THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) at present is one of the major financial institutions supporting mega projects in Pakistan. Formative assessment by the ADB staff has presented a dismal picture by concluding that only eight per cent of interventions under these mega development projects have met a satisfactory level of success.

Governance issues, design failures and implementation delays have minimised their positive impact on the intended beneficiaries. The Sindh Rural Development Project (SRDP) is one such initiative which merits a detailed treatment keeping in view the highest ratio of poverty in rural districts.

The SRDP, under implementation since July 2004, aims at improving social status and economic well-being of rural poor in five southern districts of Sindh-- Thatta, Badin, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas and Umarkot. The estimated cost of the project is $62.5 million equivalent of which $50 million (or Rs3 billion) is being financed by the ADB. Overall strategy of the SRDP is to reduce poverty through increasing empowerment, invoking a rights-based approach, and by improving governance and access of rural poor to public services, transferring technology for improved livelihoods and providing essential infrastructure. Specific targets of the SRDP were initially set as follows:

In absolute terms, income of 22,000 rural poor households to be increased by 21-29 per cent; a total of 96,000 (12 per cent) households in selected districts to benefit from the project. The programme also included training of 24 para legals, 575 revenue officials and 300 persons for participatory extension approaches; training of 300 village-based livestock workers and distribution of kits among them; 48,000 females’ training in livestock management through 1,600 workshops/courses; 48,000 farmers’ training in agriculture; 32,000 Haris and agricultural labourers to be linked with formal credit (40 per cent women).

Project components: The SRDP envisaged good governance through: (i) improved recognition and compliance with stakeholder rights and obligations; (ii) capacity building and institutional support for government officials and institutions; and (iii) review of relevant legislation.

The project design included a large scale awareness raising and knowledge dissemination campaign as well as civil society monitoring on issues such as the amended tenancy legislation, land revenue legislation, debt bondage, and importance of registration as tenants and national identity cards.

For community participation, the project design included selection of one lead NGO per district to support community groups which were conceived as conduits for organising, effective service delivery as well as village planning, small scale infrastructure, and village link roads. Improvements in rural livelihoods was planned through four main groups of community need-based activities: (i) strengthening agricultural support services; (ii) improving livestock management; (iii) introducing improved household technologies; and (iv) improving access to institutional credit.

Community infrastructure component included the construction of rural roads to improve access together with domestic water supply, drainage and sanitation schemes at village level. Target villages (750 in all), were supposed to be selected through participatory processes using appropriate prioritisation criteria and Sanads were to be issued on completion of improved settlement works.

Design Issues: Civil society appraisal of the SRDP in 2004, undertaken through participatory dialogues and key informant interviews, concluded that the designed inputs and activities had little relevance to project objectives while the implementation process was non-participatory. It was clear at the outset, that the project preparation team had conceptually evaded the core issues of skewed land ownership, persistent feudal modes of production, non-availability of irrigation water, dubious seeds, fertilisers and pesticides and deliberate neglect of social development in Sindh. Political interference based on urban bias was also reported.

The Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority (SKAA) established in 1970s to manage the regularisation of squatter settlements in urban centres was made responsible to implement the main project component of community infrastructure, which was estimated to consume 73 per cent of the loan amount. The review missions subsequently noted that the SKAA hardly had any capacity to handle these works in rural areas and it was not observing the Terms of References and cost as well as time frameworks.

Complicated project implementation mechanism has remained the most controversial subject from day one. The main implementing agency is the provincial Local Government and Spatial Development Department while the provincial steering committee is chaired by the Additional Secretary (P&D). The project director and the provincial coordination unit have never enjoyed decisive authority. At the district level, the DCO and the EDO (Works) happen to be the functional project directors while the Zila Nazim effectively selects project villages and decides about the allocation of community infrastructure. Other design flaws include a top heavy organisational structure involving high cost of offices, vehicles, POL charges and obsolete budget parameters.

The ADB Loan Review Mission, therefore, recommended in December 2005 that the SKAA be replaced by the district governments and the implementation of infrastructure development be cross-linked with disbursement condition of regularisation of villages which may be handled by the Goth Abad Directorate of the Sindh Board of Revenue, from project funds.

Community participation: During the project preparation process some workshops were held at district level and in Karachi with different stakeholders. Community participation is no more visible during the implementation process. As per original design, the selection of local lead NGOs was to be made through competitive bidding. Twice, the Expression of Interest was invited from local NGOs but none was found competent enough to qualify for the project. It was reportedly assessed that the contesting NGOs hardly had the local capacity in terms of required manpower, organisational linkages and institutional development.

The ADB subsequently recommended that the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP), which has a wide network of community groups in all project districts, may act as the main social contractor. The NRSP, established through the government endowment, is not being recognized by the contesting NGOs as a representative civil society organisation. This is the most obvious hindrance in signing the memorandum of understanding and allocation of resources for village level investments. In their bid to oust the NRSP, the contesting NGOs reportedly enjoy support of Sindh Local Government and Spatial Development department and the SKAA for obvious reasons.

Review missions: The ADB management approved several changes in project design during the last quarter of 2006. Computerisation of land records was abolished to avoid duplication of on-going provincial programme. The three original components of enhanced social processes, improved livelihoods and upgraded rural infrastructure and settlement improvement merged into one main component, namely, Village Level Development. Other modifications included handing over village and district link roads exclusively to the district works and services departments, regularisation of villages to the Board of Revenue and community participation and infrastructure schemes to the NRSP, as against separate local social contractors.

Special project administration mission of the ADB observed in January 2007, that the project period has lapsed by 55 per cent while the implementation progress stands only at 15 per cent. Even though a portion of counter-part provincial funds has been released, most of the revised sub-components are yet to be launched; and the project is at risk. The mission stated that in the event of non-compliance and further delays, the project could be terminated in July 2007.

Current status: The revised project includes three components: improved governance and legal support, village level development and improved link roads. The component of improved governance includes sub-components of enhanced compliance with legislation, strengthening the capacity of government institutions and improved labour legislation. Only the strengthening the capacity of government institutions has been launched so far.

The component of village-level development includes sub-components of community mobilisation, improved livelihoods and improvement of settlement infrastructure. This core component has not been launched altogether. The third component of improved link roads includes three sub-components: capacity building of district departments, improvement/construction of district link roads, and improvement and construction of village link roads. Only the sub-component of district link roads has been launched. So far, out of 200 km of district link roads, only about 30 km have been constructed.

The training activity for updating the land and tenancy records is ongoing. The progress of village regularisation, in spite of project funding, is very slow. The provincial local government department is reportedly creating all sorts of hindrances so as to divert the project funds to the Karachi mega city development project. There are ongoing discussions that the project implementation may be entrusted to the planning and development department, with an extended deadline till June 2012, to at least accomplish some critical targets.

The current status is that regularisation and improvement of 750 villages is at stake and almost all functional targets set in the original design have not been accomplished. There is no obvious endeavour on record to improve incomes of 22,000 rural families to the tune of 30 per cent. No para-legals have been trained so far.

Likewise, training programmes in participatory extension approaches, livestock management and technical agriculture have not been undertaken. Project management has failed to recruit suitable local consultants. The project has no formal linkages with the Khushali Bank and other institutional credit agencies to provide such facilities to the 32000 targeted tenants and agricultural labourers. Improvements in legislation are not on the anvil.

Only 40 villages in one district have so far been brought under the project umbrella. Since the social contract has not been awarded, there is a lack of gross-root mobilization and community participation. Worst of all, the project has not even launched the ICT campaign to create awareness for human rights and social development in the designated districts, which suffer badly from feudal fiefdoms and abject poverty.

What next?: Under the circumstances, the ADB management would be naïve enough to pull out of the only mega rural development project ever being implemented in Sindh province. The project can most certainly be rescued by extending the closing date to June 2012 and declaring the P&D as implementing department. The LG&SD department has been typically managed by urban ministers in the past. After the establishment of City District Government Karachi, there is no justification whatsoever to continue that practice. The minister must now be a representative of rural areas, since there are some 24 rural districts in Sindh which appear to be deprived of genuine financial and social development allocations.

It would be in the best interest of community participation sub-component that the NRSP is commissioned to start project related participatory investments, with due collaboration by local NGOs and CBOs. These social contractors may then be supported by the project management unit, to utilise the services of master trainers and undertake training of tenants, farm labourers, rural youth and women in farm and non-farm income generating vocations. These poor and disadvantages groups may be linked with institutional credit agencies, as originally envisaged. Participatory monitoring mechanism must be instituted to ensure that the selection of villages and improved settlement inputs are distributed on merit-cum-need basis rather than on political whims of Zila Nazims.

Vigorous training and ICT campaign on human rights and social development needs by initiated by providing funding support to the lawyers and civil society organisations as well as to media and communication groups, so as to ensure sustainability of project interventions. Above all, the project funds must not be transferred to any urban scheme since the agreed loan funds have already been slashed by $2.5 million in 2005; and the gross implementation delays have also cost the abolition of several gainful activities. This may necessitate revised budgeting and re-appropriation of funds between various heads and also stringent economy measures to reduce the administrative costs.

There are at least four lessons to be learned from the SRDP experience. The project director of such mega investment initiatives should enjoy a reasonable degree of authority. Community development component must be handled with full responsibility right at the head start. Appointment of local consultants must be made at the outset purely on merit cum suitability basis. The internal dynamics of provincial government and bureaucratic conflicts must be understood properly, and countered by the ADB management in consultation with the highest level political authority. The ADB may learn from these lessons or another such initiative on coastal community development may face a similar fate.

The writer is HEC Eminent Professor in Rural Development Communication, University of Sindh, Jamshoro.