Components of Sound Project Documents
Well-structured project documents should include:
a straightforward description of the governance structure for the project.
Monitoring and Evaluation as Components in Design
Project documents should also include a systematic strategy for monitoring and evaluation, with separate budget lines for monitoring and for evaluation.
Project Planning Strategies
Each of the following strategies may provide an appropriate basis for sound project planning:
Consultations at the Planning Stage
Projects that originate with ideas developed by UNDP staff or others but that are not reviewed thoroughly through detailed consultations with stakeholders or informed by efforts to take into account conditions at the country level will not prove effective.
Careful Preparation and Quality of Performance
In the vast majority of cases, the overall quality of project performance, effectiveness and relevance is associated with careful and detailed preparations, thorough stakeholder and beneficiary identification and an inclusive approach to consultation at the planning stage.
Participatory Approaches and Effectiveness
Effective projects feature use of a participatory and consultative approach to working with partners and stakeholders.
Multi-level Participation Strategy
Successful projects combine an inclusive strategy for intercountry consultations with a parallel strategy at the national (and sometimes local) level.
Stakeholders and Decision-making
Very few projects were found to involve stakeholders and partners in decision-making from preparation through design to implementation and monitoring.
Stakeholder Identification
One of the principal difficulties for project planners is the proper identification of stakeholders. It is unrealistic to expect to "get consultations right" and to build a participatory approach, at whatever level, without taking this important first step. Projects that do not address this issue are likely to be poorly integrated.
Specification of Beneficiaries
Projects have paid insufficient attention to the specification of beneficiaries and to indicating in concrete terms how their situation will improve, directly or indirectly, as a result of the project. Lack of specificity in beneficiary identification is likely to result in poorly focused projects and incomplete implementation strategies.
Consultations and Links from the Programme to the Project Level (Regional Projects)
Consultations at the level of the regional programme as a whole, no matter how wide-ranging or intensive, do not solve the problem of building ownership on the part of specific stakeholders in the case of a particular project. Linkages from the level of the regional programme to that of individual regional projects remain weak and undeveloped.
Country Offices and Stakeholder/Beneficiary Identification
A major factor to be addressed in dealing with problems of stakeholder and beneficiary identification is the need to ensure full involvement of country offices and resident representatives at an early stage.
Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities
An essential element in effective project implementation is a clear statement of roles and responsibilities concerning project management and decision-making.
Execution and Implementation
As part of the effort to clarify roles and responsibilities, more careful attention should be given to distinguishing between executing and implementing agencies and to explaining who does what, when, where and how.
Managerial Supervision by UNDP
The degree of managerial involvement and supervision by UNDP in New York (regional bureaux and BPPS) regarding intercountry programmes is insufficient.
Allocating Resources for Supervisory and Monitoring Activities
There is a failure to build in sufficient resources - both managerial and technical/professional - in project design and budgeting to undertake essential supervisory and monitoring activities.
Recognizing the Role of Resident Representative
The role of resident representatives and country offices is unclear in the case of intercountry programmes. They have a central role to play:
Supporting National Officers
National officers are sometimes required to take on monitoring and/or managerial responsibilities for intercountry programmes. Generally, they receive no briefing or substantive training nor is the role they are to play clearly specified. Efficient integration of country-based elements of intercountry programmes depends on better preparation of and support to national officers involved in this way.
Absence of Baseline Data and Measures of Performance/Progress
For the most part, intercountry programmes are designed without inclusion of baseline information, milestones and performance indicators. As a consequence, it is extremely difficulty to monitor project performance properly.
Limitations of Professional and Technical Support Capacities
The limitations of the technical and professional support services available from UNDP and the principal executing agencies are apparent in the weak performance of the backstopping function in intercountry programmes.
Exceptions to this tendency are a small number of projects that draw on appropriately structured networks (global, regional and national) of experts and practitioners to support implementation. Some specialized divisions at UNDP, namely, MDGD and Capacity 21, seem better prepared and better organized than others in the provision of the kinds of professional/technical support required.
Towards Satisfactory Monitoring
Satisfactory arrangements for monitoring and technical support derive from a well-structured organizational model for the project and strong stakeholder involvement in all components of project management and decision-making.
Under-budgeting of Projects
By and large, intercountry projects are seriously underfunded. This state of affairs still holds true where there is cost-sharing with other donors. Consequently, projects are often unrealistic in setting objectives and try to do too much. It follows that projects built on these lines will not achieve the expected results.
UNDP Cost-sharing with Other Multilateral Donors on Larger Projects
UNDP faces a difficulty in achieving visibility and appropriate recognition for its financial support to many collaborative programmes. At the same time, through such partnerships, UNDP has been able to access technical and professional expertise not available in-house. Without such support, these projects could not have proceeded.
If UNDP wishes to address this problem directly, it must be prepared to be a more proactive partner and to confront the limitations of its own professional/technical capabilities. The experience of the Mediterranean Environmental Technical Assistance Programme, Phase III (METAP 3), in which UNDP has moved most successfully into an active mode in shaping the new phase of the project and in restructuring its partnership with the World Bank, demonstrates what may be achieved through active engagement on a sustained basis.
Building Linkages into Design
At the design and preparatory stage, projects must consider carefully how to establish appropriate two-way linkages among the levels of involvement featured in project decision-making and implementation (global/regional/ national/local). Insufficient attention to this component of design is associated with subsequent difficulties in establishing and maintaining partnerships of all kinds, building ownership and achieving integration of project activities.
Weak Internal UNDP Linkages
For regional programmes, communication and cooperation between the regional bureaux and the specialist divisions of BPPS hve been very limited. As a result, UNDP fails to optimize its use of in-house expertise and also duplicates effort.
Linkages across Projects
There are virtually no linkages across projects, even in the same field or sector and where projects operate in the same territory. There is a need for UNDP to address horizontal communication problems within and across regional bureaux, with other divisions responsible for intercountry programmes and with professional support units. As matters stand, no part of the organization takes responsibility for ensuring that information-sharing and exchange take place.
Support to Learning: One of the Principal Justifications for Intercountry Programmes
There is an urgent need for UNDP to devote far greater attention to analysing experience, to learning lessons, and to using these lessons in improving programming. One of the most important features of intercountry programmes and one of the principal justifications for their existence is their potential ability to draw on experience at the national level, compare and assess that experience and draw lessons from it. These lessons may then be disseminated back to the country level and taken into account in developing the next generation of programmes as well as in adjusting current activities.
Realizing the SHD Potential of Intercountry Programmes
Intercountry programmes constitute an important channel through which UNDP can demonstrate its ability to put new ideas and approaches regarding SHD and poverty eradication into practice. If the organization is to realize the potential of intercountry programmes in this regard, it must do far more to bridge the gaps between conceptual thinking on SHD and practical programming.
Anchoring at the Country Level
For the most part, successful intercountry programmes are those that are anchored strongly at the country level. This is also a means of ensuring that SHD concerns of participating countries are taken into account in the overall programming strategy.
Value of a Multi-disciplinary Approach
Projects that take a multi-disciplinary approach to problem identification and the development of project plans and strategies are more likely to advance UNDP's work in SHD.
Problems with Capacity-development Strategies
Many intercountry projects lack adequate capacity-development strategies and are thus unlikely to produce lasting results in this area.
Capacity Development and Weak Project Focus
The problems with capacity development are linked to weakly stated objectives and poorly defined, inadequately focused activities. Generally, project designs do not adequately take into account the particular requirements for an effective capacity-development project.
Capacity Development: Training and Support
There is an urgent need for better support and training for staff at headquarters and in the field in understanding capacity-development strategies and approaches.
Preparation for Capacity Development
Projects that are more effective in the area of capacity development begin with careful preparatory work, including the identification of capacity gaps and at least a modest capacity assessment of partner institutions.
Sustainability of Project Investments
Intercountry programmes in general have not dealt with the issue of the sustainability of project investments. An assessment of best practices suggests the need to address the issue carefully at the design stage in conjunction with the preparation of a capacity-development strategy.
Inattention to Gender Strategy
With a few exceptions, intercountry programmes do not address gender issues in implementation. There are few incentives for staff to deal with the complex issue of the mainstreaming of gender in project design.
Strengthening Civil Society and Working with the Private Sector
Country programmes are only beginning to address the need to focus on civil society and the private sector as central actors in the effort to support SHD. The experience of several projects examined provides an indication that intercountry programmes can address sensitive issues of governance and policy where States may be reluctant to enter into dialogue with civil society and/or the private sector. Intercountry programmes may be perceived as less intrusive than country programmes and, as such, may have a significant part to play in facilitating a more central role in policy and policy dialogue for these key stakeholders in development.
Difficulties in Assessing Results and Measuring Impact
Given the absence of baseline information, milestones assessing progress over time and substantive performance indicators in project documents, it is impossible to measure results directly and concretely or assess impact. There is a demonstrable need for attention to this major deficiency in UNDP programming work.
Responsibility for Organizational Learning
No one in UNDP appears to take responsibility for learning lessons from programming and sharing the knowledge gained thereby. There seem to be no incentives or support systems to facilitate a commitment to learning.
Absence of Quality Control
Project approval committees do not perform the function of ensuring quality and conformity to common standards in project preparation and design.
Scattering of Projects
There are too many projects and most have inadequate funds to achieve their purposes. This is a major factor in reducing programme quality and effectiveness.
Need For a Strategic Framework
If intercountry programmes are to reflect core organizational objectives and contribute to their achievement, they must be planned with reference to a strategic framework. Such a framework would provide for a streamlined set of programmes addressing a more limited set of themes and priorities within a given programming period.