Recently, I have been thinking about the hallmark of my
graduate program: integrated approaches to sustainable development (or
cross-sector interventions). This has been on my mind for a variety of reasons:
-When an Earth Institute team arrived to discuss nutrition
intervention in Timor-Leste (*) with various stakeholders, the theme raised
most often was the need for an integrated response.
-During their fieldwork, many of my classmates have raised
the issue of program integration, both at project-levels and government-levels.
Just what does a truly integrated project look like? How difficult is it to
coordinate a truly integrated intervention? Etc.
-My own fieldwork has been with a project that is not an
integrated approach at all. So while I cannot really respond to my classmates’
intriguing questions and thoughts on an integrated approach with my own direct
experience, I can weigh-in on how a “dis-integrated” approach works. And in
doing so, maybe discuss a bit of what I am learning here and how it relates to
my overall development education (warning: possible self-reflection ahead…)
As I mentioned, Seeds of Life does not follow an integrated
approach. Its work exists entirely within the Agriculture sector, and even then
it deals strictly with seed. To date, the program has made no concerted interventions
into other areas crucial to a developing country’s agriculture, such as technical
extension, inputs, credit access, marketing, fisheries, or livestock. Seeds of
Life focuses on creating and maintaining a national seed system for staple
crops (maize, rice, peanut, sweet potato, and cassava). Yet although the
intervention is mono-sectoral, Seeds of Life does take a comprehensive approach
in handling every aspect of the seed system. The program addresses: seed
research; formal seed production , processing, and storage; informal seed
production via community groups for local use, including related marketing and
business plan development; communication for seed-related issues, including
media campaigns, print materials, and facilitator training for agricultural
extension officers (specifically on seed, but applicable to other areas as
well); climate change as it relates to seed development (and agriculture more generally);
monitoring and evaluation, including socio-economic research; seed policy
development; governance for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries,
particularly for budgeting, planning, and strategy development; and training of
Timorese staff, in everything from English language (for graduate level studies
abroad) to statistics to database management. In this sense, Seeds of Life is
an example of focusing on a single problem (no self-sustaining seed system) and
systematically addressing every contributing factor to that problem.
While not a typical placement for an MDP student, Seeds of Life
does offer insights into development practice. Some of my observations include:
-In order to be more than a catchphrase, “capacity-building”
needs to be built into every aspect of the program. This means having local
staff learning constantly, with international staff members taking the time to
train the local staff members in each task. Gradually, the local staff
members should transition to leading meetings, trainings, and presentations, as
well as designing work plans and strategies. The international staff can then
serve as backup and advisor.
-Communication is key, and very few sector-specific
practitioners understand it. This includes multimedia (video, comic books,
radio, photography, twitter, mobile phone technologies…), publicity materials,
and interpersonal communication skills. No matter how great the message may be,
if it cannot be communicated properly, it will never reach its intended
audience. Having a communications team is very useful, but they should also be
incorporated into the staff as best as possible. In other words, instead of
having the research team dump various tasks on the communication team, each
staff member should understand the program’s communication strategy and
implement it in his/her work.
-Don’t be afraid of a program’s expansion. While we should
all guard against unnecessary program largesse, when a new need is identified
in a project it can be very useful to hire staff and develop a strategy to
address it. Such was the case with communication, which was not a part of the
initial program design here, but is now an integral part. Of course, it is
important to come to a consensus on the strategy and to ensure you hire strong
staff for the new roles…
Finally, a few thoughts from the EI visit and my time at
Seeds of Life that directly relate to cross-sector approaches:
-Many problems really do require a multi-sector response,
such as nutrition. Coordination amongst stakeholders is crucial, and this usually
comes from a unified understanding of the problem and the response. Government
leadership is important in this, and sufficient energy should be devoted to
developing strategy and implementation plans (**).
-It is great if your program does a specific thing really
well. But do not isolate yourself from other programs; instead, coordinate with
those projects in other sectors that interact with your own program’s
intervention area.
-Share your successes and failures! This should be a part of
the overall coordination and implementation of a strong strategy: what works in
practice.
(*)Timor-Leste, a country of 1 million people and $10 billion
in its Petroleum Fund, has the third highest stunting level in the world.
(**) Another thing I noted while speaking with nutrition
stakeholders is the importance of logistics. WFP does this well, and they
pointed out that many of the nutrition programs are not functioning well due to
logistical challenges rather than poor program design. Could be a useful grad
school course for a practitioner to take…
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