Documentation A Casuality In Development Sector

As such documentation of records & happenings is considered to be the last priority item in any development intervention or infrastructure development programme. People are most interested in seeing the results as quickly as possible. The documentation is never considered an output. Which at later stae may prove very costly. The best example is to know how many of us have preserved the electrical drawing/map of your own house where you live or lay out of the pipe lines of the office/ house. Now take the example of a town & country planning of any big town like Bhopal, Indore, Delhi Bombay Ahmedabad Calcutta etc. Ask the Municipal Corporation to prset the map of 60 year old lay out. Chances are there that it is not available. Now you wish to replace the line or renovate the same. You do not know the exact location. You are to dig out & the understand the lay out. This will prove very costly proposition.

The lesson fro this is that the file should not be closed until drawing & lay out are not submitted. The defaulters should be punished.

Factors Affecting Sustainability of Development

In the development process of a community development there are plethora of factors responsible for development. But most important among them are the following three.

1- Source of resources or ownership of the resources.
2- Time gap between the investment & results of the interventions
3- Focus of Interventions (Target Beneficiary of the development).

These can be treated as three dimensions. Each dimension can further be divided into 5 stages on a five point scale.

Dimension-I: Source of resources or ownership of the resources.

a- Central Government/ State government/ Donors
b- District Level/ MPLAD/ MLALAD/ ZP
c- Village resources
d- Community Resources/ Family
e- Individual/ Personal Resorces


Dimension-II: Time gap between the investment & results of the interventions

a- Immediate or with in days
b- With in a year
c- Long Term/ 1-10 years
d- With in Life
e- Beyond Life ( Moksha)


Dimension-III: Focus of Interventions (Target Beneficiary of the development).

a- Individual
b- Family
c- Community
d- Village
e- District
f- Country

If the development intervention on all the a’s of the three dimension, the intervention will have the least sustainability. Where as if it targets on all f’s of these three dimension, the development intervention will be the most sustainable. The mobilization strategies may be at any combination of these three dimension. Accordingly the sustainability of the interventions will settle.

Games People Play in Development Sector-07

How a development administrator can deprive the most deserved development agency from assigning the consulting job. In a Development Department the three agencies were short listed for the assignment. They were called for presentation before the committee of junior persons who have very poor knowledge of the subject. The Financial Bids for the assignment were already opened. Only two agencies joined the presentation. The Chairman asked which of the two is L1 (Lowest bidder). The coordinator replied (named) IIDM but quipped promptly that other party is ready to carry out the assignment in same price. It was decided that L1 will be given the assignment. But later on the assignment was given to L2 with out even informing the L1. The L1 comes to know from a news item, that the assignment is completed by L2. What games were played by this development department, only God & the coordinator can tell.

Strategies for Sustainable Development Interventions

Development is not a commodity which can be supplied to the community which is in need of the community. It is an abstract item which occupies the space in mind. The interventions are needed to fill this space rather than supply the infrastructure to fill the physical space. What public sector development administrators do for development? They are given money by government exchequer for development of the community, they procure the hardware what they think will develop the target group & pour the same to fill the physical space. To identify the contents for filling the mind space requires systematic thinking, data gathering & analysis. Then only the mind space can be filled properly. But public sector development manager does not have time for that. He is always under pressure to spend the development fund with in 2-3 months only where as the same was planned for the full year. Most of the time the gap between the mind space & physical space of the members of the community remains wider resulting into under utilization or un-utilization of development resources provided to the target group. There is a need to design appropriate communication strategy to fill the mind space first. There after the infrastructure & other resources be supplied to the target group.

Selective Approaches of Development for Effectiveness of Interventions

The development approaches for all persons in a particular locality/ community should not be the same for effectiveness. Based on their willingness scale in joining the development they should be categoried in four main groups in any village. Separate category of interventions should be designed for each group. Then only one can see the results of development interventions. This approach is named as Selective Approaches of Development Interventions of IIDM Bhopal.

In this approach the Community is categorized into four major groups for the sake of development intervention design.

1- Laggards in Development who are at low level of development need & development demand.
2- Development Snatchers who are at low level of development need & but very high level of development demand.
3- Sleeping Stars of Development who are at very high level of development need & but low level of development demand.
4- Stars of Development who are at very high level of both development need & development demand.

If you want to do development interventions first identify the stars of development by assessing their positioning on the development need & development demand. These are the persons who are at higher side of both these scales. They need the least amount of mobilization & they start participating in development interventions.

The second priority is for sleeping stars who are at very high level of development need & but low level of development demand. These persons require interventions to make them realize the availability of interventions with respect to their needs. Once they convince they participate in development interventions. Here role of a change facilitator is just to make them realize their potential with regard to interventions.

The third category are those persons who are at low level of development need but very high level of development demand. They are already developed but they snatch the share of the needy persons by their crooked design. The development facilitators should be careful in handling them otherwise they will create the problems in development interventions. They will instigate or terrorize both the stars & sleeping stars not to participate in the development process. The change facilitator should shield these two categories from these snatchers of development by polished behaviour with out giving the share of development meant for others.

The laggards in development are those persons who are at low level of development need as well as low in development demand. They require very strong mobilization interventions with slow result. Therefore this group should be given the least priority. It will be mobilized very slow by induction effect of other two groups or by trickle down approach.

Games People Play in Development Sector-06

How a development administrator can delay the decision & camouflage the scene if he decided to harass you. This happened in a state department of health & family welfare. The series of training programmes were conducted by IIDM & bills were raised to the department. The Joint Director In-charge of the programme sent the file to his subordinate who was never involved with the activity. Now you keep on contacting him & his bosses answer is clear that the file is in process. You keep on waiting. Once a response is given by this subordinate another query is raised by this person. He will never raise all his queries in one go. The file will always remain in movement you can never catch the fish. By the time you are already finished. If you want your bill to be paid yield to this gentle man. Even the departmental secretary has written to expedite the decision, he simply ignored that the file is in process. You keep on crying, no body is there to listen to you. The seniors will dance to his tunes. Reasons are very clear. This is Development Scenario & Organizational climate of the department.

Seeking your comments & similar experiences

Dr S K Trivedi

Games People Play in Development Sector-05

The public servants in development sector sometimes use the research activity as a very junior partner in development interventions. They form the opinion based on general talk or observation of the situation. Based on their opinion they define the causative factors for any problem. They think doing systematic research to assess the causes is a waste of money & resources. Even if they fail in their approaches who is to gauge the losses. More than that they believe very strongly that there is no other person more intelligent than them on the development issues. That is why they were appointed as development administrator. If the systematic research is the requirement of funding agency, they will give this job to local teachers ( who are master of all subjects) who can produce the same findings what the big boss has already predicted. Once they fail them blame the research. Who is at loss? The subject of research meets the casualty.

Seeking your comments & similar experiences

Dr S K Trivedi