Capacity-building and alternative realities: Some observations on the political context of technical assistance in Lao PDR1 ___________________________________________________________________ has been affected - both positively and Overview negatively - by the degree to which these The Laos Extension for Agriculture Project efforts are consistent with what happens (LEAP) is funded by the Swiss Agency for within the political reality. And what Development and Cooperation (SDC) and happens within political reality is, from the has been implemented by the National perspective of the advisers, largely Agriculture and Forestry Extension unknown and unpredictable. This situation Service (NAFES), with technical represents a huge constraint to capacity- assistance from Helvetas, a Swiss NGO. building of the kind normally associated LEAP started in 2001 and is now in its 5th with agricultural extension projects. But if and final phase, which is due to be we reorient our understanding of capacity- completed early in 2014. As the project building, giving more attention to the nears its end, the management team has interests of rural communities and less to embarked on a process of identifying the government bureaucracy, the experience lessons learned over the past 12 years of LEAP suggests that political space for that will inform future decisions by the farmer empowerment does exist in some Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture (MAF), parts of Laos. the donors and implementing partners. These are personal observations by one This process involves a series of studies of the technical advisers to LEAP. They do and meetings that will generate a number not necessarily reflect the views of SDC or of reports, fact-sheets and videos. What Helvetas. It is not the intention of the follows is one contribution to this process author to pass judgement on the political of reflection and assessment. system in Laos, rather the purpose is to In summary, this author has observed that describe the institutional content of LEAP NAFES, like all government organisations in a manner that may help the reader in Laos, consists of two „realities‟, the understand why some aspects of the technical and the political. The project have succeeded and others have relationship between these realities is like not. Foreign advisers are often the two sides of a coin, or parallel discouraged from writing or talking (or universes. Government staffs inhabit both even thinking) about the political system, realities, but projects like LEAP are only but this author believes that technical designed to address problems and assistance projects and programmes will opportunities in the technical reality. The be far more effective if advisers have a success or failure of efforts by technical better understanding of how that system advisers to build capacity within NAFES affects our work. 1 Report for the Laos Extension for Agriculture Project (LEAP), Andrew Bartlett, 04 April 2013 1 Capacity-building • Coordination mechanisms (eg. with research) Since 2001, six project documents1 have • Staff knowledge and skills been prepared for LEAP, all of which have the same goal: • Facilities and equipment • Extension approaches and “To support the development of a methods decentralised, participatory, pluralistic and • Information services and materials sustainable agricultural extension system that reaches male and female farmers • Operating budgets equally” It is important to note that what LEAP has been doing in Laos is completely normal Although this goal makes reference to a in the field of agricultural extension. „pluralistic‟ extension system, the project Across the world, hundreds of projects has focussed its efforts on NAFES have focussed on building the capacity of throughout more than a decade of government departments. Much of what implementation. Limited collaboration with has been achieved in other countries has civil society organisations started in Phase not been sustained in the absence of III, and engagement with rice millers support from foreign donors. 2 In Laos, became a significant activity in the later however, the problem is not that a half of Phase IV, but the bulk of the government extension system has been project‟s resources have been directed at created which cannot be sustained. The improving the effectiveness of the problem is that a fully functioning system Government extension service. has yet to be created, and there are An examination of the LEAP project reasons to doubt that it ever will be. documents shows that the terms „capacity Success and failure building‟, „institutional strengthening‟ and „organisational development‟ appear more Over the past 10 years there have been frequently than „agricultural extension‟. For 19 meetings of the project Steering the purpose of these observations, the Committee and three external reviews. term capacity-building will be used to These events have provided plenty of describe the efforts of the project to opportunity to identify where the project support both organisational development has succeeded, and where it has fallen (OD) and human resources development short of expectations. Here are some (HRD). The purpose of capacity-building examples: in LEAP has been to create a government extension service that is both effective and Extension strategy: In 2005, the project sustainable. produced a description of the „Lao Extension Approach‟ (LEA) based on a The elements of extension capacity that sequence of activities that had been have been addressed by LEAP include piloted during Phase I. The LEA was the following: soon approved by MAF and was • Extension policy, strategies and subsequently promoted as a „best mandates practice‟ by the Ministry. The adoption of • Internal management structures the LEA is undoubtedly a success at the and procedures policy level, but this has not always been matched at the level of implementation. 2 Other projects have been reluctant to use training centre or programme of the kind the approach, and - even within LEAP - that exists in the extension departments adherence to the principles and elsewhere in the world. procedures of the LEA have often fallen Management systems: Over the past short of the desired standard. decade, the project has made a number of Organisational structures: Since the attempts to introduce and institutionalise beginning of the project, LEAP has improved methods for planning, operated at a number of levels. In monitoring and financial management. In addition to building capacity at NAFES, carrying out this work, there has been a project activities have been carried out in concerted effort to apply the principles of all 17 Provinces and a total of 39 Districts. ownership, harmonisation, and alignment.5 In each location, teams of staff have been Nevertheless, there has been very limited trained, provided with equipment, and impact on the procedures used by NAFES given operating budgets. While these beyond the immediate scope of the inputs have produced short-term project. For example, the provision and improvements in extension delivery that training and equipment for an M&E unit have benefited thousands of farmers,3 has produced no visible results, and the most of the teams created under LEAP consultant working on this issue was are no longer functional. This is due - in withdrawn after NAFES complained he part - to the fact that MAF has re- was spending too much time trying how to organised the extension service five times figure out how the government system during the life of the project and most of worked. the field staff trained by the project have Information services and materials: LEAP been re-assigned more than once. has a reputation for producing a large Human resources: At the national level, quantity of training materials, including the project has been more successful in manuals, leaflets, posters, videos. These keeping a team together. The current materials have been distributed across the National Project Director has been with country in the form of a „wisdom bag‟, and the project since the beginning, and the the project activities have often featured sustained commitment and ability of this on radio and television. In addition, the individual has been crucial to the success project has set up a number of new of the project. Additionally, the technical services, including a system for sending advisers have been able to work with the text messages to the mobile phones of same group of 7 people (known as field workers, and online discussion CETDU4) for more than 10 years. The groups for the broader development uncomfortable truth, however, is that this community. It is unclear if and how new cooperation has not produced a level of materials will be produced, and services technical or methodological expertise that maintained, once the project comes to an is comparable to what may be found in end, but there is no doubt that these other countries. A major constraint has things have been widely appreciated. been the reluctance of NAFES to establish A project in two worlds clear job descriptions, performance criteria and a system for professional In order to understand why some project advancement. Additionally, there is still no activities have been more effective than plan for the establishment of an in-service others, we need to realise that NAFES - 3 and its successor, the Department of system for professional advancement, the Agricultural Extension and Cooperatives party has a rigorous process for training (DAEC) - consists of two parallel and selecting members who may rise up organisations which represent alternative the organisation according to it‟s own realities: a technical organisation and a conventions and criteria. To an outsider, political organisation. such as a foreign adviser, a government organisation like NAFES may appear to Visitors to Laos have often noted how have a split personality: chaotic and difficult it is to get their hands on an inefficient for long periods, yet capable of accurate organogram. Although diagrams pulling off amazing feats of coordination are sometimes available, showing how a and concentrated effort when the need Government Department is arranged into arises.