to sudden crises requiresimmediate access to funds to cover start-upproject costs. Those types of funds are very difficult to secure in a timely fashion, leadingto delays which are politically costly and whichcan exact an unacceptable toll in human lives.

EXPEDITED PROCUREMENTProcuring supplies and making logisticalarrangements for delivery at short noticedemands flexibility in unexpected crises.

MANAGING BUDGET SHORTFALLS The uncertainty and unpredictability of post-conflict situations frequently result in vital projectsand programmes facing depleted budgets beforethe project is completed, jeopardizing the project’s success. This is a common problem in development work, by no means unique topost-conflict situations; but post-conflict situationstend to produce conditions which make thisscenario especially endemic.

ASSUMING NEW OR EMERGENCY-RELATED ROLES AT SHORT NOTICECrises in post-conflict settings frequentlyinvolved UNDP taking on new roles, sometimesconsiderably beyond the organization’s typicalmandate, in order to facilitate a rapid collectiveresponse or to fill a vacuum in the administrationor the aid community. Situations involvinggovernments with weak capacity were especiallylikely to require UNDP country offices to playimpromptu roles on behalf of or at the behestof the government.

STREAMLINING REPORTING: BALANCINGACCOUNTABILITY WITH SPEEDIn the complex web of institutional relationshipsthat are produced with most rehabilitationprojects (involving the national government, oneor several donors, UNDP, and international orlocal NGOs or other implementing partners),reporting requirements and contracts can produce a significant amount of paperwork andconsume an enormous amount of time.

RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION OF EFFECTIVE PERSONNELRapid and flexible response in post-conflict situations places a premium on an agency’sability to assemble and retain a top team ofproject staff. Recruitment and retention of staffwere two abiding concerns expressed in the field.A number of innovations and adaptations werealso evident from the case studies under review.

FLEXIBLE PROJECT EXECUTIONProject execution modalities constituted one ofthe most important issues of flexible responsein the case studies under review. Fortunately,this is an issue that has received extensive consideration within UNDP, producing arange of execution modalities that give countryteams considerable flexibility to respond toconstraints in the delivery of projects.

COORDINATION AND JOINT VENTURESCoordination among aid agencies – both withinthe UN family and within the broader universeof donors, international NGOs, UN, and BrettonWoods institutions – has been a high priorityin the wake of a decade of complex emergencies.Coordination is imperative in order to reducewaste associated with redundant projects, tominimize gaps in development assistance byregion and sector, to pool information, and to standardize basic aid agency policies on issuesranging from local salary scales to response tosecurity threats.

CHAPTER III: BESTPRACTICES ANDLESSONS LEARNED

Two general types of best practices are identifiedin this study – “enabling” practices and specific“tools” of flexible response. The former areapplicable regardless of whether a country 7

office is in crisis mode or not: indeed, theyshould ideally be in place long before the onsetof an emergency. The latter group of best practices require decision-makers to match thetool to the specific problem created by anemergency or ascendant post-conflict need. Inall cases, efforts to improve operational flexibilityin such settings should be tempered by respectfor other institutional core values, such asaccountability, coordination, and capacity-building – which can at times place constraintson flexible response.

ENABLING PRACTICES UNDP country offices that adopted measuresto prepare themselves for flexible and speedyresponse were consistently more successful incoping with unexpected crises or rapidly shiftinglocal needs. Among the most noteworthyenabling practices include the following:

n Up-to-date knowledge on administrativerules and regulations. Inasmuch as UNDPregulations on finance, procurement and per-sonnel may sometimes be seen as part of theproblem, they also comprise the organization’ssource of flexibility. Rules and regulations onthese issues are frequently revised with aview to achieving the right balance betweenexpedited and rapid assistance delivery andaccountability.

n Advanced Access to Information onEmergency Relief Suppliers. Registeringon websites such as that of UNDP’s Inter-Agency Procurement Services Office (IAPSO)can be easily done prior to the onset of a crisis,thus facilitating and expediting procurementof essential goods when needed.

n Contingency planning for “routinized”emergencies. A sudden influx of returnees –both refugees and IDPs – is witnessed so frequently in post-conflict settings that thephenomenon can fairly be classified as a “routinized” emergency. As such, funds and contingency plans should be put in place in advance for this and other “routinized” emergencies.

n Creating incentives for calculated risk-taking.Calculated risk-taking and innovation byfield officers are essential to overcoming theoften burdensome bureaucratic procedures anddelays that accompany project implementationin post-conflict settings. There is an urgentneed to demonstrate tangible peace benefits

to former warring parties – through projectsand programmes – so that they realize thebenefits of peace. As such, creation of a set ofincentives for field officers to take calculatedrisks – based on templates of lessons learned inother post-conflict settings, and with definedparameters for acceptable risk-taking – shouldbecome a priority.

n Diverse backgrounds and expertise on projectteams. An ethnically diverse national teamgives UNDP greater flexibility to work withdifferent constituencies in countries whereethnic tensions are still high. Similarly, thewider the range of expertise UNDP possesseson its staff, the better prepared it is torespond to unexpected crises requiring specialized knowledge.

n Infuse peace-building and reconciliationgoals into rehabilitation projects. Infusionof peace-building and reconciliation measuresin rehabilitation projects can be essential tolong-term success. Where armed conflictsare localized, this may be relatively easier to manage, but even when conflicts are geographically diverse, the need for a “peacedividend” as part of a rehabilitation programmeremains strong, despite the greater operationalchallenges this may pose.

n Contingency planning for natural disasters.Natural disasters are often a common occurrencein post-conflict settings, and can pose seriouschallenges to effective rehabilitation efforts.Examples from this report’s case studies includefloods in Mozambique, Hurricane Mitch inEl Salvador, and earthquakes in Kosovo,El Salvador and Papua New Guinea. Wherepost-conflict situations are located in zonesparticularly prone to natural disasters,advance contingency planning should bemade to facilitate a smooth transition fromrehabilitation to emergency response work.

n Anticipation through strong field earlywarning capacity by national project officers.Country offices that encourage all staffmembers to observe, assess, and report arebetter able to anticipate problems and crises.Anticipating and forecasting political, social,and economic trends should not be a compartmentalized task left to an earlywarning project; it should be seen as everyone’s responsibility.

n Pre-positioned funding. Pre-positionedfunds such as TRAC 1.1.3 funds are vital for rapid response and give UNDP a




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response capacity it cannot otherwise enjoy.Unearmarked contributions to crisis preventionand recovery by BCPR can be used for rapidresponse initiatives.

n Human resource management of nationalstaff. UNDP’s response capacity in times ofcrisis is only as good as its personnel.International staff members play a vital rolein creating an office environment and rewardsystem conducive to calculated risk-takingand flexibility – they are the “enablers” offlexible response. But in the cases reviewedhere, it was the quality of the national staffofficers that determined UNDP’s capacityfor flexible response. Country offices thathire and retain entrepreneurial, dedicated, andhonest staff capable of making independentdecisions and taking calculated risks stand amuch greater chance of success. Recruitmentand retention of a highly dedicated and talented national staff is the single greatestsource of institutional capacity to problem-solve in crises.

n Evaluation criteria. Project evaluations andindividual performance reviews can eitherreinforce a culture of entrepreneurism or apreoccupation with conformity and risk-aversion. To the extent that both projectevaluations and individual performance reviewscan be geared toward rewarding flexibleresponse and calculated risk-taking – or at a minimum not penalizing that behavior –evaluations can be made part of the enablinginfrastructure to facilitate speedy and agileUNDP response.

n Project execution modalities. Country officeswith advance approval for direct execution(DEX) enjoyed greater flexibility in the field.DEX is an important enabling practice, butis a tool best used as an option of last resort.

THE “TOOLBOX” OF FLEXIBLE RESPONSEEach new intervention in post-conflict situationsproduces new tactics and tools in an emergingtoolbox of flexible response. Among the manyuseful tools of flexible response, a few of themost promising and replicable include:

n Rapid deployment of expertise: WhereasUNDP’s need for rapid deployment of programme staff is well-developed in theform of BCPR’s global network of availableexperts, country offices should not ignore the importance of operational staff with

expertise in areas such as financial monitoring,accounting, and oversight; procurement; andtelecommunications. Until formal arrangementscan be institutionalized by UNDP at thecorporate level, country offices should beencouraged to establish informal arrangementsfor rapid transfer of essential expertise,perhaps among country offices working inthe same region.

n Modification of existing projects to meetchallenges posed by economic and politicalcrises. Rapid response to new and unexpectedsituations is enhanced by modifying andexpanding existing projects rather than initiating new ones. An example is the economic crisis that emerged as a result ofthe sudden outbreak of civil war in Macedoniain 2000. Aid agencies were forced to shifttheir focus from long-term rehabilitation toshort-term income generation projects andprovision of basic social services. These typesof modifications should become part of thestandard toolbox, to be rapidly deployedwhen crises emerge.

n Compartmentalized project design. Projectsthat are compartmentalized – that is, designedas a series of small, free-standing projects thatcan be successful and sustainable independentof the completion of the other projects – allowUNDP to proceed with projects even if addi-tional pledges of funding from the governmentof other sources is delayed or cancelled.

n Innovations to increase the fungibility of UNDP budgets. In many post-conflictsettings, humanitarian aid pours into high-visibility sectors and programmes – sometimemore than is needed – while other sectorsremain underfunded. In addition, strict donoraccounting rules generally prohibit the use ofresidual funds from one project to financeanother. Accordingly, innovations that canincrease the fungibility of UNDP budgetswithout violating internal and donor financialrestrictions are an important tool of flexibleresponse. In several of the countries underreview, including El Salvador, field officerswere successfully able to make project budgetsmore fungible. The key in each case wasimmediate and persuasive consultations withdonor representatives.

n Circumventing funding delays by exploitingthe fungible nature of “pooled” donorfunding. When a budgetary constraint isproduced by a donor’s funding delays, projects 9

that are supported by multiple donors canavoid costly delays by taking advantage ofthe fungible nature of pooled funding.Although a donor may earmark funds forone specific component of a project, thosefunds can be “borrowed against” to cover urgentaspects of the project that are experiencingdelayed funding from another source. Whenthe delayed funding finally arrives, it can thenreplace the borrowed funds. This often-usedtool of flexibility must be accompanied byconsultations with donors.

n Innovative ways to streamline reporting,contracting, and accounting. The complexweb of institutional relationships associatedwith post-conflict rehabilitation – involvingthe national government, donors, UNDP,and international or local NGOs – often leadsto reporting requirements and contracts thatproduce a large amount of paperwork andconsume precious time. Although theserequirements are designed to promote theimportant goal of accountability, in certaininstances a degree of flexibility can be introduced to speed up and streamline theseprocesses in the interest of rapid response.Examples include Rwanda, where beneficiaries(community project managers) lacked thecapacity to produce required standard financialreports on previous tranches of funds; UNDPadjusted to this and allowed them to produce asimple narrative report instead. In El Salvador,a similar adjustment was made, allowingimplementing partners to concentrate detailedaccounts of expenditures and activities in onesingle annual report, as opposed to the standardquarterly reports – thereby freeing more oftheir time for actual project implementation.

n Use of “spin-off ” technique to preserveinstitutional memory and capacity whenprojects are completed. A common dilemmafaced by UNDP country offices occurs whenthe office trains an excellent pool of local projectofficers; these officers and their institutionalmemory are then lost once the projects arecompleted and the team disbanded. UNDPMacedonia’s response to this dilemma was toconsider the possibility of “spinning off ” theassembled local expertise from a UNDPproject unit into an independent localresearch institute, think-tank or consultancyfirm. In this way, the institutional memoryand capacity of the unit is preserved andavailable for hire to other donors and agencies.

This is an approach that remains unconven-tional but merits further attention.

n Flexible use of NEX and DEX and co-directexecution (“CODEX”). Although nationalexecution (NEX) of projects is UNDP’sstandard approach, in some instances localimplementation capacities – particularly forlarge-scale projects – may not be sufficient.In these case, direct execution by the UNDPoffice (DEX) is often used; DEX requiresapproval from UN headquarters in NewYork. However, it should be noted that NEX and DEX are not mutually exclusive:DEX in Lebanon, Macedonia, Rwanda, andMozambique involved UNDP retainingcontrol over project funds but working inclose concert with the relevant governmentministry. Indeed, the Lebanese country officeconsidered their execution modality to be anexample of CODEX (co-direct execution),while in Macedonia the modality was considered a “hybrid” of national and directexecution. Flexible use of NEX and DEX,and various combinations of the two, aretherefore a valuable tool that can improveUNDP’s capacity for fast and flexible response.

n Reliance on local experts/government inareas where peace processes are incomplete.Where peace processes are incomplete,aid agencies’ interventions can unwittinglytrigger renewed conflict. One approach tothis dilemma is to use national experts/government authorities (when available) tocomplete the process in unsettled areas beforebeginning rehabilitation. In Lebanon, UNDPdesignated certain areas as “conflict villages”and did not undertake rehabilitation effortsin those areas until the national governmentcompleted a reconciliation process there. InRwanda, UNDP promoted peace-buildingthrough support for the Centre for ConflictManagement at the University of Butare.

n Use of project “templates.” Project proposalsborrowed from a recent and similar crisis inanother post-conflict country reduce timedevoted to writing up proposals and cansecure quick donor funding when donors arealready familiar with the template.

n Funding and procurement. AdvancesRecoverable Locally (ARLs) is an accountingdevice that under certain circumstances servesas a valuable tool of financial flexibility todeal with sudden start-up costs. Purchasingwaivers – that allow COs to approve major




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purchases without direct headquarter oversighton bid processing – are another tool for providing flexibility at the outset of a crisis,and unbeknownst to many offices, can be usedby UNDP even in the absence of an emergencyor disaster. Administrative procedures allowingfunds not immediately needed for disbursalto be placed in a special “rainy day” accountcan become a lifeline in emergency settings.

n Local partnerships. Project execution thatmaximizes a sense of local ownership enhancesflexible response; when local leaders andcommunities are strongly invested in projects,they become an important source of innovationand adaptation to unexpected obstacles.

n Volunteers. When faced with budget andlabor constraints, selective use of qualifiedinternational volunteers (in addition to UNVs)can help UNDP country offices staff projectsand keep offices functioning.

n Learning processes. Practices such as workshops or retreats that are used to exposeinternational and national officers to lessonslearned from other countries and other agencies

can expand the range of policy options the teamdraws upon, encouraging flexible responseand strengthening institutional memory.

CHAPTER IV:RECOMMENDATIONS

n Institutionalize knowledge sharing on flexible response. Dissemination of this reportshould be seen as the first, rather than thefinal, step in establishing an institutional culture of knowledge sharing.

n Reorient performance monitoring toreward flexible response. Within UNDP’sperformance monitoring infrastructure, stepsshould be taken to explicitly capture, andreward, flexible response.

n Periodic workshops on the latest operationalinnovations. Few country offices have thespare capacity to update staff on the latestrevisions in the rules and guidelines thatguide institutional conduct in finance,administration and procurement.

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INTRODUCTION

Post-conflict situations constitute an increasingly common type ofoperating environment for UNDP and other development agencies.The political, economic, and social settings of countries emergingfrom armed conflict pose special challenges for rehabilitation anddevelopment initiatives. One of those challenges is the need forflexible response. It is now conventional wisdom that flexibility –manifested in rapid response, capacity to readjust to meet rapidlychanging local needs, and ability to respond to unexpected changesin the operating environment – is essential for successful post-conflict assistance.

Recognition of the need for greater institutional agility in post-conflict situations is, however, only a beginning. The next step is tooperationalize the goal of flexibility more effectively by identifyingand assessing specific innovative policies, strategies, and practicesthat can enhance and inform flexible response. Numerous steps –some the result of careful policy reforms, others a reflection of ad hocdecisions – have already been made to promote greater operationalagility in UNDP. This study is intended to advance that agenda. Itexplores the experiences of UNDP post-conflict assistance programsin eight countries with the aim of identifying emerging best practicesand innovative strategies to improve flexible response.

RISKS AND STAKES IN POST-CONFLICT SITUATIONS

Both the stakes and the risks are high in post-conflict situations.Stakes are high because rapid rehabilitation is a central pillar of bothlocal and external efforts to consolidate peace, demobilize militia,create employment, reabsorb returnees, build legitimacy and capacityof local governments, and defuse ethnic and political tensions. Post-

Prosthetics are made and fitted at the central hospital

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Introduction

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‘[Reconstruction] is a matter of the utmost urgency and importance where we should, therefore,press forward to reach agreement on methods and on details. . . The countries chiefly concerned canscarcely begin to make their plans until they know upon what resources they can rely. Any delay,any avoidable time lag will be disastrous to the establishment of good order and good government.’

Lord Keynes, remarks at the first meeting of the second commission on the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Bretton Woods (3 July 1944.)

‘Good management in post-conflict situations requires lateral thinking and attention to the rapidlyshifting windows of opportunity that open up.’

World Bank,“The Transition from War to Peace: An Overview” (1999), p. 8.2.

‘Flexibility is the single most important attribute for providing relevant, effective and sustainable rehabilitation assistance in post-conflict situations.’

UNDP-Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan Joint Evaluation (2000), p. 49.

conflict assistance is, in short, a major part ofthe “peace dividend” without which countriescan quickly slip back into renewed armed conflict,radicalism, or lawlessness. The 1990s havedemonstrated all too clearly that internationalemergency relief and/or peace operations thatare not coupled with sustained, well-funded,and effective rehabilitation assistance stand littlechance of success. In post-conflict settings, reha-bilitation assistance simply cannot afford to fail.

Yet the risks of failure in complex and politicizedpost-conflict situations are also high. Localpolitics and security are often in flux. Local needschange rapidly. The need for speedy responseproduces little time for information gathering,analysis, and assessment, even as existing databases are often weak. Projects must be conceived and executed while organizations arescrambling for funding and personnel. A cacophonyof external actors can make coordination difficult.Local power disputes can render operating envi-ronments polarized and insecure. And majordecisions must be made in environments of considerable uncertainty and inadequate information. Collectively, these factors raisethe risk of failed and frustrated assistance. Justas generals must make crucial decisions in the “fog of war,” the fog of post-conflict oftenconfronts aid agencies.

Where risk is high, stakes are high, and timeis short, the burden for effectiveness fallssquarely upon individual decision-makers inthe field. In UNDP, this responsibility falls tothe Resident Representative, his or her deputy, andprogramme managers. Their ability to innovatewith inadequate resources, to seize windows ofopportunity, to make sound policy decisions onthe basis of imperfect information, and to adaptto changing needs, shifting circumstances, orunexpected constraints can make the differencebetween success and failure. Above all else, theymust be astute risk-managers and must be willing to take calculated risks. In urgent post-conflict situations, falling back upon standardoperating procedures and the slow pace of routinized project funding and implementationguarantees failure.

CONSTRAINTS ON FLEXIBILITY

For UNDP and other development agencies,however, the kind of operational agility that isessential for success in post-conflict situations

is not always easy to accommodate within thestructures and procedures of these organizations.Many of the constraints to flexibility emanatefrom within development organizations. Lackof core funding, long delays in placing staff inthe field, cumbersome reporting obligationsthat pull staff away from projects, painfullybureaucratic procedures both within andbetween aid agencies and donors, delays inproject approval and release of funds by donors,and evaluation procedures that tend to penalizerather than reward flexibility are among themany structural constraints field officers face.The extent to which calculated risk-taking andinnovation can damage rather than enhance anindividual career is especially important; projectofficers and their superiors are much more likelyto consider flexible and innovative responses ifincentives are in place for that behavior. One stepin creating incentives for calculated risk-takingis identification of emerging best practices; theycan provide a template of successful risk man-agement approaches in post-conflict settings,and help to establish parameters for acceptablerisk-taking in the field.

Flexibility is also constrained by the legitimateclaims of other important institutional goalsand principles. Equally compelling values suchas accountability, coordination, sustainability,strategic coherence, local ownership, and capacitybuilding all require time, vetting procedures, andinclusion of a wide range of actors whose inputor partnership must be secured. Collectively,these additional concerns tend to work againstinstitutional agility, reducing the “wiggle room”and autonomy of UNDP field officers.Flexibility is from this vantage point an importantvalue, but not one that can be pursued in isolationfrom a basket of other institutional and devel-opment values. Indeed, unfettered flexibility canquickly slip from virtue to vice. If taken too far, itcan serve as an invitation to strategic incoherenceand lack of accountability. The challenge forUNDP and other development agencies isfinding new ways to reconcile institutionalagility and risk-taking with other core valuesthat tend to constrain and limit flexibility.

Another challenge in adapting developmentprogrammes to rapidly changing post conflictsituations is the multiplicity of actors whoseactivities and decision-making institutions are often intertwined with one another. Theoverarching institutional framework for UNDPin-country activities is circumscribed by the UN




from the Field

Introduction

14


Introduction

Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF)and the Common Country Assessment (CCA),two planning mechanisms that place a premiumon integrated programme design and implemen-tation modalities. Key actors, such as the SpecialRepresentative of the Secretary-General (SRSG)and the International Financial Institutions alsostrongly influence the institutional frameworkin which UNDP must operate. Though themerits of unified action speak for themselves,integrated institutional arrangements can alsolimit the range of flexibility and speed requiredof one actor. For better or for worse, in thisregard, the reality that UNDP works in anythingbut an institutional vacuum has real implicationsfor its ability to achieve its goals on the basis offlexible response.

Risk-taking behavior can slip from virtue tovice, especially when risky ventures producefailures the costs of which are borne by localpopulations. Indeed, risk-taking in post-conflictrehabilitation co-exists uneasily with the “dono harm” principle to which most aid agenciesaspire. Development assistance in post-conflictsettings navigates very dangerous shoals; localcommunities are often traumatized, local politicsdeeply polarized, and local authority shaky.Mistakes by aid agencies in these circum-stances can not only lead to failed projects –they can get people killed. Risk-taking musttherefore be founded on close knowledge oflocal situations and on astute calculations oflikely outcomes.

FLEXIBILITY ANDBUDGETARY REALITIES

Flexibility is also dramatically impacted bybudgetary realities. In recent years, non-profitagencies and UN development agencies havebeen confronted by a troubling paradox. Evenas the number, urgency, and complexity ofpost-conflict situations have grown, placingmuch greater demands on agency resources,external funding for post-conflict assistancehas generally not kept pace. Emergency reliefaid is almost always available in generousamounts, but funding for reconstruction andrehabilitation is much less reliable. And incases where rehabilitation funding is plentiful –invariably because of the strategic importanceaccorded to the country in question – competitionfor access to the funds is intense. The oftensevere budgetary strains which are produced by

this situation have tended to produce operationalflexibility, but for all the wrong reasons –namely, to access donor funds to stay solventand to keep offices open. Aid agencies are attimes compelled to agree to undertake whatevertype of post-conflict assistance donors demand,even when that assistance may be inappropriateor does not match the agency’s competency.Reward structures in most aid agencies aredesigned to encourage national offices toaggressively pursue contracts and increasebudgets, adding pressure on national offices totake on inappropriate projects. In this situation,aid agencies can run the risk of being reducedto rudderless sub-contractors, driven more bythe imperative of institutional survival than bya post-conflict development vision and strategy.A certain level of pragmatic flexibility on thisscore is entirely justifiable, particularly if it helpsan agency stay afloat to do important andneeded work. But knowing when the line hasbeen crossed from justifiable pragmatism tounjustifiable expediency is not easy.

INSTITUTIONALLEARNING

“Flexible response” implies a certain degree ofimprovisation, an ad hoc reaction to a unique andunexpected set of circumstances. Routinizedflexibility is, in one sense, a contradiction interms. Yet it is also the case that post-conflictsettings tend to produce a syndrome of challengesthat, while not entirely predictable, are also notaltogether surprising – if the principal actorshave had the benefit of exposure to lessonslearned from other post-conflict settings.Anticipating possible surprises – expecting theunexpected – is an important prerequisite foreffective and flexible response. Taking certainsteps in advance of crises to prepare the officeto respond more quickly – what this study calls“enabling practices” – also can and should beroutinized. Finally, the capacity to borrow andadapt successful response techniques and strategiesfrom other UNDP post-conflict missions isessential. Otherwise, UNDP field offices areplaced in the untenable and counterproductiveposition of having to “reinvent the wheel.”

The ability to anticipate crises, prepare for crisisresponse, and choose wisely from an evolving“toolbox” of flexible responses requires threedistinct capacities: (1) institutional learning (theability to draw on previous experience – both 15

UNDP’s experience and the experience of peerorganizations – to garner accurate and potentiallyexportable lessons); (2) institutional memory(efficiently stored, effectively analyzed, and easilyaccessible knowledge of the lessons learned);and (3) a dissemination or teaching mechanism(a means of exposing staff members to lessonslearned across different field offices). Withoutall three of these capacities in place, agenciesand firms run the risk of losing invaluable lessons and innovative responses as soon as anexperienced staff member is reassigned orleaves the organization.

How, then, can UNDP and peer agenciesimprove their capacity to learn, store, and disseminate lessons on flexible response inpost-conflict situations? Institutional learningis a preoccupation in every sector and in everyfirm, and virtually every organization has somemechanism to promote institutional learningand to serve as a repository of institutionalmemory. Some organizations are much morecommitted to the process than others, andsome are more effective than others. Amongthe mechanisms firms have at their disposal toexecute this task include:

n Routinized “after action reviews” and “lessonslearned” exercises. The military is perhapsthe most rigorous in this regard.

n Evaluation units and procedures. If properlystructured, project evaluations can generatevaluable lessons learned and case studies.

n Workshops and seminars. Project officers aregathered together to compare and discussexperiences, allowing them an opportunity to learn from one another and return to their projects with responses adapted fromother settings.

n Outsourcing. Some firms rely on outsideconsulting groups to provide expertise instate-of-the-art responses to particular operating challenges.

n Case study and other written reports. Manylarge development agencies and NGOs (WorldBank, UNDP, Oxfam) produce publishedstudies intended to capture emerging bestpractices and disseminate the findings.

n Sabbaticals. Some firms try to provide anoccasional period of reflection and researchfor select staff members.

UNDP and its peer agencies are not structuredin ways that match up well with many of thesetools and techniques. Too often, for example,demonstrated flexibility during the implementationphase of a given programme is viewed as a signof poor planning – this, despite the intrinsicvagaries and unpredictable vicissitudes of post-conflict and crisis situations. Moreover, thecore staff of UN specialized agencies is oftensmall and tends to be permanently deployed, asorganizations scramble to respond from one crisisto the next; there is little of the “down time”that the military has between deployments whichcan be put to use in reflecting on lessons learned.The number of individuals with deep, comparativefield experience in post-conflict assistance is low,and staff turnover is relatively high, especiallyat the field level, where flexible response capacityis most needed.

UNDP itself has until only recently operatedprimarily as an international organization specialized in the design and provision of so-called technical cooperation assistance, whichalthough defined in many ways throughout theyears, can safely be assumed to be quite distinctfrom crisis and emergency aid. Most of UNDP’sfield staff consists of national officers whorarely have the opportunity to gain comparativeexperience outside of their home country. Muchof UNDP’s work is either national execution(by the government) or, if direct execution,outsourced to local or international NGOs.Such short-term contractual relationships arethemselves an important tool of flexibility,but tend to work against the accumulation ofknowledge on flexible response at the imple-mentation level.2 Likewise, written studies onflexible response are of use only inasmuch asthey are distributed to the field and when fieldofficers have the time to read them. The hecticnature of post-conflict assistance often robsstaff members of time to devote to reflectionon lessons learned.

What all this suggests is that for agenciesworking in post-conflict situations, identificationof emerging best practices in flexible responseis only one step in building an effective flexibleresponse capacity. Issues related to institutionalmemory and dissemination are equally importantlest lessons learned become lessons forgotten.Direction from the highest levels of management




from the Field

Introduction

16

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2. This depends in large part on the degree to which programme managers follow the projects closely, and the depth of writtenproject evaluations.


Introduction

must explicitly encourage pragmatism andresourcefulness on the part of staff working incrisis and post-conflict situations. In caseswhere country offices may be inclined to adoptan overly cautious approach, too easily viewingrules and regulations as nothing more than anexcuse to move slowly, management needs tostep in, and point out that the rules are meantto enhance accountability, not to prevent atimely response.

It is also important to note the inherent limitations of exercises to compare responsesfrom one case to the next, and to cull transferablestrategies and practices from one case to thenext. While post-conflict situations tend toexhibit a similar set of dynamics and challenges,each setting is unique, and demands closeattention to tailored responses appropriate tothat setting. While it is obviously wrong to claim that nothing can be learned across different cases, practitioners must exercisecaution and common sense not to exportwholesale flexible response tactics that may beinappropriate in a new setting. The lessonslearned and the emerging best practices highlighted below must be handled with thesecaveats in mind.

STRUCTURE OF THIS STUDY

This study draws on eight case studies ofUNDP’s work in post-conflict situations to draw lessons learned and identify emerging

best practices in organizational flexibility.Chapter One consists of an overview of post-conflict situations. Specifically, it inventoriesthe key characteristics of post-conflict situations,and identifies the most common challenges aidagencies face in post-conflict settings. Thischapter is intended to provide basic backgroundmaterial for readers who are not already intimatewith the nature of post-conflict settings. InChapter Two, the study explores the specificissue of organizational flexibility in post-conflictsituations, highlighting both the most commonorganizational constraints to flexible responseand the most useful innovations and adaptationsin the field. The conclusion draws on thiscomparative analysis to identify emerging bestpractices in flexible response, with a focus on twolevels of response – one, “enabling” practicesand policies that improve a country office’scapacity to respond flexibly, and two, specific“tools” of flexibility.

This study should be seen as a preliminarypoint of departure for discussion of flexibleoperational response. It is the first word,not the final word. This document, and thediscussions that it reflects, are intended to initiate a process of internal knowledge sharing.As additional experiences from other post-conflict situations are collected, the toolbox of flexible response introduced here will accumulate new innovations and techniques toincrease fast and flexible response. It is crucialthat the process of dialogue initiated with thisdocument be continued and seen as the real“deliverable” from this exercise.

17

CHAPTER IPOST-CONFLICT

SITUATIONS AND THE NATURE OF POST-CONFLICT

CHALLENGES

DEFINING POST-CONFLICT SITUATIONS

One of the more perplexing aspects of post-conflict assistance iscoming to terms with the concept of a post-conflict situation.Different conceptions and uses of the term have created confusionamong those who attempt to generalize across different cases. Forpractitioners with long experience in these settings, discussions devotedto defining this term are tedious and repetitive. What follows is abrief treatment of the definition of post-conflict situations for thebenefit of readers new to the issue. Readers who are already intimatewith post-conflict settings and the challenges they pose as operatingenvironments for development agencies are invited to proceeddirectly to Chapter II, where specific best practices from the casestudies are explored.

The expression “post-conflict” suggests a linear progression ofconflict, from pre-conflict to armed conflict to post-conflict. Fromthis perspective, each phase of the conflict cycle requires differenttypes of assistance. Pre-conflict aid is “normal” development assistanceand/or conflict prevention policies; aid in armed conflict is typicallyemergency relief; and aid in post-conflict situations tends to emphasisrehabilitation and reconstruction. The general public tends tounderstand and use the term in this way.

In reality, contemporary armed conflicts and the development challengesthey produce are not so easily defined and compartmentalized.Contemporary intra-state wars rarely produce outright victories andunambiguous post-conflict environments. Instead, truces, nationalreconciliation, and even the introduction of UN peacekeeping forcesoften exist in a context of continued episodic armed clashes, incompletepeace processes, and the threat of renewed clashes. As a result, aidagencies working in what appear to be post-conflict situations are

Ice candy being distributed freeof charge to children trauma-

tized by the earthquake in El Cafetalón, El Salvador.Photo: Pedro Cote/UNDP


Chapter I.Post-ConflictSituations and the Nature of Post-ConflictChallenges

19

often simultaneously dealing with active conflict zones as well as the threat of renewedviolence in other areas. So it is that post-conflict assistance includes a strong emphasis onconflict prevention – a recognition of the factthat post-conflict situations are simultaneouslypre-conflict situations as well.

In addition, post-conflict situations vary significantly, defying easy definitions and generalizations. Post-war situations in relativelydeveloped countries, where a skilled labor forceand a long history of effective governmentexists, are an entirely different challenge thanpost-conflict situations in third-world settings,where external assistance must begin from scratch.In this study, for instance, the post-conflictchallenges of Macedonia were only remotelysimilar to those that faced Mozambique andHaiti. Likewise, situations in which war damageand displacement were the result of an externalactor (for instance, East Timor or the WestBank) constitute a dramatically different settingthan countries torn apart by internal warfare.

Despite these variations, several features aretypical of contemporary post-conflict situations.The wars themselves have tended to be intra-stateconflicts of protracted duration; ethnic and/orreligious identity politics, including ethniccleansing, are common; militias in combat areoften unpaid, fighting in order to secure war-bootyas their pay; non-combatants have been targeted,and massacres are common; massive and wide-spread population displacement has occurredin almost every case; war economies have emergedin most instances, in which important elementsof society profiteer from and become stake-holders in continued violence and lawlessness;warfare itself is unconventional, sporadic,generally fought with small arms; respect forthe neutrality of international aid agencies isweak, and struggles to control aid resources are often an important component of armedconflicts; health care systems are pushed to thebrink of collapse, exposing the population tothe risk of epidemics; malnutrition is usuallywidespread; and governmental authority hasbeen weak to non-existent, including situationsof state collapse.

The post-war contexts that emerge fromthese protracted conflicts also share a set oftypical, though not universal, political, social,and economic features. These characteristics areessential to understand, as they shape the operatingenvironment for international aid agencies and

determine the priority rehabilitation needs ofthe country.

POST-CONFLICT ECONOMIC FEATURESn Widespread damage to the economic infra-

structure, resulting in dramatically reducedproductivity and high transaction costs incountries that are usually already quite poor

n Loss of business confidence; risk-averseinvestment patterns

n The rise of illicit economic activities andinterests, often with the involvement of powerful transnational criminal elements

n Dependence on remittances sent by theDiaspora, which sustains a large balance oftrade deficit

n Very high unemploymentn Very high national debt burdenn Weaknesses in key pillars of the economy –

financial services and banking, governmentcapacity to manage money supply (and hence inflation), insurance services, utilities,postal services.

n Deferred maintenance of infrastructure leftundamaged by the war; aging and deterioratingroads, runways, ports, buildings, national fleetof vehicles, ships, and planes, telecommunicationgrids, hospitals, and schools.

n Weakened human resource base; many educatedprofessionals have fled the country.

POST-CONFLICT POLITICAL FEATURESn National government with very limited means

(due to low tax revenue) and capacityn Fragile or incomplete national reconciliation

in a highly polarized political environmentn Weak legitimacy and capacity of police and

judiciaryn Warlordism; political leaders and their

followers who may not share a commitmentto return to the rule of law

n Consolidation of reconciliation process,including disputes related to compensation forlosses, property disputes, war crimes tribunals

n Restructuring of political system as part ofreconciliation and accommodation typicallyincluding power-sharing arrangements andpolitical decentralization

n Weak local (municipal) capacity to administern Strong, even hegemonic influence of external

political and economic actors such as theWorld Bank or powerful states

n Armed rejectionist groups that pose an activethreat or that possess the potential to destabilize




from the Field

Chapter I.Post-Conflict

Situations and the Nature of Post-Conflict

Challenges

20



POST-CONFLICT SOCIAL AND DEVELOPMENT FEATURESn Weak baseline data on key economic and

social trends n Widespread and massive population dis-

placementn Weakened or non-existent public social

services; heavy reliance on international reliefand development funding, privatization ofmost of the social service sector

n Challenges of reintegration of the “lost generation” of youth who were unable toattend school and who were recruited intomilitias during the war

n Erosion of social capital and social trustn Unresolved local disputes, divided villages

and communitiesn Heavily armed criminality; gang formation

by ex-militiamenn High levels of rural-urban migrationn Weak commitment to public goods and

to national, as opposed to parochial sub-national, interests

n A large diaspora, which can play an important role – both positive and negative –in politics and the economy

UNDP WORK IN POST-CONFLICT SITUATIONS AND “COUNTRIES IN SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES”

UNDP, like other UN specialized agencies, hashad to adapt to the reality that growing numbersof countries qualifying for overseas developmentassistance are also countries with a recent historyof armed conflict. By one count, fully one-quarterof UN member-states are embroiled in markedinternal conflicts; during the period 1989-1996there were 101 armed conflicts worldwide, ofwhich 96 were essentially intra-state.3 Therealization in the 1980s that emergency relief couldnot be decoupled from development assistancegave impetus to greater UNDP engagement in situations that previously been consideredinappropriate sites for development aid.

Since the early 1990s, UNDP’s expendituresfor countries in special circumstances have soared.In the 1992-1996 period alone, total UNDPbudgets for countries in special circumstancesreached $8.7 billion.4 UNDP’s role in post-conflict assistance has expanded as well. TheUNDP Resident Representative serves asResident Coordinator of all of the UN system’soperational activities for development, and asHumanitarian Coordinator. UNDP’s EmergencyResponse Division – ERD (recently expandedas the BCPR, the Bureau for Crisis Preventionand Recovery) – was established to serve as an“in-house mechanism set up to provide aquicker and more effective response in UNDP’sCountry Offices in Countries in SpecialDevelopment Situations.”5 Its expansion inyear 2001 into the Bureau for Crisis Preventionand Recovery is further testimony to both thecommitment to, and importance of, UNDP’sassistance to countries in the process of recoveringfrom natural and man-made disasters.

Five percent of total core resources inUNDP are now devoted to TRAC 3 funding,designed as seed money to be used as a catalystto attract additional donor funding to high priority projects in post-conflict countries.TRAC 3 funds are allocated to, and adminis-tered by, BCPR. Total annual TRAC 3 fundstotalled about $19 million for year 2002;the figure is expected to reach $24 million in 2003 and $27 million in 2004, 27.7 2005,6

for a total of about 98.6 million for the 2002-2005 period.

Core themes of UNDP work in post-conflictsettings have been established as “programmingfor peace and recovery; the building of justicesystems; the improvement of governance;government management of external resources;and the organization of elections.”7 In practice,UNDP’s work in post-conflict situations hasbeen quite broad in scope. A basic profile ofthe types of programmes UNDP has initiatedin post-conflict countries includes planning andeconomic management; facilitation of donor andNGO coordination; area rehabilitation anddevelopment; basic social services; reintegration;

21

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3. UNDP, Management Development and Governance Division, Governance Foundations for Post-Conflict Situations: UNDP’sExperience (UNDP, November 1999), pp. 5-6.

4. Ibid., p. 10.

5. UNDP CPC,“About the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery.” http://www.undp.org/erd/about.htm

6. Forecast, BOM/OBR, Nov 2002.

7. DP/1997/CRP.10,“Further Elaboration on Follow-Up to Economic and Social Council Resolution 1995/96 – Strengtheningof the Coordination of Emergency Humanitarian Assistance” Executive Board of the UNDP, 1-14 March 1997.

mine-clearance; elections; rebuilding institutionsof governance (including capacity-building ofthe judiciary, legislative, and executive branchesof government); strengthening capacity of civilianpolice; managing delivery of programme aid; andemergency response and crisis management.8

UNDP’s wide range of programs and projectsin post-conflict situations have generally beencentered on the goal of capacity-building at thenational, municipal, and civil society levels, andon the goal of prevention of the reemergence ofconflict. Capacity building is imperative in mostwar-torn settings, where protracted conflict oftenresults in low capacity due a variety of factors:

n the loss of many of the country’s most skilledprofessional to exodus abroad (the “brain-drain”);

n an entire ‘lost generation’ of young adultswhose access to education has been restrictedby protracted war;

n weak, non-existent, or out-of-date baseline dataon which governments depend for programmeand policy planning;

n orroded standard accounting and reportingprocedures due to years of warlordism andstate collapse;

n decentralization programs (a typical featureof reconciliation packages), which expose theweak capacity of local or municipal authorities.

COMMON CHALLENGES IN POST-CONFLICTOPERATING ENVIRONMENTSDespite the unique aspects of each post-conflictsituation, they tend to share similar characteristicsthat produce challenging operating environmentsfor aid agencies. These broad situational challengeshave as their common denominator an operationalbackdrop of rapid change, typically driven bythe opportunities created by the cessation ofhostilities, or in the case of natural disasters,the conflagration of needs. In both cases,another driving force for change is the large-scale influx of programming assistance by theinternational community.

What follows is a brief profile of the mostcommon types of situational challenges encounteredin these settings. They are broken down intotwo general categories: (1) sudden surprises orrapid changes in the operating environment;(2) endemic constraints and challenges in theoperating environment. Familiarity with thesechallenges can help project staff anticipate and

assess situations requiring flexible response, therebystrengthening institutional capacity to fashionappropriate and effective policy responses.

SUDDEN CHANGES IN NATIONALOPERATING ENVIRONMENT Countries emerging from armed conflicts areespecially prone to shocks and setbacks, whichcan dramatically alter the operating environmentof aid agencies.9 Among the most common ofthese shocks include the following:

n Sudden influx of returnees. Armed conflictsoften produce large numbers of internallydisplaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, num-bering in the hundreds of thousands or evenmillions. Though home and host governmentsand the specialized agencies which care forIDPs and refugees make attempts to managethe flow of returnees in an orderly fashion,in many instances IDP and refugee return is spontaneous, massive, and uncontrolled.They return to villages and towns that are often war-damaged and unable to provide basic services; to homes that areuninhabitable or occupied; and to communitieswhich are impoverished and stressed, andunable to provide vital temporary support toreturnees.This situation can quickly transformpost-war rehabilitation and reconstructionagendas into humanitarian response, requiringa great deal of flexibility on the part of aidagencies and donors alike. One of the mostrecent instances of this phenomenon was thedramatic return of 750,000 Kosovar refugees(of a total refugee population of 800,000) totheir homes in the aftermath of the NATObombings and Serb military withdrawal fromKosovo in 1999. Rwanda in 1996-97 alsohad to shoulder the unplanned flow of nearlytwo million returnees within the span of threemonths. A case can be made that large-scale,spontaneous influx of returnees and IDPs isso frequent in post-war countries that thephenomenon should be treated as a “routinizedemergency” (comparable to UNICEF’s prepa-ration for seasonal cholera outbreaks in somecountries) for which funds and contingencyplans are put in place in advance.

n Renewed armed conflict. “Post-war” countriesmay or may not be at peace. In someinstances, cessation of hostilities is imposed by




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8. MDG,“Governance Foundations” p. 9.

9. Most of these shocks are not unique to post-conflict countries – they can and do occur everywhere. But post-conflict countriestend to be much more vulnerable to dramatic and often negative changes in the operating environment.



external intervention, in which case nationalreconciliation efforts occur simultaneouslywith rehabilitation and recovery programs. Inother cases, reconciliation has been achievedbut produces a fragile and uneasy peace. Someconstituencies may remain deeply aggrievedby losses in the war, while some warlords andmerchants of war may try to provoke renewedconflict in pursuit of their own parochialinterests. Elections can trigger renewed conflict,when a losing candidate rejects the outcome andresorts to warfare. In virtually all instances,post-conflict situations are exceptionally proneto renewed armed conflict. Where armedconflicts are localized, they produce relativelymanageable challenges for aid agencies,including the need to infuse peacebuilding andreconciliation goals into rehabilitation projects.This was the situation in Rwanda where until2001, there were serious and constant clashesand insurgencies in the northwestern section ofthe country.Where renewed armed conflicts areserious, they produce immediate humanitarianemergencies (IDP flows, war casualties), createdangerous operating environments for aidagencies which can lead to suspension ofprojects, and politicize aid agency partnershipwith local actors. Cambodia, Liberia, Angola,Somalia, and Sierra Leone are but a few ofthe many instances of post-conflict situationsdegenerating back into armed conflict.

n Collapse of the government. State collapseis a growing phenomenon in the post ColdWar era and is almost always accompaniedby some level of armed conflict. Post-conflictsituations, then, often involve the revival ofcentral government structures and capacity, andan operating environment typically featuringa weak and fragile state. In some cases, weakor fledgling administrations are confronted withcrises that erode their ability to perform themost basic administrative functions. Wherestate collapse occurs quickly, aid agencies areconfronted by a host of challenges – the lossof a competent national authority as partner,rising lawlessness and security problems, sharpdisputes over authority, and autonomous orsecessionist regional authorities. In Rwanda,for instance, before the Rwandan PatrioticForce (RPF) could consolidate itself as analternative government in a few months following the genocide in 1994, there was atotal collapse of central authority. For aidagencies, this scenario requires project executionmodalities which increase flexibility and

effectiveness – via direct execution, or executionby other UN agencies or international NGOs.This can reduce problems associated withcompeting local claims on authority and lowgovernmental capacity. Flexibility is alsorequired to manage the disruptions caused byintermittent suspension of aid projects forsecurity reasons. Liberia, Congo-Brazzaville,and Afghanistan are but a few examples ofsudden state collapse requiring flexibility onthe part of aid agencies.

n National economic crisis. Because the riskof political reversals in post-conflict situationsis high, economic confidence is typically fragile,making post-conflict situations especially proneto sudden economic crises. Hyperinflation,capital flight, debt burdens, and loss of revenuedue to corruption, threat of war, or otherpolitical crisis can quickly reduce a nationalgovernment’s capacity to co-finance and execute projects, and in severe cases can leadto the need for aid agencies to shift focus toshort-term income generation and provisionof basic social services. In Macedonia, aneconomic crisis provoked by sudden outbreakof civil war in 2000 created precisely such achallenge to UNDP, which had to shift itsfocus to income generation. An even moresevere economic crisis in Lebanon in the late1990s forced UNDP to engage in creativefinancing arrangements. Very poor countriesenduring economic crises also present a problemof limited absorptive capacity of rehabilitationaid and other economic distortions. In Rwanda,for instance, the high flow of foreign aidreduced incentive for the government to adjustits exchange regime to reflect its market value,thus creating an overvalued national currency.

n Change of national government. Post-conflictsituations usually involve the rebuilding ofpolitical processes that include elections. Whenelections produce a transfer of power, flexibilityon the part of external aid agencies is essential.In transitional democracies, transfers of powercan lead to wholesale removal of civil servantsin ministries (either because the previousadministration used positions in the civil servicefor political patronage or because the newadministration seeks to dole out positions in thecivil service to its clients). Unless partnershipsand working relationships between aid agenciesand their government counterparts are highlyinstitutionalized (as opposed to highly person-alized, which is the more common situation),the aid agencies must cope with disrupted 23

projects, long transitional periods in which keyposts may not be filled, and in some instancesgrave suspicion by the incoming administrationtoward any project or program which its rivalinitiated. Aid agencies can even come undersuspicion of having supported individuals oradministrations through their partnerships,engendering distrust and obstructionism. InLebanon, a 1998 change in government resultedin a decline in delivery of projects. UNDP/Ministry of Displaced project used that periodto catch up on internal reporting and statisticalanalysis, thus using its time effectively toanalyze the wealth of demographic data ithad collected earlier gave it a very impressivecapacity to move quickly and with first-rateknowledge of local communities once theperiod of paralysis ended. As is noted in theconclusion, this was a good example of an“enabling” practice that gave UNDP bettercapacity for fast response.

n Military occupation or withdrawal. Civil warssometimes draw neighboring countries intothe fray, creating unpredictable post-conflictsituations involving a sudden foreign militaryoccupation of part of a country, or a suddenwithdrawal of a foreign force.These situationsrequire flexibility from aid agencies which mustestablish understanding with an occupying poweror which must cope with the power vacuumthat can ensue when an external military quicklywithdraws. Southern Lebanon presented UNDPand other aid agencies with just this situationin 2000, when Israel abruptly terminated atwenty-year military occupation of the area.It was only because of an impressive level ofinstitutional agility that UNDP was able to manage the many challenges the Israeliwithdrawal posed (see chapter III andAppendix C). The withdrawal of Serbian forcesfrom Kosovo, and the Indonesian military fromEast Timor, created political vacuums whichwere eventually filled by UN trusteeships, butwhich posed daunting short-term challenges.

n Change or collapse of local interlocutors/partners. Local administrations and civilsociety in post-conflict situations are often nothighly institutionalized, and hence vulnerableto greater levels of instability and change thanis often the case elsewhere. Aid agencies relyheavily on local partners – both municipalitiesand non-governmental organizations – whichcan experience turbulent changes in personnelor which are of short duration as functionalinstitutions. This forces aid agencies to beflexible in their partnerships with local inter-

locutors. This is especially common in countrieswith weak human resource levels; good localpartners are often hired away by internationalaid agencies.

n Change of government policy. Sudden shiftsin government policy which can impactdevelopment programs and which requireflexible response by aid agencies are hardlyunique to post-conflict situations; they are acommon challenge in all development work.But because post-conflict situations typicallyfeature less institutionalized governance andmore volatile politics, significant shifts ingovernment policy are especially prevalent inpost-conflict situations. These policy shifts canbe directed at a particular project, at a sector,or at the UN itself. It can also include seachanges in the government’s own administrativestructures. One example of particular relevanceto post-conflict situations is the announcementof a policy of political decentralization.Political decentralization is popular with donorsas a means of promoting good governanceand accountability and of diffusing lingeringcommunal tensions in the aftermath of a war.In quite a few post-conflict situations (includingMacedonia and Lebanon in this study) this hasled to shifts in administrative responsibilityto the local level. As will be seen below,UNDP has been uniquely well placed toadapt to this particular change in policy.

n Natural disasters. As with many of these otherchallenges, natural disasters are not unique topost-conflict situations but tend to be moredisruptive and deadly when they occur inpost-conflict settings, where local responsecapacity is weak. An impressive number ofthe case studies reviewed here feature suddennatural disasters that required immediate andflexible response on the part of UNDP andits peer agencies. Flooding in Mozambique, theimpact of Hurricane Mitch in El Salvador,and earthquakes in Kosovo, El Salvador, PapuaNew Guinea all required shifts to emergencyresponse at short notice, testing the organiza-tional agility of UNDP. Where post-conflictsituations are located in zones especially proneto natural disasters, contingency planning tofacilitate shifting gears from rehabilitation toemergency response work is prudent.

ENDEMIC CONSTRAINTS IN THE OPERATING ENVIRONMENTIn addition to sudden surprises, post-conflictsituations tend to reflect a syndrome of politicaland economic features which pose constraints on




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conventional delivery of rehabilitation assistanceand which require operational flexibility on thepart of aid agencies. Some of the more significantof these features include the following:

n Weak baseline data. A common characteristicof post-conflict operating environments is weakbaseline data, often a result of destroyed, long-neglected, or politically distorted socio-economic information as a whole. In placessuch as Kosovo, East Timor (now Timor Leste),and Afghanistan, for example, ruling groupsthat distinguished themselves by means ofethnic, political, or religious differences activelysought to eliminate any historical trace ofthose outside, or opposed to, their grouping.Particularly when UNDP seeks to assist abeneficiary group long oppressed by an erstwhileruling power, the likelihood of unreliable – oraltogether absent - baseline data is high. TheUNDP-Japan joint evaluation on East Timorand Kosovo noted that the systematicdestruction of historical archives on socio-economic information created a vacuum ofreliable baseline data. In such contexts, theonly solution is to undertake a rapid needsassessment; and in view of the constantlychanging and at-times hostile working environment, to seek to update such baselinedata with intermittent follow-up needsassessments. In Afghanistan, UNDP, led byits Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recoveryand the Regional Bureau for Asia and thePacific, in December 2001 and January 2002carried out an extensive assessment of socialand infrastructure needs that provided a basis for donor pledging at the Tokyo donorconference in January 2002. The Afghanadministration, working with the internationalcommunity, has recently launched anotherround of needs assessment.

n Multi-stage project approval and resourceallocation. Post-conflict assistance is a high-profile area of international cooperation, wherethe political stakes are high, and not only in the beneficiary country. Indeed, donorgovernments and developments organizationsthemselves have strong incentives to make surethat all goes according to their plans; the problemis that, given the diversity in institutionalinterests, the priorities that drive donors andinternational organizations are not alwaysconsistent. For this reason, the process ofapproving post-conflict assistance projects canbe relatively long and cumbersome; normal

time lags suddenly become problematic inview of the emergency needs and high levelof desperation of post-conflict communities,both requiring accelerated response time. Forits part, UNDP is often at the center of athick web of institutional review mechanismsthat include itself (and the various entitiestherein), the UN (the UN Controller oftenbeing the guardian of Trust Funds) and donorcapitols. Given the stakes involved, as well asthe technical complexity of the projects beingproposed, the vetting process is often guided bythe proverbial fine-toothed comb. Whereassuch delays may be taken with an air of resignation in non-crisis situations, they suddenly constitute a major problem – and acause for at-times irreversible disillusionmentamong target beneficiaries - in crises that beckonfor immediate programme implementation.

n High turnover among international staff.Another constraint intrinsic to post-conflictsituations is high turnover of internationalstaff. Far more so than in non-conflict countries,UN-affiliated staff are usually posted in thecrisis country for brief periods, due not leastto the challenges – physical and emotional –that attend daily life in war-torn societies. Inaddition to the rapid turnover of internationalstaff, the pool of potential national programmeofficers may be depleted as well, due to lowlevels of education (attributed to systematicrepression or full-scale diversion of resourcesto the military), large-scale displacement and/orkilling of particular groups, brain drain, andheightened competition among internationalorganizations for the limited pool of skilledindividuals. These dynamics constrain theaccumulation and maintenance of an institu-tional memory, key to operational consistencyand agility in post-conflict situations.

n Limited public sector capacity. Governmentsin post-conflict situations are generally weak(especially when a civil war creates a brain-drain),politically tenuous and divided (if they reflecta power-sharing arrangement), and not alwayscapable of extending their rule over formerrebel areas. These woes are compounded bytypically high levels of public distrust andlow levels of tax revenues, either because ofan impoverished economy or a low capacity tocollect taxes (or both). This situation makesit very difficult for UNDP and other agenciesto rely on the government to directly executeprojects. Use of “DEX” or direct execution 25

modalities by UNDP is the instrument providing the organization the flexibility towork in such exceptional circumstanceseffectively. Most of the cases studies exploredhere involved country offices that had beengranted the right to directly execute projects.

n Incomplete peace processes/divided commu-nities. Post-conflict situations do not alwaysinclude a complete and comprehensive nationalreconciliation. Far from following peace accordsin a neat sequence, assistance programs oftenplay an integral role in the peace-buildingprocess itself. This places aid agencies andtheir projects in zones where communitiesremain divided and tense, making communalcooperation difficult. Mistakes by aid agenciesin such environments can actually triggerrenewed conflict. Because aid agencies rarelypossess the level of intimate knowledge oflocal conflicts to step into these situationswithout making potentially costly mistakes,flexibility is required to draw on outsidesources for that expertise. In Mount Lebanon,villages which were still not formally reconciledafter the war were designated “conflict villages;”UNDP did not initiate any rehabilitation workthere until the national government hadcompleted a reconciliation process with thepolitical and religious leaders. This flexibleresponse to a delicate political situation provedto be a valuable mechanism for shifting primaryresponsibility for reconciliation into the handsof local authorities. In Rwanda, UNDP helpedto promote peacebuilding by supporting for theresearch and implementation of the country’s“gacaca” law – the indigenous judicial system –through the Centre for Conflict Managementat the National University of Rwanda in Butare.10

n Lawlessness and criminality. Countriesemerging from conflicts must demobilizemilitia and re-establish law and order inregions where warfare created environmentsconducive to the rise of armed criminality.Unpaid and unemployed militiamen oftencontribute to criminality in the immediateaftermath of a cessation of hostilities, especiallyin counties where recruits have little educationand few prospects for work. In some cases,

war zones can foster the rise of local mafias andeven transnational criminal rings. Aid agenciesdangling jobs, contracts, and money in thesesettings run the risk of serious run-ins withcriminal elements, and must learn how towork around a range of problems – extortion,protection money, kidnapping, death threats,and theft – which tend to be less prevalentthan in other development settings.

n Erosion of trust and social capital. Onerecurrent concern in the post-conflict recon-struction was the fragility of the local socialenvironment. Conflicts normally shatterpeople’s concepts of trust and leave social scars,bad memories and mistrust, which do turnthe post-conflict era into contending issueseven among a people in a dire need of relief.Even when open hostility is declared to beover, a sense of insecurity continues to loomover the community. Thus, in some instancesin the post-conflict reconstruction, the peoplemust be assisted in their attempt to rebuildsocial trust and networks for collective problemsolving. As has often been noted, the voluntaryconvergence of diverse groups of people whoshare a common interest and concern is a strongindication of the move toward civic solidarityand collective action. The strategy for buildingthis social resource for development rests ona framework that builds on “social capital.”

There are many other important situationalchallenges common to post-conflict situations.Corruption, weak civil society, shortages ofskilled professionals in the local labor market,and a host of factors also require agility andflexibility on the part of aid agencies. Many ofthese conditions, however, are constraints facedin conventional development settings as well, andcannot be isolated as post-conflict challenges.

Collectively, this syndrome of conditions andconstraints common to post-conflict situationsplaces enormous pressure on UNDP and peeragencies to respond flexibly to circumvent andavoid obstacles to fast and effective assistance.The particular types of organizational challengesthese situations create, and some innovativesources of operational flexibility to meet thosechallenges, are the subject of Chapter Two.




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10. Centre de Gestion des Conflits,“Les Juridictions Gacaca et le Processus de Reconciliation Nationale,”Cahiers du Gestion desConflicts, No. 3 and “Raptures Socioculturelles et Conflit au Rwanda,”Cahiers du Gestion des Conflicts, No. 2, Universite Nationaledu Rwanda, Butare.

CHAPTER IIA TYPOLOGY OF

OPERATIONAL FLEXIBILITY

The preceding chapter defined post conflict situations and the constraints that complicate flexible operational performance therein.The next chapter (III: “Best Practices and Lessons Learned”) willprovide a detailed inventory of best practices and lessons learned inflexible response. What follows below, in the present chapter, is adiscussion on the broad categories of flexible response required at thecountry level – a general typology of flexibility defined by informationgathered during interviews for this exercise. Whereas this chapterdefines, in broad terms, the kinds of flexibility required duringUNDP response formulation and implementation, the subsequentchapter provides more detailed information on the precise practicesat the disposal of country offices.

Over the years UNDP’s procedures and modalities have, like thoseof other large firms, grown increasingly complex and intertwined.Donor governments, responsible for providing an-ever greater shareof UNDP resources, are demanding to be kept informed of howtheir contributions are being used. With each passing year, additionalreporting requirements, greater demands for coordination andaccountability, and new development agendas to be incorporatedinto projects all contribute to institutional sclerosis. Yet in the newpost-conflict situations in which UNDP now works, where rapid andflexible response is vital, these organizational features constitute morethan an inconvenience – they can actually be a barrier to effective action.

During this exercise, UNDP staff regularly acknowledged the needfor UNDP to operate more quickly and with greater agility in responseto crises and post-conflict situations; rather than pointing blame,however, many attributed this need to the ongoing evolution ofUNDP, accelerated in recent years, from an organization that oncespecialized exclusively in the provision of technical cooperation assistanceto one that is now increasingly being tasked with rapid provision ofemergency assistance in fast-moving post-conflict contexts. Manystaff point out that, at the end of the day, the question of whether acountry office meets the challenge of operational flexibility dependsnot so much on existing institutional constraints or administrative rulesand regulations but rather on whether the Resident Representative

Small arms laid out fordestruction in the former

Yugoslavia. Photo: UNDP/Serbia and Montenegro


Chapter II.A Typology ofOperationalFlexibility

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and his or her staff are willing to take the riskto circumvent long-ingrained bureaucraticobstacles in order to get the job done responsiblyyet resourcefully. In this light, the question at handis not whether the rules prevent operationalflexibility or not, but whether, in acting expedi-tiously and pragmatically, staff have achieved theright balance between speed and accountability.Whether with regard to redirecting budgetaryresources to emergency needs, procuring suppliesrapidly, or mobilizing the right team of experts,the collective attitude of country office staff,in this light, is even more important than the administrative obstacles inherent in a system traditionally geared to slow-movingtechnical assistance.

Many of the examples of flexible responsewere driven not by the need to cope withbureaucratic obstacles, but rather with fundingproblems. Budgetary constraints constitutedthe single most important obstacle demandinginnovation and flexibility to execute missions,and in field interviews were consistently theoverriding preoccupation of UNDP officers.Quick access to greater levels of unrestrictedfunds was viewed as the single most importanttool for promoting organizational flexibility inpost-conflict situations. Ironically, though, itwas precisely the absence of adequate andtimely funding which in some cases yielded themost innovative and flexible responses.

The following are broad categories of flexibleresponse, including examples from country officeexperience that clarify the problems at hand aswell as useful solutions. The following narrativeis aimed at distinguishing the various phases ofresponse formulation and implementation thatare required in order to effectively respond tocrisis and post-conflict situations.

1. RAPID DEPLOYMENTOF UNDP EXPERTISE TO THE CRISIS AREA

Whether in response to a cessation of hostilities,which may open up a given province to inter-national assistance, or the onset of a naturaldisaster, it is often the case that UNDP needsto mobilize and deploy expertise to an areawhere it has had no established presence – oreven contact – hitherto. The related challengesare many, including those internal to UNDPitself, which may or may not have the staff or

expertise readily available to urgently deploy toa crisis situation.

The Bureau for Crisis Prevention andRecovery (BCPR) is the linchpin of UNDP’sglobal network of experts who can be rapidlydeployed to crisis areas.

UNDP is currently addressing the questionof how to more effectively deploy staff withexpertise in non-programming areas such asprocurement, finance, logistics and accounting.Though such skills may not often be recognizedas key to effective crisis management, in reality,they constitute the crucial organizational foundation on which programming staff cando their job. In the autumn of 2002, BOM was in the midst of carrying out an internalcapacity assessment aimed at identifyingUNDP staff within such areas as procurement,finance, personnel, who could be easilydeployed to crisis areas on short notice.

2. REORIENTATION OF PROGRAMMES TO INCORPORATE NEW GOALS

One of the most impressive, widespread, andsuccessful examples of institutional agility in thecase studies under review was the ability ofUNDP country teams to adjust projects inorder to meet new and unexpected local needs.Because post-conflict situations are fast-movingtargets, original project documents cannot beexpected to predict changes in socio-economicneeds. The ability to “tweak” existing projectsor programmes to address an unexpected localneed or crisis rather than initiate an entirelynew project proposal or programme – whichcan take a considerable amount of time – gaveUNDP country teams the flexibility they neededto respond effectively. As our field research onEl Salvador noted, “to the extent that theirobjectives are consistent with those which emergein the immediate aftermath of a crisis, existingprojects can provide a sufficient vehicle for theapplication of emergency donor funding”.

The need to adjust project and programmegoals tended to occur for one of three reasons.First, programme reorientation was sometimesrequired in order to enable a rehabilitation and development project to address a suddenhumanitarian emergency. In Macedonia, forinstance, UNDP’s original CCF of September




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1997 identified the environment as one of fourpriority areas, and 41% of its expenditures through1999 were targeted at several environment-related projects.11 When war in neighboringKosovo triggered a massive flow of KosovarAlbanian refugees into Macedonia in March1999, the already strained Macedonian economy(which was coping with unemployment levelsbetween 25% and 31%) had great difficultyabsorbing the costs. At the household level,many Macedonians of Albanian ethnic originprovided food and shelter for refugees, butwere increasingly unable to cope. In response,UNDP and the municipalities of the twolargest and most vulnerable cities, Tetova andSkopje, developed the “Clean and Green” project.It was an innovative attempt to fold a critical andimmediate emergency response – the creationof short-term employment opportunities in themidst of an economic and social crisis – into aproject that also included environmentalimprovement and municipal capacity building.Thanks to access to TRAC 1.1.2 funds, UNDPwas able to assemble an initial $300,000 projectwithin two months of the outbreak of the refugeecrisis. Its successful marriage of emergencyemployment generation with longer-termdevelopment goals earned the Clean andGreen project high marks and garnered it additional funding from donors, so that theproject eventually expanded to 80 municipalitiesin a four-phased project. UNDP was able tosustain the project beyond its initial phase inpart because donors were acutely aware of thecrisis, were heavily invested in the political andeconomic stability of Macedonia, and wereeager to assist projects which enjoyed suchhigh visibility and clear success in easing thestrain caused by the refugee crisis. It was atextbook example of rapid response to a suddenemergency need through astute programmingto fuse rehabilitation and relief goals in a singleproject. Far from encountering donor resistance(a factor discussed below), this type of flexibleresponse was applauded and supported by donors.

Another example of adjustment of projects tomeet immediate emergency response occurredin Mozambique. There, catastrophic floodingin March 2000 compelled UNDP to redesignone of its ongoing projects – Assistance toPost-Conflict Capacity Building for ProvincialAuthorities – to include the objective of

rehabilitating flood-damaged areas and infra-structure. In this instance, the temporary shiftin objectives led to a delay in the project implementation as a whole, but the governmentand donors recognized and supported the flexibleresponse by UNDP.

Second, project and programme goals mustsometimes be recalibrated in order to respond tourgent political and reconciliation priorities arisingfrom ongoing efforts to consolidate a fragilenational or local post-war peace. Rehabilitationaid is often viewed as a crucial ingredient in a“peace dividend” in post-conflict situations. Inthe immediate aftermath of a Peace accord,aid can and should serve as a political tool forconfidence building and to help build bridgesof sectoral cooperation across old conflict lines,as part of a “peacebuilding” mandate. In somecases, projects that were originally designedwith a strictly sectoral rehabilitation focus arecalled upon to play a broader political role inthis manner. In a post-conflict situation wherepeace or renewed war hangs in the balance, thecall to harness rehabilitation projects to buildconfidence and peace is imperative.

Where political factors constitute the overriding concern of post-conflict initiatives,confidence building and peace-building goalscan come to play a much more significant rolethan the original sectoral rehabilitation objectivesof a project. Weaving confidence-building andpeace-building themes into existing sectoralprojects faces few organizational and financialconstraints; it is generally limited only by theresponsiveness, ingenuity, and risk-managementinstincts of the UNDP country office. In Lebanon,the second phase of the “Socio-economicRehabilitation Programme for SouthernLebanon” began in September 2000 in theimmediate aftermath of the Israeli withdrawalfrom southern Lebanon; its stated goal was tocatalyze economic and social rehabilitation of aregion which had been severed from Lebanonfor almost two decades, and which is the poorestregion of the country. But over time it quicklybecame apparent that the most importantfunction the UNDP programme played was asa confidence-building measure for communitieswhere the Lebanese government has as yet hadlittle capacity to project a presence followingthe Israeli withdrawal.

Similar adjustments were in ample evidence

29__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

11. Gallagher, Dennis, et al., Country Programme Review of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Skopje: UNDP, Feb. 2000), p. 1.

in other cases under review. In Haiti, UNDPwas forced to shift programme aids towardsgreater advocacy for human rights followingpolitical crackdowns on human rights groups.In the aftermath of unexpected civil war inMacedonia, UNDP’s projects with municipalitiessuddenly took on an important new purpose asa conduit for communication across conflictlines and as one of a handful of functionalactivities that fostered gradually confidence-building measures between the governmentand ethnic Albanian officials. In Mozambique,UNDP had to undertake some unexpected tasksduring the start-up period of the project –National Integrated Programme for SocialAction, Employment and Youth – in order toreduce a risk of failure emanating from conflictingpolitical objectives between the two previouslywarring factions of FRELIMO and RENAMO.In Papua New Guinea, where the problems offear and lack of trust continued to militateagainst collective action and social interde-pendence, it became necessary for UNDP tosupport social capital development as confidenceand peace-building mechanisms. This wasintegrated into the Bougainville Rehabilitation,Reconstruction and Development Project, UNDP’smain post-conflict assistance in the country.This assistance to social capital formation inBougainville was in the form of support for thepromotion of unity-building through sports andcourses in skill training, both of which broughttogether people of differing and sometimeshostile political persuasions. The main initiativein this direction was the Arawa Soccer Association,a product of an innovative sub-project calledthe Community Development through SportInitiative, which has attracted men and women of different clans and districts andpolitical backgrounds.

When project goals evolve from primarilysectoral rehabilitation to a more political purposesuch as confidence-building, peace-building, orhuman rights, and are openly recognized assuch by local and national partners, donors,and project officers, a shift occurs in the way projects are conceived and implemented.Specifically, while comprehensive confidence-building takes time, its immediate outputs mayoften be short-term, so projects which wereadapted to this end tended to be less consumedby concerns over sustainability and output.




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30

REORIENTATION OF PROJECTS AND PROGRAMMES TO INCORPORATE NEW GOALS: MACEDONIA’S “CLEAN AND GREEN” PROJECT

During the 1990’s, Macedonia had relativelyhigh development indicators, and UNDP’s initialpresence in the country centred on conventionaldevelopment objectives such as environmentalprotection. Indeed, the 1997 Country CooperationFramework (CCF) highlighted the environmentas one of four key priority programme areas, and41% of UNDP’s expenditures through 1999 weredevoted to several key environmental projects.12

In 1999, however, with the onset of the Kosovorefugee crisis, UNDP was suddenly forced toreorient its programme focus to assist Macedonia’scrisis management efforts.

An example of successful programme reorien-tation in this context was the project “MunicipalEmployment Assistance Programme: Clean andGreen Macedonia.” Clean and Green was conceivedprior to the refugee crisis, and originally hadtwo interrelated goals. The first was to gener-ate short-term employment by hiring unskilledworkers for labor-intensive solid waste removalprojects. The second was to improve environ-mental management in municipalities andimprove the quality of the environmentthrough proper disposal of solid waste.

With the onset of the refugee crisis, Cleanand Green’s focus shifted dramatically. Althoughits environmental objectives were still pursued,the primary focus of the project quickly becamethe urgent need to provide stressed localhouseholds with cash income. Clean and Greeneventually became UNDP’s most visible andarguably most successful project in Macedonia.It also proved to be one of the most flexible ofUNDP’s interventions, a factor which contributedto its strong reputation. Flexibility was enabledin large part because Clean and Green was builtaround a series of short-term, localized employ-ment projects that could easily be transferredto whichever region or vulnerable populationneeded it. Its success was also due to its abilityto provide large numbers of badly needed jobsvery quickly. In addition, flexibility was furtherenabled by the relatively streamlined and “doable”small projects involved, which did not requireextensive design and feasibility studies.

That same flexibility of objectives was successfully exploited again in early 2001, whenthe outbreak of armed conflict between ethnicMacedonians and Albanians created a largegroup of IDPs. The conflict immediately broughtemergency need objectives back to the forefrontof the project, and once again, Clean and Greenwas able to refocus its environmental orientationtowards the immediate need of job creation.The lesson learned was that flexibility in thereorientation of projects and programmes tomeet new goals can pay large dividends whencrises emerge.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

12. Gallagher, Dennis, et al., Country Programme Review of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Skopje: UNDP, Feb. 2000), p. 1.



One major concern that arose in interviewswas the need for evaluation teams to recognizethe value of confidence building even whenoriginal project documents do not explicitlyidentify that as a goal. Likewise, the growingpreoccupation of evaluators and some donorson “measurable outputs” is seen as discouragingthis kind of flexible response to an urgentpeacebuilding goal, in that confidence-buildingis an intangible. Projects that come to includepolitical objectives such as peacebuilding needto be measured with a different yardstick.

Third, project goals must sometimes beadjusted in light of rapidly changing economicor social conditions in post-conflict situations.Strict adherence to project documents when aproject goal is no longer relevant or when greaterrehabilitation needs arise would constitute a wasteof scarce resources. This situation is especiallycommon in high-visibility post-conflict situationsthat attract a large influx of donor funds andinternational aid agencies that may not coordinateeffectively; the result is often redundant projectsand embarrassing gaps if agencies are not sufficiently flexible. But it can occur quite easilyeven in the most well coordinated emergencysettings, due to the rapidly changing needscommon in humanitarian emergencies. In ElSalvador, UNICEF secured funds for a majorwater supply project in the aftermath ofHurricane Mitch, only to realize through anupdated needs assessment that clean water wasless urgent a need than latrines. Consultationswith the donors enabled UNICEF to reroutethe funding to the appropriate need. This particular case highlighted the need to informdonors of the possible weaknesses of needsassessments in the immediate aftermath of amajor disaster, when reliable information is notalways available. Once kept informed, donorsusually prove to be more flexible themselves andnot a major impediment to shifting of resources.Another example occurred in Kosovo, where thesizable flow of external aid money to rebuildand repair housing damaged in the war led to asituation where aid agencies were in possessionof funds for housing renovation which was notneeded in their area of operation.

Whatever the reason for adjustment of projectobjectives, a crucial parameter of flexible responseis the donor. As a general rule, donors havestrict regulations about deviations from statedproject aims, and sharp restrictions on how fundscan be expended. From a donor perspective,

accountability generally trumps flexibility inthe disbursal of project funds. Yet the fieldstudies explored here suggest that donors aregenerally much more receptive to, and evenadvocates of, project adjustments in mid-stream –if those adjustments focus on emergencyresponse or consolidation of political confidence-building measures in a country in which thedonor has strong political interests. In the twoBalkan states of Kosovo and Macedonia, forinstance, European donors have an enormouspolitical and strategic stake in response toemergencies and to peacebuilding through aid.Donors in those settings tended to be quiteamenable to project and programme adjustmentswhich showed flexibility in addressing thoseconcerns. In the case of Mozambique, the revisionof UNDP’s “Post-Conflict Capacity Buildingin Provincial Governments” not only received theendorsement of the donors but even attractedadditional donors.

The case studies explored here suggest afour-step process to the practice of programmereorientation and project adjustment: (1) ensurea firm commitment to the new changes from thedonor source; (2) revise the project document toadapt objectives or introduce new ones; (3) gainformal approval of project revision, by means of government signature; (4) apply donordeposit to replace resources consumed by theemergency response.

3. SECURING START-UP FUNDING

Rapid response to sudden crises requiresimmediate access to funds to cover start-upproject costs. Those types of funds are very difficult to secure in a timely fashion, leadingto delays which are politically costly and whichcan exact an unacceptable toll in human lives.The established process of seeking funding –conducting a needs assessment, drawing up aproject proposal, seeking donor approval, awaitingdonor release of funds, and fielding a team orarranging for local subcontracting to execute theproject is even in the best of situations cumber-some, and in worst-case scenarios disastrouslylate to the scene. Purchase on credit is strictlyprohibited by UNDP and UN financial rules,making access to start-up funds even moreimperative. Constraints and delays associatedwith start-up funding were one of the mostcommonly cited frustrations in the case-studies 31

under review, and were viewed by most individuals interviewed both in and out of UNDPas a principle obstacle to flexible response.

Yet the cases under review also unveilednumerous tools and techniques for securing start-up funding, sometimes in unconventional ways:

USE OF TRAC 3 FUNDINGThis budget line, allocated by the Bureau forCrisis Prevention and Recovery, is UNDP’sinstitutional source of start-up funding in post-conflict situations. Though it is viewedinternally primarily as “seed money” – that is,funding which enables UNDP to start up aproject which will then, hopefully, attractdonor funding and lead to others – it can alsoplay a vital role in enabling UNDP to movequickly in response to unexpected crises. InLebanon, for instance, TRAC 3 funds in theamount of $1 million were earmarked for UNDP’s“Socio-economic Rehabilitation Programme inthe South,” enabling UNDP to establish arapid response to the Israeli withdrawal fromsouthern Lebanon despite other financial constraints (delays in the release of a matching$1 million from the cash-strapped Lebanesegovernment, and cautiousness on the part ofdonors to release funds into a volatile region).Were it not for TRAC 3 funds, UNDP wouldhave had no means of working in southernLebanon at all. In Mozambique, too, UNDPwas able to assist the Government put in placea anti-disaster preparedness measures throughits project – Capacity Building of the NationalDisaster Management Authority – by makingavailable a start-up fund of almost $700,000from its TRAC 1.1.3 funds. The main limitationof TRAC 3 funding is that the total annualamount of funds earmarked for that budgetworldwide is only around $9 million. It is thus atool available to a select number of post-conflictsituations in any given year.

TRUST FUNDSRwanda and Kosovo are among several post-conflict situations in which a donor or donorshave created a UNDP trust fund for the country’spost-war rehabilitation. Trust funds are intendedto provide a stable source of funding to promoterapid response by UNDP and to allow UNDPand the host government a more predictable

base of revenue so that rehabilitation strategyand planning is more viable. They tend to beestablished in countries with a very high strategicor political value to major donors; they may alsobe more likely in countries where a lingering senseof guilt for earlier inaction exists in donor circles.The UNDP Trust Fund for Rwanda was established in 1995; by mid-2000 contributionshad totaled $108 million dollars. This providedtwo-thirds of the financial resources availableto support UNDP’s activities in Rwanda, andeliminated the problem of securing start-upcosts. UNDP’s work in Kosovo enjoyed trustfund access via the UN Human Security TrustFund, financed by the Government of Japan.These trust funds may or may not be able torelease funds quickly, depending on the specificarrangements unique to each fund. In the caseof the Human Security Trust Fund, effortshave been made to “fast-track” urgent projectrequests and streamline the decision-makingprocess for release of funds.13

USE OF RESIDUAL PROJECT FUNDSLeftover funding is not a common problem fordevelopment projects, which if anything tendto be constrained by inadequate funding or cost overruns. But responses to humanitarianemergencies can sometimes generate moredonor funding than is actually needed – not inthe aggregate, but in specific high-visibilitysectors – usually because of the difficulty ofaccurate needs assessment in emergencies andbecause donors are generous with humanitarianaid in high visibility-crises. As a rule, donorsgenerally prohibit the use of residual funds tobe used in another project. Indeed, many donoragencies are barred by legal constraints at homefrom allowing this practice. This places countryoffices in the frustrating position of havingextra funds locked into one budget while thebudget for an urgently needed response is dry.Innovations that can increase the fungibility ofUNDP budgets without violating donor andin-house financial restrictions are therefore animportant tool of flexible response. In the casestudies under review, a number of country officesfound ways to make their project budgets morefungible to provide urgently needed start-upcosts. The key in this regard was immediateand persuasive consultations with the donor




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13. UNDP-Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan Joint Evaluation,“Post-Conflict Assistance of the Government of Japan ThroughUNDP in Kosovo and East Timor” (New York: UNDP, October 2001), p. 53.



representatives. In El Salvador, World FoodProgramme’s regional office consulted atlength with donors in 2001 when it becameclear that the country was facing a majordrought, convincing them to permit funds leftover from the Hurricane Mitch response.

USE OF PREEXISTING PROJECTWhen time to prepare a project document isnot available in an emergency response, a secondbudget for a pre-existing project can be integratedinto the project financial infrastructure. Theuse of two budgets is often appealing to donorswho are prepared to quickly allocate funding toconfront an emergency, as the use of thosefunds can be followed more easily.

PHYSICAL DELIVERY OF CASH: CHALLENGESIn some cases, the absence of a functional bankingsystem raises the need for actual delivery ofcash – as was the case in the extremely ambitious,yet ultimately successful, distribution of salariesto the civil service of Afghanistan InterimAdministration Fund (AIAF) engineered bythe Bureau for Crisis Recovery and Prevention(BCPR) in February 2001, when nearly $6 million had to be transported from UNDPheadquarters to Afghanistan and parceled outon an individual basis. As regards large-scaleinfusion of notes into areas where no bankingsystem exists, it is important that the Bureau of Management’s Office of Finance andAdministration, the institutional entity thathandles the management of finances in suchcontexts, be involved as early as possible inplanning of a particular initiative; insuranceschemes need to be devised, in addition toactual logistical planning in getting the cashphysically delivered.

4. EXPEDITEDPROCUREMENT

Procuring supplies and making logisticalarrangements for delivery at short notice demandsflexibility in unexpected crises. Advanceauthorization for expenditure of project fundingallows the Resident Representative to expendresources during a sixty-day interim phase atthe end of which the project document must be approved. An initial draft of the projectdocument must be ready at the outset of thesixty-day period; with this condition satisfied,

advance authorization allows the CO to incurexpenses quickly. In Rwanda, a waiver wasgranted by UNDP headquarters to the ResidentRepresentative in Rwanda to directly authorizedisbursement rather than passing through thetypically slower UN execution modalities. Itwas intended that for purposes of emergencycontracting competitive bidding was to be waivedas provided in the UNDP Finance Manual upto $99,999. The objective was to reduce anyfinancial risk that could threaten successfulimplementation of Rwanda’s Consolidation ofReintegration, Rehabilitation and SustainableDevelopment project.

Interviews held with the Bureau of Managementhelped to identify some basic steps that countryoffices could take when responding to immediateprocurement needs. One preparatory measureis to have access, either in hard copy or electronically, to two documents: i) the list ofstandard emergency relief items, prepared byInter-Agency Procurement Services Office(http://www.iapso.org/), and ii) the list ofindicative prices prepared by BOM’s Office ofLegal and Procurement Support. The firstdocument on relief items includes the genericspecifications for emergency relief items, thusanswering questions such as “What size ofblanket should we order”.The second documentprovides the international prices offered by suppliersof emergency items. IAPSO as well has an up-to-date website, http://www.unwebbuy.org/ thathas the latest in international prices for emergencyitems; another preparatory measure is to ensurethat the country office is registered with theIAPSO website, so that with the onset of a crisis, a user id and password are already onhand. Information on international freightdelivery of goods can be found on the IAPSOwebsite or at BOM/OLPS.

In addition to having access to these informationresources, one other useful practice is to ensuresufficient knowledge of the country officeauthority to make purchases (see above pointon purchasing waiver), at what level, underwhat terms, and under what circumstancesinvolvement of headquarters is truly necessary.At present, there continues to be a so-called“communication gap” between headquarters officesand country office in terms of what level ofauthority the latter have in making purchases;it is the view of some headquarters staff thatResident Representatives have much moreauthority than they realize. Purchases of up 33

to US$30,000 can be made independent ofheadquarters oversight. Country offices can,up to contracts of $300,000 give approval, withrequisite waivers and authorization that can be solicited and approved before the onset ofan emergency.

5. MANAGING BUDGET SHORTFALLS

The uncertainty and unpredictability of post-conflict situations frequently result in vital projectsand programmes facing depleted budgets beforethe project is completed, jeopardizing the project’s success. This is a common problem in development work, by no means unique topost-conflict situations; but post-conflict situationstend to produce conditions which make thisscenario especially endemic. Expenses can be fargreater than anticipated; delays due to politicalconstraints can eat into budgets; political factorsmay require enlarging a pool of beneficiaries ormaking other costly adjustments; co-fundersmay delay or fail to deliver on funding; donorsmay have unexpectedly lengthy procedures forrelease of funds; or rushed needs assessmentsmay simply have underestimated the scale ofneeds or the costs of meeting those needs.

Depending on the particular type of post-conflict challenge faced by UNDP, the agency hasa number of tools at its disposal for dealing withcost overruns. Some are preventive in nature –that is, building into projects safeguards tominimize the impact of budget shortfalls – whileothers are reactive, or forms of crisis managementwhere the viability of a programme is immediatelythreatened because of budget shortfalls.

One successful preventive strategy is designingemergency response programmes with an eyetoward compartmentalization. That is, a seriesof small stand-alone projects are better able tosurvive budgetary shortages. In the event thatfunding falls short, those projects left uninitiatedor incomplete do not jeopardize the viability ofthe completed ones. In south Lebanon, forinstance, at the time of writing UNDP’s currentprogramme was faced with a budgetary shortfallof $500,000, or close to 25% of the total twomillion dollar programme. The outstandingbudget has been committed by the governmentof Lebanon but, at the time of writing, has not yet been received by UNDP. Fortunately,UNDP’s work in southern Lebanon consists ofsmall, stand-alone, village-based projects that

will endure even if the programme is unable tocomplete all the small-scale work it intended to do. This stands in sharp contrast to projectsthat deliver benefits only if entirely completed(such as a dam, a connector road, or a canal).

Another type of project design which is built tosurvive a budget shortfall is one which involvesa multiplier effect, or, in the case of Rwanda,a “cascade” method to the project. That is,the project generates a core group of trainedindividuals who are then charged with trainingothers. In this way, even if UNDP lacks therequisite funding to complete all the trainingitself, it has created a corps of trainers who cando the training themselves. In Rwanda, UNDPtook on the mandate to reform and train thepolice, but the project was delayed and thencosts rose beyond the project’s budget. UNDP,in consultation with the Rwandan Ministry ofInternal Affairs and the project donors (Irelandand Denmark) adopted a cascade method oftraining policemen in lieu of conducting all thetraining directly. In this case, a core group of 25officers were fully trained and then sent out totrain the rest. Key to this exercise in flexibleresponse to budget shortfalls is astute projectionof budget shortfalls.The sooner budget shortfallsare forecast, the more feasible this kind of projectrevision is.

Still another preventive action on this score isthe tactic of building socio-political considerationsas well as technical ones into project planning.Certain types of rehabilitation work – forinstance, almost any project involving land useand alienation – tends to engender greater levelsof political complications and objections, whichcan lead to revised project designs and delays.Often, the cost-effectiveness of infrastructureprojects is calculated solely on technical grounds,without adequate regard for socio-political issues.When political complications are successfulanticipated, projects can be designed to avoid orminimize those complications, thereby avoidingcost overruns later. In El Salvador’s Nahuizalcomunicipality, an aqueduct was originallydesigned on solely technical considerations,but it was quickly realized that the aqueductwould become embroiled in territorial disputesbetween two communities. It was redesignedalong a more circuitous but less politicallyproblematic route to avoid what might otherwisehave created a serious delay.

Finally, when a budgetary constraint is producedby a donor’s funding delays, projects that are




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supported by multiple donors can avoid costlydelays by exploiting the “fungible” nature ofpooled donor funding. A donor may earmarkfunds for one component of a project, butthose funds can be “borrowed against” to coverurgent aspects of the project covered by delayedfunding from another source. When thedelayed funding finally arrives, it then replacesthe borrowed funds. This very common tool offlexibility must be accompanied by consultationswith the donors in question.

6. ASSUMING NEW OREMERGENCY-RELATEDROLES AT SHORT NOTICE

Crises in post-conflict settings frequentlyinvolved UNDP taking on new roles, sometimesconsiderably beyond the organization’s typicalmandate, in order to facilitate a rapid collectiveresponse or to fill a vacuum in the administrationor the aid community. Situations involvinggovernments with weak capacity were especiallylikely to require UNDP country offices to playimpromptu roles on behalf of or at the behestof the government. Nearly all of the case studiesexplored here produced evidence of such flexiblerole-playing. In Haiti, UNDP had to fill thevoid left by a combination of departure of theUNMIH operation, the suspension of aid bydonors, and the non-functioning of governmentinstitutions to take on a wide range of coordi-nating roles. In the aftermath of the 1994genocide in Rwanda, the Rwandan governmentwas so weak and stretched by the enormoustasks it faced that some of its own officialsreferred to it as a time of “statelessness.”UNDP stepped into partnering roles with thegovernment that at times moved UNDP into“areas that were politically sensitive, helpingthe government with recovery strategy andprioritization of needs.”14 In both Rwanda andMozambique, UNDP played a major imprompturole in aiding the government with donor conferences. And in two of the cases underreview (El Salvador and Macedonia), UNDPwas asked by governments overwhelmed withemergency response to play the unusual role ofbroker for the purchase of food imports. This isnot a role UNDP normally plays and is not inits sphere of expertise, but the country offices

in question reacted positively to the needs ofgovernments that had reached the limits oftheir capacity to respond and were eager tofarm out responsibilities to willing partners.

There are situations where this type of flexibleresponse could do more harm than good, andUNDP country offices must take care to avoidthem. These include situations where UNDPis asked or tempted to perform roles whichcould be better played by a peer agency withgreater expertise; where UNDP lacks the staffor expertise to handle a complex role and henceruns a strong risk of failure; where UNDPassumes roles which the government simply mustbe made to take responsibility for (in the interestof capacity-building); and where UNDP is askedto accept funding for a dubious project by a donorwith questionable motives. Though unusual,some donors have been known to ask UNDPto accept funds for work on an unusual projectout of UNDP’s normal range of expertise,with the request that UNDP subcontract outthe work to NGOs from the donor country.When UNDP country offices face severe funding constraints, this kind of easy money isvery tempting to take, but it comes at a cost of institutional integrity.

7. STREAMLININGREPORTING: BALANCINGACCOUNTABILITY WITH SPEED

In the complex web of institutional relationshipsthat are produced with most rehabilitation projects(involving the national government, one or severaldonors, UNDP, and international or local NGOsor other implementing partners), reportingrequirements and contracts can produce a significant amount of paperwork and consumean enormous amount of time. When agenciesare trying to respond to an unexpected crisiswith little time and an already overstretchedstaff, time-consuming reporting can become aconstraint, and the generation of contracts caninvolve lengthy bureaucratic protocols designedto promote accountability, not speed. For obviousreasons, standard reporting and contracting areessential – particularly in that they promoteaccountability, which is crucial – but in certaininstances a degree of flexibility can be introduced

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14. UNDP Evaluation Update, no. 6, September 2001.

to speed up and streamline these requirementsin the interest of rapid response. In Rwanda,UNDP found that beneficiaries (communityproject managers) lacked the capacity to producethe standard financial report on a previous trancheof funds released to them. Rather than suspendingurgently needed local projects because of this reporting failure, UNDP adjusted, askingthe community project managers instead for a simple narrative report. In El Salvador, asimilar adjustment was made to save implementingpartners time with quarterly reports; instead,detailed accounts of expenditures and activitieswas concentrated in a single annual report.Likewise, the country office in El Salvador reliedon letters of agreement (rather than contracts)with primary NGO counterparts to providethe official basis for collaboration; letters ofagreement take far less time to prepare thancontracts, and are less costly, but serve the samelegal purpose.

8. RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION OFEFFECTIVE PERSONNEL

Rapid and flexible response in post-conflict situations places a premium on an agency’sability to assemble and retain a top team ofproject staff. Recruitment and retention of staffwere two abiding concerns expressed in the field.A number of innovations and adaptations werealso evident from the case studies under review.

NATIONAL STAFFUNDP country offices in most situations relyheavily on national officers and staff members.Without question, the quality, experience, andcommitment of the national staff constituteone of the top sources of flexibility. WhereUNDP country offices have been able to recruitand retain national officers with deep knowledgeof their country and government, with a stronginstinct for how to “get things done” in theirhome country, and with an extensive networkof contacts (or social capital), they are able tocreate opportunities for flexible response whichwould otherwise go unseen. Recruiting andretaining this kind of entrepreneurial nationalofficer is thus an issue of vital importance;there is no substitute for a creative, dedicated,and experienced national staff.

UNDP’s ability to recruit and retain top

national officers varies from place to place. Insome war-torn countries, especially poorerstates that have experienced a significant braindrain, the principal constraint is a scarcity ofqualified professionals. The smaller pool of topprofessionals is sought after by other aidorganizations, by the government, and in someinstances by private sector firms. BecauseUNDP and its peer agencies can often paymuch higher salaries than ministries in a low-income country, efforts to recruit top staff canactually have the unintended consequence ofrobbing the national government of its bestpeople. Where UNDP cannot easily recruithighly skilled national officers, training programsare essential in order to prepare the country officeteam to be effective in rapid and flexible response.In other cases, UNDP enjoys a plentiful supplyof excellent national job candidates, due to highlevels of unemployment common in post-conflictsettings and the relative attractiveness of a UNDPpost. These two situations create very differentcapacities for UNDP. UNDP’s experience withstaffing in southeastern Europe is instructiveon this score. In Macedonia, a highly skillednational labor force exists in a context of veryhigh unemployment, giving UNDP’s countryoffice there a capacity to hire a first-ratenational team – one that endows the countryoffice with a capacity for flexible response itwould be difficult to produce otherwise. But innearby Kosovo, several factors have created ashortage of skilled national officers – a lowerlevel of educational achievement among theKosovars, a much higher brain-drain toEurope, and much greater competition for topprofessionals thanks to the very large presenceof UNMIK and countless aid organizations.

Different categories of national staff membersplay different roles in flexible response, and pose different challenges for recruitment andretention. Senior national officers play a criticalrole in flexible response in several ways, includingas the chief source of institutional memory forthe office, and as the main source of personalnetworks with government officials and otherkey players. Though they may have little or noexperience in other country settings, they havedeep experience in flexible response in their owncountry. Because flexible response almost alwaysinvolves extensive negotiations with other actors,including the government, senior national officerscan help a Resident Representative navigatethe complex terrain of internal governmental




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politics, steering the Resident Representative tothe right individuals and away from those whowould throw obstacles in the way, and assistingwith the cultural dimensions of negotiations intheir particular country setting. Senior nationalofficers can, however, occasionally serve asimpediments to flexible response, particularlyif they have over the years developed politicalrivals or enemies with other actors whosecooperation is necessary for flexible response.Resident Representatives must possess a keenunderstanding of the political history of theirnational officers, and those national officers mustbe forthright about when their involvement mightcomplicate rather than expedite cooperation withother actors. Because of the long tenure seniornational officers typically have, recruitment andretention is not a major issue with this group.

National programme and project directors areusually shorter-term team members, brought onboard for the duration of a particular programme.Because they are handling the day-to-day operational aspects of a programme, their capacityto envision and execute flexible responses is vital.Moreover, because UNDP projects are oftenregionally based and increasingly decentralized,the programme director’s close knowledge ofthe communities in the area of operation is ofcritical importance. A programme director whopossesses deep knowledge of his or her projectarea, close and neutral networks within thosecommunities, and an astute entrepreneurial instinctwithin the bounds of UNDP regulations constitutes an invaluable tool of flexibleresponse. Hiring and retaining such a person,however, is not always easy, because those veryqualities give the individual a high marketvalue to others, and because the positionUNDP offers can be relatively short-term(depending on the nature of the programme),so that job security is not always high. UNDPcountry offices have demonstrated creativeresponses to this dilemma. In the case ofLebanon, the country office understood at theoutset that the programme in south Lebanonwould be politically delicate and would requiresomeone with close knowledge and contacts inthe predominantly Shiite community a capacityto engineer flexible and creative solutions toimpasses in the field. The answer was toexpand the search beyond Lebanon itself.

UNDP’s Bureau of Crisis Prevention andRecovery agreed to second to UNDP-Lebanonan international officer of Lebanese origin,giving the programme a depth of knowledgeand networks in the South that could not havebeen accrued otherwise.

Just as important for flexible response is the recruitment of national project officers,especially when a country office is engaging indirect execution (DEX) (see below). A cleverprogramme director will assemble a projectteam that possesses both a diversity of sectoralexpertise (giving the director more flexibility inhis or her human resource “toolbox”) and adiversity of ethnic backgrounds in post-conflictsituations where simmering ethnic tensionscan create obstacles for team members of the“wrong” ethnic identity. UNDP’s programmein south Lebanon again serves as a usefulexample. UNDP recruited a team of youngLebanese university graduates with a widerange of backgrounds, from engineering andarchitecture to social work to serve as UN volunteers. Though individual team memberswere assigned to follow specific projects, theycould call on the technical expertise of anotherteam member whenever needed. This practicemirrors closely the conclusion reached in arecent analysis of development aid, which arguesthat aid agencies “must have sufficient depth andbreadth of staff skills to be able to accompanya community constructively over a reasonablelength of time and to have the sensitivity toascertain the proper moment of intervention.”15

Because the UNDP team’s store of communityand professional networks, or “social capital,”is so essential in successful flexible response,hiring of national officers needs to take thathard-to-measure factor into account if at all possible. Recruits with strong university transcriptsbut weak contacts reduce UNDP’s own socialcapital in the field. UNDP leadership must bequick to appreciate and exploit a staff member’spersonal networks when they are needed. Inmore than one instance in the case studies underreview, astute UNDP officers promoted nationalofficers who were initially hired on as drivers oncethey came to appreciate the extensive socialnetworks and local knowledge they possessed.

In post-conflict settings with a rich supply oftrained professionals (in this study, Lebanon

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15. Ramon Daubon and Harold H. Saunders,“Operationalizing Social Capital: A Strategy to Enhance Communities’ ‘Capacityto Concert,’” International Studies Perspectives vol. 3, no. 2 (2002), pp. 188-89.

and Macedonia fit this description), anothertool of flexibility for human resource issues wasthe time-honored use of local consultants.Consultants can be brought on for short-termneeds and usually at short notice, at less costthan full-time staff. In Lebanon, programmedirectors maintained a list of national consultantsavailable out of Beirut when specific expertisewas needed for their projects. In a geographicallyconcentrated setting like Lebanon or Macedonia,consultants based in the capital could workcountrywide without incurring major travelexpenses or relocation.

One intriguing possibility for a new type offlexible response in UNDP human resourcemanagement was under discussion in Macedonia.There, the UNDP country office faced a commondilemma; namely, it had created and trained anexcellent team of project officers that it stoodto lose once the projects were completed. Thisconstitutes a double loss – UNDP loses a valuableinternal capacity and institutional memory, whilethe nation loses the synergy and potential created by a team of trained professionals, all of whom scatter to separate jobs upon the end of the project. In the case of Macedonia,the country office’s National ImplementationUnit – a group of professionals tasked withmonitoring and assessing UNDP’s MunicipalDevelopment Programme and the “Clean andGreen” Programme – had accrued invaluable andunmatched expertise in the working of Macedonia’smunicipalities just at the moment when the countrywas moving (under donor pressure) to adopt amajor political decentralization programmeshifting the locus of most development planningand implementation to the municipal level.UNDP’s fortuitous mandate to work withmunicipal authorities in some of its biggestprojects had produced an unexpected windfallin the form of its national implementationunit. One approach to the eventual terminationof the unit’s contracts under discussion was thepossibility of “spinning off ” this local expertisefrom a unit of UNDP into an independent localresearch institute, think-tank, or consultancyfirm. In that way, the institutional memory andcapacity of the unit would be preserved andavailable for hire to other donors and agencies.This “spin-off ” approach to capacity-buildingof national research institutes is a flexible and

innovative response to the common humanresource dilemma of disbanding trained andexperienced national project teams upon completion of their work. Though groups such as the War-Torn Societies Project have promoted this approach for a number of years,it remains an unconventional policy that merits much closer attention.

INTERNATIONAL STAFFFlexible response to unexpected post-conflictsituations also places a premium on recruitmentof effective international staff in the countryoffice. UNDP’s chronic funding constraintshave reduced the number of personnel at seniorlevels it can move quickly into appropriatepositions in the field. In some instances,important country offices have zero core funding. This can create a situation in which UNDP is scrambling to fill critical positions at the Resident-Representative orDeputy Resident-Representative positions inmoments when leadership is needed to addressurgent crises.

The case studies under review here reinforcethe good news that UNDP possesses a verystrong core of international officers with experience in post-conflict situations. Theorganization thus possesses the requiredhuman resources at that level, but is not alwayscapable of placing them in the field in a timelymanner, requiring a certain amount of flexibilityin its recruitment and placement procedures.In Macedonia, UNDP had to call on a retiredUNDP officer to serve as acting Resident-Representative, and then-ERD had to second astaff-member to serve as acting deputy, a placement which was supposed to be a fastresponse but which took six months. Highturnover of international staff – admittedly anendemic aspect of post-conflict setting due totheir inherent hardships – tends to compoundthe problem. In Rwanda, eight Resident-Representatives served between 1994 and May 2002. This can lead to weak institutionalmemory, delays, administrative lapses, and lackof strategic continuity.16

In some situations, a shortage of qualifiednational professionals requires UNDP to hireinternational officers as programme and projectdirectors. In Kosovo, the country office faced




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16. Several donor representatives believed that some of the perceived delays and administrative lapses noted about theUNDP office in Kigali during the peak of the crisis could be attributed to the rapid turn-overs in the country office.



a problem of a severe shortage of national professional (for reasons noted above), yet atthe same time was constrained by zero corefunding. Unable to hire qualified national officers and unable to afford international staff members, UNDP – Kosovo opted for anunusual response to its human resource impasseby taking on a half dozen international volunteersfrom a Canadian government programmedesigned to place recent Canadian graduatesinto internships in international developmentorganizations (with basic living and travel costspaid for by the Canadian government).The moveto place young and inexperienced internationalvolunteers into positions as project and programmedirectors was a risk; possibilities for proceduraland programmatic errors were high. But thecountry office provided strong training andoversight until the volunteers were comfortablewith their work, and the quality and commitmentof the volunteers were extremely high (theselection process by the Canadian governmentwas very competitive). As the six-month intern-ships came to an end, UNDP demonstratedadditional flexibility by arranging for some ofthe interns to stay on as UN Volunteers, therebyretaining an increasingly experienced country teamwhile managing the chronic human resourcecrisis its funding problems posed. Not all thecase studies reviewed in this study yielded such positive experiences with the use of UNVolunteers; in one country, the inexperience ofUNVs contributed to the closure of a project.Careful mentoring and oversight is essentialwhen this staffing option is chosen.

9. FLEXIBLE PROJECT EXECUTION

Project execution modalities constituted one ofthe most important issues of flexible responsein the case studies under review. Fortunately,this is an issue that has received extensive consideration within UNDP, producing arange of execution modalities that give countryteams considerable flexibility to respond toconstraints in the delivery of projects.

National execution (NEX) is the standardmodality for UNDP project execution; UNDP’smandate to partner with national governmentsand build governmental capacity makes thisapproach mandatory except in exceptional circumstances. The kinds of special developmentcircumstances that warrant direct execution

(DEX) include very weak national governmentswith low capacity to implement projects(Mozambique, Rwanda); complete state collapse(Kosovo); incomplete reconciliation processes,in which a government is unable to work in aparticular region (Papua New Guinea, Lebanon);or political paralysis and gridlock, leading to an inability of the national government to perform (Lebanon, Haiti). DEX, a modalitythat must be approved by headquarters in NewYork, is widely viewed in the field as a criticallyimportant tool of flexible response.

In practice, DEX is usually pursued in a flexiblecombination with NEX; the two are by nomeans mutually exclusive modalities. DEX inLebanon, Macedonia, Rwanda and Mozambiqueinvolved UNDP retaining partial control overproject funds but working in close concert with the government ministry concerned. TheLebanese country office considered their execution modality an example of partial directexecution as the decision making still involvedthe government; evaluation reports on UNDP’sprojects in Macedonia routinely refer to theexecution modality there as a “hybrid” ofnational and direct execution. Flexible use ofDEX is a valuable lesson learned – it is a toolof last resort, always used with an aim towardsmaximizing government partnership to the extentpossible. When approached in this spirit, DEXcan dramatically improve UNDP’s capacity for fastand flexible response in certain circumstances,but without necessarily gutting longer-termobjectives of capacity building.

UNDP country offices make use of otherexecution modalities in order to enhance flexi-bility. Outsourcing of project implementationto other UN agencies (especially UNOPS) orto international agencies is a common tool offlexibility. The choice to outsource, and if so towhom, involves case-by-case considerations. Insettings where the UNDP county office faces bothweak governments and weak or low numbers oflocal partners (such as international or localNGOs), it is appropriate for UNDP to maintainthe kind of direct execution of the project thatrequires fairly large project teams. But whereUNDP offices lack staffing or capacity, andother potential partner agencies possess suchcapacity, it makes more sense to outsource. Inthe case of Kosovo, for instance, the newlyestablished UNDP office was mostly staffed by a small corps of Canadian volunteers andhad limited operational capacity, making it 39

imperative to adopt an outsourcing approachfor most projects. A similar case can be madefor Rwanda and Mozambique where rapid staffturnover often left senior positions unoccupiedfor some time. Thus, outsourcing to experiencedNGOs enabled these offices to make up for theabsence of regular UNDP staff.

The key to effective decision-making on outsourcing for flexible response is calculation ofthe “value-added” that the proposed executingagency would bring to the project. In the casesreviewed here, several types of value-added provedto be especially attractive: (1) agency knowledgeof and experience in the targeted communities;(2) agency expertise in the targeted sector;(3) agency reputation as reliable partner. Of these,agency knowledge of the local communities to be targeted was the most valued – and oftenscarce – commodity, suggesting that outsourcingas a tool of flexibility is of special use when itprovides UNDP with greater knowledge of andnetworks in local communities. Here again,area expertise and social capital (i.e. networksin local communities) constitute two crucialpre-requisites of flexible response.

SUB-CONTRACTING TO UNOPSUNOPS was originally intended to serve as theoperational arm of UNDP and though the twoentities now possess separate status UNOPSremains a standard outsourcing option forUNDP. Whether this option is appropriatedepends mainly on the operational capacity ofUNOPS in the country in question andwhether the project requires expertise in a fieldof competence for UNOPS. In Papua NewGuinea, UNDP turned to UNOPS mainlybecause it was able to operate efficiently in apolitically fragile environment. This was dueto the fact that UNOPS already had a well-established presence on Bougainville, wherehostilities both with the mainland governmentand within Bougainville society made entranceinto that community with new aid projects anextremely delicate proposition. To reduce thetime and complications involved in negotiatingits way into a direct presence on Bougainville,UNDP expedited delivery of its main aid programme, the Bougainville Rehabilitation,Reconstruction, and Development Project, bymaking UNOPS the executing agent. Makingastute use of an agency which has succeeded inwalking through the local political minefieldsand has a strong knowledge of the local political

situation is a useful replicable practice elsewhere,as most delays and political mishaps occur whenagencies first enter a new region or country.

SUB-CONTRACTING TO INTERNATIONAL NGOsThe case studies under review here provided a wealth of examples of successful outsourcingto international NGOs to enhance flexibleresponse. In Kosovo, UNDP made ADRA-Japan its executing agency for the Housing andElectrification in Kosovo (HEIK) project, in partbecause ADRA had already established itself asa reliable implementer of construction projectsin Kosovo, and in part because ADRA couldcope with sticky sovereignty issues related toproperty deeds in an unusual political setting –one in which Kosovo retains an ambiguous status as an autonomous region of Yugoslaviabut under the trusteeship of a UN authority,UNMIK. UNDP-Kosovo also relied on Inter-national Rescue Committee as executing agentfor a number of its community-building projects,primarily to tap into the experience and expertiseof the IRC staff in this sector. Similar logicbrought UNDP-Lebanon into partnership withMercy Corps International for a micro-creditproject, a sector in which Mercy had amassedconsiderable experience.

UNDP must in some instances rely on aninternational NGO as executing agency as aprecondition imposed by a donor; typically, thisoccurs when a bilateral donor wants its fundsto benefit one of its own national NGOs.This study encountered such “tied aid” inMozambique, Macedonia, Rwanda, and PapuaNew Guinea. Such donor conditionality onexecution modalities is politically unavoidableand usually benign. In some instances, though –as was the case at times in East Timor – it canlimit UNDP’s range of executing options andhas the potential to tether UNDP to a less thandesirable implementing partner. In at least oneinstance, UNDP country officers suspectedthat the donor agency was using UNDP to“launder” money to one of its national NGOs,a clearly undesirable scenario. Clearly there isa tradeoff involved – the quality of internationalNGOs can vary widely, as can their performance.They often provide much-needed speed andflexibility, as well as knowledge of local communities. At the same time, some inter-national NGOs do not always know the localterrain well, which can lead to wasted resources




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and donor frustration.Judicious use of international NGOs as

executing agents to maximize flexible response –to enhance sectoral expertise, knowledge of localcommunities, speed of delivery, and managementof political complications, among others – is apractice which is likely to grow in comingyears. But problems with this option are likely togrow as well, if UNDP resorts to outsourcingto NGOs too uncritically. International NGOsvary enormously in quality and reliability, andmust be carefully assessed as partners. A smallbut worrisome portion of the new NGOs on thescene in post-conflict situations are little morethan sub-contractors, focused almost exclusivelyon securing contracts from donors, producingoutput of variable quality. Most NGOs tend tokeep their staff small and streamlined, whichcan produce a lack of institutional memory andlong-term capacity when the top individualsmove on to new posts. A number of the casesreviewed here included examples of NGOs asexecuting agencies for UNDP that resulted inless than ideal results mainly due to personnelturnover within the NGO. This observationmirrors the conclusion reached in the UNDP-Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan JointEvaluation, which noted that “when there wereweaknesses in coordination between internationalorganizations or in continuity within inter-national organizations because of the rate ofstaff turnover, then plans and interests conflicted,slowing implementation, and raising the priceof delivery.”17

SUB-CONTRACTING TO LOCAL NGOsLocal NGOs – community outreach organiza-tions, social advocacy groups, and non-profitresearch institutes and “think-tanks” – have alsomushroomed in number over the past decade,primarily in response to a market demand for them by international donors and NGOsseeking local partners and implementers. Whena local NGO possesses a professional and committed staff, this is one of the mostrewarding options for project execution. Agood local NGO adds enormous flexibility to aUNDP project, as its staff are members of thetarget communities and possess far moreknowledge of the local situation than any

outsider – foreign or national. Using localthink-tanks or research institutes for projectresearch and social outreach organizations forproject implementation has the added virtue of building local capacity and employmentgeneration for nationals rather than foreigners.

As with international NGOs, however, thequality and dependability of local NGOs variesenormously, and must be carefully scrutinized.In some settings, formal NGOs are essentiallya foreign concept, not a reflection of indigenouscommunity organization, and those which operatetend to be little more than sub-contractorsseeking foreign aid funds. Some can even befronts for warlords and Mafioso elements, orcan be “paper NGOs” – existing on paper only,quick to appear when foreign aid moneyappears and then quick to disappear when aidfunds stop flowing.

The case studies reviewed here confirm what isalready widely understood about local NGOs –that they tend to be much more robust, indigenous,and dependable in some parts of the world thanin others. In El Salvador, for instance, localNGOs were relatively reliable and establishedpartners, which would seem to confirm theconventional belief that Latin America’s grassroots organizations and civil society haverelatively strong capacities in relation to otherregions. By contrast, in the former communistcountries of southeast Europe, local communitieswere only beginning to appreciate the conceptof a local NGO, and were as a result somewhatless adept as an implementing partner in thosepost-conflict situations. In Lebanon, wherepatron-client relations are a strong componentof sectarian politics, many of the large andinfluential local foundations and NGOs arefinanced by a single “strongman” who oftenappropriates the structure of NGOs to use as avehicle for reinforcing patronage politics in hisconstituency.18 Astute programme officers canstill work with these organizations successfullyand employ them to enhance UNDP’s flexibility,but need to enter into relations with theseNGOs well aware of their nature, affiliations,and limitations.

One relatively new avenue of outsourcing to local NGOs is the growing use of nationalresearch institute and think-tanks for generation

41

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17. UNDP-Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan Joint Evaluation,“Post-Conflict Assistance of the Government of Japan ThroughUNDP in Kosovo and East Timor” (New York: UNDP, October 2001), p.12.

18. Peter Gubser, “The Impact of NGOs on State and Non-State Relations in the Middle East,” Middle East Politics vol. 9, no. 1(March 2002), p. 142.

of baseline data, feasibility studies, evaluations,and early warning reporting. Not all post-conflictcountries possess high-quality national researchinstitutes, but the number and quality of suchcenters is growing. In Macedonia, UNDP subcontracted out the monthly production of asurvey-based Early Warning Report to anational research institute with solid results.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES AS PROJECT CO-IMPLEMENTERSExecution modalities increasingly involve partnerships with local municipalities or otherlocal authorities in aspects of project design,targeting of beneficiaries, and management.This reflects UNDP's emphasis on capacity-building as well as the growing trend towardpolitical decentralization. The fact thatUNDP has strong institutional expertise in local-level governance has given UNDP apowerful comparative advantage in workingwith municipalities at a time when power andresponsibility is increasingly being shifted to thatlevel of government. Not surprisingly, the casestudies assessed here are replete with examplesof successful partnership with municipalities.UNDP’s expertise in and comfort with workingat the municipal level for project implementationgives it an added tool of flexibility which otheraid agencies may not enjoy.

In El Salvador, for example, UNDP workedclosely with local authorities in ten municipalitiesto provide rehabilitation of basic infrastructure –housing in particular – that was damaged by the devastating earthquakes of January andFebruary 2001. A direct line of communicationwith local authorities was established (a centraloffice located in one of the municipalities).Local authorities were relied upon heavily toselect programme beneficiaries. Although thisapproach runs the risk of patronage and politicalfavoritism influencing the selections, the famil-iarity local authorities have of the immediateenvironment is a major asset. The key to successfor UNDP’s collaboration with Salvadoran localauthorities as co-implementers – and to thegeneral use of local authorities as project co-implementers – is to ensure that a comprehensiverisk assessment from both a technical and apolitical/socioeconomic perspective is madebefore co-implementation begins. This is necessary to ensure that abuses of power bylocal authorities in the allocation of projectbenefits are prevented.

UNDP experience with municipalities in thecases reviewed here confirms the conventionalwisdom that local level government is a “workin progress” in most developing countries andformer communist states. They tend to enjoyrelatively high levels of local legitimacy andpossess more knowledge of and commitmentto local development needs than ministries indistant capitals, but at the same time typicallyhave weak capacity and very limited budgets.At their best, the municipal authorities haverisen to the challenge posed by post-conflictsituations and proved to be invaluable partnersin project implementation. In Macedonia, forinstance, mayor’s offices and local unemploymentbureaus managed most of the administration of UNDP’s Clean and Green projects veryeffectively, thereby allowing UNDP to simulta-neously pursue an emergency goal (employmentcreation), a sectoral goal (environmental protection), and a governance goal (capacity-building of municipalities). In other situations,municipalities are “willing but not able” – inLebanon, for instance, newly-establishedmunicipalities simply lacked the capacity tomanage projects, but were nonetheless valuablepartners in planning and public dissemination.

Some post-conflict situations, however, involvevery inauspicious conditions at the local level,requiring a great deal of flexibility on the partof UNDP project officers. In collapsed statesand in some post-conflict situations, formallocal authorities (municipalities) either do notexist at all or are the subject of intense localdisputes. In those instances, careless reliance ona self-declared mayor runs the risk of embroilingthe agency into a local political dispute that canderail the project.

In these cases, UNDP and its peer agencies mustproceed with great caution in the identificationof local authorities. There is no substitute inthese situations for close knowledge of thecommunities in question, and more time maybe needed to negotiate such relationships thana crisis will allow for. For this very reason,many aid agencies prefer to avoid the questionof local authority altogether by working withpresumably “apolitical” local NGOs. While thisis not a bad tactic under such circumstances,UNDP and other agencies have also devised othertools of flexibility in identifying local authorities.

One of the more successful tactics is a requestto a local community to create a broad-basedcommunity development committee or focus




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group which acts as the local interlocutor andorganizer of small-scale projects and which isintended to provide local communities with adegree of voice and ownership of rehabilitationprojects without necessarily taking on a formalpolitical role which would invite conflict.UNDP has engaged this technique in parts ofMount Lebanon and in a number of othercountries (such as Afghanistan and Somalia)that are not a part of this assessment. Indeed,in Mozambique, UNDP even employed thistechnique at the national level, inviting thegovernment, civil society groups, the privatesector, and the opposition to form a broad-based 14-member project organizing group,administered by a full-time Executive Committee,made up four of its members. Their mainresponsibility was to collect and collate views ona national level, from which they were to designand implement the country’s core developmentpolicy framework – Agenda 2025: Vision andStrategies of the Nation. One of the key ingredients of this project was its emphasis onthe formation of social capital to ensure citizenparticipation in the creation and implementationof the national development framework andstrategy and, in doing so, enhance the chancesfor the success of the country’s ongoing economic liberalization programmes.

Another alternative source of local authorityare functional or sectoral organizations – farmers’cooperatives for projects in agriculture, parent-teacher associations for education projects, andhealth worker groups for health projects. Thistoo was a common practice in many of thecases under review, and provided UNDP witha flexible option to local partnerships withoutembroiling UNDP in local political disputes.

10. COORDINATIONAND JOINT VENTURES

Coordination among aid agencies – both withinthe UN family and within the broader universeof donors, international NGOs, UN, and BrettonWoods institutions – has been a high priority inthe wake of a decade of complex emergencies.Coordination is imperative in order to reducewaste associated with redundant projects, to

minimize gaps in development assistance byregion and sector, to pool information, and tostandardize basic aid agency policies on issuesranging from local salary scales to response tosecurity threats. In a growing number of post-conflict settings, inter-agency coordination hasled to shared resources (a single UN air service,or a shared inter-agency compound) as well.

However, coordination, for all its obvious virtues,can have a negative impact on organizationalflexibility by limiting agency sovereignty andlocking agencies into collective response mechanisms which tend to be slow, committee-driven, consensus-oriented processes – hardlyideal for fast and flexible response. As mentioned earlier, the UN DevelopmentAssistance Framework and Common CountryAssessments are two prominent mechanismsmeant to take the UN system further in thedirection of coordinated needs assessment andplanning. As crucial as the need for coordinationhas proven itself to be, it is also worth consideringthat coordination and integration can also createconstraints to flexible response.

Coordination mechanisms need not be antithetical to flexible response, and in some of the cases reviewed here were enablers ofgreater flexibility. Inter-agency coordinationcan dramatically improve access to informationand databases generated by other organizations,reducing the time and expense of preliminaryresearch. As an example, in Kosovo, the newand small UNDP office lacked an internalcapacity to generate extensive databases butcould rely on UNHCR’s major survey of hous-ing damage nationwide as a benchmark forproject proposals.

A similar case can be made for the JointReintegration Programming Unit ( JRPU)devised by UNDP and UNHCR in Rwandabetween 1996 and 1997, which in spite of itsproblems and relatively short life span, was astep in right direction.19 The innovative valueof the JPRU lay in the fact that it was foundedat a time when the Rwandan Government’scapacity and programming skills were veryweak and fragile while the problems it wasconfronted with were multi-dimensional andoverwhelming.20 Inter-agency coordination

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19. As observed in a recent World Bank publication, “If anything is evident from the growth of post-conflict units, it is thatdevelopment agencies are seeking to merge several distinct development cultures: including conflict prevention, humanitarianassistance,human rights monitoring,and traditional development.” See www.wbln0018.worldbank.org/Networks/ESSD/icdb.nsf/D4856F112E805DF4852566C9007C27A6/B86BCB448F0C5E9E85256849007831ED/$FILE/ParisReport.pdf

20. Similar conclusions were reached in The Joint Reintegration Programming Unit Evaluation Report, Oct 2000.

can also allow agencies to enjoy the benefits of comparative advantage in their respectivesectoral specialties, a tool that adds to flexibleresponse. UNDP’s emerging expertise ondecentralization and municipal administration,for instance, is likely to become a growingentry point for mutually beneficial and flexiblejoint projects with other UN agencies.




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CHAPTER IIIBEST PRACTICES

AND LESSONS LEARNED IN UNDP

OPERATIONAL FLEXIBILITY

Two broad categories of best practices for improving flexible responseemerge from comparative analysis of the eight post-conflict situationsreviewed above. First are the “enabling practices,” preparatory measuresthat position UNDP offices to respond more rapidly and flexibly tounforeseen crises. Instances of successful flexible response in the casestudies under review rarely occurred in the absence of these preparatorymeasures. Enabling practices constitute a necessary but not sufficientcondition for successful organizational agility.

A second set of best practices are more directly operational, thespecific tools of flexible response. Collectively, these practices constitutea “toolbox” of flexible tactics, policies, and innovative responses.Unlike enabling practices, which tend to be fairly universal in scope,tools of flexible response tend to be more case specific, placing a premium on the practitioner’s ability to match the appropriate toolto the specific task at hand. As UNDP and its peer agencies gainmore experience in post-conflict situations, their toolbox of flexibleresponse will accrue greater numbers of and more refined tools. Butthese tools will be of limited use unless knowledge of their use is broadly disseminated to practitioners. An important aspect of flexible response in post-conflict situations is ongoing training,education, and discussion so that good ideas and new innovationsare shared and country offices are afforded an opportunity to “cross-pollinate” with one another.

I. ENABLING PRACTICES ESSENTIALFOR FLEXIBLE RESPONSE

The case studies strongly reinforce the conclusion that country officesthat take actions to prepare themselves for rapid response are much

Rebulding work begins after a landslide in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Photo:Michel Matera/UNDP


Chapter III.Best Practicesand LessonsLearned in UNDPOperationalFlexibility

45

more successful than those that do not.Among the most important enabling practicesare the following:

ANTICIPATION

While it is impossible to predict the course ofpolitical and economic events in any country, letalone in the more volatile settings of post-conflictsituations, it is not impossible to anticipate arange of likely scenarios. Anticipation is thefirst step toward preparation; without a capacityto anticipate, agencies cannot prepare, and withoutpreparation, an agency’s capacity to respondquickly and flexibly is reduced.

UNDP and its peer agencies in developmentand rehabilitation are not in the business ofpolitical, social, and macro-economic analysis,and lack the capacity to gather the appropriateinformation in a systematic manner. But theagency does have field staff positioned in ministries and throughout the countryside, andcan also tap into the views of embassies andother aid agencies in order to generate a solidflow of information about trends and indicatorsthat might precipitate a crisis requiring rapidresponse. Several specific tools that improveUNDP’s ability to anticipate crises have beendeveloped and refined in the cases under review:

Early Warning Systems. In an effort toimprove its capacity in conflict prevention,UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposedin 2000 an early warning system capacity within the UN, an idea that has begun to beoperationalized in a few UNDP countryoffices.21 In Macedonia, UNDP has funded anearly warning project that produces a monthlyreport based on survey data in the country.More such early warning projects are in planning stages in other post-conflict settingsand when operationalized should provide UNDPwith an additional tool to anticipate crises. Buta single, formal early warning project is by nomeans adequate. UNDP country offices mustalso fully avail themselves of other early warningdevices that currently exist as part of a loosenetwork of early warning.

A number of non-profit groups produce earlywarning reports. In Macedonia, for instance,the NGO International Crisis Group wroteand distributed an excellent analysis in August2000 which accurately predicted renewed ethnic conflict in the country, even thoughother analyses – including UNDP’s own EarlyWarning reports, as well as the prestigiousEconomist Intelligence Unit – missed the signsof mounting tensions.22 The lesson learned is that accurate anticipation requires broadmonitoring of external sources of informationand analysis. It has been emphasized by theBureau of Crisis Prevention and Recovery thatthe importance of anticipating crises is suchthat early warning and preventive capacitiesshould become an operational standard forcountries offices in crisis and post-conflictcountries; though political analysis per se may insome situations be best handled by other partsof the UN system, UNDP should not shy awayfrom ensuring that the relevant information,however gathered, is ultimately seen and usedas a basis for contingency planning.23

The fact that UNDP’s early warning capacityfailed to pick up on imminent hostilities inMacedonia also suggests that UNDP’s attemptsto engage in early warning analysis should notbe held captive to rigid – and in this instanceinappropriate – evaluation standards that put apremium on methodologies based on “measurable”data and output. The EWS reports for UNDPMacedonia appeared to be so preoccupied withquantitative survey data that they missed worrisome indicators that could only berevealed through close contact with oppositionleaders. At this point in time, the most revealingand accurate political and social forecasting is produced by immersion, interviews, andqualitative, not quantitative, approaches. UNDPshould be sure that its evaluation criteria donot inadvertently encourage EWS reporting toadopt inappropriate methods simply to meetthe demand for “measurables” that is currentlyfashionable. The only yardstick that ultimatelymatters in early warning is whether – not how –




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Chapter III.Best Practices

and LessonsLearned in UNDP


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21. UNDP has embarked on several activities meant to promote early warning mechanisms in its operations. For example, 50UNDP staff were trained in early warning systems at the UN Staff College in Turin with financial support from the UnitedKingdom Government.

22. International Crisis Group, “Macedonia’s Ethnic Albanians: Bridging the Gap” (Skopje/ Washington/Brussels: ICG BalkansReport no. 98, August 2 2000. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s “Macedonia Country Report”of February 2001 failed to appreciatethe significance of the armed conflict even after it had begun in late January of that year.

23. Stakeholders Consultation, 31 October 2002.



the system accurately anticipates trouble.Anticipation of political, social, and economic

surprises also requires that UNDP country officesencourage more internal reporting and make fulluse of their national officers who are positionedin the field and in government ministries.These officers are often in an ideal position topick up on trouble or trends long before such news reaches the stage of cocktail party gossipat embassy functions. Anticipation and earlywarning should be understood to be everyone’sjob at UNDP, not a compartmentalized taskfor a single analyst or project. For this to occur,UNDP offices must adopt a culture that rewardsand encourages political reporting and discussion.Where an integrated presence in-country mayleave other UN entities – such as Departmentof Political Affairs officers – better placed totake the lead, UNDP staff may wish to leavethe political analysis to them; indeed, though themerits of early warning political contingencyplanning are self-evident, there is in some casesa need to proceed cautiously.

At present, from the perspective of UNDP’sfield network as a whole, there is clearly roomfor more, not less, political reporting. At present,UNDP country offices tend to be imbued witha “culture of immediacy” that rewards a strictfocus on today, not tomorrow. They are alsooften infused with an office culture thatrewards strict emphasis on narrow, technicalspecialization and an inward preoccupation withUNDP internal procedures. In some instancesUNDP leadership can actively discouragereporting about political analysis and trends inthe office.24 In this setting, national officerswho could be a potential goldmine of informationand analysis go underutilized, and UNDP programmes can then become entangled inotherwise avoidable local political issues. Thedifference in “office culture” from one UNDPcountry office to the next can be dramatic.Where country offices encourage the entirestaff – right down to the driver – to observe,assess, and report, the office’s capacity to anticipate problems is dramatically improved.This is a “best practice” that draws on existingresources and costs virtually nothing, but onethat can yield significant and valuable results.

PREPARATIONPractices that strengthen anticipation enableUNDP to better prepare for sudden changes inthe operating environment or unexpected crises.There are a number of “enabling practices” thatUNDP country offices have adopted that betterprepared them to respond flexibly and quickly.

(1) Up-to-Date Knowledge on AdministrativeRules and Regulations. Inasmuch as UNDPregulations on finance, procurement and personnelmay sometimes be seen as part of the problem,they also comprise the organization’s source offlexibility. Rules and regulations on these issuesare frequently revised with a view to achieving

47

THE MERITS OF USING POLITICAL ANALYSIS IN TECHNICAL PLANNING:THE EXPERIENCE OF NAHUIZALCO

In response to the devastating earthquakes suffered by El Salvador in 2001, UNDP initiallyworked with UNOCHA, bilateral donors and theUN’s Emergency Response Division (now BCPR)to address humanitarian needs. When immediatehumanitarian needs (such as food distribution)were adequately addressed, UNDP shifted itsfocus to the rehabilitation of basic social infra-structure, including housing, water, and sanitationfacilities. An instructive example of building socio-political – as well as technical – considerationsinto project planning soon emerged fromUNDP’s water system rehabilitation efforts.

In the Nahuizalco municipality, an initial decision was taken – based purely on technicalconsiderations – to build a direct water linebetween the target community and a nearbysource of potable water. However, it soonbecame clear that another community, muchnearer to the water source, objected to sharingit with the target community.

Based solely on technical and legal consider-ations, the logical decision would have been to construct an aqueduct between the targetcommunity and the water source. Instead, UNDPfactored in the political issues and decided tobuild a more circuitous aqueduct route thatbypassed the community closest to the watersource. In so doing, UNDP averted a potentialproblem among beneficiaries and also avoidedwhat might have been a serious delay in essentialservice rehabilitation. In retrospect, the decisionsaved considerable time, and the additionalresources required to build a longer aqueductsystem were negligible, particularly when compared with the political difficulties thisstrategy avoided. The key lesson learned wasthat flexibility in project planning oftenrequires taking socio-political factors intoaccount along with technical factors.

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24. In a UNDP country office not among the cases under review but one familiar to the authors, staff members who were producing excellent political trend analyses were actually admonished not to do so, on the grounds that that was not part oftheir terms of reference, and because it threatened the prerogatives of another UN office. A critically important forecastingtool was thus lost in the process.

the right balance between expedited and rapid assistance delivery and accountability.Key internal websites include the following:

n UNDP Procurement Manual:http://intra.undp.org/ bom/olps/procurement/pdf/procuremanual.pdf

n UNDP Finance Manual:http://stone.undp.org/maindiv/manual/fm_view_toc.cfm

n UNDP Rules and Regulations:http://stone.undp.org/maindiv/manual/view_toc.cfm?language=english

n List of Procurement Forms:http://intra.undp.org/bom/olps/ptools_list_km2.html

Country offices, for example, should beaware, far in advance of the onset of a crisis,that Resident Representatives are authorizedto waive short-listing and competitive biddingin procurement for contracts up to $30K, andthat, to the extent that advance authorizationcan be secured from BOM, bid waivers can beused for procurement purchases up to$300,000.25 Field staff need to know that, inthe immediate aftermath of a natural disaster,Resident Representatives are automatically given“blanket authority” to expend funds up to$100,000 over and above what they may haveavailable in existing budgets.26 During interviewsfor this exercise, Bureau of Management (BOM)staff often expressed consternation that morefield-level staff were not familiar with the fullrange and extent of expedited processing that isnow available to countries in special developmentsituations; the UNDP procurement manualdescribes various “modifications” that may bemade in “emergency situations with a need forquick action and immediate results”.27

(2) Advanced Access to Information onEmergency Relief Suppliers. Registering onwebsites such as that of UNDP’s Inter-AgencyProcurement Services Office (IAPSO) can beeasily done prior to the onset of a crisis, thusfacilitating and expediting procurement ofessential goods when needed. Offices shouldhave access to information resources such asthe Compendium of Generic Specifications(BOM/OLAPS), and updated price lists.Useful websites in this regard are the following:

n Inter-Agency Procurement Services Office:http://www.iapso.org/

n United Nations Common Supply Database:http://www.uncsd.org/

n UNOPS: http://www.unops.org/textimageflashfiles/webpage11.htm

n United Nations “Web-buy”:http://www.unwebbuy.org/

(3) Contingency planning, particularly for“routinized emergencies.” When indicatorspoint to a possible crisis, disaster, or major changein the operating environment, an important butunderused enabling practice that strengthensUNDP’s capacity to respond quickly is contingencyplanning. Organizations that tend to be “front-line” or lead agencies in disaster response – suchas ICRC, UNICEF, MSF, and national armedforces – routinely engage in contingency planning,even to the point of pre-positioning emergencysupplies to respond to the “routinized emergencies”of cholera outbreaks and floods in rainy seasons.

UNDP does not engage in this advancedlevel of contingency planning for disaster relief,nor should it. But UNDP offices have in someinstances taken stock of a possible shift in theiroperating environment and devoted resourcesto the development of a strategic developmentplan that later proved invaluable in giving UNDPspeed and flexibility. One such instance wasUNDP-Lebanon in the late 1990s. There, theResident-Representative acted on the growingpossibility of an Israeli withdrawal from southLebanon and instructed his staff to create astrategic development plan for that eventualitywhich was a creative and flexible use of a periodof delay. When Israel did in fact withdrawfrom south Lebanon in 2000, the UNDPdevelopment plan served as a blueprint notonly for fast response on UNDP’s part, but alsoas a base planning document for the Lebanesegovernment. Similarly in Mozambique, UNDP’sassistance to the National Disaster ManagementAuthority predated the 2000 floods. Thishelped to build the capacity of the governmentto prepare national management policy thatwould put in place a disaster managementinformation system, which could then be usedfor disasters such as the 200 floods.

However, it should be noted that contingency




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25. UNDP Procurement Manual, BOM, February 2002, section 5.2.

26. BOM/OFA interview, 13 November 2002.

27. UNDP Procurement Manual, February 2002, par 5.2.1



planning is costly in that it diverts scarce andusually over-stretched human resources away fromimmediate project work and into preparationfor a hypothetical situation. It is therefore notalways appropriate or even feasible. WhereUNDP enjoys the services of an inter-agencyUN coordination mechanism, it is probablybetter to rely on that unit to produce contingencyplans. But whenever the situation presents itself –when, for instance, UNDP project staff aretemporarily idle due to a delay of some sort –contingency planning is a useful means ofpreparing for the most likely natural disastersor political crises.

(4) Creating incentives for calculated risk-taking. Calculated risk-taking and innovationby field officers are essential to overcoming theoften burdensome bureaucratic procedures anddelays that accompany project implementationin post-conflict settings. There is an urgentneed to demonstrate tangible peace benefits toformer warring parties – through projects andprogrammes – so that they realize the benefits ofpeace. As such, creation of a set of incentivesfor field officers to take calculated risks – basedon templates of lessons learned in other post-conflict settings, and with defined parameters foracceptable risk-taking – should become a priority.

(5) Advance identification of deployableoperations staff. In the fall of 2002, a BOMproposal to establish a cadre of rapidly deployablestaff with expertise in areas such as finance,procurement and personnel was being consideredat UNDP headquarters. At the time of writing, it was not possible to know the outcome of that proposal, but what is clear isthat UNDP is indeed seriously focusing on theimportance of minimizing the time required toidentify and deploy operations staff to crisisareas, an area long overshadowed by the organization’s increasingly successful deploymentof programme staff.

As mentioned earlier, one of the main bottlenecks in UNDP response to crisis andpost-conflict situations is accounts monitoring,so-called “book-keeping”, which includes theauthorization to write checks and make payments to suppliers. Unfortunately, historytells us that this is also one of the most commonly abused areas for illegal outlays ofcash. An important “enabling practice” for UNDPis clearly the early identification of staff – field-experienced staff – who can be deployed fromone part of the organization to the crisis area.

(6) Infuse peace-building and reconciliationgoals into rehabilitation projects. Infusion ofpeace-building and reconciliation measures inrehabilitation projects can be essential to long-term success. Where armed conflicts are localized,this may be relatively easier to manage, buteven when conflicts are geographically diverse,the need for a “peace dividend” as part of arehabilitation programme remains strong, despitethe greater operational challenges this may pose.

(7) Diverse expertise on project teams. Thewider the range of expertise UNDP possesseson its staff, the better prepared it is to respond tounexpected crises requiring specialized knowledge.This is an instrument of flexible responsealready discussed at length in chapter two.

(8) Established pool of local consultants.Some UNDP programme officers maintained andactively cultivated a list of national consultantswith expertise in a variety of fields, allowing themto draw on a pool of experts at short notice.This is a relatively easy and low-cost enablingpractice for country offices in states with a relatively strong pool of trained professionals.

(9) Established and updated database andclose knowledge of regions. UNDP officesthat invested heavily in gathering, storing,and analyzing baseline development anddemographic data found that that investmentpaid big dividends in times of crisis, when timeis too short to initiate information gathering.Likewise, where UNDP showed a commitmentto maintaining close knowledge of regionswhere rapid response might be needed, thisproved to be a vital enabling practice later on.In Lebanon, UNDP worked quietly with the UNpeacekeeping mission in the south, UNIFIL,to maintain a low-level presence since 1996,even though conventional development work wasnot feasible in that setting. This investment paidoff following the withdrawal, when UNDPenjoyed close knowledge of the communities and key political players in the area. Conversely,where UNDP lacked access to baseline data orclose knowledge of regions of operation, thiscreated delays and exponentially increased thelikelihood of errors. The UNDP-Japan Jointevaluation reached this same conclusion: “Weakbaseline data and incomplete information ondamage or needs meant revising premises, plans,and budgets. ... These delays in turn increasedcosts. ...The evaluation recognized the importanceof well-grounded pre-conflict and conflict-related research, and post-conflict data and 49

information, and the need to develop thisinformation base quickly and systematically.”28

UNDP country offices exhibit a wide range ofcapacities in this regard. Some, such asLebanon, possess a very robust database, have astrong commitment to field-based knowledgeof regions, and utilize any period of downtimeto update and analyze their demographic andsocio-economic database. Other countryoffices lack the level of human resourcesrequired to house their own database, and mustrely on others. In both Kosovo and Macedonia,UNDP did not even have a country office untilrecently, forcing those offices to draw on pre-existing data from peer agencies. Accessingand using data from other agencies requires aspirit of inter-agency cooperation that shouldbe more universal than it is. In practice, many ofthe most detailed and useful studies conducted byagencies tend to have very limited circulation –some agencies are in fact quite reluctant to sharetheir unpublished “gray literature.” For example,in Lebanon, a number of UN specialized agencies and the World Bank share a commonUN building in the center of Beirut, providingthem an excellent opportunity to cooperate ininformation sharing. Yet each maintains itsown separate library of reports, a practice thatwas necessitated by the fact that each agencyhad developed its own separate system of project and information cataloging.

Flexible approaches to available data can alsoyield unexpected dividends for “dual use” ofdata collected by one UNDP project utilized inanother. In Mozambique, information generatedby an aerial global positioning system (GMS)survey originally intended to assist with thecountry’s elections was recycled as criticalinformation in response to a crisis of floodingthat followed the elections two months later.

(10) UNDP expertise in local governanceand decentralization. This comparativeadvantage that UNDP enjoys has already beentreated in chapter two, but bears repeating hereas an important ingredient in institutional preparedness for rapid response. The close contacts with and knowledge of local powerstructures that UNDP has earned through itswork at municipal levels better prepares it forrapid response at the grass-roots level. These

ties should be closely cultivated and maintained,even when projects are completed or dormant.

(11) Networks and social capital. In crisissituations, a disconcerting aspect of vital information flows, coordination, and deal-making is its informality. The more extensiveUNDP’s own store of social capital and personal networks – in government, in localcommunities, in NGOs circles, in embassy anddonor circles, and of course within the familyof UN agencies – the better prepared the country office will be to respond flexibly andrapidly in concert with others. This intenselysocial and informal aspect of crisis response isnot usually accorded the importance itdeserves, but it is immediately recognizable insuccessful UNDP offices.

PRE-POSITIONED FUNDINGPre-positioned funds that can be drawn uponat short notice constitute another “enablingpractice” that can facilitate rapid and flexibleresponse. The case studies reviewed herestrongly underscore the extent to which trustfunds and TRAC 3 funds afford UNDP aresponse capacity it cannot otherwise enjoy.The core allocation of TRAC 3 funds, whichare under BCPR management, are expected torise from $19 million in 2002 to $24 million in2003, $27 million in 2004, and 27.7 2005.29

Country Offices should be aware of theauthority that Resident Representatives havein the immediate aftermath of a major crisis,namely, the spending authority to incur emergency expenses of up to $US100,000 foressential supplies etc.30 In parallel to use ofsuch funds, Resident Representatives shouldseek out additional authorization from BOM forauthorization for additional spending if needed.

The possibility that there is no banking systemin the programme area can be ascertained prior tothe onset of a crisis. Arrangements with BOM/OFA should be entered into regarding contin-gencies of cash delivery modalities, financialvolume, risks, insurance, and staff security.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT International staff members, usually holdingtop management positions, play a vital role in creating an office environment and reward




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50

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

28. UNDP-Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan Joint Evaluation,“Post-Conflict Assistance of the Government of Japan ThroughUNDP in Kosovo and East Timor” (New York: UNDP, October 2001), p.12.

29. BOM/OBR, Nov 2002.

30. BOM/OFA



system conducive to calculated risk-taking andflexibility – they are the “enablers” of flexibleresponse. But in the cases reviewed herein, itwas the quality of the national staff officersthat determined UNDP’s capacity for flexibleresponse. Country offices that hire and retainentrepreneurial, dedicated, and honest staffcapable of making independent decisions andtaking calculated risks stand a much greaterchance of success than those that employ individuals with a narrow view of their job anda nine-to-five approach to working hours.Socialization matters. Offices imbued with astrong sense of mission and vocation to thework of human development and post-warrehabilitation are much more likely to respondenthusiastically to the challenge of flexibleresponse; offices preoccupied with reportingprocedures and protocol are not.

To the extent that flexible response involvesgiving project officers more latitude to negotiatelocal arrangements, UNDP management mustin some cases become more comfortable withdelegation of authority as opposed to micro-managing. Where authority is delegated andflexible response is encouraged, however,UNDP staff must also be strongly socializedinto a commitment to honesty and ethical conduct, lest flexible response be seen as an invitation to unaccountable behavior. Staffmembers whose behavior suggests they cannotbe entrusted to pursue flexible responses ethically should not be retained.

With regard to staff with expertise infinance, logistics, IT, etc, country offices canenter into informal arrangements with UNDPoffices in neighboring countries such that suchstaff can be quickly and smoothly, if temporarily,deployed at the outset of a crisis.

EVALUATION CRITERIAEvaluation processes are one of the most powerful indicators to staff members of corporatepriorities. Standardized tests that are used asyardsticks to measure output in schools tend toencourage teachers to “teach to the test,” asopposed to teaching more important but lessmeasurable skills such as critical analysis. Inthe same way, project evaluation criteria canheavily drive decision-making in the field, andnot always in ways that promote flexibility andinnovation. Depending how they are designed

and what yardsticks they choose to use tomeasure success or failure, project evaluationsand individual performance reviews can eitherreinforce a culture of entrepreneurism or a pre-occupation with conformity and risk-aversion.The trend in evaluation processes towards heavyemphasis on “measurable outputs” in this regardis unfortunate, as it discourages deviation fromstated project goals and timetables, even if eventsreduce the relevance of those goals and timetables.In the past, the evaluative infrastructure at UNDPhas been strongly oriented to OECD-DACcriteria such as relevance, impact, and sustain-ability; though recent shifts towards outcomeevaluations are a welcome step toward gaugingprogress in UNDP assistance, the particularitiesof crisis and post-conflict situation require further fine-tuning of evaluative approaches.

To the extent that both project evaluationsand individual performance reviews can begeared toward rewarding flexible response andcalculated risk-taking – or at a minimum notpenalizing such behavior – evaluations can bemade part of the enabling infrastructure thatwill help facilitate speedy and agile UNDPresponse. At present, for example, there is littleinstitutional consensus on whether, let alonehow, to capture the so-called “peace dividend”that follows in the wake of conflict. How tomeasure progress in areas such as confidence-building, local conflict reconciliation – for whichUNDP assistance increasingly plays a role – arenot regularly captured in the evaluative approachesused by UNDP. Advocating and rewardingflexible response must replace a culture that oftenviews programme reorientation as a reflection ofpoor planning. A recent evaluation on DirectExecution, for example, undertaken by theUNDP Evaluation Office, stated that “successof project and programme delivery ... has beenshown to be related to vision, entrepreneurshipand innovation – the willingness to ‘break outof the box’ and to experiment, try new thingsand learn from mistakes.”31

PROJECT EXECUTION MODALITIESCountry offices that had gained approval fordirect execution (DEX) enjoyed greater flexibilityin the field. DEX in this sense is an importantenabling practice. But as the cases reviewedherein strongly demonstrate, DEX is a toolbest used as an option of last resort. Even

51__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

31. UNDP, Evaluation Office,“Evaluation of Direct Execution”, May 2001, p52.

when country offices were granted approval forDEX, they sought to use it flexibly, integratingit as much as possible with national execution.

In addition, UNDP country offices maximizedtheir options for project execution by maintaininggood working relations and good channels of com-munication with the entire spectrum of possibleimplementing agencies – including other UNagencies, international and national NGOs,municipalities, local development committeesand cooperatives, and government ministries.

II. “TOOLBOX” OFFLEXIBLE RESPONSE

Dozens of useful tools of flexible response,some well-known to the UNDP family andothers quite unique, were identified in the courseof this study. A few of the most promising andreplicable are highlighted again below:

RAPID DEPLOYMENTn BCPR and International Experts. In two

cases under review, UNDP had to movequickly into areas where no UNDP countryoffice existed. In several others, a country officewas in place but needed quick additionalhuman resource mobilization to meet urgentneeds. The BCPR’s capacity to deploy inter-national experts for temporary posting tosuch emergencies, and the use of a short-term team of sectoral experts from New Yorkto assist in project design, are practices ofrapid deployment worth reinforcing.

n BOM and Administrative Staff. In view ofthe need for finance, logistics, and other non-programme staff, pre-identified networks ofUNDP staff, possibly at the regional level,should be mobilized in advance, and relied uponto provide a source of temporary assistanceuntil others can be brought on.

PROJECT MODIFICATION AND DESIGNn Rapid response to new and unexpected situations

is enhanced by modifying and expanding existingprojects rather than initiating new ones.Close and early consultations with donors isimperative in this instance.

n Projects that are compartmentalized – thatis, designed as a series of small, free-standingprojects that can be successful and sustainableindependent of the completion of the otherprojects – allow UNDP to proceed withprojects even if additional pledges of funding

from the government or other sources isdelayed or cancelled.

n Projects that are designed with multipleobjectives are intrinsically more flexible thanthose with single objectives, enabling projectteams to shift emphases as circumstancesdictate. In particular, projects that integratelong-term objectives such as capacity-buildingwith components that can be harnessed toaddress emergency response (such as short-term employment) are consistently better ableto adjust to sudden emergency needs.

n Use of project “templates” – project proposalsborrowed from recent and similar crises inother post-conflict countries – reduce timedevoted to writing up proposals and helpsecure quicker donor funding when donorsare already familiar with (and satisfied with)the project in question.

START UP FUNDINGn Use of residual project funds as start-up

funding for a new project is difficult due to donor regulations, but under certain circumstances can be negotiated.

n Inter-agency partnerships can allow an agencywith expertise but no start-up funds to workwith an agency that has available funds butswhich lacks the required expertise.

n Advances Recoverable Locally (ARLs).ARL is an accounting device which is wellknown to country offices, and which can undercertain circumstances serve as a valuable toolof financial flexibility to deal with suddenstart-up costs. The UNDP Finance manualstates that “there are a number of purposes forwhich funds may be paid out or received by acountry office which cannot by immediatelydebited or credited to the country officebudget or on IOV. They are to be recorded ina set of accounts known as ARL.” TheUNDP ARL may be used to make advancesrecoverable locally to staff and exportsagainst entitlements, including travel advances.The establishment of a “UNDP Other ARL”used to operate a Petty Cash fund, and of an“Agency ARL” used to record funds handledon behalf of UN agencies or other externalorganizations (e.g. NGOs) must be specificallyauthorized by the Treasurer/BOM. ARLaccounts to make other advances as may benecessary for the proper conduct of the countryoffice operations such as Petrol ARL, dispensaryfacilities, and common services may be




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52



authorized by the Chief of AdministrativeServices Division/BOM. The El Salvadorexperience attests to the importance of theARL, which was repeatedly cited as a keytool to facilitate UNDP action at the outsetof an unanticipated crisis.

FUNDING AND PROCUREMENTn Purchasing waiver. The waiver, which can

be approved by BOM prior to the onset of an emergency situation, gives the ResidentRepresentative authorization to approve contractsup to a certain value, without headquartersinvolvement. The precise channels for securingthis authorization, however, are not alwayswell known to the CO prior to an emergencyresponse. The lesson is to insure that theappropriate communications channel andauthorization procedures are well understoodas a matter of course.

n Innovations that can increase the fungibilityof UNDP budgets without violating internaland donor financial restrictions are animportant tool of flexible response. Earlyconsultations with donors are essential.

n Circumventing funding delays by exploitingthe fungible nature of “pooled” donor fundingis an important tool of flexibility. Whenbudgetary constraints are produced by a donor’sfunding delays, projects that are supported bymultiple donors can avoid costly delays by takingadvantage of the fungible nature of pooledfunding. This often-used tool of flexibility mustbe accompanied by consultations with donors.

PROJECT EXECUTIONn Flexible use of NEX and DEX and co-direct

execution (“CODEX”) is important. NEXand DEX are not mutually exclusive: DEXin Lebanon, Macedonia, Rwanda, andMozambique involved UNDP retainingcontrol over project funds but working inclose concert with the relevant governmentministry. Indeed, the Lebanese country officeconsidered their execution modality to be anexample of CODEX (co-direct execution),while in Macedonia the modality was considereda “hybrid” of national and direct execution.

n Both international and national non-govern-mental organizations are building increasinglyspecialized expertise; if carefully selected, NGOs

53

REORIENTATING PROGRAMMES IN THE FACE OF POLITICAL CRISIS: HAITI

Haiti easily ranks as one of the most challengingoperating environments in the world for UNDP.The combination of political instability, donorretreat, collapsed state authority, violence, andacute poverty have placed a premium on flexibleand innovative response, but have also servedto constrain UNDP’s flexibility. The Haitian casestudy is a sobering reminder of the limits politicalfactors can place on UNDP’s flexibility in settingswhere post-conflict countries slide back towards,if not into, active conflict zones.

The political impasse and stalled politicalreform in Haiti meant that certain UNDP sectoralprojects – especially those related to governance –were forced to proceed in a high risk environment.The fact that UNDP remained in Haiti as the leadagency on governance and rule of law, but withfew resources and support, seemed to compoundthe problem. UNDP employed several tools offlexibility that facilitated at least incrementalimprovements in these troubled sectors. Onesuch tool was the use of pilot projects in localgovernance and justice, which enabled UNDPto learn lessons from a “zone de test” withoutrisking large amounts of scarce project fundingor triggering political problems.32 In the justiceproject, where UNDP lacked a functionalnational partner in the judiciary, it shifted itswork to preparatory technical work that wouldbetter enable the judiciary to function once the political impasse was resolved.

The Justice project also demonstrated a flexibleresponse to a common but often unappreciatedproblem – namely, tensions between modern,formal rule of law practices and institutions andtraditional, customary practices and preferences.In the case of Haiti, much of the populationcontinues to prefer consultations with traditionalreligious chiefs to solve conflicts. The formaljudiciary is widely distrusted and avoided bothbecause its laws and language are alien to manypeople and because of its corruption. To improvethis situation, UNDP has sought to support studiesby the State University in Haiti to integrateaspects of formal and informal law and legalpractices in Haiti.

The dramatic decline in external aid and thefast pace of the political crises in Haiti have alsorequired UNDP to refocus project orientation atshort notice to meet new needs. For example,following a government crackdown on humanrights organizations in late 2001, UNDP shiftedits assistance at the Office of the Protection ofthe Citizen to training investigators to conducthuman rights investigations. Likewise, whenpolitical impasse prevented the passage of legislation, the Justice project switched fromwork on legislative reform and assistance indrafting laws to more participatory andenabling work such as seminars. In addition,UNDP was able to meet an immediate need at short notice in 2000 by deploying UNV’s aselection monitors at a time when internationalmonitors were in short supply.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

32. United Nations Development Programme, “Deuxieme cadre de cooperation avec Haiti (2002-2006),” 4 December 2001DP/CCF/HAI/2001, p. 4

as implementing agencies give UNDP greaterchoice and flexibility in how it executes projects.

n When local capacity permits, greater use ofnational research institutes and think tanksfor generation of baseline data can reduce thetime and expense associated with internationalconsultancies.

n Project execution that maximizes a sense of localownership enhances flexible response; when localleaders and communities are strongly investedin projects, they become an important sourceof innovation and assistance in adapting tounexpected obstacles.

n Innovative ways to streamline reporting,contracting,and accounting. Although reportingrequirements are designed to promote theimportant goal of accountability, in certaininstances a degree of flexibility can be introduced to speed up and streamline theseprocesses in the interest of rapid response.Examples include Rwanda, where beneficiaries(community project managers) lacked thecapacity to produce required standard financialreports on previous tranches of funds; UNDPadjusted to this and allowed them to producea simple narrative report instead

HUMAN RESOURCESn Maintaining diversified expertise on project

staff affords UNDP more in-house flexibilityto deal with a wider range of rehabilitation issues.

n Maintaining an updated list of national consultants by sectoral specialization allowsUNDP projects to call on additional expertiseas needed.

n Attention to maintaining an ethnically diversenational team gives UNDP greater flexibilityto work with different constituencies in countrieswhere ethnic tensions are still high.

n When faced with budget and labor constraints,selective use of qualified international volun-teers (in addition to UNVs) can help UNDPcountry offices staff projects and keep officesfunctioning.

n Recruitment and retention of a highly dedicated and talented national staff is thesingle greatest source of institutional capacityfor problem solving in crises.

n The local networks and social capital thatnational staff members possess is a critical toolof flexibility and tends to be undervalued inthe hiring process.

n Management policies that socialize projectofficers and directors to take calculated risksand explore innovative solutions to problemsare an essential pre-requisite to flexible response.Staff members will respond to incentives anddisincentives to flexible response.

n Policies that expose international and nationalofficers to lessons learned from other countriesand other agencies can expand the range ofpolicy options the country team generatesand can encourage flexible response.

PROJECT TERMINATIONWhen projects are completed, UNDP can helpto avoid the loss of institutional expertise it hascultivated in its project teams by working(when appropriate) to “spin-off ” project teamsinto freestanding and independent non-profitthink tanks or consultancy firms. These firmscan then continue to serve as a repository ofexpertise and can be hired by UNDP or othersby contract for services as needed. This practicefosters both sustainability and flexibility, and islikely to improve employee morale – andreduce premature departure of personnel – asprojects wind down.




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CHAPTER IVFLEXIBLE

RESPONSE ANDINSTITUTIONAL

LEARNING

An ongoing challenge for UNDP and its peer agencies is establishingbetter mechanisms for institutional learning about flexible responseto post-conflict challenges. This study confirmed that country officeswere almost entirely unaware of the kinds of problems faced in othersettings, let alone the kinds of solutions generated in other UNDPmissions, including those in close geographic proximity.

Innovations and enabling practices must be given a better vehiclefor dissemination within the UNDP family. In particular, UNDPcounterparts from different country offices should be given moreopportunity to meet each other and share with one another theirtechniques for managing flexible responses to common problems.Administrative officers could learn much from one another aboutstrategies for coping with some of the common funding constraintsdiscussed in this study. National officers, who rarely have the opportunity to gain experience in other country offices, would especially benefit from this type of cross-fertilization of ideas andapproaches. As these types of learning processes generate newknowledge and innovations, an ongoing process of documentation isneeded to supplement and eventually replace this study, which isonly an initial point of departure for a much larger institutional conversation about flexible response in the field.

CONSTRAINED FLEXIBILITY

The many examples of flexible response identified in this report area testimony to the commitment and problem-solving spirit of UNDPfield staff. But it must also be repeated that these innovations occurwithin a context of constrained flexibility. The enabling practices andtools of flexible response explored here can improve institutionalresponse capacity up to a point, but the chief constraint will remainuntil tackled head on, namely a culture of conservatism that allowsaccountability to become an obstacle to pragmatism and resourcefulness.

Children playing amid discarded trash signals the

need for continuing efforts tore-establish basic social services

in the still-tense Mitrovica.Photo: Ky Chung/UNMIK/DPI


Chapter IV.FlexibleResponse andInstitutionalLearning

55

The kinds of broader structural changes thatwould be required to transform UNDP into anorganization built for speed are beyond thescope of this narrow study, but they constitutean issue that continues to require attention.

RECOMMENDATIONS

By its tone and content, much of this report haspresented “recommendations” for considerationby country offices. What follow below are severalrecommendations that highlight the need forUNDP to expand and accelerate the learningprocess initiated with this report:

1. Institutionalize knowledge sharing onflexible response. Dissemination of thisreport should be seen as the first, ratherthan the final, step in an establishing aninstitutional culture of knowledge sharing.More is clearly needed, given the surpris-ingly limited extent of information sharingon this topic hitherto. The main institu-tional actors responsible for designing andimplementing flexible response withinUNDP – ie, BCPR, the Regional Bureaux,and BOM – should use this report as abasis to plan for a systematic exchange ofinformation on flexible responses. Onepossibility is to organize a series of regionalconsultations, with EO support, at whichprogramme officers from respective COs could

exchange information on the innovationsand best practices that they have developedin CPC situations.

2. Reorient performance monitoring toreward flexible response. Within UNDP’sperformance monitoring infrastructure,steps should be taken to explicitly capture, andreward, flexible response. The assessmentexercise that underpins preparation of theResults-Oriented Annual Report would offeran ideal channel to formalize encouragementof flexible response by means of devisingindicators that would capture effectiveinnovation of operational response atcountry office level.

3. Periodic workshops on the latest operationalinnovations. Few country offices have thespare capacity to update staff on the latestrevisions in the rules and guidelines thatguide institutional conduct in finance,administration and procurement. Thisexercise has, nonetheless, demonstrated thatsuch knowledge, shared among staff in thefield, is crucial. The Bureau of Managementshould periodic workshops aimed atinforming senior country office staff of thelatest innovations/revisions in UNDP regulations and rules; such informationworkshops could be included in annualgatherings of resident representativesand/or deputy resident representatives.




from the Field

Chapter IV.Flexible

Response andInstitutional

Learning

56

ANNEXES

ANNEX I. COUNTRY OFFICE IN ABOX CONCEPT (PREPARED BY BOM)

At the time of writing, the Country Office in Box Concept is justthat – a concept. However, it clearly holds potential for countryoffices in need of rapid deployment of office facilitities.

In recent years, the situations in Afghanistan, East Timor andKosovo have highlighted the critical need to move quickly in establishing a Country Office (CO) operational capacity to supportUNDP’s programme activities. In addition, emergency situationsmay arise at any time in any country that may force the evacuationof UNDP staff from their office premises. Telecommunications andfinancial and administrative systems are key requirements forUNDP to function in these and other situations, and yet they areoften the most difficult and time consuming to establish.

“Country Office in a Box” (COINb) is a portable solution thatprovides pre-configured CO financial and administrative systems,and voice and data communications capacity. Several systems placedin strategic locations around the world can easily be activated anddispatched at short notice to any geographic location. COINb isdesigned to be plug-and-play and to work under harsh conditions.The system is not dependent on the local availability of electricityand technical expertise.

OVERVIEWn Portable CO telecommunications and systems environment that

can easily be dispatched to and setup in any location around theworld.

n Fully self-contained with plug-and-play setup.n Can start with “barebones” version – stand-alone configuration

powered by car battery.

PRE-LOADED CO SOFTWAREn FIM, WinFOAS and CO Suite pre-installed with generic (dummy)

country code and US$ cashbook established.n Microsoft Project 2000n Microsoft Office 2000n Standard UNDP forms preloaded.n Up to 5 pre-configured generic user accounts to work with FIM,

WinFOAS, email and LDAP authentication. Email configuredfor offline use.

One of the biggest challengesfacing countries such as ElSalvador is demobilizing

solgiers after armed conflict.Photo: UNDP


Annex I.Country Officein a Box Concept

57

WIRELESS LAN ARCHITECTURE n Connects via satellite to the Internet at 64kbps.n LAN (between laptops on the field) connect

between 1Mbps and 11MBps n LAN is flexible and allows roaming (500 feet

indoors, 1000 feet outdoors) n Several LANs can be interconnected to cover

a wider area.n A beefier laptop on the LAN could act

as local web/email server, router, web cacheand firewall.

n Includes a network printer.

ACCOMMODATES VOICE AND DATA n No physical limit on the number of laptops,

although 16 per installation seems more practical.n Up to 4 wireless phones/installation. More

could be added with a PBX card.

SECURE n A firewall is included in the design.n LAN communications are encrypted.




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Annex I.Country Office

in a Box Concept

58


Annex II.Terms ofReference

I. INTRODUCTION UNDP has long experience in the developmentand provision of assistance in post conflict situations. What UNDP does not have, atpresent, is an empirically-based blueprint thatexplains how UNDP programme managers canand should react to the unforeseen circumstancesthat are part and parcel of post-conflict situations.Indeed, it is often stressed that “flexibility” onthe part of UNDP is a crucial pre-requisite forsuccessful post-conflict assistance programmes;yet what such “flexibility” actually entails hashitherto never been defined on the basis of a systematic empirical analysis such as thepresent one.

Rather than offering generalizations on thenature of conflicts, this exercise will documentUNDP programming and managerial responses,with a focus on instructive examples of effectiveinstitutional flexibility demonstrated duringthe implementation of UNDP programmesimplemented in post conflict situations.

II. BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATIONAdopted at the Millennium Assembly inAugust 2000, the Report of the Panel on UnitedNations Peace Operations, often referred to as“the Brahimi Report”, stated that “UNDP hasuntapped potential in [the peace-building]area, and UNDP, in cooperation with otherUnited Nations agencies, funds and programmesand the World Bank, are best placed to take thelead in implementing peace building activities.”35

The Role of UNDP in Crisis and Post-ConflictSituations report, adopted by the UNDPExecutive Board at its January 2001 session,acknowledged the continuing need for UNDPto “improve the programming tools it deploysto respond to the (CPC) environment and theway in which it manages (CPC) challenges to ensure coherence, discipline and greaterintegration within the organization.”36

In his 7 June 2001 report to the Security

Council on the Prevention of Armed Conflict,the Secretary-General states the following:“Development assistance provided by theUnited Nations system needs to focus ondecreasing the key structural risk factors that fuelviolent conflict, such as inequity – by addressingdisparities among identity groups; inequality –by addressing policies and practices that institu-tionalise discrimination; justice – by promotingthe rule of law, effective and fair law enforcementand administration of justice, and, as appropriate,equitable representation in the institutions that serve the rule of law; and insecurity – by strengthening accountable and transparentgovernance and human security.”37 The Secretary-General writes, “Looking at the United Nationssystem as a whole, the capability for preventiveaction is extensive. There remains, however, aclear need for introducing a more systematicconflict prevention perspective into the multi-faceted programmes and activities of the UnitedNations system so that they can contribute tothe prevention of conflict by design and not bydefault.”38 The Secretary-General then makesthe following recommendation: “I encourage thegoverning bodies and other intergovernmentalbodies of the United Nations funds and programmes and specialized agencies to consider how they could best integrate a conflict prevention perspective into their different mandated activities.”39

III. PURPOSE AND SCOPEThis exercise itself has undergone changes inresponse to findings from the literature reviewphase during which projects in the selectedCPC situations (local governance, conflict prevention) were solicited and analysed.Indeed, originally, the exercise was to centeraround a systematic examination of past andongoing activities at “ground level”, presentedin two “clusters” – Dynamic Management ofLocal Governance Programmes and Emerging

59

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

35. A/55/305, para 46.

36. DP/2001/4, para 53.

37. S/2001/574,“Prevention of Armed Conflict, Report of the Secretary-General”, 7 June 2001, para 100.

38. S/2001/574, para 64.

39. S/2001/574, Recommendation 10, para 72.

ANNEX II. TERMS OF REFERENCEUNDP CRISIS AND POST-CONFLICT

EVALUATION PROGRAMME 2001-2002

Frameworks for Early Warning and ConflictPrevention. Recognizing that the distinction ineffect of these two “clusters” is not always clear,the exercise has been reoriented toward the keyaspect that determines the effectiveness of allCPC assistance, namely flexibility in the designand implementation of post-conflict programmes.

The exercise will document UNDP operationaland managerial responses to changing circum-stances and conditions during post-conflictprogramme implementation. The final reportwill serve as an inventory of best practices thathelp programme managers to respond effectivelyto the intrinsic uncertainties of post-conflictsituations. The basic question to be answered,then, is: how have UNDP programme managers,at the field level, responded effectively tounforeseen developments during the life of a given project?

IV. METHODOLOGYThe preparation of the above document willcomprise literature review, field-based data-gathering, and consultations with the majorstakeholders both within the UN system aswell as in host country and donor capitols. Atimetable, detailing each of the main phasesbelow, is provided at the end of this document.

1.Conceptualization. Consultations with relevant UNDP offices should be held in September-October, with the concepts,substantive parameters, and geographicscope of this exercise decided by mid-November. Recruitment of research assistantsand consultants should take place in the second half of November.

2.Literature Review. A review of relevantdocumentation, including thematic andproject evaluations, ROAR, CCA andUNDAF documents, as well as scholarly/academic literature, should be undertaken bythe evaluation team, with a general situationalanalysis drafted by mid-December.

3.Fact-finding/Interviews. Headquarters-based interviews will take place in January2002. Field visits will take place duringFebruary 2002. Report drafting will takeplace in February-March 2002. Field visitswill to the extent feasible involve meetingswith project beneficiaries, possibly in focusgroup discussions, aimed at identifying bench-marks for the success of a given programme.

4.Presentation of Findings. A workshop/symposium at which the findings from this

exercise are to be presented, will take place inApril 2002.

V. THEMATIC FOCUS OF CPC EVALUATION PROGRAMMEThe best practices identified and lessonslearned during this exercise will fall generallyunder the following three categories. Interviews,surveys, focus group discussions, etc., shouldaim be undertaken in full view of these issues.

1)Flexibility in day-to-day project managementn Adapting programme focus and sequencing

(in response to shifting economic/social/political/demographic conditions).

n Ensuring timely implementation of quickimpact projects

n Filling information loopholes – workingdespite weak baseline data (includingproblems of limited institutional memory asa result of rapid international staff turnover).

n Administrative innvotions for the timelyrecruitment of local experts.

n Circumventing supply bottlenecks andlogistical constraints (i.e., dynamic imple-mentation modalities)

2)Expeditious decision-making vis-à-visUNDP headquarters and other inter-national stakeholdersn Streamlining headquarters-field commu-

nication.n Streamlining administrative decision-

making processes.n Timely recruitment of international experts.n Innovative ways of maintaining donor support

and project funding during phased projects.n Responding to budgetary shortfalls and

cost over-runs.n Identifying sustainable sources of revenue

for maintenance and technical managementof project outputs.

n Innovative means of maximizing commu-nication with stakeholders (beneficiaries,national governments, and donors).

General Questions for Discussions, Interviews,Focus Group Discussion

1)Substantive Management Issuesn Which are the most recurrent on-the-

ground “surprises” that have necessitatedshifts in substantive programming forpost-conflict programmes?




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Annex II.Terms of

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Annex II.Terms ofReference

n How have UNDP and partner organisationsresponded to unforeseen developments?

n What has been the end result of theseresponses, as perceived by project and programme target beneficiaries?

2)Administration and Fiscal Management Issuesn In administrative and budgetary terms,

what have been the most common changes

during the implementation phase ofUNDP programmes?

n How have donors responded to budgetshortfalls?

n Have there been noteworthy innovationsadopted by programme managers in orderto expedite programmes and/or circumventunnecessarily burdensome bureaucraticprocedures?

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VII. TIMETABLE AND TASK AGENDA FOR CPC EVALUATIVE PROGRAMME

1. Senior Consultant A:11/26-11/30 12/3-12/7 12/10-12/14 1/7-1/11 1/14-1/18 1/21-1/25 1/28-2/1 2/4-2/8 2/11-2/15 2/18-2/22 2/25-3/25

1. Consultations at UNDP headquarters on the substantivescope and orientation of exercise.2. Background research on local governance/conflict prevention issues.

5 working days

1. Absorption of background analyses prepared by research assistants.2. Consultations with UNDP HeadquartersStaff, including regional bureaux, UNCDF, ERD,etc on particular projects to be evaluated.3. Ascertain country-specific fact-findingagenda for subsequent field visits.

10 working days

1. Undertake field visits toselected case study countries.2. Initiate drafting of report.

10 working days

1. HQ Debriefing.2. Draft selected chapters.3. Elicit and integrate comments, etc., from stakeholders.

15 working days

2. Senior Consultant B:11/26-11/30 12/3-12/7 12/10-12/14 1/7-1/11 1/14-1/18 1/21-1/25 1/28-2/1 2/4-2/8 2/11-2/15 2/18-2/22 2/25-3/25

1.Briefings with EO, Senior Consultant A,and Research Assistants

2 working days

2. Undertake field visits toselected case study countries.3. Initiate drafting of report.

20 working days

1. HQ Debriefing.2. Draft selected chapters.3. Elicit and integrate comments, etc., from stakeholders.

15 working days

3. Research Assistants/Associates:11/26-11/30 12/3-12/7 12/10-12/14 1/7-1/11 1/14-1/18 1/21-1/25 1/28-2/1 2/4-2/8 2/11-2/15 2/18-2/22 2/25-3/25

1. Familiarize oneself with UNDP working practices andintroductions to key UNDP staff.Consultations with Team.2. Note-taking during discussionswith UNDP programme staff.3. Documents Collection andReview: UNDAF, CCA, ROAR,Evaluation Reports.4. Prepare general situation and needs analysis, includinginventory of lessons learned/recommendations on eachcountry situation.

3 weeks

1. Consultations with team members andfinalization of background analyses.2. Initiate preparations of field visits;contacts with field offices.

4 weeks

1. Assist in the drafting of chapters of case study.2. Prepare other components of case study, including bibliography, List of PersonsInterviewed, etc.3. Backstop field visits of seniorteam members; be on standbyto meet needs that will ariseduring field visit.

3 weeks

1. Assist in drafting of text as advised by senior team members.2. Assist in the organization of workshop withstakesholders

1 week

VI. GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE

Region Country experiences in

AFRICA Rwanda Mozambique

ASIA Tajikistan Bougainville

ARAB STATES Lebanon

EUROPE Kosovo Macedonia

LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN Haiti El Salvador

GENERAL REFERENCES

Abbasi, G.Y., and H.A. Al-Mharmah,“Project Management Practice by thePublic Sector in a Developing Country”,International Journal of Project Management,Vol. 18, 2000, pp. 105-109.

Anderson, Mary B. Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace – Or War. Boulder:Lynne Rienner, 1999.

Ball, Nicole, ed. Making Peace Work: The Roleof the International Development Community.Washington, DC: ODC, 1996.

Bradbury, Mark. “Behind the Rhetoric of the Relief-to-Development Continuum.Paper prepared for the NGOs in ComplexEmergencies Project. Ottawa: CARECanada, 1997.

Cavallone, Sergio. “Permanent Managementand Changing Features of ProjectManagement,” Project Management, 2 (2),May 1984.

Chicken, John C., and Tamar Posner, ThePhilosophy of Risk, Thomas Telford, 1998

Cooke-Davies, Terry. “The ‘Real’ SuccessFactors on Projects,” International Journal ofProject Management, vol. 20, 2002.

Cousens, Elizabeth M., and Chetan Kumar,eds. Peacebuilding as Politics: CultivatingPeace in Fragile Societies. Boulder: LynneRienner Pub., 2001.

Daubon, Ramon, and Harold H. Saunders.“Operationalizing Social Capital: AStrategy to Enhance Communities’‘Capacity to Concert.’” International StudiesPerspectives vol. 3, no. 2 (2002), pp. 176-191.

Dinsmore, Paul C. Human factors in ProjectManagement, AMACOM, AmericanManagement Association, 1990.

Doyle, Michael W., and N. Sambanis,Building Peace: Challenges and Strategies AfterCivil War, December 27, 1999.

Kane, June. “War-Torn Societies Project inPractice.” Geneva: WSP, 1999.

International Peace Academy. “ManagingSecurity Challenges in Post-ConflictPeacebuilding”, proceedings of a conferenceheld in Toronto, June 22-23, 2001, IPAWorking Report, New York, 2001

El-Sabaa, S. “The Skills and Career Path ofan Effective Project Manager,” InternationalJournal of Project Management, Vol.19, 2001.

Smillie, Ian. Patronage or Partnership: LocalCapacity Building in Humanitarian Crises.Bloomfield CT: Kumarian Press, 2001.

Stiefel, Matthias. “Rebuilding After War:Lessons from the War-Torn SocietiesProject.” Geneva: WSP, 1999.

UNDP. Sharing New Ground in Post-Conflict Situations: The Role of UNDP inReintegration Programmes. January 2000.

UNDP. Evaluation of the Relationshipbetween UNDP and UNOPS, EvaluationOffice, February 2000

UNDP. Lessons Learned in UNDP Post-Conflict Assistance: CPC EvaluationProgramme for June-December 2001.

UNDP. Governance Foundations for Post-Conflict Situations: UNDP’s Experience.Management Development andGovernance Division Bureau forDevelopment Policy, January 2000.

UNDP. “Institutional Arrangements for theExecution of UNDP Supported Projectsand Programmes.” http://www.undp.org/lb/undp_leb/execution.html

UNDP. Results-Oriented Annual Report(ROAR) for 2000, New York, 4 May, 2001.

UNDP. Handbook on Monitoring andEvaluating for Results, January 2002.

UNDP. Evaluation Update. PerformanceMeasurement: A Vision for the Future, EvaluationOffice, New York, September 2001.




from the Field

Annex III.Bibliography

62

ANNEX III. BIBLIOGRAPHY



UNDP. Evaluation of Non-Core Resources,Evaluation Office, New York, May 2000.

UNDP. Evaluation of Direct Execution,Evaluation Office, New York, May 2001.

UNDP-Ministry of Foreign Affairs of JapanJoint Evaluation. “Post-Conflict Assistanceof the Government of Japan ThroughUNDP in Kosovo and East Timor.” NewYork, UNDP, October 2001.

UNDP, Bureau for Development Policy.Management Foundations for Post-ConflictSituations: UNDP’s Experience. November 1999.

UNDP Evaluation Office. DevelopmentEffectiveness: Review of Evaluative Evidence.New York, UNDP Evaluation Office,September 2000.

UNDP Evaluation Office and the German Federal Ministry for EconomicCooperation and Development (BMZ).The UNDP Role in Decentralization andLocal Governance. New York: UNDPEvaluation Office, 2000.

United Nations. Prevention of Armed Conflict:Report of the Secretary-General, 7 June, 2001.

United Nations. Report of the Panel onUnited Nations Peace Operations (BrahimiReport), A/55/305 S/2000/809.

United Nations. Executive Board of theUnited Nations Development Programmeand of the United Nations PopulationFund. “Results-Oriented Annual Report(ROAR) for 2000.” New York, UnitedNations, 4 May 2001 DP/2001/14/add.1

White, Diana, and Joyce Fortune. “CurrentPractice in Project Management—anEmpirical Study,” International Journal ofProject Management, Vol.20, 2002.

World Bank. Conflict Prevention and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Perspectives andProspects, Washington, DC, April 20-21, 1998.

World Bank. Assessing Aid: What Works,What Doesn’t, and Why. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1998.

World Bank. World Development Report 1997:The State in a Changing World. New York:Oxford University Press, 1997.

Zachau, Per. “Flexibility of ProjectManagement, Project Management, Vol 2,No. 4, November 1984.

KOSOVO

Catholic Relief Services. “Project Document:Youth Empowerment Project.” Pristina,February 2000.

International Catholic MigrationCommission (ICMC), Kosovo EnterpriseProgram. “Small Enterprise DevelopmentProgram (SED), Prizren Kosovo. FinalReport” (May 2001).

JIAS, Department of Reconstruction. Kosovo2001-2003 from Reconstruction to Growth:A Preliminary Assessment by the Departmentof Reconstruction. Pristina, December 2000.

Riinveest. Economic Activities and Democratic Development of Kosovo.Pristina, September 1998.

UNIFEM. Women at Work: The EconomicSituation and Opportunities for Women inKosovo. Pristina, November 2000.

United Nations, Office of the UNDevelopment Coordinator. The Next Stagesof Kosovo’s Transition: Guidelines for UnitedNations Development Activities. Pristina,July 2000.

United Nations Development Group.“Kosovo Common Assessment.”Pristina, January 2001.

United Nations Development Group.“A Partnership Programme of the UnitedNations Agencies in Kosovo Coordinatedby UNDC United Nations Mission ofInterim Administration (UNMIK).” Projectnumber YUG/00/xxx/A/xx/31. 2000.

UNDP. “Project Document: VillageEmployment and RehabilitationProgramme (VERP).” 1999. 63

UNDP. “Village Employment andRehabilitation Programme (VERP) inKosovo: Final Report.” Contract number99/KOS01/05/001 June 2000.

UNDP. “Village Employment andRehabilitation Programme (VERP) inKosovo: Interim Report.” Contract number99/KOS04/14/C1 (001) Phase Two.December 2000.

UNDP. “Project Document: CommunityIntegrated Rehabilitation Program in Kosovo.”Project number YUG/99/003/A/07/71.September 1999.

UNDP. “Project Document: Program for theEconomic Recovery of Kosovo (PERK).”Project number YUG/99/004/A/07/71 andYUG99/Q04/A/2N/71. October 1999.

UNDP. “Project Document: SchoolRehabilitation in Kosovo.” Project numberYUG/01/008. August 2000.

UNDP. “Project Document: Youth Post-Conflict Participation Project(YPCPP).” Project number YUG/00/006.7 August 2000.

UNDP. “Terminal Review Report:Community Integrated RehabilitationProgramme (CIRP) –IRC.” ProjectNumber YUG/99/003/A/07/71.28 November 2000.

UNDP. “Project Document: Support toHuman Security in Kosovo.” Project number YUG/01/H12/A/1X/34. 2001.

UNDP. “Strengthening the Capacities ofMunicipalities in the DevelopmentManagement and Service Provision(LoGo): Project Review.” 26 July 2001.

UNDP. “Local Governance Programme:Observations, Suggestions, and LessonsLearnt from the LoGo Project.”November 2001.

UNDP. Kosovo. Project Summaries.http://www.kosovo.undp.org/projects

UNDP. ROAR. RBMS Analysis Module.“SRF/ROAR Partnerships: Kosovo.” 2000.

UNDP. ROAR. RBMS Analysis Module.“SRF/ROAR Outcomes and Outputs:Kosovo.” 2000.

UNDP. ROAR. RBMS Analysis Module.“ROAR Situational Indicators; Kosovo.” 2000.

UNDP. ROAR. RBMS Analysis Module.“Strategic Results Framework (SRF)Narrative: Kosovo.” 2000.

UNDP-Ministry of Foreign Affairs of JapanJoint Evaluation. “Post-Conflict Assistanceof the Government of Japan ThroughUNDP in Kosovo and East Timor.”New York, UNDP, October 2001.

FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC

OF MACEDONIA (FYROM)

Deshormes, Agnes. “Implementing LocalGovernment Reform: Discussion Paper,”Skopje, UNDP, February 2001.

Economist Intelligence Unit. Macedonia CountryReport. London, EIU, February 2001.

Human Rights Watch, “A Threat to Stability:Human Rights Violations in Macedonia.”New York, Human Rights Watch, 1996.

International Crisis Group. The AlbanianQuestion in Macedonia: Implications of theKosovo Conflict for Inter-Ethnic Relations inMacedonia. ICG Balkans Report No. 38.Skopje/Washington/Brussels, ICG, 11August 1998.

International Crisis Group. Macedonia’s EthnicAlbanians: Bridging the Gap. ICG BalkansReport No98. Skopje/Washington/Brussels,ICG, 2 August 2000.

Pettifer, James, ed. The New MacedonianQuestion. London, MacMillan Press, 1999.

“Rule of Law Sector in FYROM, SituationReport.” Skopje, UNDP, December 2001.

United Nations. “United NationsConsolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for the Southeastern Europe.” Skopje and New York, UN, 2001.




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United Nations Country Team — FYROM.“Assessment of the Potential For anExpanded United Nations Role inPreventive Development in the FormerYugoslav Republic of Macedonia.”Prepared for Adoption by the BalkansWorking Group, June 2001.

UNDP. Annual Report FYR Macedonia 2000.Skopje, 2000.

UNDP. “Country Programme Review of theFormer Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.”February 2000.

UNDP. FYR Macedonia: Early Warning Report(monthly publication since October 2000).Skopje, UNDP. Prepared by Kapital –Center for Development Research.

UNDP. “Rule of Law Sector in FYROM,Situation Report.” Skopje, UNDP,December 2001.

UNDP, Emergency Response Division.“Mission Report, FYROM (Oct. 9-12,2001).” Written by Robert Piper, DeputyDirector, ERD.

UNDP. ROAR. RBMS Analysis Module.“SRF/ROAR Partnerships. Macedonia.”

UNDP. ROAR. RBMS Analysis Module.“SRF/ROAR Outcomes and OutcomeIndicators. Macedonia.”

UNDP. ROAR. RBMS Analysis Module.“SCF/ROAR Outcomes and Outputs.”

UNDP. ROAR. RBMS Analysis Module.“ROAR Situational Indicators. Macedonia.”

UNDP. ROAR. RBMS Analysis Module.“Strategic Results Framework (SRF)Narrative. Macedonia.”

UNDP. ROAR. RBMS Analysis Module.“Results Oriented Annual Report (ROAR)Narrative. Macedonia.”

United Nations. Executive Board of theUnited Nations Development Programmeand of the United Nations PopulationFund. “UNDP: Country Cooperation

Frameworks and Related Matters. FirstCountry Cooperation Framework for theFormer Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia(1997-1999).” New York, UNDP,DP/CCF/MCD/1 (3 July 1997).

United Nations. Executive Board of theUnited Nations Development Programmeand of the United Nations PopulationFund. “UNDP: Country CooperationFrameworks and Related Matters. SecondCountry Cooperation Framework for theFormer Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia(2001-2003).” New York, UNDP,DP/CCF/MCD/2, 2001.

LEBANON

Consultation and Research Institute, “Mid-Term Evaluation: Reintegration and Socio-Economic Rehabilitation of the Displaced.”Beirut: Ministry of the Displaced andUNDP ( July 2001).

Gubser, Peter. “The Impact of NGOs onState and Non-State Relations in theMiddle East.” Middle East Politics vol. 9, no.1 (March 2002), pp. 139-148.

UNDP. “Socio-Economic RehabilitationProgramme for Southern Lebanon: InitialProgramme Brief.” Beirut: UNDP andCouncil for Development andReconstruction (October 2000).

UNDP. “Report of the Working Conferenceof Non-Governmental Organizations inSupport of the Development of SouthLebanon.” Beirut: UNDP, Government of Italy, and the Council for Developmentand Reconstruction (September 2000).

UNDP. “Working Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Support of the Development of South Lebanon”(September 2000).

UNDP. “Lebanon: Crisis and Post-ConflictEvaluation Programme 2001-2002.”

UNDP. “Major Initiatives in Lebanon.”http://www.undp/org/lb/undp_leb/initiatives.html 65

UNDP. “Socio-Economic RehabilitationProgramme for Southern Lebanon.”

UNDP. “Post-Conflict Socio-EconomicRehabilitation Programme for SouthernLebanon.” Programme Support Document(2000).

UNDP. “Reintegration and Socio-EconomicRehabilitation of the Displaced Programme,Mid-Term Evaluation.” Beirut ( July 2001).

UNDP. “Reintegration and Socio-EconomicRehabilitation of the Displaced, Phase 2.”(LEB98/001).

UNDP. “Reintegration and Socio-EconomicRehabilitation of the Displaced: Objectives,Strategy, Accomplishments, and Next Steps.”

UNDP. “Technical Cooperation Unit(LEB/92/013); Institutional DevelopmentUnit (LEB/98/002): Report of theEvaluation Mission.” Macksville, Australia:Plunt and Associates (May/June 2001).

UNDP. “Evaluation of the UNDP/UNPCPProgramme in Baabbeckael Hermel:Support to the Regional DevelopmentProgramme of Baalbeck-Hermal.”(LEB/96/100 and LEB/99/B99)(March/April 2000).

UNDP. “Reintegration and Socio-EconomicRehabilitation of the Displaced: Objective.”Beirut, UNDP, n.d.

UNDP. Linking Economic Growth and SocialDevelopment in Lebanon. ConferenceProceedings (Beirut, 11-13 January 2000).

UNDP. ROAR Narrative: Lebanon (2000).

UNDP. ROAR Narrative: Lebanon (2001).

UN. Common Country Assessment Lebanon.Beirut (December 1998).

UN. First Country Cooperation Frameworkfor Lebanon (1997-2001). (3 March 1997).DP/CCF/LEB/1.

USAID. “USAID Assistance to Lebanon.”Beirut ( June 2001).

Van Dam, Denis, and Paul Gasparini.“Reintegration and Socio-EconomicRehabilitation of the Displaced Project:Report of the Evaluation Mission.”Beirut: UNDP-Lebanon (October-November 1996).

World Bank. “Republic of Lebanon Update,Third Quarter 2001.” Beirut: LebanonCountry Office (2001).

RWANDA

Government of Rwanda. NationalDecentralization Policy, Republic of Rwanda,Ministry of Local Government and SocialAffairs, Kigali.

Government of Rwanda. Programme SupportFor Implementation of Decentralization andDemocratization. Kigali: Ministry of Local Government and Social Affairs,November 2000.

Government of Rwanda. “Fiscal and FinancialDecentralization Policy.” Kigali, May 2001.

Government of Rwanda. “NationalGovernance Framework: StrengtheningGood Governance

For Poverty Reduction in Rwanda,”December 2001.

UNPDP-UNDPF. “Second CountryCooperation Framework for Rwanda (20022006).” 21 November, 2001.

UNPDP-UNDPF. “First CountryCooperation Framework for Rwanda(1998-2000).” 9 February, 1998.

UNDP/Government of Rwanda/UNHCR.Evaluation of the UNDP/UNHCR JointReintegration Programming Unit in Rwanda.Kigali, October 2000.

UNDP. Support to Decentralization andDemocratisation. Annual Progress Report,Kigali, February 2002.

UNDP. “Review of Direct Execution inRwanda: Report of a UNDP Mission toKigali.” 12-17 January 1998.




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UNDP. “Support for the Urgent Reinstallationof Returnees in Gesenyi and ByumbaPrefectures.” (RWA/96/B04).

UNDP. “Support for the UrgentReinstallation of Returnees in Butare,Gitarama, Kibungo and Kigal RuralPrefectures.” (RWA/96/B07).

UNDP. “Japanese Support for theResettlement and Housing for Returnees inKibungo and Byumba Byumba Prefectures.”(RWA/96/B09).

UNDP. “Consolidation of Reintegration,Rehabilitation And SustainableDevelopment in Rwanda.”(RWA/96/014/A/07/34).

UNDP. “Project Reinstallation Intègre DansLes Communes Rukara ET Birenga.”(RWA/97/B12).

UNDP. “Rwanda Reintegration UmbrellaProject.” Kigali, 1997. (RWA/97/029/01/34,RWA/97/B29/A/6Y/34).

UNDP. “Consolidation of Reintegration,Rehabilitation and Sustainable Developmentin Rwanda” (RWA/96/014/07/34)

UNDP. “Support to the Decentralization and Democratization Project.”(RWA/00/011/B11).

UNDP-USAID. “Emergency Projects toImprove Food Security in Rwanda.”Kigali, 1998.

MOZAMBIQUE

Kane, June. “War-Torn Societies Project inMozambique.” Geneva: WSP, 1998.

Lubkemann, Stephen. “Rebuilding LocalCapacities in Mozambique.” In Patronage orPartnership: Local Capacity Building inHumanitarian Crises, ed. Ian Smillie(Bloomfield CT: Kumarian Press, 2001,pp. 77-106.

UNDP. Surviving the Flood Together. AnnualReport of the UN Resident Coordinator,Maputo, 28 February, 2001.

United Nations. Workshop on ReintegrationProgrammes for Demobilized Soldiers inMozambique. Mozambique, Department forHumanitarian Affairs, October 1994.

UNDP. “First Country CooperationFramework for Mozambique (1998-2000).”7 November 1997.

UNDP. “Country Framework Report onMozambique 1998-2001.” (4th Draft).

UNDP-Government of Mozambique.Country Cooperation Framework forMozambique (1998-2001).” CountryReview, August 25-September 29, 2001

UNDP. “Support to Decentralized Planningand Financing in Nampula ProvinceDistrict Planning and Financing ProjectReport of the Mid-Term EvaluationMission.” November 2000.

UNDP. Country Cooperative Framework,Mozambique 1998-2001. Maputo, 2001.

UNDP. “Support to the Police of the Republicof Mozambique.” MOZ/98/006/A/01/99).

UNDP. “Agenda 2025 - Vision AndStrategies of the Nation.” (MOZ/01/008)

UNDP. “Support to the General Elections inMozambique.” (MOZ/98/018).

UNDP. Project Document: InterphaseAssistance to Provincial DevelopmentPlanning.” (MOZ/93/005/A/01/99).

UNDP. “Strengthening Democracy andGovernance through Development ofMedia in Mozambique-Phase II.”(MOZ/01/003).

UNDP. “Project Document: PoolingAgreement for Technical Assistance in theHealth Sector.” (MOZ/94/B07/A/3Y/99)

UNDP. “Project Document: NationalIntegrated Programme for Social Action, Employment and Youth.”(MOZ/98/008/A/01/99).

UNDP. “Reintegration Programmes forDemobilised Soldiers in Mozambique.” 67

UNDP. “Project Document: Support to thePolice of the Republic of Mozambique.”(MOZ/98/006/A/01/99).

UNDP. “Project Document: Support to theGeneral Elections.” (MOZ/98/018/C/01/NEX).

UNDP. “Project Document: Consolidation ofthe Accelerated Demining Programme.”(MOZ/95/B02/A/7B/99).

UNDP. “Project Document: PROAREASustainable Rural Development Phase 1.”(MOZ/94/010/A/01/99)

UNDP. “Project Document: Support toSIFAP- Training System For PublicAdministration.” (MOZ/98/004/C/01/NEX).

UNDP. “Project Document: InternationalAssistance to the Parliament.” (MOZ/97/003).

UNDP. “Project Document: Support to theEconomic Management Capacity BuildingProgramme (EMP)–Phase I.”(MOZ/95/0009).

UNDP. “Project Document: Capacitation of aNational Disaster Management Authority.”(MOZ/98/014/A/07/99)

UNDP. “Project Document: Assistance to PostConflict Capacity Building for ProvincialAuthorities.” (MOZ/97/001/A/07/NEX).

UNDP. “Project Document: StrengtheningDemocracy and Governance throughDevelopment of the Media inMozambique.” (MOZ/96/016/A/01/13).

UNDP. “Project Document: Support to theMozambican Police Force.” (MOZ/95/015).

UNDP. “Project Document: Support to theEconomic Management Capacity BuildingProgramme.” (MOZ/95/009).

UNDP. “Pooling Agreement for TechnicalAssistance in the Health Sector.”

UNDP. “National Integrated Programme forSocial Action, Employment and Youth.”(MOZ/98/008/A/01/99).

UNDP. “Elaboration of National Strategies fora Better Participation and Understanding ofthe WTO and SADC Negotiations andImplementation Process” (MOZ/00/003).

UNDP. “National EnvironmentalManagement Programme Implementation.”

UNDP. “The Feeder Roads Programme.”(MOZ/96/013);

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Government of Papua New Guinea,Bougainville Peace Agreement, Arawa,30 August 2001.

UNDP-Government of Papua New Guinea,First Country Cooperation Framework(1997-2001), 30 August 2001.

UNDP, Reconstructing Governance inBougainville, a report of fact-finding andintroductory mission, 31 Januray-5February, 2002.

UNOPS, Bougainville Rehabilitation,Reconstruction and Development Project,Report of the Assessment mission (Primary Sector), June 1999.

UNDP, Bougainville Restoration,Reconstruction And Development Project,Tripartite Project Review –2001.

UNDP, Bougainville Rehabilitation,Reconstruction and Development Project:Primary Sector Review Mission,December 2000.

UNDP, Bougainville, Rehabilitation,Reconstruction And Development Project:Governance And Institutional DevelopmentProgramming Mission Report, July 2000.

UNDP, Achieving Sustainable HumanDevelopment through Strengthening SocialCapital in Bougainville, Mission Report,November 1999.

The Bougainville Rehabilitation,Reconstruction and Development Project(PNG/98/002)

United Nations Facility for Weapons Disposalin Bougainville(PNG/01/005)




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68



EL SALVADOR

Doyle, Michael, Ian Johnstone, and Robert COrr, eds. Keeping the Peace: MultidimensionalUN Operations in Cambodia and El Salvador.New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Johnstone, Ian. Rights and Reconciliation: UNStrategies in El Salvador. Boulder: LynneRienner Publishers, 1995.

Orr, Robert C. “Building Peace in ElSalvador: From Exception to Rule.” InPeacebuilding as Politics: Cultivating Peace inFragile Societies, ed. Elizabeth M. Cousensand Chetan Kumar. Boulder: LynneRienner Pub., 2001, pp. 153-182.

United Nations. The United Nations and El Salvador, 1990-1995. New York: UNDepartment of Public Information, 1995.

World Bank. The World Bank’s Experience withPost-Conflict Reconstruction, Vol. 3, The El Salvador Case Study report No. 17769.Washington DC: World Bank EvaluationDepartment, 1998.

HAITI

Benomar, Jamal. Rule of Law and Conflict,An Analysis and Lessons Learned of Ruleof Law Technical Assistance in Haiti, TheLessons Learned and Best PracticeCollection, April 2001.

Consolidation of the Rule of Law for Conflict Reduction in Haiti, Power PointPresentation prepared by Xavier Michon,Programme Adviser for Latin America andthe Caribbean.

Cumar, Chetan. “Peacebuilding in Haiti.” InPeacebuilding as Politics: Cultivating Peace inFragile Societies, ed. Elizabeth M. Cousensand Chetan Kumar. Boulder: LynneRienner Pub., 2001, pp. 21-52.

Mangones, Kathy. “Alternative Food AidStrategies and Local Capacity Building inHaiti.” In Patronage or Partnership: LocalCapacity Building in Humanitarian Crises,ed. Ian Smillie (Bloomfield CT: KumarianPress, 2001, pp. 51-76.

Règlements Internes des ÉtablissementsPénitentiaires de l”AdministrationPénitentiaires, Ministère de la Justice et de laSécurite Publique. Port Au Prince, 1999.

République D’Haiti Bureau Du PremierMinistre, Gestion Des Crises et Perspectives deReforme De L’etat. August 2001.

UNDP. Results Oriented Annual Report(ROAR) Narrative, 2000.

UNDP. Results Oriented Annual Report(ROAR) Situational Indicators, 2000.

UNDP. Results Oriented Annual Report(ROAR), Description of ROAR SituationalIndicators Results by ApplicableOrganization Units Results Listed by Goal, Income Status and OrganizationalUnit, 2000.

UNDP. Rule of Law and Conflict, AnAnalysis and Lessons Learned of Rule of Law Technical Assistance in Haiti,The Lessons.

UNDP. Second UNDP Country CooperationFramework for Haiti (2002-2006).

UNDP. Strategic Resource Funding/ROARPartnerships, Description by SRF/ROARPartnership Results by ApplicableOrganization Unit, 2000.

UNDP. Strategic Resource Funding/ROAROutcomes and Indicators, 2000.

UNDP. Strategic Resource Funding/ROAROutcomes and Outputs, 2000.

UNDP. Summary of UNDP CountryCooperation Framework for Haiti (1999-2001).

UNDP. Haiti: Bilan Commun de Pays,October 2000.

UNDP. Bilan des Experiences dans le domainede la Justice des Bailleurs du fonds bilatéraux etdes Agences et Missions des Naciones Unies,November 2000.

UNDP. Country Cooperation Framework forHaiti (1999-2001). 69

UNDP. Factsheet Haiti, Basic Data,December 2000.

UNDP. Portrait of Haiti,http://www.ht.org/pnud-hai/haiti/portrait.html, January 2002.

UNDP. Projet Justice/PNUD, HAI/98/002,Eapport Partiel D’Activities, November2000-May 2001.

UNDP. Projet Justice/PNUD, HAI/98/002,Eapport Semestriel D’Activities, June 2001-December 2001.

UNDP, Programme Proposal, Consolidationof the Rule of Law in Haiti, In the Contextof the Post-MICAH Transition Phase, PortAu Prince, February 20, 2001.

UNDP. Programme Des Nationes Unies PourL’Aide Au Developpment, Haiti: Revue dePays, Cadre de Cooperation de Pays, 1999-2001, June 2001.

UNDP. United Nations DevelopmentAssistance Framework, June 2001.

U.S. Department of State, Bureau of WesternHemisphere Affairs. “Background Note onHaiti.” April 2001.




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Annex IV.List of People Met

FYR MACEDONIA

UNDP Bernard Fery, OIC, UNDP-FYR MacedoniaOsnat Lubrani, Deputy OIC, UNDP-

FYR MacedoniaMatlilda Dimovska, UNDP-FYR MacedoniaVladimir Kuculovski, UNDP-

FYR Macedonia

FYR Macedonia government officialsBoge Cadinovski, Advisor, Ministry of

Labour and Social PolicyElena Grozdanova, Advisor, Ministry of

Labour and Social Policy, Unit forDevelopment of Gender Equality

Mihaela Stojkoska, Assistant Head of Department, Ministry of Local Self-Government

Municipal officialsMurtezan Ismaili, Mayor of TetovoIsmail Redzepi, Mayor of Gostivar

Donor AgenciesTanja Trajkovski, Development Program

Specialist, USAIDDavid Friberg, Resident Development

Programme Coordinator, Swedish EmbassyBiljana Dzartova-Petrovska, National

Programme Officer, Swedish Embassy

HAITI

UNDPDiene Keita, Resident Representative a.i.Camille Mongdonou, Deputy Resident

Representative, OperationsChantal Santelli, Director, Governance UnitPhillipe Rouzier, Director, Advocacy UnitGrace D’Almeida, Principal Technical

Advisor, Justice ProjectJacques Dyotte, Technical Advisor, Justice

Project, PrisonsDenis Racicot, Technical Advisor, Justice

Project, Office of Citizen ProtectionMasa Loayza, Technical Advisor, Justice

Project, Civil SocietyAntoine Ambroise, Principal

Technical Advisor, Governance andDecentralization Project

Rohli Solomon, Manager, ProgrammeSupport Unit

Janie Compas, Assistant, Programme Support Unit

Stephanie Kuttner, Junior ProfessionalOfficer, Governance

Pablo Ruiz Hiebra, Junior ProfessionalOfficer, Governance.

UN SystemM. Tessaye, UNESCO, Director of

Communication Development ProgrammeThierry Fagaard, Consultant, Office of the

High Commissioner for Human Rights

BilateralGerard Guillet, Director of French

Cooperation in HaitiDilia LeMarie, Representative,

Canadian CooperationErin Soto, Director, Bureau of Justice,

Democracy and Governance, USAID.

KOSOVO

UNDP Elzira Sagynbaeva, Deputy Resident

Representative and OIC, UNDP-KosovoJoe Hooper, Programme Officer /

Assistant to the UN DevelopmentCoordinator, UNDP-Kosovo

Patrick “Lach” Fergusson, Programme Officer,UNDP-Kosovo

Jargal Dashnyam, Operations Manager,UNDP-Kosovo

Izzeldin Bahkit, Programme Officer,UNDP-Kosovo

Siobian Smith, Project Officer,UNDP-Kosovo

Zeqir Krasniqi, UNDP-KosovoKristin Downey, Project Officer,

UNDP-KosovoShqipe Sveqla, UNDP-KosovoMytaher Haskuka, UNDP-Kosovo

Partner development agenciesMatvei Cuentas-Zavala, Programme

Manager, UNOPSKate Hughes, International

Rescue CommitteeMayumi Watabe, ADRA-JapanMike Dixon, ADRA-International Zola Dowell, OCHA

UN Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK)Mjjahid Alam, Administrator of Malisheve

and Coordinator KPC (Prizren region) 71

ANNEX IV. LIST OF PEOPLE MET

Local CounterpartsLabinot Salihu, Manager,

Pristina Youth CenterJanuz Kastrati, Principal, Malisheve

Secondary SchoolOla Syla, Widow’s Handicrafts Project,

Krushe e Madhe, Rahovec Sadik Pacarizi, Mayor, Medvec, Prizren

LEBANON

UNDP StaffYves de San, Resident Representative,

UNDP-LebanonNada Al-Nashif, Deputy Resident

Representative, UNDP-LebanonZena Ali Ahmed, Programme Manager,

UNDP-LebanonMohamed Mukallad, Project Manager-South

Lebanon, UNDP-LebanonWalid Atallah, Project Manager,

Reintegration and Socio-EconomicRehabilitation of the Displaced,UNDP-Lebanon

Joelle Chammas, Community Field Worker,UNRSER, UNDP-Lebanon

Christine Sayegh, Agricultural EngineerSpecialist, UNRSER, UNDP-Lebanon

Government officialsH.E. Marwan Hamadeh, Minister of

the DisplacedAmal Karaki, UN/CDR Coordinator

Embassies and Donor AgenciesJon Breslar, Mission Director, USAIDH.E. Jan Piet Kleiweg De Zaan,

Ambassador, NetherlandsRene Milas, Conseiller, European UnionHakon Arald Gulbrandsen, Charge

d’Affaires, Norway Padmanbha Hari Prasad, Country Manager,

World BankH.E. Richard Kinchen, Ambassador,

United Kingdom

Local/Municipal CounterpartsIbrahim Abou Shahla, principal, Naamah

primary school (caza Chouf )Ali Abou Darghan, Health Center, Kfarhim

(caza Chouf )Diab Hana, Mayor, Maaser Beit el Dine

(caza Chouf )Raed Najar, Kornayel Technology

Center/Farah Social Foundation (caza Baabda)

Nadi Hilal al-Nasser, Rass el Metr YouthCenter (caza Baabda)

Mayor, Marjeyoun (south Lebanon)Darwish Houla, Ka-al maka (south Lebanon)CDC director, Ant Tashaab (south Lebanon)Youth Director, CDC, Ant Tashaab

(south Lebanon)

MOZAMBIQUE

UNDP StaffMr. Aeneas Chapinga Chuma, Deputy

Resident Representative Mr. Emmanuel D. d Casterle, Former

Resident Representative (Maputo)Mr. Paolo di Renzio, JPOMs. Violet Kakyomya, Assistant Resident

Representative, Programme System Support Unit

Ms. Henny Matos, Senior Assistant Resident Representative

Ms. Stella Pinto, Assistant Resident Representative

Ms. Inacia C. Salvador, Assistant Resident Representative

Mr. Jorge Soeiro, Coordinator of Agenda 2025Mr. Marc de Tollenaere, former Chief

Technical Adviser, MOZ/98/018

Government officialsMr. Tomás Alexandre, Head of the

Department of Studies, Planning andInformation, National Demining Institute,Government of Mozambique, Maputo

Ms. Lucia Benandet, Nacional-Adjunto,Comissao Nacional de Reisercao Social, Maputo

Mr. Hermino X. Matandalasse, SecretarioExecutivo, Director, Nacional-Adjunto,Comissao Nacional de Reisercao Social, Maputo

Mr. Avelino Munhemeze, Director of Cooperation, Government ofMozambique, Maputo

Mr. Agostinho Pessane, Adviser for PublicEducation and Information, Government ofMozambique, Maputo

Mr. Joao Zamissa, Head of department ofPlanning, Instituto Nacional de Gestão das Calamidades, Government ofMozambique, Maputo

OthersMs. Iraé Batista Lundin, Head of Socio-

Politic Department of the Centre forStrategic Studies, Maputo

Ms. Arcília L. Barreto, Senior Liaison Officer,United Nations High Commission forRefugees, Maputo




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Annex IV.List of People Met

Mr. Guilherme Colombo, NGO UnitCoordinator, European Union, Maputo

Mr. Domencio Liuzzi, Director-General,Organism for the Integrated Socio-Economic Development, KULIMA Maputo

Ms. Heather Prendergast, United NationsVolunteer Program Manager, Maputo

Mr. Jim Robertson, Head of Delegation,International Federation of Red Cross andRed Crescent Societies, Maputo

Mr. Robert Toe, United Nations Volunteer, Maputo

RWANDA

UNDP StaffMr. Idrissa DanteMs. Susan Fafin, Governance

Programme ManagerMr. G. Fofang, Deputy Resident RepresentativeMr. Michel Kabalisa, Programme

Financial AnalystMr. Francois T. Kabore, Assistant Resident

RepresentativeMr. Joseph Nyamushara, Programme AssociateMr. Tore Rose, Resident RepresentativeMr. Laurent Rudasingwa, Programme Analyst

Government OfficialsMr. Theodore Hakizimana, Coordinator of

UNDP Projects in the Ministry of Financeand Economic Planning, Kigali

Ms. Beatrice Biyoga, Administrator, Centerfor Conflict Management, Justice, HumanRights and Governance, NationalUniversity of Rwanda, Butare

Mr. Michael Kabutura, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Police and Human RightsProject, Kigali

Mr. M. Moussali, Former SpecialRepresentative of the UN for HumanRights, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Policeand Human Rights Project, Kigali

Ms. Tamasha Mkimbo Mpyisi, Center forConflict Management, Justice, HumanRights and Governance, NationalUniversity of Rwanda, Butare

Ms. Beth Mutamba, Center for ConflictManagement, Justice, Human Rights andGovernance, National University ofRwanda, Butare

Mr. Songa Ngaboyi, Director of Habitat,Ministry of Land, Human Resettlementand Environmental protection, Kigali

Mr. Jean-Jacques Nyirubutama, Head OfExternal Finance Department, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning,CEPEX, Kigali

Mr. Augustine Rutaremmara, Ministry ofInternal Affairs, Police and Human RightsProject, Kigali

OthersMr. Oluseyi Bajulaiye, Representative,

United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Kigali

Dr. Heather Goldman, Regional FoodSecurity Officer, United States Agency forInternational Development, Kigali

Mr. Gilbert Kubwimana, President, KONFIGI(a small-scale private enterprise).

Mr. Jean-Baptise Nkusi, Programme Office, United Nations World FoodProgramme Kigali

Mr. Lambert C. Grijns, Counsellor, RoyalNetherlands Embassy, Kigali

Gerrit Noordam, Royal Netherlands Embassy, Kigali

Mr. Jurgen Tummler, Project Manager,Water Supply, German DevelopmentCooperation, Kigali Office

Ms. Helena Walker, Programme Office, United Nations World FoodProgramme, Kigali

PAPUA NEW GUINEA/BOUGAINVILLE

UNDP Mr. Bernard Choulai, Liaison Officer

for BougainvilleMr. Neville P. Drennen, Field

Security OfficerMs. Roselyne KennethMr. Niels Maagaard, Deputy Resident

Representative (Programme) Ms. Michelle Rooney, Programme Associate,

Special Development SituationMr. Harumi Sakaguchi, Resident

Representative & Resident Coordinator of the UN

Government OfficialsMr. Bernard Simiha, Bougainville Provincial

Planner, Buka

OthersMs. Stephanie Copus-Campbell, First

Secretary, Australia Agency forInternational Development, Port Moresby

Mr. David F. Freyne, European Union,Port Moresby

Ms. Helen Hekena, Director, Leitana Nehan Women’s Development Agency(NGO), Buka 73

Ms. Tess Te Mata, First Secretary,New Zealand Overseas DevelopmentAssistance, Port Moresby

Mr. Theodore S. Pierce, Deputy Chief ofMission, Embassy of the United States ofAmerica, Port Moresby

Mr. Takashima, First Secretary, Embassy ofJapan, Port Moresby

Mr. Fred Terry, Programme Manager,Bougainville Reconstruction, Rehabilitationand Development Project, Arawa

Mr. Roger Wilson, Adventist Developmentand Relief Agency (NGO), Buka

EL SALVADOR

UNDPBruno Moro, Resident RepresentativeElizabeth Hayek, Assistant

Resident RepresentativeRené Ivan Morales, National

Programme OfficerAntonio Cañas, National Programme Officer Fabrizio Brutti, Programme Coordinator,

Humanitarian Assistance Programme forCommunities Affected by the Earthquakein Sonsonate

Victor Roque, Administrative OfficerFlora de Mata, Administrative OfficerMisalia Quiñonez, Administrative OfficerGuadalupe de Amaya, Administrative Officer Francesca Jessup, ConsultantUN SystemJuan C. Espínola, Resident Representative,

UNICEFDaysi di Marquez, Programme Officer, World

Food ProgrammeAdrian Storbeck, Consultant, World Food

ProgrammeHoracio Toro, Country Representative,

WHO/PAHO

NGO/Civil SocietyAntonio Alvarez, President, FUNDESAMauricio Gaborit, Dean, University Central

America (UCA)Gladys Melara, Director, ASDI

BilateralMauricio Herrera, Political Officer, USAID

UNDP/NEW YORKAlexander Avanessov, Programme

Manager, RBECOmar Bakhet, Director, ERDKrishan Batra, Procurement Adviser,

BOM/OFA

Jamal Benomar, Senior Adviser, BCPRGany Diaroumeye-Sabatier, Country

Programme Adviser, RBAOscar Fernandez-Taranco, Deputy

Director, RBASFadzai Gwaradzimba, Evaluation Adviser,

Evaluation OfficeAmeerah Haq, Deputy Director, BCPR Nick Hartmann, Programme Specialist, BCPRGilbert Houngbo, Director, BOM/OFASuela Krista, Programme Officer, ERDAuke Lootsma, Country Programme

Adviser, RBAIan Mansfield, Team Leader, Mine Action

Programme, ERDEleanor O’Gorman, Policy Adviser, ERDYoshiyuki John Oshima, Programme

Specialist, RBAPSvend Amdi Madsen, BOM (DRR,

UNDP Maputo)Romesh Muttukumaru, Director, BOM/OBRRobert Piper, Deputy Director, ERDSarah Poole, Senior Programme

Manager, RBECLuca Renda, Programme Specialist, RBLACRobert Scharf, Demobilization and Small

Arms Specialist, ERDNorimasa Shimomura, Special Assistant to

the Director, ERDLena Sinha, Programme Specialist, ERDMary Symmonds, Country Programme

Adviser, RBAHiroko Takagi, Programme Analyst, RBAPSiv Tokle, Evaluation Advisor, EOVolker Welter, Senior Adviser, BOM/OLPS

Evaluation Team

Senior ConsultantsMr. Ken Menkhaus, Associate Professor of

Political Science, Davidson College,North Carolina

Mr. Ben K. Fred-Mensah, Assistant Professorof Political Science, Howard University,Washington, DC, and Adjunct Lecturer,Woodrow Wilson Department ofGovernment and Foreign Affairs,University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Research AnalystsMs. Nadja SchmeilMr. Charles TanzerMs. Jessica SmithMrs. Amitabh Khardori

Evaluation Task Manager Mr. Douglas Keh




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