The biannual portfolio review workshop (PRW) was conducted at Bhopal and Khajuraho respectively from 7th -11th April, 2010. All Participants arrived on 7th evening at Indian Institute for Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal.
Day 1-8th April 2010
The CPMT meeting started on 8th Morning by the introduction of the all IFAD Project and including IFAD ICO. This forum was gathered to discuss on common implementation issues and specific to the Project. The Country Programme Manager (CPM) Mr. Mattia Prayer Galletti welcomed the team and gave an informative analysis of the Action at Completion Point Report of the Country Programme Evaluation. He then spoke in detail about the new upcoming grant, APMAS (http://www.apmas.org/). Mr. Anupam, from Center for Creative Leadership conducted a needs assessment of the Project Directors.
Mr. Vincent highlighted important aspects of the programme implementation which includes Joint Review Mission (JRM), stories behind the numbers, Gender focus is increased but need more attention, poorest should not be left out, and programme must think who the people are participating in SHGs and so on. Programme must have their Knowledge Management (KM) strategy as it is increasingly important concern of IFAD HQ and programme should ensure the exit strategy or we will it as sustainable strategy. He also highlighted that JRM should be more participatory, knowledge and experiences should be impended in the programme for the JRM, Capacity building of the masses and Implementation Quality.
Mr. S. Sriram, Asstt. Programme Officer-IFAD, ICO had a detailed discussion on Financial Management aspects of the programme. He highlighted that the programme are not using accounting software at its full; it should be fully utilized to maintain the budgetary discipline. It is the prime responsibility of the Finance Mangers of programme to build the capacity of District Team in regards to financial rules to be explained to district team, contract issues need to train. There should be system in place for regular contract review. It is also observed that many programme are in rush to book expenses in 4th Quarter which should be spread across the year.
He had a discussion on the disbursement with the participants and said that overall disbursement process is satisfactory and all programme are following its procedures. The breakdown of the expenditure need to be submitted by the Finance Manager of PMU.
The most burning and important issue of procurement was discussed in great details. Mr. S. Sriram told that programme needs to maintain serious discipline in procurement process. We have observed that District teams are not clear with the procurement process and even there are confusions with PMU as well. He requested to all programme that define all the steps in procurement method wise and get the consent from IFAD ICO. Once we finalize the all step and procurement method to be adopted then get this incorporated in PIM at the time where programme can revise the Programme Implementation Manual (PIM). He said that the quality of Audit is improving over the period of time and it is also observed that the changes are quickly adopted by the new programme than older once.
Mr. Vijay Kumar, Project Director, Livelihood Improvement Project for the Himalayas ,Uttarakhand (ULIPH) raised few questions on the problems are with implementation and we should have uniform implementation frameworks and standard bidding documents to be uniformly given to all programme.
Following points were also discussed by various programme:
1. Funds were not released on time therefore procedures must be followed by Governments as per MoU and Programme Financing agreement.
2. Standard Capacity building programme should be organized for Standard bidding documents and procurement to PMU
3. Auditor reports are not clear to understand and even same auditor cannot be continued after 2yrs
4. Uniform charges should be there for Auditor across the programme and ICO help is needed for the Auditor selection.
5. MPOWER raised the issue of Coordination problems with lines departments due to the location of PMU office and head offices of line department are far away
6. Meghalaya: System of Quarterly reimbursement should be introduced.
Dr. S.K. Goel, Principle Secretary-DCMT-Maharashtra suggested to find out what are the common and specific hiccups of the project and ICO can extend its support accordingly.
It was also suggested to prepare the implementation bottleneck list and benchmark for the same should be prepared. There should be monthly meeting of PMU to find out issues.
Mr. S. Sriram and Mr. Shaheel Rafique addressed the many of the issues raised by the programme for clear and better understanding. Mr. S. Sriram told that IFAD does not have its standard bidding document but follows the World Bank bidding document. For Small procurements programme are not able to understand what need to be filled up in the bidding document. IFAD ICO will have several training on Financial Management and procurement procedure but its prime responsibility of the participant to work as trainer to his district and PMU team. IFAD is preparing its standard operational guideline and which will be share with all programme and it will take time of one to two months.
Mr.Anupam, from Center for Creative Leadership conducted a needs assessment of the Project Directors.
The afternoon began with the review lead by Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance. Each project presented their progress and discussed areas where DEA could smoothen implementation issues especially related to fund flow.
Day 2 - 9th April 2010
The second day started with brief introduction from Country Programme Manager, Mr. Mattia Prayer Galletti, who welcomed everyone and briefed project staff on the key discussion points of the previous day's DEA led PRW. He highlighted that this 3rd PRW outside the Delhi, in a project area and which is a good platform.
After brief introduction, the draft Results Framework for the forthcoming Country Strategy for India (2010-2015) was presented by Mr. Shaheel Rafique, India Country office, highlighting the salient features of the new COSOP. The presentation showed the results chain leading to the goal of the COSOP. The COSOP outcome indicators as well as the corresponding milestone indicators for monitoring the outputs were also presented. This was the first exposure of the new COSOP to the Projects of the India Country Programme.
Thereafter there was an "open source" session (KS tool) on M&E where the participants were given three topics related to M&E. The participants chose the topic of their interest and had a discussion followed by a presentation on the same.
The second session was on partnerships where Mr., Vincent Darlong, India Country Office made a presentation highlighting the essence of partnerships, mutual accountability and sustainability.
The projects were then grouped together to identify key partnerships while implementing the project activities. Thereafter, each project presented one success story on partnership to the other projects. The ULIPH story was adjudged the best story by the participants. He gave several examples of how our presentation should be and so on.
The last session for the day was on improving the communication skills focusing on oral and presentation skills. Mr. Rathin Roy facilitated the session and introduced new exercises like the role play to demonstrate how to communicate to put forth a point briefly, effectively to get the desired result/ change. He did an exercise to show how communications are important factor to disseminate our messages.
This session was highly appreciated by the participants, who are keen on getting resource materials for further improving verbal and written communication skills.
Day 3- 10th April
The third day started with Finance Management where Mr. S. Sriram, where he told to define all step and methods of the procurement and get consent of IFAD ICO then it will very easy for programme to deal with procurement.
Thereafter Mr. Jasvinder Singh, Dy. CAA&A, briefed about their website and all the procedures and project and grant wise disbursement structure and other details. He suggested to visit www.aaad.gov.in, and www.cdssindia.gov.in, websites for more details about AA&A.
The last session for the day was on gender mainstreaming, where Ms. Judith D’Souza on the finding of several exercises undertaken by IFAD ICO along with Programme. She highlighted on the special measures undertaken, developing gender strategy, institutional support for gender mainstreaming. She also highlighted on certain parameters i.e. drudgery reduction, gender advisory groups, gender reports, women participation in project committees. She suggested going through the IFAD’s Targeting Policy and the prepared checklist for the Gender mainstreaming.
This session was highly appreciated by the participants, who are keen on listening research findings and getting resource materials.
The Days ends with thematic Field visit, the theme were discussed with the participants and as per their choice they selected the theme and all were assigned to the exercise.
Day4- 11th April
The day started with the sharing findings of field visit through participatory way.
The last session of the PRW, the closing remarks were made by Country Programme Manager (CPM) Mr. Mattia Prayer Galletti; He thanked all the participants for their participation and interactions during the PRW. He told that our PRWs are getting more and more participatory these days. He made few announcements regarding the few changes at ICO “Implementation Support Specialist” will be now known as “Implementation Support Officer (ISO)” and announced the list of Programme wise responsible ISO.
Ms. Sudha Chaudhry, Managing Director, MVVN, Tejaswini Rural Women's Empowerment Programme (Madhya Pradesh) expressed vote of thanks all the participants for visiting programme and for their coordination.
Courtesy: IFAD INDIA Blog.
