September 8th - Another week in Aceh

Presently, the CDR programme counts a total of 40 Integrated Community Programmes (ICPs). 35 of these have had their community proposals approved (though not all activities have been approved for a small number of proposals). Of the remaining five ICPs, two are new communities whereas the last three are revising their proposals.

I was going to go to Meulaboh this week but our plans changed at the last minute. So I spent this week as well in the Banda Aceh offices. This actually turned out to be a good thing. In the main office I have worked on developing and disseminating a new set of questions for our database and I have started to analyse the information I gathered for the Community Development Board (CDB) member and CDR projects profiles. In the field office I assisted different teams in revising their community proposals.

Together with the CDR technical specialist, we helped one of the teams find solutions to deadlocks they had come to in two of their target communities. This concerns Lambaro Neujid and Lambadeuk, in the sub-district of Peukan Bada. In Lambaro Neujid the village seems to be (geographically) divided in such a way that there is little incentive to carry out projects as one community. What is more, the situation is such that there is a potential for conflicts to arise, for instance with agreeing on the location of a building to be erected. We have thus started discussing the option of splitting the village (under a single CDB, with representatives for each side) with the CDB and the community. This way, both sides can be given the chance to prioritise their own needs and formulate their own proposals. Possibly, this will provide the necessary inducement to carry on with the programme.

The problem in Lambadeuk is altogether different. The CDB included only one activity in its community proposal while it identified no less than 12 community needs. This has much to do with the fact that a number of ex-GAM (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka – Aceh Free Movement) fighters still have a firm grip on the village and make absurd demands. This makes a participative process difficult and is largely the reason why the CDB is so reserved. Another contributing factor is that many villagers still live in temporary shelters in a relocation area on the outskirts of Banda Aceh. As a first step, we will assess whether or not the displaced villagers wish to return to their village, why (not) and within what timeframe. Their return could solve the problem with the ex-fighters. It is also a matter of standing up to the ex-fighters; all the surrounding villages have not tolerated this and resolved such problems peacefully.

I also continued with the rejected proposals in the sub-district of Lhoong I have been helping to revise last week. The CDB in Birek is still busy adjusting the budget and developing a business plan for the community cooperative’s shop. The CDB in Paroy, on the other hand, is still looking for a suitable member of the community to make a new drawing and help revise the budget for building a community hall. They will then be assisted by an IRC engineer. So I have mostly concentrated on the two projects in Seungko Mulat: the cow husbandry and the computer course. In the beginning of the week I accompanied the CDR team to the village. The CDB was going to receive training in the procurement process and we took the opportunity to go through the proposals again. Particularly to see whether they had made the adjustments we had requested.

To begin with, for the husbandry project, I have had to explain again why the proposal for 100 cows was rejected. In the first place, this is because providing each household with a cow would not stimulate the community to care for them together; it would be more of a gift to individual households than a community project. In addition, it is more cost effective to buy fewer cows; given that they will contribute a number of bulls, in due time, they will have their 100 cows! This would leave them with more money to carry out other projects. Besides, the procurement of a large number of healthy cows is difficult enough as it is. But they had already formed livestock groups and brought the number of cows down to 58.

We also discussed the computer course with the CDR team leader and the teachers. I am glad this conversation took place because some details were not made clear in the proposal and because the teachers seemed not to have thought much about some of the practicalities of this project. This is a recurrent problem. On the one hand, much information may not be included in the proposals; the CDB and the CDR teams have worked out the details but they are nowhere to be found on paper. On the other hand, a proper vision is often still lacking and planning ahead is sometimes limited; there is somewhat of a ‘we-will-cross-that-bridge-when-we-come-to-it’ type of attitude. Also, there is frequently a certain degree of restraint; they are not sure whether a project will be approved and are therefore reluctant to make great efforts for it. ‘Once the project is approved then we will…’, which, of course, does not work for us. Before we transfer the first installment we want to see a sound and well though of proposal with all the required supporting documentation. We want to see that there is a proper motivation to carry out the project and we want to know how it will be implemented and how it will be managed once everything is in place. We want to make sure the projects are sustainable and that the whole community benefits from them. We received a number of additional supporting documents from the teachers (certificates and commitment letters stating their job description and compensation) and have helped them develop a simple business plan.

So much for this week; see you next week again!

Take care,

Alex