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Implementing rural development: Lessons from a remote region of Nepal
Agricultural Administration 13 (1983) 75-93
Implementing Rural Development: Lessons from a Remote Region of Nepal Binod K. Shrestha” & L. P. Apedailey * Department of Geography. University of Alberta, (Received:
t Department of Rural Economy, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 17 November,
1982)
SUMMARY People’s participation in planning their rural development generates involvement and commitment. These attributes are vulnerable to the time lapses common to financial negotiations andplan approvalprocesses. To overcome the adverse effects of the delayed implementation of an integrated rural development programme in Nepal, a number of interim projects were implemented. Their purposes, in addition to continuity of local commitment, were to test the premises and innovative components of the plan and to substantiate proposals for adjustments to national administrative procedures. This paper reviews some of the experiences of implementing the projects. Financial disbursement, staff absenteeism and turnover caused disruption to project co-ordination. The premise that local government could co-ordinate the inputs and technical help requiredfrom the Government was demonstrated to be weak. The conclusion is that only in exceptional cases was the Government apparatus amenable to rural development requirements for budgeting, accounting, authorization and cross line coordination.
INTRODUCTION From field survey to programme approval, integrated rural development (IRD) planning rarely takes less than 2 years. When that planning is part 75 Agricultural Administration 0309-586X/83/0013-0075/$0340 Ltd, England,
1983. Printed
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of a development process with peoples’ participation, interim action projects are required before the plan is approved. Reasonsfor early action include managing expectations, validating assumptions and designs, testing the capabilities of implementing offices,examining the budget and disbursement processes,documenting the capacity to carry out civil works projects and removing the pressure of expediency from final approval processes.As a preliminary to an IRD programme, many implementation difficulties for these projects could be anticipated. Much attention has been given to documenting bottlenecks in the implementation of rural developmentprojects in many parts of the world. Kellick and Kinyua7 have shown that, for 45 % of the agricultural sector projects in Kenya, the implementation ratio (i.e. the ratio of actual to planned expenditure) was less than 0.39. The budget for these projects amounted to over 60 y0 of the total allocation to the agricultural sector. They cite shortageof key personneland planning weaknessas someof the factors influencing this poor implementation (Kellick and Kinyua7). In case studies on the implementation of area development programmes in Chile, Peru, Upper Volta and Afghanistan, Zamanl’ identified a variety of constraints on implementation including ‘remotenessof some of the areas and lack of physical infrastructure, . . . weaknessin coordination among the government agenciesconcerned . . . absenceof incentives to encourage national staff to seek assignments in rural and relatively isolated areas. . .’ (p. 313). Similarly, in Nigeria, Aura’ has recognized ‘limitation in the flow. . . of funds’ as one of the difficulties (p. 281). Likewise, the evaluation of the Special Rural Development Program in Kenya (University of Nairobi14), experiencein the Sudan (Howel16),and the casestudy of the LIPED in Tanzania (Cadillo et al.’ and Rasmussong),draw attention to similar problems. Again, many have recognized decentralization and co-ordination as prerequisite elements for effective planning and implementation (Miller;’ Uphoff and Esman; ’ 5 Waterson;16 World BankI’). This paper considers the difficulties experienced by government institutions in Nepal in implementing a number of interim projects during the period betweeninitial popular involvement in IRD planning and the start up of planned implementation for an agreedIRD programme. The first part describes the background of the projects. The second part describesthe specific administrative framework for rural development in Nepal whilst the third part documents and explains the implementation
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problems experienced.The conclusion is that, although interim projects bridge a wide experiential gap between planning and action, practical implementation issues may jeopardize the successof such projects as viewed in conventional terms. This paper will demonstrate their successes in the unconventional context outlined above. At the time these projects were started, there was little documented knowledge of the intricacies of administering rural projects in Nepal and a new co-ordination structure had just been instituted. With one established, and five new, integrated rural development projects on the drawing board, each with a unique situation-specific design, considerable and conflicting pressureswere placed on the Government’s staff to respond to donors’ senseof urgency.,The purpose of this paper is to put forward suggestionsas to how greaterjob satisfaction within the civil serviceand better development for the rural peple of Nepal can be achieved.
BACKGROUND Identification
TO PROJECTS
of the projects
As part of its programme for national and regional development, the Government of Nepal is attempting to allocate its development efforts more equally throughout its five development regions. Moreover, the Government intends to increase and expand its development efforts, particularly in the mid- and far-western regions, which are the least developedareasof the country. In accordancewith this generalobjective, various donors have been providing expertise and funding to assist the Government to preparecomprehensiveplans for integratedrural development. The programme referred to in this paper is in the Karnali and Bheri Zones of the Mid-Western Development Region. In 1978,at the end of 4 months of intensive field work to prepare the Karnali-Bheri Integrated Rural Development Program (K-BIRD), interim projects were proposed to bridge the time gap betweenthe planning and the signing of the K-BIRD funding agreement.Their purposeswere: (1) To managethe expectationsof village and district political leaders and, to a lesserextent, district civil servants.
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(2) To validate designsand assumptions for the village level development proposals. (3) To document the justification and direction for required adjustments to administrative processes. (4) To familiarize civil servants and district officials with the IRD concept. The interim projects were identified during the planning work and were implemented through the Government’s established channels and the district and village councils (Panchuyats). Each project identified by the local authorities was justified by direct benefits. The projects were reflected in the Government’s annual budget. An adequatelump sum provision was made under the ‘contingency’ heading within the budget for the Ministry of Home and Panchuyat (MOHP) to cover the total cost of the projects. Initially, twenty projects were agreed to in October, 1978, 8 months after the beginning of planning work. It was expectedthat theseprojects would becompleted within a year, during which time the content and funding for the comprehensive K-BIRD programme would reach agreement so that implementation could commence in July, 1979. The K-BIRD agreement was signed in July, 1981, 2 years after the expected date. Many of the interim projects experiencedsufficient delays to fully accommodate this unplanned 2-year period. This paper reviews and interprets the problems encountered whilst attempting to implement these projects in remote rural areas of Nepal through regular administrative channels. Project selection and planning
In keeping with the basic principle that rural development projects be requested by the village and district levels of government, the twenty interim projects were selectedfrom among those identified in June, 1978 by the local authorities during a workshop in Surkhet to wind up the fieldwork for the K-BIRD plan. In accordancewith the ‘development asa process’concept of the K-BIRD plan, local level projects were assignedto village and district administrations to conceive the project design, detail the cost breakdowns, procure materials and award contracts and to conduct all other aspectsof project management. Central level projects were implemented by the government departments concerned. The following criteria wereusedto selectthe projects from among those identified before and during the workshop. Projects should:
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(1) Help pave the way for full-scale implementation of the K-BIRD (2)
(3) (4)
(5) (6)
(7)
programme in five pre-selectedvillage Panchayats and in each district. Correspond with requests by local people or proposals already discussedfor the K-BIRD area. Demonstrate clear commitment by Government to local initiative. Be implemented in all K-BIRD area districts to preserveequity and to ensure the credibility of local leaders who had already backed the K-BIRD programme. Demonstrate to local Government officers the seriousnessof KBIRD intentions. Be ready to start immediately. Require minimum foreign support and co-ordination.
An indicative budget was allocated to the project for the approval processof the NepaleseGovernment and the donor. Following agreement between the two governments, the implementing jurisdictions were informed of the availability of funds. This project identification process differs little from that of conventional ad hoc rural projects in Nepal. The usual processis that projects arefirst selectedby a district Panchayat from a list of ‘demands’ presented by the village Panchayats under its jurisdiction. This aggregatedlist is then forwarded to the central level for incorporation into the national plan. At the central level, dictated by the amount of resourcesavailable and basedon the past year’s demands and political manoeuvering by the district officials, projects are included in the national plan. Once the national plan and budget are set at the beginning of the fiscal year, the approved projects are handed down through the responsibleministries to the districts, sometime during the first quarter. Usually, in this process, the approved projects are drastically reduced, both in number and size. The interim projects, however, emerged unscathed. BACKGROUND
TO GOVERNMENT
MACHINERY
Local level administration
The district development administration system consists of two jurisdictional groups: (1) The political leadership, formed of elected officials from the two levels of local government called district Panchayats and village
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This group formulates lists of development projects/ demands. (2) The district civil service,co-ordinated by the Chief District Officer (CDO), which is a conglomerate of the district level offices of the central departments. The civil service administers development projects and provides technical and administrative support to Panchayats.
Panchayats.
The District Administration Plan (DAP) (His Majesty’s Government of Nepa14) integrates all district level offices of central ministries and departments under the guidanceand supervision of the CDO. The extent to which eachcentral ministry delegatespower and function to its district officers determines, other things being equal, the extent to which coordination occurs at the district level. In addition, the district officers have a tendency to consider themselvesseparatefrom the control of the CDO. Referring to the administrative decentralization which the DAP was to bring about, Shresthai2 questioned whether all delegatedfunctions and power have been properly utilized by the officials concerned. This, he argues, is in part due to the personal weaknessesof the higher level authorities, their tendency to interfere, and their reluctancy to delegate authority. Personnel administration
Recruitment of personnel is done by the Public Service Commission, while their appointment and placement is made by the Department of Administrative Management. Personnel may be transferred at any time to any location in the country despite a stated policy that no person may be transferred until he has served 466 days in his post. As a result of frequent changesin the rules, coupled with many exceptions,unbalanced allocation of merit points and a lack of correlation between one’s qualifications and one’sjob, there is rapid turnover of staff in rural posts. Financial
administration
Government expenditure is controlled by numerous procedural steps. Disbursement from the national treasury begins with an executing department officer requesting funds from the Office of the Comptroller General through its parent ministry or department. The disbursement of
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interim project funds was administered by the Ministry of Home and Panchuyat (MOHP). However, completing the circle of requesting and receiving the funds between various Divisions of several central ministries is a very timeconsuming process.Monies do not usually arrive in the districts until the end of the first quarter. The time required by the process is directly proportional to the number of levelsof government involved in handling the money and cycling caused by procedural error. The disbursement delays which occur destroy project co-ordination, design, procurement, political commitment and volunteer labour mobilization and implementation timing to coincide with the monsoon-free season. Rural development
co-ordination
Co-ordination of rural development, at the outset of the interim projects, was provided by the District Administration Plan (DAP) (His Majesty’s Government of Nepa14).The DAP designated the Chief District Officer (CDO) to co-ordinate all development activities within each district. Although this was never fully accepted by the ministries due to a reluctance to decentralize authority, concern over possible reduction in financial control, and implied deferenceof authority to the Ministry of Home and Punchuyat through its CDO’s. The K-BIRD planning was basedon this DAP with severalprovisions to strengthenco-ordination at the district and to add co-ordination at the centre. Subsequentto budgeting the interim projects, a Coordination Division for rural development, together with a new integrated Panchuyut development policy, was established within the Ministry of Home and Punchuyut (His Majesty’s Government of Nepal’). The change to the DAP structure implicit in the new policy resulted in an unanticipated distortion of ongoing rural development asthe Division sought to enforce the policy and establish its co-ordination mandate. Subsequently, a new Ministry of Local Development was created in 1980 to increase the effectiveness of development projects. The Coordination Division, Training Division and Local Development Department of MOHP constituted the nucleusof this new Ministry. The post of Local Development Officer (LDO) was created in each district to carry out the development co-ordination, leaving the CD0 free for the law and order function under MOHP. These structural changes had a bearing on the achievement of the purpose of the interim projects.
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IMPLEMENTATION
EXPERIENCE
This section documents the difficulties, especially those faced by the Panchayats and the district offices, which have been identified during implementation of the interim projects. Project design,co-ordination and accountability constitute the primary reasons for delays in implementation. Budgeting
interim
projects
Following the planning workshop of political leaders and civil servants held in June, 1978, indicative budgets were assignedto each identified interim project. Substantive difficulty in implementation may be attributed to three issues arising from this procedure-unplanned estimate overruns, lump sum budgeting of all interim projects and divergencefrom normal formulation procedure by assignment of the budget to the Coordination Division of the MOHP. The indicative budgetswere considered as spending ceilings under the terms of the financing. Subsequent estimates based on design always exceeded these ceilings, thereby stopping the approval process. For example, the budget allocated to mini-hydroelectric (40 kW) projects turned out to be a quarter of what would be required for the construction, turbine, generator, and transmission line. The budget/estimate gaps emerged for several reasons. First, the indicative budgets were constrained by a US $21000 limit for each project. To satisfy both this constraint and the purposes of the interim projects, compromises weremade on assumptions about volunteer labour content, the extent of use of local materials, costs and funding for engineeringdesignand supervision, and meansof funding transportation costs. These compromises, although consistent with the philosophy of rural development, were ambitious, especially with regard to the mobilization of local labour and the disregard for contingencies. Secondly, the donor currency devalued approximately 10% relative to the Nepalese rupee during the process of transferring funds. Thirdly, delays from all sourcesallowed inflation, running at about 12% in Nepal, to further reduce the real value of the budget ceiling. Fourthly, local authorities over-designed some projects, no doubt being influenced by the standards of new government buildings built by the same idonor at Surkhet and a desire for the best. Fifthly, it is
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hypothesized that foreign trained engineers,hired to design severalcivil works projects, brought to their designs inappropriate high-cost technology, particularly with regard to the use of cement and steel. Another budgeting issue which influenced the implementation of the projects was the requirement by the Ministry of Finance for a detailed budget breakdown as a precondition for disbursement. Normally this detail follows the project design stage. However, the experienceof local leaders who have suffered cutbacks appears to have made people unwilling to invest in design until they actually have the money assured. This situation was thought to havebeenovercome for the interim projects by having the total budget amount placed under the ‘contingency’ budget heading. Subsequently, this strategy was proved wrong as no disbursement was possible from this heading until the allocation was rebudgeted to other expenditure headings. This rebudgeting requirement was a clearly established policy to combine flexibility with financial control. However, the mere fact of initiating the procedure appearedto trigger an inherent sensitivity within the Ministry of Finance over financial control, resulting in lengthy delay. This failure of gamesmanshipresulted from a lack of familiarity with procedures and regulations by the new rural development administration, particularly with regard to documentation for departures from budget and disbursement. A further budget problem was created by treating consultation and the rural developmentplanning work as a substitute for the Government’s annual planning and budgeting process for these projects. The normal procedure is for projects with an estimate of cost and manpower requirements to move from village to district to region to central line departments to ministry budget proposals. The interim projects were formulated by these institutions in roughly this manner. However, the budget proposal and manpower requirements were not reflected anywhere in budget documents. Later, considerable confusion was created over who was responsible for implementation, how unbudgeted funds were to be accounted for, and who would be answerableto the Auditor General’s office for what would certainly appear to be unusual transfers and disbursement approval procedures. The projects were budgeted within the Co-ordination Division of MOHP, which effectively subordinated the line departments to this new Division insofar as theseprojects were concerned. Failure to reflect this fledgling K-BIRD initiative in budget growth for line agencieseffectively destroyedtheir commitment. Subsequentdisbursementswere impeded by
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the contradiction created by the need of the Co-ordination Division to account for its money when another agency or level of government was spendingit. Nowhere was the contradiction more strongly felt than at the district level for rural civil works. This budget experience reinforces the need to maintain complete integration of rural development within established government procedures.Well-intentioned departures from procedure by donor agencies or new internal co-ordination apparatus at budget time, at the least, will create confusion and, at the greatest, retaliatory delay by line agencies and their frustrated staff. These implications of deviation from established procedures must be weighed against the need for procedural adjustment and even restructuring for rural development. Financial disbursement The complex disbursement procedure of the NepaleseGovernment has beena substantivefactor affecting the co-ordination of project design,the provision of manpower, the procurement of materials and in maintaining popular commitment. Many financial consultants have observed that theseexisting internal disbursement and reporting proceduresare neither conducive to timely programme fund disbursement nor to timely accountability of disbursementsmade. As many as six jurisdictions were associated with the procedure of depositing the funds contributed by the donorlfor the interim projects into the government treasury. Similarly, documents were processedthrough nine jurisdictions before the funds were releasedto the parent ministry overseeingrural development projects. The time required for this part of the disbursement cycle was inversely proportional to the amount of intervention by the agentof the donor. The processtook a total of 79 days with, and 223 days without, intervention to deposit the funds and have them releasedto the implementing ministry (Shresthaand Apedailei ‘). It took an additional 87 days, to a maximum of 321 days, to transfer the monies from the ministry to its district offices. One interim project receivedits total budget allocation 411 days after the funds were handed over by the donor. A problematic aspect of disbursement is the ‘freezing’ of unexpended funds. As Wildavsky I7 has pointed out, ‘the difficulty begins (when) all funds revert to the treasury at the end of the fiscal year’ (p. 518). Experience with the interim projects corroborated this assertion. The
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initial disbursement, made in January, 1979, for two of the projects reachedthe district offices in the first week of March and the funds were frozen in July. It was not until May, 1981that the funds were reactivated, after 492 days of concerted effort. A particular disbursement situation arose for the five interim projects funded entirely from Government sources of revenue. To quote Wildavsky again: ‘although agreedso, there can never be any guarantee that the (HMG/N) [NepaleseGovernm.ent’s]contribution will arrive on time, during the year, or some time at all.’ The reasonfor this is reputed to lie in the severecash flow situation facing the Nepalese Government which is subject to a relatively conservative financial policy. The same situation has occurred even in major multilateral agreementsin which Nepal has accepted(or has beencoercedinto) a local contribution. It may also be, though the suspicion was never confirmed, that the disbursement delayscan be attributed to the Government temporarily allocating the aid funds to another area of responsibility to meet immediate cash flow requirements, consequently delaying release of funds to the interim projects. Staff absenteeism
Senior staff attendancein the districts, as monitored weekly in association with the implementation of the interim project, has clearly revealeda very difficult local staff situation faced by the Government. Over a period of 15 months, from October, 1979to January, 1981, the averageweekly rate of staff absenteeismin Surkhet, Dailekh and Jumla was 36 ‘A. In Kalikot, over the sameperiod, 64 ‘A of senior staff were absent,or their posts were unfilled. The attendance record of engineers was the poorest, though their service was the most essential to implementing thirteen of the twenty interim projects. During the entire 15 months of monitoring in the Surkhet, Dailekh and Kalikot districts, overseerswere acting asengineers for the purpose of conducting daily administrative and technical tasks. It was not unusual to find other untrained junior officers, such as account clerks, acting as headsof district offices for extendedperiods. The senior officers, always outsiders to the districts to which they were posted, were in Kathmandu or elsewhere,while local peopleconducted the office work. Staffing remote areas has been a challenge to the Government. Civil servants are extremely reluctant to accept assignmentsin thesedistricts due to a lack of facilities, including transportation, health care and
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education for their children, together with difficulties in getting food in many areas.Remote area allowancesof up to 100‘A of salary in the most remote regions do not compensatefor having to be away from the centre where one can protect and further personal interest in promotions, scholarships or foreign visits, and the interests of one’s family. Facilities and opportunities, including recognition and status, are at the centre. One would go to the districts only if merit points were required to cross a particular careerthreshold. Another explanation for lack of technicians in the districts, is that ‘a surprising number of technical staff have been assimilated within the actual administration and are therefore not free to go (to the districts).‘(Stiller and Yadev,r3 p:ll2.) Those who cannot have their transfers to the districts changedresort to tactics such as temporary disappearance. To overcome absenteeism,the Government has an allowance system for staff working in the remote areas of the country. The allowance is automatic and across-the-boardfor all staff and, under this regulation, even the most notoriously absent administrative staff are entitled to this project allowance. Without recognition of merit or attendancewithin the allowance system, the district officials will not be motivated to perform and their absence will continue to interfere with rural development projects in remote areas. Staff turnover
In addition to the replacement of several key technical personnel in the interim project areas,within the past 2 years, there have beenthree Chief District Officers (CDO) each in Surkhet, Dailekh and Jumla, and the District Forest Officers (DFO) in thesedistricts have beenchangedtwice in this period. Similarly, all Panchayat Development Officers(PDO), who were there when the projects were approved, have been transferred, and even those who filled in were recently replaced by Local Development Officers (LDO) who work within a completely new administrative structure with a different line of authority. Personnel turnover need not always retard the implementation process.One of the CDOs and, more recently, a number of LDOs, have been most active in speedingup some of the interim projects. This action may be attributed partly to their desireto influence somevisual progresswhich will assist them in winning the confidence of the people. More particularly, these LDOs are directly responsible, at the district level, to the K-BIRD co-ordinator.
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On an overall basis, however, two problems are evident. First, the transfer of key personnel in the middle of project implementation and, secondly, the long delay in staff replacement. As stated earlier, there is a government regulation that staff are not to be transferred before they have servedin the district for 466 working days, but this has not been effective, while replacement postings are deferred or repealed for the reason that remote area incentives do not compensate for the inconvenienceand disadvantageof remote postings. But perhapsas important to conscientioustechnical and administrative personnelaccepting service in rural areas is the high level of frustration connected with managing their work within the centralised administrative structure while living in the unrelievedphysical hardship and lonely circumstancesof remote rural communities. Project level co-ordination
Co-ordination in rural development is the marshalling of manpower, supervision, approvals, funds, material and public commitment to the right place at the right time. One of the specific interests in the interim projects was the extent to which local authorities could effectively coordinate the many decisions and activities of severaljurisdictions. This capability was frequently assertedduring the K-BIRD planning process and corresponded to a grobing recognition in Nepal of the merit of people’s participation in development. The experiencewith the interim projects indicates a needfor structural adjustments in government and considerable institution building in Panchayats in order to reduce unreasonable requirements for coordination and to increase local co-ordination skills. Thus, the coordination gap could be narrowed, reducing the need for supplementary troubleshooting and contingency planning. As an example, consider the road project in Surkhet. Work on the ChinchuCible Road was directly supervised by the district Panchayat,the designatedimplementer of the project. Evaluating the work to verify expenditure, the District Technical Office (DTO) of Surkhet reported that the cost should have been approximately half the reported expenditure. The variation between the district Panchayat expenditure record and the DTO estimate occurred due to two major differences. First, instead of excavation comprising 75 % hard rock and 25% soil, as claimed by the district Panchayat chairman who coordinated the work, the DTO evaluated the soil to be 75 % soft. To
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compound the problem it was determined that in evaluating the work the DTO used the cost established for digging soft soil foundations at Birendranagar. That unit costing was substantially lower than the cost established by the Roads Department for the excavation of soil in the construction of the Nepalganj-Surkhet Highway to which this interim project is a feeder road. This problem arose becausethe initiative of the district Punchuyat could not be effectively co-ordinated with the activity of the DTO. Control over the DTO lies within two jurisdictions, the office of CD0 and the Works and Transport Ministry in Kathmandu. The district Panchayat antagonisedthe DTO by proceedingwith work after failing to securethe DTO’s servicesin time to match the availability of funds and the mobilization of the people. The co-ordination of development within each district has been provided for within the District Administration Plan (DAP). However, ‘the DAP has remained less than fully operative because the line ministries and departments refused to entrust the CDOs with the supervisory and co-ordinating authority over their district level functionaries’(Shrestha,” p. 10).As a result, district officers havedivided loyalty to the district and to their central headquarters.The latter loyalty prevails whenever the two are not comp!ementary becausepromotion is determined at the centre. Moreover, ‘the CDO, who is supposedto co-ordinate work at the district level, reachesa nadir of frustration,’ because‘he hasall the responsibility but not one whit of authority to influence the policy of the technical ministries working in his district’ (Stiller and Yadev,13 p. 113). Under a recent rearrangement, the DTO, formerly under the Works and Transport Ministry, has beenmoved to the jurisdiction of the newly createdLocal Development Ministry. The DTO is now responsibleto the Local Development Officer (LDO), a position also created in the recent changein policy. The LDO replacesthe Punchuyat Development Officer (PDO) who held the position of Secretary in the district Panchuyat and was an assistant to the CDO. Secondly, the LDO co-ordinates all development activities in the district, which was formerly the function of the CDO. The effectivenessof the LDO parachuted in to co-ordinate the development activities depends, as in the past with the CDO, on the willingness of the line ministries to part with their prerogatives to make decisions and control their field workers.
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Project integration into departmental activities The organizational principle for IRD in Nepal is that all project administration, procurement and accountability are to be handled within established government and para-governmental institutions. An objective of rural development is to strengthenthe permanent capacity of these institutions to sustain development. The conventional approach has been to setup distinct project administrations with special prerogatives, often using foreign supervision. Recall that the interim projects were intended, inter alia, to detect procedural issues which the impending K-BIRD projects could face by implementation (integration) within established government activities. Therefore, the department projects were developed and budgeted within the departments. Acceptance of the required action was slow except when an individual civil servant took a personal interest in following up on problems. Some of this reluctance is attributed to incongruity betweenlocal and central level perceptions of priorities and appropriate action. In one case, given high priority by local people, the Dailekh citrus diseaseproject, the central level denied the urgency of the problem. Reluctance may also be due to hidden policy agendas. In the case of hiring Panchayat development workers, apparent reluctance at the centre to disturb the development status quo in the villages blocked the grants to the Panchayats. The Jumla airport improvements were not begun, ostensibly due to a shortage of technical design manpower. Failure to act in other casescan be attributed to an absenceof felt ownership of a project. The soil and water conservation project was perceived at the field level as an add-on project. The community forest projects were ahead of their time and not understood within the conventional ‘keep out the people’ model of forest preservation. Most reluctant departments either followed a policy of avoiding commitments between meetings to stimulate action or referred constantly to the KBIRD Co-ordinator on every issue, including even routine established procedures for daily and travel allowances. The evidencesuggeststhat the association of the interim projects with conventional ad hoc projects preventedan understanding that integrated rural development requires projects to be internalized within department agendas.The main characteristics of most ad hoc projects in Nepal are funding and management by a foreign agency, often using foreign
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personnel, dispensation from Government procedures and regulations, and perquisites for government personnel assignedto the projects. Civil servants in Nepal have benefitted from, and have grown to expect, preferential allowances, accessto foreign travel and vehicles associated with aid agencies.Without extra personal gain, they were unwilling to do someone else’swork, which they perceived the interim projects to be. The lack of effectiveintegration is also due to the origin of the projects. At the centre, there appeared to be no senseof obligation to projects emerging from a bottom-up planning process, especially when these projects differed from their own programmes. Regarding this point, Stiller and Yadev13 rightly point out that ‘the center wants a grass-root commitment to the program and grass-root labour while avoiding the inconveniences of involving local thought in the planning of local projects’ (pp. 294-5). These perceptionswerecompounded, as mentioned above, by staff shortages and absenteeism at the centre and in the districts. If the structural issueis decentralization, the attitudinal issueis rooted in the hierarchical need to control. The experience from the interim projects substantiates Miller’s8 observation that the administration system, and the nature of each higher level representative’sauthority or lack of authority within it, has a determining influence on the nature of the development process. District level implementation cannot be administeredwithout authoritative representationfrom the centre,just as development in Nepal cannot be administered from abroad. Nor should centre (or donor) staff be in a position to block properly approved and budgeted local projects. The recent establishment of a central authority like the Local Development Ministry does not change the degree of decentralization; rather, it adds another step at the centre to the disbursement and approval process. The IRD approach is different from conventional ad hoc development. IRD is premised on the importance of timing and the sequencing of development activities to exploit economic complementarities otherwise not possible in weak subsistencerural economies. The interim projects were not of sufficient mass to inlluence routine departmental activities while, at the same time, the projects required adjustments in normal procedures.The differencescausedhesitant decisions. The poor appreciation of possible professional and institutional gains from integration does not compensatefor general resistanceto change and lack of normal personal gains from suchprojects. The explicit and firm requirements for
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integration of the K-BIRD programme within government indicate that a slow start is almost unavoidable. SUMMARY
AND INTERPRETATION
Summary
During the planning of integrated rural development, it becameapparent that the time gap betweenplanning and implementation would have to be filled by interim projects. The bottom-up approach, based on people’s participation, was not the only reason. A number of premises and innovative components of the plan required substantiation and the need for various administrative changes required demonstration” The paper has outlined salient aspectsof the Government’s processes which would govern the IRD programme and the difficulties experienced by the interim projects. Financial disbursements constituted the most important disruption of project coordination, taking in some casesmore than one year to complete. It has also documentedthe contribution of staff absenteeismand turnover to project delay. More than one-third of senior district staff were absent virtually every week over the 15month period studied. Staff turnover was over three times the rate prescribed by the Government in some cases. The reasons were the unacceptably poor working conditions in remote regions and institutional problems in some ministries. The interim projects tested the assertion that local government could implement village and district level public works projects. It was found that local government could not co-ordinate the inputs and technical help required from the Government with labour provided by local people. The reasonswere lack of advancevillage and district institution building for project implementation and structural and staff problems in the rural engineering services. Finally, the attempt to demonstrate the validity of integrating all IRD activities within normal government institutions, asopposedto creating a special project status for the IRD, was inadvertently successfulwhen budgets were not properly placed with line agencies charged with implementing the projects. The subsequent confusion and delay is attributable to this imperfect integration. That the projects did not integrate well may also be attributed to their equitable distribution
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among districts, the relative insignificance of their size, and failure to fulfill conventional assumptions by staff about donor assisted ad hoc projects. Interpretation
Integrated rural development as a regional strategy requires, above all, attention to the timing of all proceduresand activities. Failure of staff and money to be at the site of a project at the same time is absolutely destructive to participatory development and the exploitation of economic complementarities. The counterveiling forces of finance, personnel administration and implementing (line) ministries in the control processis inimical to rural development. The same control may be achieved by determining the level of development activity in the region and by allocating blocks of money and manpower to the local administration. In that way, co-ordination may be confined to people who can meet and bargain without the communication loss of independent referrals to and through the centre. This issueis not one of simple decentralization. Neither is the issueone of specialization of function by administrative units. Rather, it appears that specialization has evolved into jurisdictional autonomy with new goals related to institutional growth and competition. The challenge of IRD, typified by the problems of implementing the interim projects, is to convince the various jurisdictions that their self-interests,expressedin terms of bigger budgetsand more staff, are enhancedby deferring to coordination. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to thank Mr I. P. Shrestha, Co-ordinator, KarnaliBheri Integrated Rural Development Program, for his valuable suggestions, and to acknowledgethe help of the many HMG personnelwithout whoseco-operation this work would not havebeenpossible. However, the authors assumesole responsibility for the contents of this paper. REFERENCES 1. Aura, Agriculture
E. 0. Improving Administration,
rural development administration 5(4) (October, 1978).
in Nigeria,
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2. Cadillo, V. G. & Mudogo, E. N. Imperatives for integrated rural development. Ministry of Regional Administration and Rural Development, Dar es Salaam, October, 1971. 3. Cadillo, V. G. & Mudogo, E. N. Report of a case study on Lushoto Integrated Development Project (LIPED). Ministry of Regional Administration and Rural Development, Dar es Salaam, October 1971. 4. His Majesty’s Government of Nepal. District Administration Plan. District Plan Implementation Committee, HMG of Nepal, Kathmandu, 1975. 5. His Majesty’s Government of Nepal. Integrated Panchayat Development Design. Ministry of Home and Panchayat, Kathmandu, November 26,1978. 6. Howell, J. Administration and rural development planning: A Sudanese case, Agriculture Administration, 4 (1977). 7. Kellick, T. & Kinyua, J. On implementing development plans: A case study. In: ODZ Review, Overseas Development Institute, London, 1979980. 8. Miller, Eric J. A negotiating model in integrated rural development projects, Development Digest, 19(l) (January 1981). 9. Rasmusson, R. Kenyan rural development and aid (Development Studies 2/72), Stockholm, June, 1972. 10. Shrestha, Bihari K. Local level planning in Nepal: A study of the planning in the Rasuwa-Nuwakot Rural Development Project. Kathmandu (November, 1979). (Mimeo.) 11. Shrestha, Binod K. & Apedaile, Leonard P. NEPAL: Financial disbursemen ts for Canadian mission-assisted rural development projects 1978-80: A review and analysis. Kathmandu (May, 1980). 12. Shrestha, Tulsi Narayan. Nepalese administration: An image. Sajha Prakashan, Kathmandu, 198 1. 13. Stiller, Ludwig & Yadev, Ram Prakash. Planning for people, Sahayogi Prakashan, Kathmandu, 1979. 14. University of #Nairobi. An overall evaluation of the Special Rural Development Programme, 1972. Institute of Development Studies, 1972. 15. Uphoff, Norman & Esman, Milton. Local organization for rural development in Asia. Development Digest, 13(3) (July, 1975). 16. Waterson, Albert. A viable model for rural development. Development Digest, 13(3) (July, 1975). 17. Wildavsky, Aaron. Why planning fails in Nepal. Administrative Sciences Quarterly, 17 (1972). 18. World Bank. Rural development: Sector policy paper, Wash.ington, DC. (February, 1975). 19. Zaman, M. A. Some experiences in the implementation of integrated rural development (IRD) programmes, Agriculture Administration, 4 (1977).
Implementing Rural Development: Lessons from a Remote Region of Nepal Binod K. Shrestha” & L. P. Apedailey * Department of Geography. University of Alberta, (Received:
t Department of Rural Economy, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 17 November,
1982)
SUMMARY People’s participation in planning their rural development generates involvement and commitment. These attributes are vulnerable to the time lapses common to financial negotiations andplan approvalprocesses. To overcome the adverse effects of the delayed implementation of an integrated rural development programme in Nepal, a number of interim projects were implemented. Their purposes, in addition to continuity of local commitment, were to test the premises and innovative components of the plan and to substantiate proposals for adjustments to national administrative procedures. This paper reviews some of the experiences of implementing the projects. Financial disbursement, staff absenteeism and turnover caused disruption to project co-ordination. The premise that local government could co-ordinate the inputs and technical help requiredfrom the Government was demonstrated to be weak. The conclusion is that only in exceptional cases was the Government apparatus amenable to rural development requirements for budgeting, accounting, authorization and cross line coordination.
INTRODUCTION From field survey to programme approval, integrated rural development (IRD) planning rarely takes less than 2 years. When that planning is part 75 Agricultural Administration 0309-586X/83/0013-0075/$0340 Ltd, England,
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of a development process with peoples’ participation, interim action projects are required before the plan is approved. Reasonsfor early action include managing expectations, validating assumptions and designs, testing the capabilities of implementing offices,examining the budget and disbursement processes,documenting the capacity to carry out civil works projects and removing the pressure of expediency from final approval processes.As a preliminary to an IRD programme, many implementation difficulties for these projects could be anticipated. Much attention has been given to documenting bottlenecks in the implementation of rural developmentprojects in many parts of the world. Kellick and Kinyua7 have shown that, for 45 % of the agricultural sector projects in Kenya, the implementation ratio (i.e. the ratio of actual to planned expenditure) was less than 0.39. The budget for these projects amounted to over 60 y0 of the total allocation to the agricultural sector. They cite shortageof key personneland planning weaknessas someof the factors influencing this poor implementation (Kellick and Kinyua7). In case studies on the implementation of area development programmes in Chile, Peru, Upper Volta and Afghanistan, Zamanl’ identified a variety of constraints on implementation including ‘remotenessof some of the areas and lack of physical infrastructure, . . . weaknessin coordination among the government agenciesconcerned . . . absenceof incentives to encourage national staff to seek assignments in rural and relatively isolated areas. . .’ (p. 313). Similarly, in Nigeria, Aura’ has recognized ‘limitation in the flow. . . of funds’ as one of the difficulties (p. 281). Likewise, the evaluation of the Special Rural Development Program in Kenya (University of Nairobi14), experiencein the Sudan (Howel16),and the casestudy of the LIPED in Tanzania (Cadillo et al.’ and Rasmussong),draw attention to similar problems. Again, many have recognized decentralization and co-ordination as prerequisite elements for effective planning and implementation (Miller;’ Uphoff and Esman; ’ 5 Waterson;16 World BankI’). This paper considers the difficulties experienced by government institutions in Nepal in implementing a number of interim projects during the period betweeninitial popular involvement in IRD planning and the start up of planned implementation for an agreedIRD programme. The first part describes the background of the projects. The second part describesthe specific administrative framework for rural development in Nepal whilst the third part documents and explains the implementation
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problems experienced.The conclusion is that, although interim projects bridge a wide experiential gap between planning and action, practical implementation issues may jeopardize the successof such projects as viewed in conventional terms. This paper will demonstrate their successes in the unconventional context outlined above. At the time these projects were started, there was little documented knowledge of the intricacies of administering rural projects in Nepal and a new co-ordination structure had just been instituted. With one established, and five new, integrated rural development projects on the drawing board, each with a unique situation-specific design, considerable and conflicting pressureswere placed on the Government’s staff to respond to donors’ senseof urgency.,The purpose of this paper is to put forward suggestionsas to how greaterjob satisfaction within the civil serviceand better development for the rural peple of Nepal can be achieved.
BACKGROUND Identification
TO PROJECTS
of the projects
As part of its programme for national and regional development, the Government of Nepal is attempting to allocate its development efforts more equally throughout its five development regions. Moreover, the Government intends to increase and expand its development efforts, particularly in the mid- and far-western regions, which are the least developedareasof the country. In accordancewith this generalobjective, various donors have been providing expertise and funding to assist the Government to preparecomprehensiveplans for integratedrural development. The programme referred to in this paper is in the Karnali and Bheri Zones of the Mid-Western Development Region. In 1978,at the end of 4 months of intensive field work to prepare the Karnali-Bheri Integrated Rural Development Program (K-BIRD), interim projects were proposed to bridge the time gap betweenthe planning and the signing of the K-BIRD funding agreement.Their purposeswere: (1) To managethe expectationsof village and district political leaders and, to a lesserextent, district civil servants.
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(2) To validate designsand assumptions for the village level development proposals. (3) To document the justification and direction for required adjustments to administrative processes. (4) To familiarize civil servants and district officials with the IRD concept. The interim projects were identified during the planning work and were implemented through the Government’s established channels and the district and village councils (Panchuyats). Each project identified by the local authorities was justified by direct benefits. The projects were reflected in the Government’s annual budget. An adequatelump sum provision was made under the ‘contingency’ heading within the budget for the Ministry of Home and Panchuyat (MOHP) to cover the total cost of the projects. Initially, twenty projects were agreed to in October, 1978, 8 months after the beginning of planning work. It was expectedthat theseprojects would becompleted within a year, during which time the content and funding for the comprehensive K-BIRD programme would reach agreement so that implementation could commence in July, 1979. The K-BIRD agreement was signed in July, 1981, 2 years after the expected date. Many of the interim projects experiencedsufficient delays to fully accommodate this unplanned 2-year period. This paper reviews and interprets the problems encountered whilst attempting to implement these projects in remote rural areas of Nepal through regular administrative channels. Project selection and planning
In keeping with the basic principle that rural development projects be requested by the village and district levels of government, the twenty interim projects were selectedfrom among those identified in June, 1978 by the local authorities during a workshop in Surkhet to wind up the fieldwork for the K-BIRD plan. In accordancewith the ‘development asa process’concept of the K-BIRD plan, local level projects were assignedto village and district administrations to conceive the project design, detail the cost breakdowns, procure materials and award contracts and to conduct all other aspectsof project management. Central level projects were implemented by the government departments concerned. The following criteria wereusedto selectthe projects from among those identified before and during the workshop. Projects should:
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(1) Help pave the way for full-scale implementation of the K-BIRD (2)
(3) (4)
(5) (6)
(7)
programme in five pre-selectedvillage Panchayats and in each district. Correspond with requests by local people or proposals already discussedfor the K-BIRD area. Demonstrate clear commitment by Government to local initiative. Be implemented in all K-BIRD area districts to preserveequity and to ensure the credibility of local leaders who had already backed the K-BIRD programme. Demonstrate to local Government officers the seriousnessof KBIRD intentions. Be ready to start immediately. Require minimum foreign support and co-ordination.
An indicative budget was allocated to the project for the approval processof the NepaleseGovernment and the donor. Following agreement between the two governments, the implementing jurisdictions were informed of the availability of funds. This project identification process differs little from that of conventional ad hoc rural projects in Nepal. The usual processis that projects arefirst selectedby a district Panchayat from a list of ‘demands’ presented by the village Panchayats under its jurisdiction. This aggregatedlist is then forwarded to the central level for incorporation into the national plan. At the central level, dictated by the amount of resourcesavailable and basedon the past year’s demands and political manoeuvering by the district officials, projects are included in the national plan. Once the national plan and budget are set at the beginning of the fiscal year, the approved projects are handed down through the responsibleministries to the districts, sometime during the first quarter. Usually, in this process, the approved projects are drastically reduced, both in number and size. The interim projects, however, emerged unscathed. BACKGROUND
TO GOVERNMENT
MACHINERY
Local level administration
The district development administration system consists of two jurisdictional groups: (1) The political leadership, formed of elected officials from the two levels of local government called district Panchayats and village
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This group formulates lists of development projects/ demands. (2) The district civil service,co-ordinated by the Chief District Officer (CDO), which is a conglomerate of the district level offices of the central departments. The civil service administers development projects and provides technical and administrative support to Panchayats.
Panchayats.
The District Administration Plan (DAP) (His Majesty’s Government of Nepa14) integrates all district level offices of central ministries and departments under the guidanceand supervision of the CDO. The extent to which eachcentral ministry delegatespower and function to its district officers determines, other things being equal, the extent to which coordination occurs at the district level. In addition, the district officers have a tendency to consider themselvesseparatefrom the control of the CDO. Referring to the administrative decentralization which the DAP was to bring about, Shresthai2 questioned whether all delegatedfunctions and power have been properly utilized by the officials concerned. This, he argues, is in part due to the personal weaknessesof the higher level authorities, their tendency to interfere, and their reluctancy to delegate authority. Personnel administration
Recruitment of personnel is done by the Public Service Commission, while their appointment and placement is made by the Department of Administrative Management. Personnel may be transferred at any time to any location in the country despite a stated policy that no person may be transferred until he has served 466 days in his post. As a result of frequent changesin the rules, coupled with many exceptions,unbalanced allocation of merit points and a lack of correlation between one’s qualifications and one’sjob, there is rapid turnover of staff in rural posts. Financial
administration
Government expenditure is controlled by numerous procedural steps. Disbursement from the national treasury begins with an executing department officer requesting funds from the Office of the Comptroller General through its parent ministry or department. The disbursement of
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interim project funds was administered by the Ministry of Home and Panchuyat (MOHP). However, completing the circle of requesting and receiving the funds between various Divisions of several central ministries is a very timeconsuming process.Monies do not usually arrive in the districts until the end of the first quarter. The time required by the process is directly proportional to the number of levelsof government involved in handling the money and cycling caused by procedural error. The disbursement delays which occur destroy project co-ordination, design, procurement, political commitment and volunteer labour mobilization and implementation timing to coincide with the monsoon-free season. Rural development
co-ordination
Co-ordination of rural development, at the outset of the interim projects, was provided by the District Administration Plan (DAP) (His Majesty’s Government of Nepa14).The DAP designated the Chief District Officer (CDO) to co-ordinate all development activities within each district. Although this was never fully accepted by the ministries due to a reluctance to decentralize authority, concern over possible reduction in financial control, and implied deferenceof authority to the Ministry of Home and Punchuyat through its CDO’s. The K-BIRD planning was basedon this DAP with severalprovisions to strengthenco-ordination at the district and to add co-ordination at the centre. Subsequentto budgeting the interim projects, a Coordination Division for rural development, together with a new integrated Panchuyut development policy, was established within the Ministry of Home and Punchuyut (His Majesty’s Government of Nepal’). The change to the DAP structure implicit in the new policy resulted in an unanticipated distortion of ongoing rural development asthe Division sought to enforce the policy and establish its co-ordination mandate. Subsequently, a new Ministry of Local Development was created in 1980 to increase the effectiveness of development projects. The Coordination Division, Training Division and Local Development Department of MOHP constituted the nucleusof this new Ministry. The post of Local Development Officer (LDO) was created in each district to carry out the development co-ordination, leaving the CD0 free for the law and order function under MOHP. These structural changes had a bearing on the achievement of the purpose of the interim projects.
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IMPLEMENTATION
EXPERIENCE
This section documents the difficulties, especially those faced by the Panchayats and the district offices, which have been identified during implementation of the interim projects. Project design,co-ordination and accountability constitute the primary reasons for delays in implementation. Budgeting
interim
projects
Following the planning workshop of political leaders and civil servants held in June, 1978, indicative budgets were assignedto each identified interim project. Substantive difficulty in implementation may be attributed to three issues arising from this procedure-unplanned estimate overruns, lump sum budgeting of all interim projects and divergencefrom normal formulation procedure by assignment of the budget to the Coordination Division of the MOHP. The indicative budgetswere considered as spending ceilings under the terms of the financing. Subsequent estimates based on design always exceeded these ceilings, thereby stopping the approval process. For example, the budget allocated to mini-hydroelectric (40 kW) projects turned out to be a quarter of what would be required for the construction, turbine, generator, and transmission line. The budget/estimate gaps emerged for several reasons. First, the indicative budgets were constrained by a US $21000 limit for each project. To satisfy both this constraint and the purposes of the interim projects, compromises weremade on assumptions about volunteer labour content, the extent of use of local materials, costs and funding for engineeringdesignand supervision, and meansof funding transportation costs. These compromises, although consistent with the philosophy of rural development, were ambitious, especially with regard to the mobilization of local labour and the disregard for contingencies. Secondly, the donor currency devalued approximately 10% relative to the Nepalese rupee during the process of transferring funds. Thirdly, delays from all sourcesallowed inflation, running at about 12% in Nepal, to further reduce the real value of the budget ceiling. Fourthly, local authorities over-designed some projects, no doubt being influenced by the standards of new government buildings built by the same idonor at Surkhet and a desire for the best. Fifthly, it is
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hypothesized that foreign trained engineers,hired to design severalcivil works projects, brought to their designs inappropriate high-cost technology, particularly with regard to the use of cement and steel. Another budgeting issue which influenced the implementation of the projects was the requirement by the Ministry of Finance for a detailed budget breakdown as a precondition for disbursement. Normally this detail follows the project design stage. However, the experienceof local leaders who have suffered cutbacks appears to have made people unwilling to invest in design until they actually have the money assured. This situation was thought to havebeenovercome for the interim projects by having the total budget amount placed under the ‘contingency’ budget heading. Subsequently, this strategy was proved wrong as no disbursement was possible from this heading until the allocation was rebudgeted to other expenditure headings. This rebudgeting requirement was a clearly established policy to combine flexibility with financial control. However, the mere fact of initiating the procedure appearedto trigger an inherent sensitivity within the Ministry of Finance over financial control, resulting in lengthy delay. This failure of gamesmanshipresulted from a lack of familiarity with procedures and regulations by the new rural development administration, particularly with regard to documentation for departures from budget and disbursement. A further budget problem was created by treating consultation and the rural developmentplanning work as a substitute for the Government’s annual planning and budgeting process for these projects. The normal procedure is for projects with an estimate of cost and manpower requirements to move from village to district to region to central line departments to ministry budget proposals. The interim projects were formulated by these institutions in roughly this manner. However, the budget proposal and manpower requirements were not reflected anywhere in budget documents. Later, considerable confusion was created over who was responsible for implementation, how unbudgeted funds were to be accounted for, and who would be answerableto the Auditor General’s office for what would certainly appear to be unusual transfers and disbursement approval procedures. The projects were budgeted within the Co-ordination Division of MOHP, which effectively subordinated the line departments to this new Division insofar as theseprojects were concerned. Failure to reflect this fledgling K-BIRD initiative in budget growth for line agencieseffectively destroyedtheir commitment. Subsequentdisbursementswere impeded by
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the contradiction created by the need of the Co-ordination Division to account for its money when another agency or level of government was spendingit. Nowhere was the contradiction more strongly felt than at the district level for rural civil works. This budget experience reinforces the need to maintain complete integration of rural development within established government procedures.Well-intentioned departures from procedure by donor agencies or new internal co-ordination apparatus at budget time, at the least, will create confusion and, at the greatest, retaliatory delay by line agencies and their frustrated staff. These implications of deviation from established procedures must be weighed against the need for procedural adjustment and even restructuring for rural development. Financial disbursement The complex disbursement procedure of the NepaleseGovernment has beena substantivefactor affecting the co-ordination of project design,the provision of manpower, the procurement of materials and in maintaining popular commitment. Many financial consultants have observed that theseexisting internal disbursement and reporting proceduresare neither conducive to timely programme fund disbursement nor to timely accountability of disbursementsmade. As many as six jurisdictions were associated with the procedure of depositing the funds contributed by the donorlfor the interim projects into the government treasury. Similarly, documents were processedthrough nine jurisdictions before the funds were releasedto the parent ministry overseeingrural development projects. The time required for this part of the disbursement cycle was inversely proportional to the amount of intervention by the agentof the donor. The processtook a total of 79 days with, and 223 days without, intervention to deposit the funds and have them releasedto the implementing ministry (Shresthaand Apedailei ‘). It took an additional 87 days, to a maximum of 321 days, to transfer the monies from the ministry to its district offices. One interim project receivedits total budget allocation 411 days after the funds were handed over by the donor. A problematic aspect of disbursement is the ‘freezing’ of unexpended funds. As Wildavsky I7 has pointed out, ‘the difficulty begins (when) all funds revert to the treasury at the end of the fiscal year’ (p. 518). Experience with the interim projects corroborated this assertion. The
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initial disbursement, made in January, 1979, for two of the projects reachedthe district offices in the first week of March and the funds were frozen in July. It was not until May, 1981that the funds were reactivated, after 492 days of concerted effort. A particular disbursement situation arose for the five interim projects funded entirely from Government sources of revenue. To quote Wildavsky again: ‘although agreedso, there can never be any guarantee that the (HMG/N) [NepaleseGovernm.ent’s]contribution will arrive on time, during the year, or some time at all.’ The reasonfor this is reputed to lie in the severecash flow situation facing the Nepalese Government which is subject to a relatively conservative financial policy. The same situation has occurred even in major multilateral agreementsin which Nepal has accepted(or has beencoercedinto) a local contribution. It may also be, though the suspicion was never confirmed, that the disbursement delayscan be attributed to the Government temporarily allocating the aid funds to another area of responsibility to meet immediate cash flow requirements, consequently delaying release of funds to the interim projects. Staff absenteeism
Senior staff attendancein the districts, as monitored weekly in association with the implementation of the interim project, has clearly revealeda very difficult local staff situation faced by the Government. Over a period of 15 months, from October, 1979to January, 1981, the averageweekly rate of staff absenteeismin Surkhet, Dailekh and Jumla was 36 ‘A. In Kalikot, over the sameperiod, 64 ‘A of senior staff were absent,or their posts were unfilled. The attendance record of engineers was the poorest, though their service was the most essential to implementing thirteen of the twenty interim projects. During the entire 15 months of monitoring in the Surkhet, Dailekh and Kalikot districts, overseerswere acting asengineers for the purpose of conducting daily administrative and technical tasks. It was not unusual to find other untrained junior officers, such as account clerks, acting as headsof district offices for extendedperiods. The senior officers, always outsiders to the districts to which they were posted, were in Kathmandu or elsewhere,while local peopleconducted the office work. Staffing remote areas has been a challenge to the Government. Civil servants are extremely reluctant to accept assignmentsin thesedistricts due to a lack of facilities, including transportation, health care and
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education for their children, together with difficulties in getting food in many areas.Remote area allowancesof up to 100‘A of salary in the most remote regions do not compensatefor having to be away from the centre where one can protect and further personal interest in promotions, scholarships or foreign visits, and the interests of one’s family. Facilities and opportunities, including recognition and status, are at the centre. One would go to the districts only if merit points were required to cross a particular careerthreshold. Another explanation for lack of technicians in the districts, is that ‘a surprising number of technical staff have been assimilated within the actual administration and are therefore not free to go (to the districts).‘(Stiller and Yadev,r3 p:ll2.) Those who cannot have their transfers to the districts changedresort to tactics such as temporary disappearance. To overcome absenteeism,the Government has an allowance system for staff working in the remote areas of the country. The allowance is automatic and across-the-boardfor all staff and, under this regulation, even the most notoriously absent administrative staff are entitled to this project allowance. Without recognition of merit or attendancewithin the allowance system, the district officials will not be motivated to perform and their absence will continue to interfere with rural development projects in remote areas. Staff turnover
In addition to the replacement of several key technical personnel in the interim project areas,within the past 2 years, there have beenthree Chief District Officers (CDO) each in Surkhet, Dailekh and Jumla, and the District Forest Officers (DFO) in thesedistricts have beenchangedtwice in this period. Similarly, all Panchayat Development Officers(PDO), who were there when the projects were approved, have been transferred, and even those who filled in were recently replaced by Local Development Officers (LDO) who work within a completely new administrative structure with a different line of authority. Personnel turnover need not always retard the implementation process.One of the CDOs and, more recently, a number of LDOs, have been most active in speedingup some of the interim projects. This action may be attributed partly to their desireto influence somevisual progresswhich will assist them in winning the confidence of the people. More particularly, these LDOs are directly responsible, at the district level, to the K-BIRD co-ordinator.
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On an overall basis, however, two problems are evident. First, the transfer of key personnel in the middle of project implementation and, secondly, the long delay in staff replacement. As stated earlier, there is a government regulation that staff are not to be transferred before they have servedin the district for 466 working days, but this has not been effective, while replacement postings are deferred or repealed for the reason that remote area incentives do not compensate for the inconvenienceand disadvantageof remote postings. But perhapsas important to conscientioustechnical and administrative personnelaccepting service in rural areas is the high level of frustration connected with managing their work within the centralised administrative structure while living in the unrelievedphysical hardship and lonely circumstancesof remote rural communities. Project level co-ordination
Co-ordination in rural development is the marshalling of manpower, supervision, approvals, funds, material and public commitment to the right place at the right time. One of the specific interests in the interim projects was the extent to which local authorities could effectively coordinate the many decisions and activities of severaljurisdictions. This capability was frequently assertedduring the K-BIRD planning process and corresponded to a grobing recognition in Nepal of the merit of people’s participation in development. The experiencewith the interim projects indicates a needfor structural adjustments in government and considerable institution building in Panchayats in order to reduce unreasonable requirements for coordination and to increase local co-ordination skills. Thus, the coordination gap could be narrowed, reducing the need for supplementary troubleshooting and contingency planning. As an example, consider the road project in Surkhet. Work on the ChinchuCible Road was directly supervised by the district Panchayat,the designatedimplementer of the project. Evaluating the work to verify expenditure, the District Technical Office (DTO) of Surkhet reported that the cost should have been approximately half the reported expenditure. The variation between the district Panchayat expenditure record and the DTO estimate occurred due to two major differences. First, instead of excavation comprising 75 % hard rock and 25% soil, as claimed by the district Panchayat chairman who coordinated the work, the DTO evaluated the soil to be 75 % soft. To
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compound the problem it was determined that in evaluating the work the DTO used the cost established for digging soft soil foundations at Birendranagar. That unit costing was substantially lower than the cost established by the Roads Department for the excavation of soil in the construction of the Nepalganj-Surkhet Highway to which this interim project is a feeder road. This problem arose becausethe initiative of the district Punchuyat could not be effectively co-ordinated with the activity of the DTO. Control over the DTO lies within two jurisdictions, the office of CD0 and the Works and Transport Ministry in Kathmandu. The district Panchayat antagonisedthe DTO by proceedingwith work after failing to securethe DTO’s servicesin time to match the availability of funds and the mobilization of the people. The co-ordination of development within each district has been provided for within the District Administration Plan (DAP). However, ‘the DAP has remained less than fully operative because the line ministries and departments refused to entrust the CDOs with the supervisory and co-ordinating authority over their district level functionaries’(Shrestha,” p. 10).As a result, district officers havedivided loyalty to the district and to their central headquarters.The latter loyalty prevails whenever the two are not comp!ementary becausepromotion is determined at the centre. Moreover, ‘the CDO, who is supposedto co-ordinate work at the district level, reachesa nadir of frustration,’ because‘he hasall the responsibility but not one whit of authority to influence the policy of the technical ministries working in his district’ (Stiller and Yadev,13 p. 113). Under a recent rearrangement, the DTO, formerly under the Works and Transport Ministry, has beenmoved to the jurisdiction of the newly createdLocal Development Ministry. The DTO is now responsibleto the Local Development Officer (LDO), a position also created in the recent changein policy. The LDO replacesthe Punchuyat Development Officer (PDO) who held the position of Secretary in the district Panchuyat and was an assistant to the CDO. Secondly, the LDO co-ordinates all development activities in the district, which was formerly the function of the CDO. The effectivenessof the LDO parachuted in to co-ordinate the development activities depends, as in the past with the CDO, on the willingness of the line ministries to part with their prerogatives to make decisions and control their field workers.
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Project integration into departmental activities The organizational principle for IRD in Nepal is that all project administration, procurement and accountability are to be handled within established government and para-governmental institutions. An objective of rural development is to strengthenthe permanent capacity of these institutions to sustain development. The conventional approach has been to setup distinct project administrations with special prerogatives, often using foreign supervision. Recall that the interim projects were intended, inter alia, to detect procedural issues which the impending K-BIRD projects could face by implementation (integration) within established government activities. Therefore, the department projects were developed and budgeted within the departments. Acceptance of the required action was slow except when an individual civil servant took a personal interest in following up on problems. Some of this reluctance is attributed to incongruity betweenlocal and central level perceptions of priorities and appropriate action. In one case, given high priority by local people, the Dailekh citrus diseaseproject, the central level denied the urgency of the problem. Reluctance may also be due to hidden policy agendas. In the case of hiring Panchayat development workers, apparent reluctance at the centre to disturb the development status quo in the villages blocked the grants to the Panchayats. The Jumla airport improvements were not begun, ostensibly due to a shortage of technical design manpower. Failure to act in other casescan be attributed to an absenceof felt ownership of a project. The soil and water conservation project was perceived at the field level as an add-on project. The community forest projects were ahead of their time and not understood within the conventional ‘keep out the people’ model of forest preservation. Most reluctant departments either followed a policy of avoiding commitments between meetings to stimulate action or referred constantly to the KBIRD Co-ordinator on every issue, including even routine established procedures for daily and travel allowances. The evidencesuggeststhat the association of the interim projects with conventional ad hoc projects preventedan understanding that integrated rural development requires projects to be internalized within department agendas.The main characteristics of most ad hoc projects in Nepal are funding and management by a foreign agency, often using foreign
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personnel, dispensation from Government procedures and regulations, and perquisites for government personnel assignedto the projects. Civil servants in Nepal have benefitted from, and have grown to expect, preferential allowances, accessto foreign travel and vehicles associated with aid agencies.Without extra personal gain, they were unwilling to do someone else’swork, which they perceived the interim projects to be. The lack of effectiveintegration is also due to the origin of the projects. At the centre, there appeared to be no senseof obligation to projects emerging from a bottom-up planning process, especially when these projects differed from their own programmes. Regarding this point, Stiller and Yadev13 rightly point out that ‘the center wants a grass-root commitment to the program and grass-root labour while avoiding the inconveniences of involving local thought in the planning of local projects’ (pp. 294-5). These perceptionswerecompounded, as mentioned above, by staff shortages and absenteeism at the centre and in the districts. If the structural issueis decentralization, the attitudinal issueis rooted in the hierarchical need to control. The experience from the interim projects substantiates Miller’s8 observation that the administration system, and the nature of each higher level representative’sauthority or lack of authority within it, has a determining influence on the nature of the development process. District level implementation cannot be administeredwithout authoritative representationfrom the centre,just as development in Nepal cannot be administered from abroad. Nor should centre (or donor) staff be in a position to block properly approved and budgeted local projects. The recent establishment of a central authority like the Local Development Ministry does not change the degree of decentralization; rather, it adds another step at the centre to the disbursement and approval process. The IRD approach is different from conventional ad hoc development. IRD is premised on the importance of timing and the sequencing of development activities to exploit economic complementarities otherwise not possible in weak subsistencerural economies. The interim projects were not of sufficient mass to inlluence routine departmental activities while, at the same time, the projects required adjustments in normal procedures.The differencescausedhesitant decisions. The poor appreciation of possible professional and institutional gains from integration does not compensatefor general resistanceto change and lack of normal personal gains from suchprojects. The explicit and firm requirements for
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integration of the K-BIRD programme within government indicate that a slow start is almost unavoidable. SUMMARY
AND INTERPRETATION
Summary
During the planning of integrated rural development, it becameapparent that the time gap betweenplanning and implementation would have to be filled by interim projects. The bottom-up approach, based on people’s participation, was not the only reason. A number of premises and innovative components of the plan required substantiation and the need for various administrative changes required demonstration” The paper has outlined salient aspectsof the Government’s processes which would govern the IRD programme and the difficulties experienced by the interim projects. Financial disbursements constituted the most important disruption of project coordination, taking in some casesmore than one year to complete. It has also documentedthe contribution of staff absenteeismand turnover to project delay. More than one-third of senior district staff were absent virtually every week over the 15month period studied. Staff turnover was over three times the rate prescribed by the Government in some cases. The reasons were the unacceptably poor working conditions in remote regions and institutional problems in some ministries. The interim projects tested the assertion that local government could implement village and district level public works projects. It was found that local government could not co-ordinate the inputs and technical help required from the Government with labour provided by local people. The reasonswere lack of advancevillage and district institution building for project implementation and structural and staff problems in the rural engineering services. Finally, the attempt to demonstrate the validity of integrating all IRD activities within normal government institutions, asopposedto creating a special project status for the IRD, was inadvertently successfulwhen budgets were not properly placed with line agencies charged with implementing the projects. The subsequent confusion and delay is attributable to this imperfect integration. That the projects did not integrate well may also be attributed to their equitable distribution
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among districts, the relative insignificance of their size, and failure to fulfill conventional assumptions by staff about donor assisted ad hoc projects. Interpretation
Integrated rural development as a regional strategy requires, above all, attention to the timing of all proceduresand activities. Failure of staff and money to be at the site of a project at the same time is absolutely destructive to participatory development and the exploitation of economic complementarities. The counterveiling forces of finance, personnel administration and implementing (line) ministries in the control processis inimical to rural development. The same control may be achieved by determining the level of development activity in the region and by allocating blocks of money and manpower to the local administration. In that way, co-ordination may be confined to people who can meet and bargain without the communication loss of independent referrals to and through the centre. This issueis not one of simple decentralization. Neither is the issueone of specialization of function by administrative units. Rather, it appears that specialization has evolved into jurisdictional autonomy with new goals related to institutional growth and competition. The challenge of IRD, typified by the problems of implementing the interim projects, is to convince the various jurisdictions that their self-interests,expressedin terms of bigger budgetsand more staff, are enhancedby deferring to coordination. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to thank Mr I. P. Shrestha, Co-ordinator, KarnaliBheri Integrated Rural Development Program, for his valuable suggestions, and to acknowledgethe help of the many HMG personnelwithout whoseco-operation this work would not havebeenpossible. However, the authors assumesole responsibility for the contents of this paper. REFERENCES 1. Aura, Agriculture
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2. Cadillo, V. G. & Mudogo, E. N. Imperatives for integrated rural development. Ministry of Regional Administration and Rural Development, Dar es Salaam, October, 1971. 3. Cadillo, V. G. & Mudogo, E. N. Report of a case study on Lushoto Integrated Development Project (LIPED). Ministry of Regional Administration and Rural Development, Dar es Salaam, October 1971. 4. His Majesty’s Government of Nepal. District Administration Plan. District Plan Implementation Committee, HMG of Nepal, Kathmandu, 1975. 5. His Majesty’s Government of Nepal. Integrated Panchayat Development Design. Ministry of Home and Panchayat, Kathmandu, November 26,1978. 6. Howell, J. Administration and rural development planning: A Sudanese case, Agriculture Administration, 4 (1977). 7. Kellick, T. & Kinyua, J. On implementing development plans: A case study. In: ODZ Review, Overseas Development Institute, London, 1979980. 8. Miller, Eric J. A negotiating model in integrated rural development projects, Development Digest, 19(l) (January 1981). 9. Rasmusson, R. Kenyan rural development and aid (Development Studies 2/72), Stockholm, June, 1972. 10. Shrestha, Bihari K. Local level planning in Nepal: A study of the planning in the Rasuwa-Nuwakot Rural Development Project. Kathmandu (November, 1979). (Mimeo.) 11. Shrestha, Binod K. & Apedaile, Leonard P. NEPAL: Financial disbursemen ts for Canadian mission-assisted rural development projects 1978-80: A review and analysis. Kathmandu (May, 1980). 12. Shrestha, Tulsi Narayan. Nepalese administration: An image. Sajha Prakashan, Kathmandu, 198 1. 13. Stiller, Ludwig & Yadev, Ram Prakash. Planning for people, Sahayogi Prakashan, Kathmandu, 1979. 14. University of #Nairobi. An overall evaluation of the Special Rural Development Programme, 1972. Institute of Development Studies, 1972. 15. Uphoff, Norman & Esman, Milton. Local organization for rural development in Asia. Development Digest, 13(3) (July, 1975). 16. Waterson, Albert. A viable model for rural development. Development Digest, 13(3) (July, 1975). 17. Wildavsky, Aaron. Why planning fails in Nepal. Administrative Sciences Quarterly, 17 (1972). 18. World Bank. Rural development: Sector policy paper, Wash.ington, DC. (February, 1975). 19. Zaman, M. A. Some experiences in the implementation of integrated rural development (IRD) programmes, Agriculture Administration, 4 (1977).