clarifying the relationship: Responsibilities of Project Managers and programme Managers
Contents of this section:
Task managers new to participation ask what role they should play in an activity being planned and decided in a participatory way. Another-and perhaps more straightforward-way of asking this might be, "Isn't it true that I have no role to play in participatory processes? Don't I just have to go along with what the in-country stakeholders want?" The answer is a clear and resounding "No!" Just as Task Managers play multiple roles when working in the external expert stance, they also play multiple roles in the participatory stance. The chapter II examples indicate that Task Managers have played the role of initiating, facilitating, participating, sharing expertise, observing, navigating, and nurturing.
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In theory, the government sponsor of an activity should choose the design stance. In the majority of the chapter II examples, however, the Task Manager decided to work in the participatory stance. In addition, Task Managers often took on the job of finding allies, arranging financing, convincing skeptics in the country and the Bank, identifying and involving stakeholders, inventing techniques, and building in-country participatory capacity. In the future, the participatory stance may be standard practice in borrowing countries, as in the Philippines Irrigation example, or government sponsors could always ask that the participatory stance be taken, as in the Chad Education example. But until this time, Task Managers will have to continue to initiate participation in many situations. The Task Managers to whom we have spoken see this role as a welcomed and satisfying one.
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Only in one instance-the Yemen Education example-did the Task Manager take on the facilitator role, because he happened to be a skilled, experienced trainer. In several instances, Bank staff with facilitation skills served as facilitators, while the Task Manager and other Bank staff were participant-observers. In other cases, local consultants or government staff played this role, sometimes after being specifically trained for it through programs organized by the Task Manager. In the Egypt Resource Management and Morocco Women in Development examples special training was provided to government officials and others in the country to play this role with resources organized by the Task Manager.
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The job of the facilitator is to design and carefully manage a process that ensures that all those involved can and do become fully engaged with the substantive matters under consideration. Facilitators need to remain "substance-neutral" to do their job. They have to concentrate on processes that ensure that the "voiceless" are heard, that other norms of collaboration are followed, that learning occurs, and that practical results are produced. Task Managers, however, are not-and should not try to be-"substance-neutral."
Task Managers represent the Bank's stake in each and every activity. They may have to take an advocacy stance from time to time-within the rules of the game enforced by the facilitator-in keeping with the Bank's mission, policy, and objectives. They bring expertise to the process that may not exist among the local stakeholders. By participating, rather than facilitating, these experts share what they know with the other stakeholders (as the other stakeholders share their expert knowledge with them) through the social interaction of participation. Experts cannot teach other participants all they know during the participatory process. Instead what they can do-and do more effectively than with written reports-is open possibilities for action that may not otherwise be imagined by other stakeholders.
Bank staff and their external colleagues can share with local stakeholders their worldwide knowledge about what other people are doing to handle similar concerns. Sometimes, as indicated in the India Forestry example, experts may be sharing what they learned elsewhere in the same country. Although Bank staff have had much experience in operating in the external expert stance, more and more firsthand experience in supporting participatory planning processes is being amassed. Similarly, learning and other information is being generated about arrangements that build local capacity through participation (see Chapter IV). Bank staff can share this cross-national experience with local stakeholders to open up possibilities for future action.
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Participation does not eliminate the role of experts in the field of development. It just changes the way experts communicate their expertise to the other stakeholders. It also increases their effectiveness. Local stakeholders do not know everything. Experts of all types-engineers, social scientists, economists, sector specialists, institutional specialists, and more-need to contribute what they know. In a participatory stance, what development experts have to offer has a much better chance of being accepted and used than when they rely on reports and briefings to share their expertise. Chapter II examples show no signs that experts or their expertise will soon be extinct in the field of development. In fact, biases favoring expert knowledge show up in several of our examples.
Participation allows local people to speak for themselves. After all, they are the "experts" on what they want and need. Through participation, experts may open up other possibilities for local people for inorganization into their own expertise. Local people are also uniquely expert on what they are willing to change, to what extent, and how. The challenge for Task Managers is to find ways to bring this local expertise into Bank-supported activities.
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In addition to sharing expertise and helping get the balance right between technical and local expertise, Task Managers also have to play an "observer" role in participatory processes. One result to look for, or "observation target," is a rather straightforward matter: "Are the technologies and methods the stakeholders intend to use sufficiently effective and efficient to make the project a worthwhile investment?" In other words, will the internal and economic rates of return support the investment? A related observation target is if the stakeholder's decisions are acceptable to the Bank with regard to its objectives and policies.
A relatively new observation target-one of immense importance for poverty alleviation-is if project implementation arrangements build local capacity so that the poor can sustain and build on the benefits of the development activity. Traditional engineering, economics, and sector expertise do not include everything needed to build local capacity. Social scientists have much to contribute in this area, as indicated in the Mexico Hydroelectric example.
Other observation targets are consensus and commitment. Put simply, the consensus target is when a sufficient number of key stakeholders freely agree on the content, strategy, and tactics of the proposed project. This is, of course, a matter of judgment. But observers of participatory processes are in an especially good position to make well-grounded judgments of the degree and breadth of freely reached consensus.
The final observation target is commitment. Bank staff and others tend to understand commitment as something that can only be seen clearly after the fact from what people actually have done. The participatory stance offers a different but practical interpretation of commitment. This interpretation moves commitment into the domain of observable human action and enables Bank and government staff to make assessments on the ground about the presence or absence of commitment before approving a project and beginning implementation. When in the participatory stance, Task Managers can observe "commitment" as action taken by speaking (or writing) a promise to do something in the future. Commitments can be trusted as reasonable indicators of future action when they are made under the following conditions:
Commitments-including contracts and formal agreements-cannot be trusted when made under duress or in secret in the absence of full information and understanding or resources and the ability to act.
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Another important role that needs to be played in many but not all circumstances is that of navigator. Many obstacles to participation currently exist in the way governments and bureaucracies-including the Bank-operate in the field of development. In almost all our Chapter II examples, Task Managers have exerted considerable effort to adapt external expert rules, principles, and practices when working in the participatory stance.
In the Philippines Irrigation example, after verifying that participation was a standard practice of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), the Task Manager spent most of his time helping NIA work in partnership with the central government and the Bank. For instance, NIA had trouble getting the core budgetary agency of the central government to release funds in a timely manner. The Task Manager liaised between this agency and NIA to ensure timely disbursement of funds. The Task Manager also persuaded Bank colleagues to avoid setting specific, long-term targets for creating new irrigation associations. The Task Manager argued that it was unrealistic for NIA to try to predict the time needed to create and build the capacity of new associations. Also, targets set and imposed from the outside tended to undermine the farmers' authority and control over their irrigation systems. The desired flexibility was achieved by NIA committing its work program one year at a time, depending on progress in the previous year. This change in Bank requirements permitted NIA to build on existing irrigation associations instead of rushing to meet predetermined targets for creating new ones.
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Nurturing may sound like an especially soft and passive role for Bank Task Managers and others to play in the field of development, which has such pressing and urgent needs. It may also be a difficult role for Bank staff to learn how to do with ease, skill, and comfort, given their education and experience and working in a culture of power and control. Nevertheless, it may be the role that produces the greatest results. Nurturers build on existing participatory capacity and help strengthen it. The Bank's in-country counterparts ought to be the ones who are participating with their action sponsors/beneficiaries and the other stakeholders. After all they-not the Bank Task Managers-have the responsibility to serve the ultimate action sponsors/beneficiaries. While in this role, Task Managers can nurture the collaborative possibilities that arise naturally in the culture. In so doing, they should be careful to avoid snuffing out the start of potentially healthy and desirable possibilities for social change. This role was played by the Bank Task Manager in the Philippines Irrigation example. The Task Manager first ascertained for himself that NIA was indeed working collaboratively with the farmer-run irrigation systems. Then he helped provide a way the Bank could support and strengthen NIA's existing participatory approach.