My last post...

My apologies, it has taken a while but here, at last, is my final post. My last days in Aceh were rather hectic. Of course I had tasks to finalise, things to hand over and I had to find the time to say goodbye to everyone.

In the meantime, I have been in the Netherlands for a couple of days, with mixed emotions. On the one hand, it is always great being back home and reuniting with family and friends. On the other hand, however, I am already missing Indonesia terribly much. Aceh has made a deep impression on me.

Aceh is a beautiful place and the Acehnese are absolutely fantastic; they are ever so friendly and hospitable people. I am really glad to have had the opportunity to come into contact with them and learn about their culture and traditions. I am also extremely happy to have been able to spend the past six months working for the IRC. It has been a true education that has allowed me to grow on both personal and professional levels. I have been exposed to a wonderful programme and I feel much pride for having contributed, however minimally, to the recovery of Aceh after the devastating Tsunami of 24 December, 2004. I am particularly proud to have been working for the Community Driven Regeneration (CDR) programme, which truly seeks to empower small communities. I feel that beneficiaries ought to be placed at the centre of their own development efforts and that our role should be that of facilitators and capacity builders, 'merely' serving as catalysts. Evidence from the field of development over the past 30 years clearly shows that active participation is a key factor for successful programmes. It empowers communities and creates a sense of ownership, which is crucial for sustainability. I am a strong proponent of community driven development approaches I am really grateful to have been able to learn more about such programmes and to have been given the opportunity to contribute to the IRC’s CDR programme in Aceh.

Thank you all for reading my Blog, I hope you found it insightful. I will keep you posted about my next step!

Take care,

Alex

December 1st - Best practices

Meulaboh from above

Over the past couple of weeks, I have spoken with the CDR teams in each field office about community involvement. The aim of this exercise was to identify best practices for involving the community in each step of the CDR programme. Answers were sought to the following four questions:

• What has worked well?
• What has not worked well?
• What solutions were found? and
• What should be done differently in the future?

For the rest, the discussions were rather open which made it possible to delve into interesting points as they would surface. Depending on the situation, discussions were held with either all CDR teams or each team separately. A number of individual discussions also took place.

At this point, I am still busy synthesising all the information in order to draw out a set of lessons learned that apply to all fields. Here are already a number of noteworthy points that have come up:

Natural entry

A number of teams felt that the best way to enter a new community is to do so by motorbike and wearing everyday clothing. CDR staff find it important to approach and explore new communities in a neutral manner. Not advertising that they are with an INGO allowed them to better blend in with the community and talk informally. Staff therefore recommended against initially arriving with an IRC car and wearing t-shirts with donor logos.

The (informal) coffee shop approach

Local coffee shops, called warung, play an important role in Acehnese culture. Acehnese people are very social and generally drink a lot of coffee. There is unanimous agreement on the fact that local warung are ideal places to meet the real community, get to know people and talk informally about life in the community. Furthermore, openly discussing project progress and constraints with Community Development Boards (CDBs) in warung also greatly benefits transparency in later stages of the programme.

Children = more women

Organising special activities for children during the Community Participatory Assessment Workshop (CPAW) has a number of advantages. For one, children can contribute to the identification, analysis and ranking of community problems in creative manners. In addition, including CPAW activities for children will increase the number of women attending since they will not have to worry about leaving their children behind with no one to look after them.

Recruiting and replacing CDB members

In the future, when CDB roles are being specified and selection criteria are being developed, extra attention should be paid to agreeing on procedures to either replace or recruit extra CDB members. The CDBs are dynamic institutions; there is natural turnover (e.g. due to death or migration) and experience has shown that some members simply do not become active. At this point, CDBs are generally unprepared to replace or recruit extra CDB members pro-actively.

Many more best practices for involving the community more effectively in each step of the CDR programme were identified. Among other things, the usefulness of Quick Impact Projects (QIPs) as a means to build up trust in the community has been reconfirmed. QIPs are likewise a good indicator for determining the success of subsequent projects. There is also general agreement on the fact that the best time to hold CPAW meetings is in the evening and that the communities themselves should determine the date, time and place for the next meeting. It is also best to have a day or two between the CPAW to let things sink in and to give the community an opportunity to exchange ideas. And so many more lessons were learned…

That is it again for this week!

Take care and see you next week,

Alex