93730 v2 Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores programs investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to strengthen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of financing for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities ii DISCLAIMER This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. 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All queries on rights and licenses should be addressed to the Publishing and Knowledge Division, The World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202-522-2422; email: pubrights@wiorldbank.org Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. iii Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities Map and key facts MAP OF SOLOMON ISLANDS KEY FACTS ABOUT SOLOMON ISLANDS 1 Population: 561,231 2 Population Density: 20/sqkm 3 Percentage of Total Population Living in Rural Areas: 80 4 Net Official Development Assistance (Percentage of GNI) in 2012: 34 Exchange Rate (used in this report): SBD 7.1 = $US 1 1 World Bank Development Indicators, 2013 2 World Bank Development Indicators, 2013 3 Development Economics LDB Database, 2012 4 Development Economics LDB Database, 2012 iv Abbreviations TABLE 1: ABBREVIATIONS ATDM Accountability, Transparency and Dispute Management AusAID Australian Agency for International Development (now Australian Government Aid Program) CDO Constituency Development Officers CDD Community Driven Development CDF Constituency Development Funds CH Community Helper COFOG Classification of the Functions of Government DAD Development Assistance Database EHD Environmental Health Division EU European Union GDP Gross Domestic Product IFAD International Fund for Agriculture Development JOC Joint Oversight Committee (of PGSP) LG Local Government M2 Squared meter MAL Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock MHMS Ministry of Health and Medical Services MID Ministry of Infrastructure Development MIS Management Information System MDPAC Ministry of Development, Planning and Aid Coordination MOFT Ministry of Finance and Treasury MP Member of Parliament MPA Member of Provincial Assembly MPGIS Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening MPP1/2 Micro-Project Programs of the EU MRD Ministry of Rural Development NAO National Authorizing Officer NDS National Development Strategy (2011-2020) NGO Non-Government Organizations NZAID New Zealand Aid Development Program NWP National Water Policy O&M Operations and Maintenance PARC Provincial Allocation Review Committee PCU Project Coordination Unit PCDF Provincial Capacity Development Fund PEM Public Expenditure Management PGA Provincial Government Act of 1997 PGSP Provincial Government Support Project PS Permanent Secretary (of a Ministry) PSU Provincial Support Unit RAMP Rural Advancement Micro projects Program Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. v Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities RAMSI Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands RDP Rural Development Project RCLF Rural Constituency Livelihood Fund RWSS Rural Water Supply and Sanitation SIC Sub-project Implementation Committee SBD Solomon Islands Dollar SIG Solomon Islands Government SUNY/CID State University New York, Centre for International Development, Rockefeller College, University of Albany SWAp Sector Wide Approach UNCDF United Nations Capital Development Fund UNDP United Nations Development Program USD United States Dollar WB World Bank VC Village Committee WASH Water, Sanitation and Hygiene WDC Ward Development Committee vi Table of Contents Disclaimer ..................................................................................................................................................iii Rights and Permissions .............................................................................................................................iii Map and key facts................................................................................................................................... iv Abbreviations........................................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ xi Executive Summary............................................................................................................................... xii 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1 2. Methodology..................................................................................................................................... 3 3. Profiles of Programs in the Study .................................................................................................. 5 3.1 Donors and funding .......................................................................................................................... 5 3.2 SIG Rural Constituency Livelihoods Fund description and objectives ............................................. 6 3.3 Provincial Capacity Development Fund description and objectives............................................... 10 3.4 Rural Advancement Micro projects Program (RAMP) description and objectives ......................... 12 3.5 The Rural Development Program description and objectives ........................................................ 14 4. Expenditure analysis from consolidated dataset ....................................................................... 16 4.1 Findings and analysis.................................................................................................................... 16 5. Local development planning......................................................................................................... 20 5.1 Planning and budgeting for rural community investments ............................................................. 20 5.2 Analysis of planning systems ......................................................................................................... 21 5.2.1 RCLF planning and funds allocation process .......................................................................... 23 5.2.2 PCDF planning and funds allocation process .......................................................................... 23 5.2.3 RAMP planning and funds allocation process ......................................................................... 24 5.2.4 RDP planning and funds allocation process ............................................................................ 24 5.3 Local development planning and budgeting - Findings.................................................................. 25 5.3.1 Participatory processes are being utilized, but they are not well institutionalized.................... 25 5.3.2 Community-driven needs identification is not well linked to provincial planning. ..................... 26 5.3.3 There are currently no planning mechanisms to guide the allocation of RCLF and other constituency-based funding. ................................................................................................................ 27 5.3.4 Inclusion of women in local planning is currently insufficient. .................................................. 27 5.3.5 Competitive grant making may be most applicable to income generation projects. ................ 27 5.4 Local development planning and budgeting - Recommendations ................................................ 28 6. Efficiency and Effectiveness ........................................................................................................ 29 6.1 What is efficiency and effectiveness? ............................................................................................ 29 6.2 Efficiency and effectiveness scoring ............................................................................................. 29 6.3 Comparative rankings on efficiency and effectiveness .................................................................. 31 6.3.1 RCLF efficiency and effectiveness results ............................................................................... 31 Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. vii Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 6.3.2 PCDF efficiency and effectiveness results............................................................................... 33 6.3.3 RAMP efficiency and effectiveness results .............................................................................. 35 6.3.4 RDP efficiency and effectiveness results ................................................................................. 36 6.4 Efficiency and Effectiveness - Findings.......................................................................................... 38 6.2 Efficiency and Effectiveness - Recommendations ........................................................................ 39 7. Accountability, Transparency and Dispute Management........................................................... 41 7.1 What is accountability, transparency and dispute management (ATDM)? ..................................... 41 7.2 Accountability ................................................................................................................................. 42 7.2.1 Accountability within the Rural Development Program ............................................................... 42 7.2.2 Accountability within the Provincial Capacity Development Fund............................................ 44 7.2.3 Accountability within Rural Advancement Micro Projects Program ......................................... 45 7.2.4 Accountability within the Rural Constituency Livelihood Fund................................................. 46 7.3 Transparency ................................................................................................................................ 48 7.3.1 Transparency within RDP ........................................................................................................ 48 7.3.2 Transparency within the Provincial Capacity Development Fund ............................................ 49 7.3.3 Transparency within Rural Advancement Micro Projects Program .......................................... 50 7.3.4 Transparency within the Rural Constituency Livelihood Fund ................................................. 51 7.4 Dispute Management ..................................................................................................................... 51 7.4.1 Dispute management within the Rural Development Program ................................................ 51 7.4.2 Dispute management within The Provincial Capacity Development Fund .............................. 52 7.4.3 Dispute management within The Rural Advancement Micro Projects Program ...................... 53 7.4.4 Dispute management within Rural Constituency Livelihood Fund........................................... 53 7.5 ATDM - Findings............................................................................................................................. 53 7.6 ATDM - Recommendations......................................................................................................... 54 8. Sustainability – cross cutting analysis across programs.......................................................... 57 8.1 What is sustainability?.................................................................................................................... 57 8.2 Review of infrastructure policies .................................................................................................... 58 8.2.1 Building codes.......................................................................................................................... 58 8.2.2 Standard designs ..................................................................................................................... 58 8.2.3 Quality control .......................................................................................................................... 58 8.2.4 Economic or Environmental protection infrastructure .............................................................. 59 8.3 Comparison of sub-project costs.................................................................................................... 59 8.4 Maintenance................................................................................................................................... 62 8.4.1 Maintenance responsibilities.................................................................................................... 62 8.4.2 Example of community-based user fee: community standpipes.............................................. 63 8.4.3 Maintenance planning.............................................................................................................. 63 8.5 Comparison of sustainability performance ..................................................................................... 64 8.5.1 RCLF sustainability results ...................................................................................................... 65 8.5.2 PCDF sustainability results ...................................................................................................... 65 8.5.3 RAMP sustainability results...................................................................................................... 66 8.5.4 RDP sustainability results ........................................................................................................ 66 8.6 Sustainability - Findings ................................................................................................................. 66 viii 8.7 Sustainability - Recommendations ................................................................................................. 67 9. Recommendations – Towards a New Architecture for Investing in Rural Development ........ 69 9.1 Redefining the funding streams ..................................................................................................... 70 9.2 Redistribution of funds ................................................................................................................... 71 9.3 Integrate planning and budget processes...................................................................................... 74 9.4 Align and build capacity and institutional development across levels............................................ 76 9.5 Strengthen standards and technical support systems to improve quality and efficiency ............... 76 9.6 Develop mechanisms for community/citizen accountability ........................................................... 77 9.7 Build robust MIS, which consolidates info for public viewing, feedback and review results .......... 78 9.8 Implement recommendations with an Inter-ministerial Coordination Group .................................. 78 ANNEXES ................................................................................................................................................. 1 Annex 1: Side by side comparison of PCDF, RCLF, RAMP and RDP ....................................................... 1 Annex 2: Characteristics of selected CDFs ............................................................................................... 8 Annex 3: Analysis of decentralization in Solomon Islands....................................................................... 10 Annex 4: Documents referred to during consultancy............................................................................... 19 Annex 5: Detailed Integrated Planning Process ...................................................................................... 24 TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Abbreviations................................................................................................................................ v Table 2: Methodologies Used in Study ...................................................................................................... 4 Table 3: Programs by Donor/Contributor ................................................................................................... 5 Table 4: Program Funds from 2008 to 2012 (In USD) ............................................................................... 6 Table 5: MRD (CDF) Budget from 2007 to 2012 (In SBD)......................................................................... 7 Table 6: Actual Expenditures of CDFs from 2008 to 2012 (In SBD) .......................................................... 7 Table 7: MRD (CDF) Budget from 2012 (In SBD) ..................................................................................... 8 Table 8: Malaita Provincial Budget for 2012 (In SBD)................................................................................ 8 Table 9: 2012 SIG CDF and Development Budget .................................................................................... 9 Table 10: Implementation of RCLF ............................................................................................................ 9 Table 11: Percentages of PCDF Allocation Formula & Weightings By Year ............................................ 10 Table 12: Budget and Actual Releases into PCDF Special Account........................................................ 11 Table 13: Implementation of PCDF.......................................................................................................... 12 Table 14: RAMP Projects by Committed Funds and Lot (In SBD)........................................................... 13 Table 15: Total Funds by Year for MPP 1, 2 And RAMP (In SBD) ........................................................... 13 Table 16: Implementation of RAMP ......................................................................................................... 14 Table 17: Implementation of RDP ............................................................................................................ 15 Table 18: Consolidated Data by Province, MPP2, PCDF, RDP and RAMP (In SBD) .............................. 17 Table 19: RCLF 2010 Data by Province ................................................................................................. 17 Table 20: Consolidated Data by Sector (In SBD)..................................................................................... 18 Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. ix Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities Table 21: Subsector Spending on Education........................................................................................... 18 Table 22: Subsector Spending on Housing And Community Amenities (In SBD).................................... 18 Table 23: RAMP 2012 Projects by Sector and Subsector (In SBD)......................................................... 19 Table 24: RCLF 2010 Approvals by Sector (In SBD) ............................................................................... 19 Table 25: Side-by-side Comparison in the Use of Local Planning Systems ............................................ 22 Table 26: Number of Provincial Electoral Wards (In SBD) ...................................................................... 26 Table 27: Efficiency & Effectiveness Indicators & Ranking Descriptors................................................... 30 Table 28: Costs And Benefits of 29 Sub-Projects Visited ........................................................................ 60 Table 29: Average Cost Comparison Of Completed Water Supply Schemes, By Province & Excluding RAMP And RCLF (In SBD) ...................................................................................................................... 61 Table 30: Cost Comparison of RDP Rural Water Supply Schemes by Cycle (In SBD) ........................... 61 Table 31: Comparison of Typical RDP Building Costs (In SBD) .............................................................. 62 Table 32: Breakdown of Maintenance Responsibilties ............................................................................ 62 Table 33: Typical Maintenance Cycles for Main Infrastructure Types ...................................................... 63 Table 34: Indicators for Sustainability ...................................................................................................... 64 Table 35: Current Funding Streams and Funding Sources...................................................................... 70 Table 36: Proposed Refocus of Funding Streams ................................................................................... 71 Table 38: Proposed Integrated Planning Process.................................................................................... 75 Figure 1: Summary of rankings across the four projects ......................................................................... 31 Figure 2: RCLF efficiency and effectiveness scores................................................................................ 32 Figure 3: PCDF efficiency and effectiveness scores ............................................................................... 33 Figure 4 RAMP Efficiency and effectiveness scores ............................................................................... 35 Figure 5: RDP efficiency and effectiveness scores.................................................................................. 37 Figure 6: Church Financial Information image......................................................................................... 49 Figure 7: Noticeboard image ................................................................................................................... 50 Figure 8: Comparitive international experience ....................................................................................... 56 Figure 9 : Water use charges .................................................................................................................. 63 Figure 10: Sustainability comparative analysis across the four programs............................................... 65 Figure 11: RDP, RAMP, PCDF and RCLF total funding from 2008 to 2012 (in SBD) .............................. 72 Figure 12: SIG funds to the four programs from 2008 to 2012 ................................................................ 73 x Acknowledgements his report was prepared by a core team comprised of Joanne Morrison, Carol Pitisopa and Erik Johnson. The report has been consolidated from a series of four ‘background notes’. Joanne Morrison wrote background notes on Local Development Planning as well as Efficiency and Effectiveness. Carol Pitisopa compiled a consolidated dataset of the four main programs covered in this study. Daniel Evans and Ali Tuhanuku wrote the background note on Accountability, Transparency and Dispute Management, and John Tracey White wrote the background notes on Sustainability. This report benefited from the invaluable inputs and insights of a broader team of supporters, such as Timothy Bulman, Economist, and Tini Chatterjee, Public Expenditure Economist who were both based in the World Bank’s Honiara Office at the time of the study. In addition, the sections on constituency development funds benefited from the discussions and generous advice from Professors Mark Baskin and Paul Gumpper from the Centre for International Development, Rockefeller College University at Albany State University of New York; Wanjiru Gikonyo from the Kenyan Institute for Social Accountability (TISA); Rose Mbula Kioko and Yusuf Mbuno both from the Constituency Fund Board of Kenya; Moveta Munroe from the Office of the Prime Minister in Jamaica and two Jamaican Members of Parliament, namely Raymond Pryce and Damion Crawford; and lastly Kathy Whimp from the World Bank office in Kenya. Lastly, many thanks to the World Bank administrative support team in Honiara who tirelessly organized field visits, meetings, workshops and videoconferences. Without your efforts this work could not have been produced. A special thank you goes out to Jennifer Appo, Caroline Bokabule, Janet Funa, Jared Molea and Noel Duka. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. xi Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities Executive Summary S olomon Islands faces a range of challenges, from low-income and fragility to a highly dispersed population, in delivering effective local governance and services. In the wake of a period of conflict between 1998 and 2003, several largely donor-funded programs emerged to compensate for depleted government capacity by providing small-scale investment and economic opportunities to rural communities. These programs, whether donor or state funded, continue to be one of the main instruments for addressing the logistical and capacity challenges of service delivery as well as a significant source of cash in rural areas. However, this funding is fragmented and often politicized, undermining the effectiveness of service delivery itself. As a consequence, the system is too multi-layered for effective coordination and policy direction. The result is a vicious cycle of weak government services, poor policy, and a continuing reliance on donors. While large amounts of funds are spent on small and medium-sized capital expenditures, there are limited systems of financing in place for recurrent costs and ongoing maintenance. Visits to rural communities often reveal generations of ‘projects’ very poorly maintained because they are viewed as ‘hand-outs’ and there has been no proper planning to sustain them. After roughly a decade of implementation, these programs have evolved independently and become institutionalized to varying degrees, but the lessons of experience across the various approaches have yet to be drawn together to inform the design of a new generation of improved rural service delivery programs. The World Bank has undertaken this analysis to assist policymakers, program sponsors and implementers to make better-informed decisions about the design, financing, governance, and overall relative advantages and disadvantages of these programs. xii Currently, the funds flowing to the sub-national level with a broad service delivery objective can be grouped into three main categories according to their geographic orientation and the levels at which decisions are made and funds managed – provincial, constituency, and community (village/ward) grants. The provincial scope is largest, then narrows down to the constituency and, finally, to the ward or even single- village level. While these may appear as layers of subnational governance institutionalized in the constitution, local government legislation or policy, only the province is a recognized local government structure with fiscal and administrative authority. By examining these programs as de facto with distinct fiscal, governance and administrative structures, we can better understand the unique roles they have come to play and how they may be better positioned in the future to improve rural development outcomes. Considering these categories, this study looked at the following programs: Provincial Capacity Development Fund (PCDF), administered by the Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening; Rural Constituency Livelihood Fund (RCLF), administered by the Ministry of Rural Development (MRD); Rural Development Program (RDP), administered by the Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination; and Rural Advancement Micro-projects Programme (RAMP), and its’ predecessors, Micro-projects Programme 1 (MPP1) and Micro-projects Programme 2 (MPP2), administered by the Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination. The five main components of the study include the analysis of consolidated sub-project data; local development planning; efficiency and effectiveness; accountability, transparency and dispute management; and sustainability. Consolidated dataset During the period from 2008 to 2012, these four programs disbursed a total of $US 134,226,722. The bulk of these funds were channelled through the constituency fund modality (60 per cent). Across the four programs, the highest proportion of the overall provincial investment was found in Malaita Province (25 per cent), followed by Western (19.3 per cent). However, in per capita terms, the highest investment was in Temotu (SBD 466) and then Choiseul (SBD 415). The most highly funded sectors were housing and community amenities at 31 per cent (primarily water supply), education at Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. xiii Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 28 per cent and health at 12 per cent. Detailed expenditure data for RCLF was only available for one year (2010), and some of that data could not be assigned to sectors as 30 per cent of the expenditures were unclassified and the bulk of the expenditures were for one-off small items for single households. There is often co-financing of individual sub-projects by the different programs, with constituency funds, in particular, being used to fill funding gaps or scale-up RDP or PCDF-funded sub-projects. Local development planning A framework to integrate provincial, community-driven, and perhaps even constituency-based planning processes is needed, as is greater clarification, and perhaps institutionalization, of the village and ward-level (Ward Development Committee) governance and decision-making processes. Each of the four programs takes a different approach to identifying sub-projects to finance, to the use of planning processes, and to the engagement of stakeholders. PCDF is largely driven by the provincial administration and the preparation of standardized, periodic plans. RDP planning is oriented toward the village and ward levels. RAMP has no planning process, but identifies sub-projects via open competition. RCLF also has a minimal planning process, and allocations are largely at the discretion of members of parliament and Constituency Development Officers (CDOs). The upward and downward linkages between PCDF and RDP processes, respectively, are insufficiently developed. While RDP utilizes a participatory planning process, which engages communities, the priorities identified are not used to inform provincial planning. The sector knowledge present in the provincial administration is also not well utilized to guide the identification of the best solutions to community-level problems. The tokenistic representation of women in village and ward-level planning processes should be reconsidered as this constrains the potentially wider interest of women to participate in decision-making bodies and to establish more of a balance of male and female perspectives. Rather than identifying women as an interest group with one representative, a minimum percentage of female members of Ward Development Committees or village groups could be specified. Efficiency and effectiveness There is a trade-off between the speed of disbursement and quality assurance processes, and each of the programs can benefit from improvements in different areas. With the lightest processes, RCLF delivers funds fastest. This is likely at the cost of value-for-money as there are no competitive procurement processes, as in the case of xiv the other programs, or the use of cost data to check pricing. RCLF also does not monitor sub-projects, so benefits are not well known. On the whole, RCLF lacks procedural guidance for its activities, and while the CDF legislation and draft regulations provide some specifics, there will remain a need for a significant amount of detail in order to strengthen the performance of RCLF as an effective delivery mechanism for development assistance. RDP and RAMP are very process-heavy, and thus slower moving. The technical review process of these programs could be streamlined and perhaps even decentralized to province-level technical specialists, including sector staff working in the provincial administration. The administrative cost borne by RDP (for Community Helpers) and RCLF (for CDOs) could also be optimized through greater provincial integration as provincial staff are mostly financed under the recurrent budget of line ministries or through Provincial Service Grants. There is an overall lack of information available regarding rural investments and this is an impediment to assessing development results and planning future investments at the sub-national level. Accountability, transparency and dispute management Media coverage of the programs reviewed in this study is mostly ad hoc, with no systematic reporting of progress or the use of funds available to the public. On the whole, there is insufficient public information about each of the programs, and all programs could do better in providing more visual printed materials to affected/beneficiary communities so that they can develop a better understanding how these programs work. Accountability from the programs to national government is reasonably strong in the cases of PCDF and RDP, with each convening regular project committee meetings and sharing progress reports. RCLF has no means of reporting progress to government stakeholders except through ad hoc audits done by the Auditor General, which to-date have not been circulated even within government. There is very little information about how RCLF funds are used, at all levels of government and society. This lack of information and accountability stokes concern and criticism of waste, fraud and corruption, which occasionally make their way into the media and public discourse. A robust set of accountability and transparency measures for RCLF and all CDFs is needed, including: a realistic financial auditing approach which reflects capacity requirements; regular public reporting requirements including information on funding Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. xv Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities allocations, expenditures, types of activities funded and recipients; social accountability mechanisms to allow citizens to monitor the use of funds in their communities; etc. While there have been disputes regarding land, this has not escalated to violence. In this sense, it appears informal and/or traditional mechanisms for resolving disputes are working even if they are not able to uphold agreements made with respect to the sub-projects. None of the programs have functional grievance redress mechanisms for beneficiary/affected communities. Communities rely mainly on traditional dispute resolution systems, lacking channels of communication that would allow them to go outside of traditional systems if they needed or wanted to. There are limited-to-no accountability mechanisms in place between communities and service providers to monitor the quality of service delivery once the sub-project construction is complete. Piloting social accountability mechanisms such as community scorecards is recommended to enable community members/beneficiaries to hold service providers accountable for the quality of service delivery and not just the quality of infrastructure construction. Sustainability Overall, the quality of construction of rural infrastructure is sound and appropriate for the supply base available in country. The difficulty in accessing supplies as well as budget shortfalls pose a risk to the full completion of projects, which must be monitored to ensure that this does not affect the integrity of the structures. Per unit and per beneficiary costs vary by province, but are generally consistent with similar types of small-scale rule projects in other parts of the world. The likelihood of financial sustainability varies widely depending upon the type of infrastructure and the location. However, there is insufficient data on the extent maintenance funds flow from various sources including national government transfers for education and health, user fees for water and rural health services, etc. Projects focused on business/economic activity typically have little focus on sustainability. The current construction codes for the Pacific were developed 25 years ago, so it is necessary to review these codes to update seismic and cyclone design approaches and to build climate change adaptation approaches into project design. Guidance on how to budget for the maintenance of various types of infrastructure drawing on available O&M plans and accumulated experience in different sectors is needed. It would also be useful to compile a catalogue of standard designs and unit costs from across these and other programs to use as a resource to speed the process of design and to ensure quality design standards. xvi The next generation of rural development programs The main overarching recommendations provided in the concluding section of this report, are to: 1. Redefine the three main funding streams (provincial, constituency and community) so they are aligned to clarified and distinct mandates as well as appropriate capacities for implementation; 2. Implement an integrated planning and budgeting process across the funding streams; and 3. Redistribute CDF funds incrementally towards the other, well performing modalities. The other main recommendations described in greater detail at the conclusion of this report include to: 4. Align and build capacity and institutional development across levels; 5. Strengthen standards and technical support systems to improve quality and efficiency; 6. Develop mechanisms for community/citizen accountability to ensure public benefit and quality service delivery; 7. Build a robust database, which consolidates info for public viewing, feedback and review results; and 8. Implement recommendations through an Inter-ministerial Subnational Financing Coordination Group. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. xvii Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities xviii 1. Introduction olomon Islands faces a range of challenges, from low-income and fragility to highly dispersed population, in delivering effective local governance and services. The country experienced a period of conflict between 1998 and 2003, which entailed limited fatalities, but paralyzed the functioning of the state and formal economy. While the country has recovered from this conflict, the reach of formal state institutions is very limited. Provincial governments govern the nine provinces, but have few resources and less capacity. Geography and population dispersal pose absolute constraints to service delivery in the Solomon Islands. Population density, at only 18 persons per square kilometer is among the lowest in the world. Distances between islands are large and transport connections extremely limited, exacerbating the country’s remoteness from major markets. Linking communities by road across mountainous interiors is difficult, but linking scattered coastal communities by sea involves long, expensive journeys around islands sometimes impossible during rough weather. Service delivery in this geography is, therefore, extremely challenging. In this context small infrastructure projects, whether donor or state funded, are one of the main instruments for addressing the logistical and capacity challenges of service delivery as well as one of largest source of cash in rural areas. However, this funding is fragmented and often politicized, undermining the effectiveness of service delivery itself. With minimal resources for anything except basic health and education, government becomes more a facilitator of transfers rather than a provider of services. The poor performance of government in delivering services has fueled the increase in constituency funds. Proponents of the use of constituency funds argue that it is a fast and efficient means of channeling resources to rural communities. At the same time, the lack of basic accountability systems around constituency funds and the fact that while some are used for development purposes, Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 1 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities means the system is often perceived as being used to “buy” political support has in turn prompted donors to establish parallel systems. The resulting system is too multi-layered for effective coordination and policy direction, with a vicious cycle of weak government services, poor policy, and an ever- expanding role for donors. It has also resulted in large amounts of funds for what are essentially small and medium-sized capital expenditures, for example, funds for building water systems, classrooms, clinics, or small bridges, but limited systems or financing for recurrent costs and ongoing maintenance. Visits to rural communities often reveal generations of ‘projects’ very poorly maintained because neither the state nor communities have the desire, funds or ability to sustain them. The problems created by the parallel and distortionary public funding systems relate to many of Solomon Islands’ core development challenges. Given the very minimal development of a non- agricultural, or even non-subsistence, private sector and weak market integration, the administration of public spending has a determinate role in how individuals view the state, center-local relationships, their leaders, and the functioning of communities. Control of resources at the local or central government level was among the factors contributing to the 1998 to 2003 tensions. Confidence in state functionality is an important element in post-conflict recovery, yet the weaknesses of the current system have if anything undermined confidence in the state, even as the amount of donor and constituency funds has increased significantly in the 2000s. As a result instead of development being experienced as a process involving the identification of, and collective action to address, common challenges, “development” is often perceived as arbitrary, fueling conflict, and driven by outside “others”. The purpose of this study is to identify ways to improve the current mechanisms of service delivery, particularly in rural areas, by examining the three most significant, yet parallel types of financing for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities. The findings are intended to strengthen the ability of SIG to align these stand-alone programs with national development priorities and to improve the effectiveness of inter-governmental systems to deliver quality, sustainable services in rural areas. 2 2. Methodology he study examined three different types of funding mechanisms: Constituency-oriented funds, allocated to all fifty Members of Parliament, in particular the largest such fund, the Rural Community Livelihoods Fund (RCLF), which draws mainly from national budget funds, while other constituency funds are also financed by Taiwan, China. Province-oriented development funds, namely the Provincial Capacity Development Fund (PCDF) grants which are both government and donor funded and allocated to each provincial government. Community-oriented grant funds, namely a series of European Union-funded micro- project programs, most recently the Rural Advancement Micro-projects Program (RAMP) and well as the World Bank’s Rural Development Program (RDP), each of which is predominantly donor funded and channel funds directly to communities. The above modalities for investing in rural areas were individually assessed against four critical areas of performance: i) local development planning, ii) efficiency and effectiveness, (iii) accountability, transparency and dispute management, and iv) sustainability. Performance was assessed at the program level and the sub-project, community level. Table 2 shows the methodologies used in the study. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 3 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities TABLE 2: METHODOLOGIES USED IN STUDY 4 3. Profiles of Programs in the Study 3.1 DONORS AND FUNDING IG and donors funding the programs under review are identified in Table 3. SIG has been providing funds to PCDF since 2009 and to constituency funds since 1989. In the 2013 SIG budget, the first allocation was made to the RDP. Community contributions are expected in cash and/or in kind in both the RAMP and RDP projects but not for RCLF or PCDF. TABLE 3: PROGRAMS BY DONOR/CONTRIBUTOR Table 4 shows the total value of all programs in US dollars and the percentage of those funds that are available for local investment grants. The total amount spent between 2008 and 2012 is $US 134,226,722, with 60 per cent for all constituency development funds (CDF 5); 20 per cent for RDP; 13 per cent for PCDF; and 7 per cent for RAMP. The data shows a combined total of $US 90,739,303 spent on grants from 2008 to 2012, with 68 per cent of that amount spent on grants for investment in sub-projects. Of the total funds per program allocated to investment grants, the highest was CDF (90 5 Produced in MayNote: RCLF is 2014, Solomon one stream Islands: of CDFs Towards Better and in Investment Ruralreport in this the terms Communities are used explores interchangeably. ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 5 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities per cent), then RAMP (42 per cent), followed by PCDF (36 per cent) and RDP with the lowest at 31 per cent. As Table 4 illustrates, the amount of funds for CDF greatly exceeds the amount of all other funds combined. TABLE 4: PROGRAM FUNDS FROM 2008 TO 2012 (IN USD) 3.2 SIG RURAL CONSTITUENCY LIVELIHOODS FUND DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES In 2012, RCLF was the main government-funded constituency development fund (CDF) and was the only such fund to explicitly appear under the Ministry of Rural Development’s (MRD) development budget line. RCLF represented 41 per cent of the MRD’s development budget for 2012 and 29 per cent of the total CDF budget (including MRD, other Ministries and Taiwan, China contributions). The Constituency Development Fund Act, 2013 simply describes CDFs as “funds allocated to Constituencies”9. MRD describes RCLF as a rural development program funding social and economic infrastructure in each constituency of Solomon Islands. CDFs bypass the existing administrative structure (central and provincial governments) for service delivery and utilize the political structure (electoral constituencies) for disbursement of funds and service delivery outputs. This forces the two delivery mechanisms (administrative and political) to be competitors and results in additional layers of service delivery to a small country already burdened by capacity constraints sub-nationally. In most cases, the respective Member of Parliament (MP) operates the CDF account. Each constituency has a Constituency Development Officer (CDO) who assists in identifying possible uses of the funds and facilitates transactions. CDOs are appointed to MRD by the Public Service Commission and report to the Director of MRD. In practice, they report to their respective MP and can be dismissed by them as well. Some constituencies have Project Officers (POs) in addition to the CDO. The CDF has at least 50 staff (CDOs) as well as the staff of the MRD. 6 This is the total for all CDFs listed in budget documents under the heading of the Ministry of Rural Development from the years from 2008 to 2012, including those funded by Taiwan, China. RCLF represents approximately 50% of this total. 7 PGSP grants are those disbursed under the PCDF. 8 RDP grants are those disbursed under Component 1 of the program. RDP has four components including one on agricultural services and another on rural business development. 9 Constituency Development Funds Bill 2013, p. 4. Broadly speaking, constituency development funds are considered to be any funds, which are channeled through a constituency-based account. These may appear under the budget headings of ministries other than MRD including forestry, agriculture and livestock, health, etc. 6 CDFs are financed by the national budget and Taiwan, China. In 2012, the Taiwan, China portion of CDF funding was only 20 per cent (SBD 50,000,000) of MRD’s total constituency fund budget envelope. While the RCLF budget of SBD 75,000,000 was the only CDF explicitly listed under MRD’s development budget line in 2012, there was another “blank” line budgeted for SBD 20,000,000, and several other CDFs that eventually became the responsibility of MRD. In total, MRD was responsible for SBD 232,800,000 of which SBD 182,800,000 was SIG resources. In addition, there was a further SBD 28,913,451 from the SIG recurrent budget. In 2012 there was an increase in reassigning constituency funds from other Ministries, to the MRD budget. For example, SBD 15M was reassigned for water and sanitation, SBD 29 million for forestry, and SBD 19 million for cocoa and coconut schemes. This shift of funds from some sectors equaled 41 per cent of the total SIG budget for constituency funds in 2012. The total budget for CDFs increased by 29 per cent from 2011 to 2012. This was a dramatic increase in the development budget as from 2010 to 2011 there was only a 0.5 per cent increase. Table 5 demonstrates this significant increase from 2011. These figures shown are SIG and Taiwan, China contributions combined. TABLE 5: MRD (CDF) BUDGET FROM 2007 TO 2012 (IN SBD)10 Table 6 is taken from SIG budget papers and shows the actual expenditures from 2008 to 2012 of the total CDF development budget. The figures show that overall actual expenditure between 2008 and 2012 was, on average, 62 per cent of the appropriated budget and 2011 was an over spend and 2012 (with 2012 being an estimate) likely to be equal to the appropriated budget. TABLE 6: ACTUAL EXPENDITURES OF CDFS FROM 2008 TO 2012 (IN SBD) Table 7 shows the provincial service grants for 201211, the CDF allocations by province, and the per capita allocation.12 Note the amount of CDF per MP = SBD 5,234,259. Beyond the PCDF, which 10 Source: SIG budget papers 11 Provincial Service Grants are the main source of revenue for provincial governments. These funds are primarily used to finance recurrent expenditures (staff and facilities), with modest funds available for development expenditure. Much of the amounts available for development expenditure are divided equally amongst the Members of the Provincial Assembly (MPAs), who each representing a provincial ward, for small- scale discretional spending in a similar to the way CDFs are managed at the national level. 12 Data source: SIG Approved Recurrent Estimates Year 2012. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 7 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities remains a year-to-year discretionary budget item, provincial service grants are the main source of financing for the operation of provincial administrations and for service delivery in the provinces. In total, provincial service grants only amount to approximately 18 per cent of the total CDF funds. By province, CDF funds are between three and seven times the size of provincial service grants. When looking at the per capita differences, the two provinces with the lowest populations – Rennel and Bellona and Temotu – have received the highest per capita allocations for both CDF and provincial service grants. 13 TABLE 7: MRD (CDF) BUDGET FROM 2012 (IN SBD) This high per capita bias towards these provinces is thought to adjust for their remoteness and the higher cost of service delivery, but this is not captured through a particular formula, but rather an equitable allocation per constituency regardless of its population. Please note the amount of CDF per MP is SBD 5,234,269. In 2012 the documented total amount to each MP was SBD 1,000,000 from China, Taiwan and approximately SBD 4,234,269 from the SIG budget - a total of SBD 5,234,269 per member.14 To appreciate how large the CDF budget is, it has been compared to the total provincial budget for Malaita Province in 2012 in the example in Table 8. TABLE 8: MALAITA PROVINCIAL BUDGET FOR 2012 (IN SBD) 13 Source: 2012 SIG Budget Estimates. 14 Refer to Table 12 for budget figures. 8 With fourteen MPs in Malaita Province each receiving SBD 5,234,269, this equates to a total of SBD 73,279,766 or SBD 532 per capita, which is 2.8 times the per capita amount of PCDF, RDP and MPP2 combined for the province. This means the total budget assigned to the Malaitan Provincial Government is only 18 per cent of the total constituency program funds assigned to Malaita for 2012. Table 9 provides a breakdown of the 2012 budget allocations through the SIG development budget, the recurrent budget to the CDF, and with Taiwan, China contribution. TABLE 9: 2012 SIG CDF AND DEVELOPMENT BUDGET Table 10 provides an overview of the implementation of RCLF. TABLE 10: IMPLEMENTATION OF RCLF Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 9 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 3.3 PROVINCIAL CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT FUND DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES PCDF is a financing instrument under the Provincial Government Strengthening Program (PGSP). It is a performance-based grant mechanism for the delivery of capital development budget at the provincial level. The provincial governments use this fund for service delivery and local development based on priorities raised in their provincial development plan. It complements provincial service grants, which mostly only cover the operational cost of the provincial administration plus small grants to ward members. The Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening (MPGIS) and all nine provincial governments implement PCDF. In order to qualify for PCDF, the provincial governments undergo an external assessment annually, which determines if they meet minimum conditions of access to the funds as well as performance incentive measures. The fund allocation formula and weightings change annually as shown in Table 11. TABLE 11: PERCENTAGES OF PCDF ALLOCATION FORMULA & WEIGHTINGS BY YEAR15 The objectives of PCDF are to: 15 Source: PGSP Mid-term Evaluation, May 2012. 10 Promote and stimulate provincial public expenditure management (PEM) 16 systems and procedures. This is achieved by enhancing incentives to improve performance, provision of funds and to make the local planning and budgeting process meaningful, efficient and participatory; Provide funds for small scale investments in infrastructure and service delivery in accordance with local priorities and in a sustainable manner; Improve the provincial capacity for public expenditure management, good governance and accountability through investment in capacity building and stronger incentives. The planned and then actual releases of the PCDF from 2008 to 2013 are shown in Table 12. Interestingly the SIG contribution increased by five times over five years and the donor contributions deceased by about 20 per cent over the same time period. This is a very positive sign as it demonstrates a firm commitment from government to provide predictable funding to provincial governments for service delivery. TABLE 12: BUDGET AND ACTUAL RELEASES INTO THE PCDF SPECIAL ACCOUNT Table 13 provides an overview of the implementation of PCDF. 16 PEM systems refer broadly to those to do with planning, budgeting, procurement, implementation, Produced in May 2014, Solomon financial Islands: Towards management, Better Investment operations in Rural Communities and maintenance, explores evaluation and asset management. monitoring and ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 11 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities TABLE 13: IMPLEMENTATION OF PCDF 3.4 RURAL ADVANCEMENT MICRO PROJECTS PROGRAM (RAMP) DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES RAMP is the third phase of the EU-funded micro projects programs in Solomon Islands, preceded by MPP1 and MPP2. The overall aim of the program is to promote community self-reliance and inclusion and to contribute to improved access to social services and income of participating rural and urban communities. The program’s purpose is to increase community access to sustainable social- 12 infrastructure and enterprise development opportunities, supported by a competent network of non- state actors. RAMP is implemented by MDPAC and supervised by the National Authorizing Organization (NAO) within MDPAC. The project supervisor is the Permanent Secretary of MDPAC. A steering committee oversees and validates the overall direction and policy of the project. It meets on a quarterly basis and comprises of representatives from the NAO, EU, RAMP, RDP, non-state actors, donors, the private sector, and line ministries. RAMP has 25 staff as of December 2012. The total value of RAMP is EU 7,483,000. RAMP is divided into three funding areas called ‘lots’: Lot 1 – Community-designed and managed social infrastructure (water supply, sanitation, health, education and markets) projects. Lot 2 – Income generating activities: value-adding and inclusive enterprise development initiatives Women's savings and credit union expansions or new creations. Lot 3 – Trials of appropriate technology (solar, water-harvesting, micro-hydro) projects. RAMP requires all participating communities to contribute at least 25 per cent of total project costs (either in cash or in-kind) to their projects. Contracts were signed with 100 community committees (community-based organizations registered as funding recipients) in May 2012 and implementation started in June/July 2012. Table 14 shows the amount of approved funds for by lot, as of late 2012. This commitment is equal to 74 per cent of the funds available. TABLE 14: RAMP PROJECTS BY COMMITTED FUNDS AND LOT (IN SBD) Two micro-project programs, known as MPP1 (2001to 2003) and MPP2 (2006 to 2008), preceded RAMP. The funding committed for MPP1 and MPP2 plus RAMP by year is provided in Table 15. TABLE 15: TOTAL FUNDS BY YEAR FOR MPP 1, 2 AND RAMP (IN SBD) Table 16 provides an overview of the implementation of RAMP . Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 13 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities TABLE 16: IMPLEMENTATION OF RAMP 3.5 THE RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES The objective of the RDP is to raise the living standards of rural households by establishing improved mechanisms for the delivery of priority economic and social infrastructure and services by the public and the private sector. RDP is a two-phase, 10-year program, which is implemented by the MDPAC and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAL).18 RDP has three main components:19 Community Infrastructure and service projects – improve mechanisms at community and provincial level for the delivery of economic and social infrastructure and services. Improving agricultural services – increase access of rural households to agricultural services to support rural income growth. Rural business development – provide financing, related training and technical assistance. 17 Criteria is: legal persons or entity without legal personality and be non profit making and be Civil Society Organisations (CSOs); Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Community-Based Organisations (CBOs), Community Trusts or Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs) undertaking development activities and be nationals of Solomon Islands or a Member State of the European Union or an ACP State and be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with their partners, not acting as an intermediary and be able to demonstrate to have regularly carried out activities in the field of development of the kind covered by this programme and propose projects that are implemented and owned by a community, community-Based organizations or NSAs based in Solomon Islands. Source: RAMP Guideline, p.6. 18 Source: World Bank Solomon Islands. Project Appraisal Document. Rural Development Program. 2007. 19 Note: This document refers to RDP Component One only. 14 The PS of MDPAC is the Program Director and National Coordinator of the RDP. A Program Coordination Unit (PCU) within MDPAC implements the program. The MAL PS coordinates the agricultural component of RDP and is supported by the provincial CFOs in close coordination with the provincial governments. RDP has a Steering Committee, which is chaired by the MDPAC PS and consists of the MAL PS, Infrastructure, MPGIS, MOFT, MHMS and PSs of the participating provinces. RDP has 126 staff, 85 of which are CHs based in the home villages and each covering two wards. The Provincial Secretary provides general oversight of the RDP at the provincial level. Table 17 provides an overview of the implementation of RDP. TABLE 17: IMPLEMENTATION OF RDP PSU train CHs to carry out initial awareness in communities and assist identification and selection processes. PCU allocates funds by ‘planning unit’ of SBD1.8M/year/unit. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 15 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 4. Expenditure analysis from consolidated dataset P roject data from PCDF, RDP, RAMP and MPP 1 and MPP 2 from 2006 to 2012 was consolidated into a single dataset. RCLF data is presented separately for the following reasons: Data could only be collected for one year, 2010; RCLF expenditures do not follow the Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG) categories; Many of the RCLF expenditures are for small, single purchases for a household and cannot be regarded as development initiatives with a tangible development output. Accordingly, it is not possible to compare the RCLF data with the data produced by other development projects; 30 per cent of the RCLF expenditures have not been classified at all and these appear as a simple transfer of funds with no tangible output; and Of the 405 expenditures recorded for 2010, 82 per cent are one-off payments between SBD 100,000 and 600,000. Using the consolidated dataset, the number of approved sub-projects from each program was: MPP1 and 2: 404 sub-projects between 2006 and 2007; RAMP: 100 sub-projects from late 2012; PCDF: 335 sub-projects from 2008 to 2012; RDP: 205 sub-projects from 2009 to 2012; and RCLF: 405 sub-projects/activities. 4.1 FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS The following tables present the geographic distribution of program resources by total amounts as well as per capita. For the period of analysis, PCDF approved the highest amount of funding, followed by RAMP and RDP. RDP recently approved a fourth cycle of grants, including grants to Guadalcanal and Central Islands provinces, but these have yet to be added to the dataset. If these amounts were to be added, the per capita amounts for these two provinces would go up considerably. As Malaita is the most populated province, it received the highest total funding yet was the third lowest in terms of per capita allocation with a total of SBD 247. Temotu Province received the highest per capita allocation of SBD 576. This is mainly due to the high amounts approved through RDP, as 16 Temotu was one of the four initial provinces for RDP rollout. The per capita amount for Rennell and Bellona would likely have been the highest if RDP were to be active there. See Table 18. TABLE 18: CONSOLIDATED DATA BY PROVINCE, MPP2, PCDF, RDP AND RAMP (IN SBD)20 Table 19 shows the total amounts of the RCLF expenditures by province for 2010. The highest amounts were spent in the two largest provinces, Malaita and Guadalcanal provinces, but per capita spending was lowest in Guadalcanal, with the exception of Honiara. Rennell and Bellona is by far the highest recipient on a per capita basis followed by Isabel. 21 TABLE 19: RCLF 2010 DATA BY PROVINCE Tables 20 and 21 summarize the sectors that receive the most funds from PCDF, RDP and RAMP for 2012 and MPP2. The housing and community amenities sector derives the highest percentage, driven largely by RDP spending on water supply and community halls. Education has the second highest expenditure totals, with PCDF investing heavily in this sector. 20 Source: RDP, PCDF Database and EU Data Population. Data source: 2009 census. Data correct as of June 2012. Note: Honiara population not included = 64,609. 21 Source: Ministry of Rural Development. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 17 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities TABLE 20: CONSOLIDATED DATA BY SECTOR (IN SBD) TABLE 21: SUBSECTOR SPENDING ON EDUCATION Table 22 indicates the bulk of investments under housing and amenities have been in water supply (63 per cent) and in education the majority has been spent on primary and secondary (80 per cent). TABLE 22: SUBSECTOR SPENDING ON HOUSING AND COMMUNITY AMENITIES (IN SBD) Reflective the focus of the ‘lots’ defined in the call for proposals, RAMP has perhaps the most balance across social (health and education) and economic activities. Health facilities receive the most funding followed by Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting, and then water supply. See Table 23. 18 TABLE 23: RAMP 2012 PROJECTS BY SECTOR AND SUBSECTOR (IN SBD) As Table 24 clearly illustrates, most RCLF spending is on housing and communities, in particular housing materials and water supply. Reflecting the ‘livelihood’ focus of RCLF, the second highest funding sector is economic affairs with a wide range of activities financed including livestock, agriculture, fishing, forestry, tourism, etc. A significant percentage of activities, about eight per cent, are either ‘not specified’ or listed as ‘other’. TABLE 24: RCLF 2010 APPROVALS BY SECTOR (IN SBD) Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 19 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 5. Local development planning 5.1 PLANNING AND BUDGETING FOR RURAL COMMUNITY INVESTMENTS he 1978 Provincial Government Act (PGA) does not specify a development planning function, an administrative structure for provincial governments with a section responsible for development planning or planning entities such as the Ward Development Committees utilized by RDP, and, to a certain extent, PCDF. Thus, a formal legal and policy framework for sub national development planning in the Solomon Islands is lacking.22 In the absence of a legal framework for provincial development planning, PGSP has prepared procedures for provincial planning, budgeting, procurement and implementation. These include a three- year rolling development plan and an annual plan and budget. These procedures have been developed into a series of manuals and are endorsed and issued from the Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening (MPGIS) to all nine provinces. Furthermore, in 2012 MPGIS presented to Cabinet a policy paper on a conceptual framework for participatory planning and budgeting with a view to address this lack of public participation in the planning process.23 This paper also defines membership roles and responsibilities for a Ward Development Committee. The PGA envisaged a third tier of government, allowing Provincial Assemblies to create Area Councils for local administration. However, Area Councils were abolished in 1996/7 leaving a gap between the provincial administration and the village level/people. This gap has been further eroded by the closure of many provincial sub-stations due to financial cuts exacerbated by the tensions, although remnants remain in Malaita. There are a variety of means by which priorities for rural community investments are identified, including by the programs under review. These can include: national sector priorities, allocation per capita, local government planning process, political choice, ‘bottom-up’ from communities and competition by proposals. Each of these methods could have some element of ‘bottom-up demand’ from communities. This demand may come in the form of one individual with significant influence or from a highly inclusive process including women and marginalized groups and structured consultation and planning process that leads to broad consensus on local development priorities. The more participatory and inclusive this process is for defining investment priorities, the more likely it will be that 22 Note: a review of decentralisation in the SOI is provided in Annex 3. 23 Source: MPGIS. A Policy Framework on Participatory Planning in the Provincial Governments. August 2012. 20 the assets produced will be of broad benefit, be clearly definable public goods, be operational and well- maintained. Public participation in the local development planning process should also be a safeguard against ‘elite capture’ of the funds or the outputs from the investments. 24 The following sections will assess the extent to which the programs being examined have developed clear, effective, inclusive and sustainable local development planning processes, as well as the extent to which they are aligned with existing government processes and with each other. While several individual program evaluations have pointed out the burden differing processes place on communities, little has been done to streamline these approaches. The potential for streamlining planning and prioritization processes will be assessed, including both the possibility of formalizing such processes either within the legal framework for local governments or at least across the main program administrators. 5.2 ANALYSIS OF PLANNING SYSTEMS Table 25 provides a side-by-side comparison of the four programs reviewed in this study against key parameters of a participatory local level planning process. 24 A definition of elite capture’ is: “a problem that risks deflecting a large portion of the resources devoted to local development into the hands of powerful groups dominating target communities”. Source: Jean Phillipe Plateau and Frederic Gaspart. Disciplining Local Leaders in Community Produced in May Based 2014, Solomon Development. Islands: Centre for Towards Better Investment Research in Rural on the Communities Economics of Development, Namur, Belgium. June 2004. explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 21 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities TABLE 25: SIDE-BY-SIDE COMPARISON IN THE USE OF LOCAL PLANNING SYSTEMS 22 5.2.1 RCLF planning and funds allocation process While the CDF Act, 2013 specifies the need to create Constituency Development Plans for each constituency; as of 2013 RCLF did not have a standardized planning or budgeting process. Projects are mainly identified by CDOs and MPs in an ad hoc and on-demand basis over the course of the year. There are no written procedures other than a proposal form, which is not used for all funded activities. Proposals, when used, are prepared by CDOs, as directed by the MP, and then sent to MRD for approval. Constituents submit project ideas in an ad-hoc manner throughout the year and constituency fund themes such as tourism, water or forestry are frequently seen. Some constituencies have Project Officers in addition to the CDO. Funds cannot be carried over from year-to-year so there is pressure on MPs to find a use for all of the funds they are allocated. While RCLF funds are drawn from the SIG budget they are disbursed and managed outside the SIG financial management systems established for service delivery of line ministries and provincial governments. 5.2.2 PCDF planning and funds allocation process The PCDF provides discretionary, performance-based annual grants to each province that meets clearly stated minimum conditions. Provincial governments use the grants to finance priorities identified in their provincial development plans, including a three-year rolling development plan, an annual plan and a budget. Planning procedures have been developed into a series of manuals and are endorsed and issued by the MPGIS to all nine provinces. The provincial planning process involves: Situation analysis; Setting vision, goals and objectives; and Resource-informed planning and budgeting. The Provincial Assembly approves the three-year development plan and budgets, then reviews and monitors the implementation every six months. Technical Planning Committees (TPC), consisting of the Provincial Secretary, Planner and Treasurer undertake the planning work. The TPC facilitates the planning and budget process, compiles the Provincial Profile, facilitates a Province-wide SWOT analysis, appraises project proposals, work plans and budgets and compiles the three-year rolling Provincial Development Plan and presents it to the Executive and Assembly. The Provincial Accounts Committee reviews and oversees the audit reports, financial management and performance of the executive. The Provincial Development Council provides input from a wide range of stakeholders to the provincial planning and budget process and meets in January at the planning and budget conference. The Provincial Development Council consists of the Premier, Technical Planning Unit, selected assembly members, heads of divisions, churches, NGOs and CDOs in Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 23 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities the province, women and youth organizations, relevant private sector representatives and traditional authorities. 5.2.3 RAMP planning and funds allocation process RAMP and its predecessors, MPP1 and MPP2, have utilized an open competition process in identifying sub-projects for financing. This process is not aligned to SIG planning procedures, but it has strong community participation in the development of project proposals. RAMP does not have a standard planning, prioritization or budgeting process as part of its implementation cycle for investments. Under the open and competitive ‘request for proposal’ (RFP) system, interested community groups first lodge a concept note. This RFP process follows an established EU procedure and is reported by community groups to be cumbersome, time consuming and requiring specific expertise. There is engagement of national level sector Ministries as MDPAC is the NAO for RAMP. It establishes the Evaluation Committee, which evaluates and approves project concept notes and full proposals. The Evaluation Committee consists of line ministries, NAO, MDPAC, and the EU. 5.2.4 RDP planning and funds allocation process The RDP has a ‘bottom-up’, community-driven planning process facilitated mainly by project staff, namely Community Helpers (CHs). Project identification and ranking is inclusive of women, youth, and traditional and respected leaders. It is also participatory, demand-based and well regarded by most community members. Through the use of Ward Development Committees (WDCs), RDP is aligned to government systems to a certain extent, but the planning process sits outside provincial or sector plans. The development priorities identified by communities are not formally fed into the development of provincial or national plans, but rather used only to identify projects for RDP funding. The RDP planning and funding approval process includes: Awareness raising and needs identification at the village level; WDC formation, village priority appraisal and ranking; and Provincial Allocation and Resource Committee (PARC) approval and Provincial Assembly endorsement. CHs have a key role and facilitate the identification and selection of sub-projects by communities. CHs also assist the communities in establishing and strengthening WDCs and if a sub-project is approved, supporting the establishment of a SIC and then guiding the SIC in its role. 24 WDC members are selected at an “open community meeting”. A WDC comprises of an MPA, a representative of traditional authority, a Church representative, a female representative and, male and female youth representatives. The community can also nominate other representatives. MPAs may not participate in the nomination of WDC members. As membership is meant to be annual, the process of member nomination and endorsement is repeated before preparation of annual requests for financing. The WDC meets at the time of each grant cycle to: Review the sub-projects submitted by each village in the ward; Review village maps which show existing social and physical infrastructure; Record details of the requested subproject including the beneficiaries; Consider initial project cost estimates; and Determine if the community is willing to contribute at least 15 per cent of sub- project costs. The WDC acts in the name of the whole ward community. It considers projects that are eligible according to the criteria established by RDP and validated by the PSU. To qualify, sub- projects must: Have been validated by the community during open community meetings; Include active participation of women in the expression of needs; Allow for non-discriminatory access to the social and economic benefits of the sub- project; and Conform to sound environmental principles. A record of the WDC meeting is submitted to the PARC. PARC meetings are “open to interested individuals and civil society organizations invited as observers” with one month’s notice. Two members, selected by the WDC will act as the ward delegation to the PARC; one of these must be a woman. The PARC sends nominated sub-projects, with financial information, to the PA for endorsement. 5.3 LOCAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING AND BUDGETING - FINDINGS 5.3.1 Participatory processes are being utilized, but they are not well institutionalized. Both the village-level prioritization and Ward Development Committee ranking process Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 25 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities utilized by RDP have become recognized as legitimate local planning processes, but these not regularized and are only formalized in the RDP Project Manual. WDCs are not recognized in the PGA or any other official government planning process other than in the cabinet paper on Participatory Planning. As yet, the roles of the WDCs as envisioned in the Cabinet Paper has yet-to-be realized and the ward-level of development planning and support is still only legally formalized via the role of the MPA as a representative of the interests of the ward in the Provincial Assembly. MPAs are allocated varying amounts of funds in the form of ‘ward development grants’, but fund allocations are not governed by any particular planning process (as is the case for the national-level CDFs). Table 26 provides a list of total number of provincial wards in the country, each of which is represented by one MPA on the Provincial Assembly. 25 TABLE 26: NUMBER OF PROVINCIAL ELECTORAL WARDS (IN SBD) 5.3.2 Community-driven needs identification is not well linked to provincial planning. In addition to the lack of any formal recognition of the RDP-developed village and ward-level planning processes, with the information generated not being used as an input into constituency, provincial or national planning. These development priorities are only used for the purpose of identifying sub-projects to be funded by RDP. This is a missed opportunity as there is a rich body of information regarding the interests and aspirations of rural communities that are not sufficiently drawn upon as an input to development planning. 25 Adapted from: PGSP Review of Functional Assignment for Provinces/Provincial Governments in Solomon Islands. Discussion Paper December 2009, p.3. Source of population data: SIG 2009 Population and Housing Censuses. Honiara data not included (64,870). 26 Note: Honiara is not included and has 12 wards so an overall total of 183. 26 5.3.3 There are currently no planning mechanisms to guide the allocation of RCLF and other constituency-based funding. The CDF Bill, 2013 describes the need for Constituency Development Plans as the basis for identifying funding priorities in each constituency, but these plans have yet to be prepared for any constituencies. Furthermore, the development of such plans is likely to overlap significantly with the ward-level priorities as well as provincial plans as the information and data required to prepare such plans are already generated and utilized for RDP ward-level activities and provincial development plans. 5.3.4 Inclusion of women in local planning is currently insufficient. Women participate in village-level planning meetings for RDP, but women participants account for only around one-third of the total village population. A woman in Choiseul provided an explanation as to why these numbers are so low: “mifala woman no save attendim community meeting because mifala busy waka lo garden, or cook for meeting or look aftarem pikinini. Even time mifala attendim meeting mifala busy for keepim pikini stap quiet. 27” At the ward-level, there must be at least one woman on the Ward Development Committee, but this is often the only woman on the Committee and more of a token representation rather than an effort towards equal representation. In a women’s discussion group at Babokuena Village in Choiseul Province, it was felt that having a woman representative in various decision-making bodies did not necessarily translate to active female participation. It was explained: “women’s participation in project discussions would only be meaningful if they were given their own space to express or share their views, not by having one or two women in committees who then don’t find the time to meet separately with other women to discuss issues and pass on information.” The limited representation of women among the staff of rural development programs is also a limiting factor. There are very few female CHs in RDP and all 50 CDOs within RCLF are male. 5.3.5 Competitive grant making may be most applicable to income generation projects. Competitive grant-making, as used by RAMP, has proven cumbersome and may be better suited to the financing of innovative solutions to local problems or of income-generating activities where sustainability may be more easily measured based on the strength of the business plan rather than the role of the community or government in operating and sustaining the activities. Small-scale, income-generating projects have a high rate of failure so more careful scrutiny of the viability of such proposals, as well as targeted support, would increase their chances of success. 27 Translation: For us women it is difficult to attend meetings because we are either busy working in gardens, or cooking food for meeting participants or looking after children. But even when we do attend meetings we are kept preoccupied by trying to keep our children quiet. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 27 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 5.4 LOCAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING AND BUDGETING - RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Clarify ward-level governance and development participatory planning mechanisms by reviewing, revising and formalizing the composition and role of Ward Development Committees (WDCs), the roles of MPAs as facilitators of local development, and the use of ward development grants. The cabinet paper on participatory planning offers an entry point to further refine and institutionalize the roles of the WDCs. 2. Create an integrated village/ward/constituency/province/national planning architecture. This integrated planning and budgeting process could then be utilized as a guide for government-financed programs and other service providers in the provinces. Strengthening bottom-up planning processes would likely require additional resources at the provincial level as the RDP Community Helpers are currently project funded, and are therefore no guarantee of ongoing, bottom-up planning. See Annex 5 for a detailed outline of an Integrated Planning and Budget Process. 3. Develop guidelines for enhancing the participation of women in all levels of planning including the use of separate planning meetings for women as a means to strengthen their collective voice. 4. Strengthen the role of sector/ministry staff in informing village and ward-level planning. This will help to align sub-national planning with national and provincial sector plans and to strengthen sector ministry ownership of community-level investments. Plus, ensure that recurrent budgets are written into the provincial plans and budgets. 28 6. What is efficiency and effectiveness? 6.1 WHAT IS EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS? n simple words effectiveness relates to ‘doing the right things’, which means, making the most appropriate choices regarding allocation of scarce resource to optimize their use. Efficiency relates to ‘doing things right’, that is optimizing resource use once decisions regarding the desired output and impact are made; Making the right choice amongst various options in view of solving the problem, is about effectiveness. Once an option is chosen, the way it is implemented, ensuring 28 maximum output against costs, relates to efficiency. One of the key comparisons often made in assessing service delivery programs is the contrast between speed and quality. The comparative analysis framework presented below provides a means of identifying where some programs are designed to move faster, and the trade-offs that may come with the emphasis on speed. 6.2 EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS SCORING While each of these topics is quite complex and could be studied in-depth on their own, for the purpose of this study a simple, three-point comparative framework has been developed to allow for a visual comparison between the programs under review. The information used to assess each program against the criteria presented included both monitoring and evaluation documents (for example, mid-term reviews), annual reports, and interviews with key informants. See Annex 4 for a list of documents reviewed. Table 27 summarizes the criteria 28 Source: Gerhard Van’t Land footnote in PGSP Review of Functional Assignments for Provinces/Provincial Governments in Solomon Islands December 2008, p.12. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 29 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities used for assessing the performance of each program and differences between strong, satisfactory or weak performance. TABLE 27: EFFICIENCY & EFFECTIVENESS INDICATORS & RANKING DESCRIPTORS 30 6.3 COMPARATIVE RANKINGS ON EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS Overall, RDP and PCDF have the strongest processes using the indicators for efficiency and effectiveness outlined in Figure 1. PCDF has strong fund disbursement, human resource and procurement processes, whereas RCLF has strong fund utilization and fund disbursement processes. RDP is consistently satisfactory in its efficiency and effectiveness indicators and has particularly strong monitoring and links to log frame/results indicators. RAMP does not have strong processes but is ranked satisfactory in half of the indicators including monitoring, links to log frame, human resources, procurement and productivity. However, outputs from RAMP, PCDF and RDP can be clearly expressed as contributing to improvements in education, health or water supply. FIGURE 1: SUMMARY OF RANKINGS ACROSS THE FOUR PROJECTS 6.3.1 RCLF efficiency and effectiveness results RCLF scored the lowest rankings on both efficiency and effectiveness and no rankings could be given for three of the indicators due to the difficulty in comparing RCLF outputs. There was no evidence of a procurement process, a log frame or links to sector programs. Unfortunately, there is actually evidence of sector programs retreating due to the presence of CDFs. For example the accountability team of this assignment saw evidence that some Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 31 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities sectors (for example, in agriculture) were advising provincial colleagues to seek out their CDO if they required sector assistance. The summary scores are provided in Figure 2. The RCLF has strong fund disbursement and fund utilization processes. These rankings were based on evidence that there is a relatively efficient two-week to three month time period for release of the funds from the MRD to the constituency accounts, to the funds being fully disbursed. The RCLF funds are on a 12-month fiscal year cycle through the SIG budget and the budgets were fully utilized in the 12 months between 2011 and 2012. FIGURE 2: RCLF EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS SCORES RCLF received a satisfactory human resource management ranking, as since around 2010 its management to operational costs to capital investment ratio has been good.29 For example, aside from the fifty CDOs that are externally hired, a small number of MRD staff implements the RCLF program together with all of the other CDFs. RCLF received a weak ranking for productivity and unit cost indicators. There was no evidence that benchmarking of unit costs was taking place and there was no similar project types used for cost comparisons. However, there was some evidence that the value of the outputs was being optimized through timely delivery of goods. As three of the indicators are absent in Figure 2, it is difficult to determine if the outputs have any relationship to the overall objectives of the program. The 2013 Constituency Development Fund Bill makes no reference to contributing to national and provincial 29 The ratio of grant funds to other costs for RCLF is 7:93 and in that order. 32 development objectives, but rather constituency development plans, which currently do not exist. Provincial government staff stated that they had no knowledge of how, when and where the constituency funds were allocated and spent in their provinces. RCLF received a weak monitoring ranking, as there is very little systematic monitoring. The data provided for 2010 RCLF sub-projects has limitations due to the singularity of the subject matter. In addition, from the 2010 data provided by MRD, it is difficult to determine what sector the outputs relate to, which makes it impossible to quantify any tangible development outcomes. No data could be made available for analysis for any year other than 2010. In terms of leverage, RCLF has national coverage using SIG funds through RCLF and other constituency fund streams. However, the Government’s procedures for fund management, disbursement and reporting are not being followed, which is why it received a weak ranking. There was no evidence that any public accountability measures were being utilized. 6.3.2 PCDF efficiency and effectiveness results PCDF ranked the highest overall for the efficiency and effectiveness indicators. The scores are provided in Figure 3. FIGURE 3: PCDF EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS SCORES PCDF has strong fund disbursement, procurement and human resources processes. It has developed open and competitive procedures on procurement with supporting manuals30. Capacity development is provided to the provincial government for these procedures. The 30 Source: PGSP. Public Expenditure Management Cycle, Trainer and Participant Manuals. Procurement and Contract Administration, August 2008. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 33 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities provincial government is also using the procurement procedures for other goods and services. Funds are released from the Ministry of Finance and Treasury to respective provincial governments within four weeks of receiving the warrant for release of the funds. The accounting, reporting and auditing measures are assessed annually as part of the assessment of minimum conditions of access to the PCDF. External management costs have reduced and capacity development is being provided to SIG staff who implement the project. In addition, the management and other costs to capital investment ratio is reasonable given that this is a capacity development program31. PCDF productivity was satisfactory as there was considerable evidence that outputs were optimal and operational such as timely delivery of good quality teacher housing and schools. PCDF fund utilization was also satisfactory. Delays in funding were identified and addressed mainly by the PCDF provincial technical advisers. The funds were utilized in a reasonable amount of time once released and projects were completed within 12-to-18 months. PCDF received a weak ranking for unit costs. There was no evidence of regular sourcing of market prices by the staff of the provincial public works department in order to determine a benchmark for unit costs. The unit costs were determined by the supplier’s price. However, there was a separation of roles between the engineer and the client (provincial government) in most cases. The design and bill of quantities and technical supervision during construction was performed by an external third-party engineer or, in some cases, the provincial engineers for the Ministry of Infrastructure. All four effectiveness indicators were ranked as satisfactory. The link to the outputs and the project’s log frame was mainly evidenced through the supporting documentation of the PGSP midterm review.32 This review stated that: “PGSP has successfully accomplished an early transition from a high risk start-up phase to the production of tangible and structuring interventions and the establishment of a functioning provincial governance model the viability of which is recognized by all stakeholders.” However, the midterm review also stated PCDF: “will need to consolidate its early achievements by continued capacity development in an attempt to better ground the program at the sub-provincial or sub-ward level, harmonize provincial and sub-provincial planning procedures, emphasize maintenance and internal control in budgeting, generation of provincial own source revenue.” 31 The ratio of grant funds to other costs for PCDF is 64:36 and in that order. Meaning in terms of the total annual budgets for PGSP, 64 per cent of the costs go towards funding PCDF and 36 per cent to fund operational, training and staffing costs. 32 PGSP Mid Term Evaluation. February 2012. 34 In terms of leverage and replication, PCDF was already providing full coverage to all nine provinces and was able to leverage an increase in SIG allocations annually 33. However, it could provide greater leverage in terms of SIG reforms on issues such as: review of high yielding ‘own source’ revenues for provincial governments, revision of the PGA, piloting of assigned sector functions to provincial governments and inclusion of fiscal decentralization in the SIG Economic and Financial Reform Program. PCDF undertakes basic monitoring through MPGIS as well as the PCDF technical advisors located in the provincial administrations. The dataset for the PCDF investments is working from an Excel spreadsheet and operates out of the MPGIS. It is recommended this data be restructured into a management information system with data inputted in the provinces and consolidated at the central level so that provinces can access, use and analyze the data. 6.3.3 RAMP efficiency and effectiveness results The RAMP scored the second lowest overall rankings with no strong rankings on any indicator. The scores are provided in Figure 4. FIGURE 4: RAMP EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS SCORES Procurement, human resources and productivity efficiency indicators were ranked as satisfactory. RAMP procedure follows the EU procurement rules, which calls for three quotes for all purchases submitted to the RAMP office for approval. The purchase will not be approved unless it follows the EU procurement rules. Government staff commitment for RAMP is through the roles of the National Authorizing Office (NAO) in approvals, data entry into the Development Assistance Database at MDPAC, and the evaluation committee. There is no role for provincial government staff. The 33 Source: PGSP Mid Term Evaluation pp. 44, February 2012: “The stark projected increase in funding to PGs via PCDF is attributable to an allocation of an extra 24 million SBD (approx. 3 Million USD) for 2012 decided in July 2011 by Cabinet, over and above the regular SIG share to financing PCDF, which increases annually by 3%”. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 35 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities ratio of administrative cost to capital investment is high, but reasonable given the geographic challenges of operating in rural areas34. Productivity cannot be easily assessed, as there was no evidence of comparisons of inputs and outputs across the program. However the evaluation committee has rejected proposals based on expense, which indicates that an attempt at comparing inputs was made at the project proposal stage. Fund utilization, unit costs and fund disbursement efficiency indicators were ranked as weak. This is because fund disbursement and utilization for the RAMP sub- projects has been very slow. The process from call for proposals to actual funds arriving in community accounts has taken three years. The initial call for proposals was in mid-2009, approvals were completed in November 2011 and beneficiaries notified in December 2011. Contracts were signed by May 2012 and funds were arriving into community accounts in September 2012. There is no facility for budget revision, which makes implementation difficult for community committees as prices have increased over three years. Training on procurement and financial management had not taken place before the communities received funds. With unit costs, there was no evidence that any benchmarking to determine value for money was taking place. Community committee members had to enlist considerable assistance in writing the proposals and they had no knowledge of how costing was determined35. The effectiveness indicators for monitoring and links to log frame received a satisfactory ranking, while the linkages to sectors and leverage indicators received a weak ranking. There is a lack of day-to-day monitoring, which may be because monitoring is left to the community committee who are responsible for implementing all the activities. The sub- project data should be entered into the DAD software at MDPAC but the data entry was incomplete. It is questionable whether the risks identified in the log frame are valid given the long delay between actual design and implementation. There is sector Ministry representation on the Evaluation Committee, responsible for reviewing community proposals. However, there was no evidence of alignment with sector priorities in communities that are choosing projects. Nor is there evidence of engagement with provincial sectors on matters such as design or building standards. 6.3.4 RDP efficiency and effectiveness results The RDP was ranked the second highest overall in the efficiency and effectiveness rankings. The scores are provided in Figure 5. 34 The ratio of grant funds to other costs for EU RAMP is 58:42 and in that order. 35 Average estimates were 30 to 40 days of assistance required for writing one proposal. 36 FIGURE 5: RDP EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS SCORES RDP was ranked satisfactory for all six-efficiency indicators outlined above. It was noted that fund disbursement from the project coordination unit to the community accounts has been delayed on several occasions, delaying the entire project. Sub-projects take 12 to 18 months to complete while some have taken up to 24 months or more. RDP was following its community procurement procedures and manual. RDP staff based in the Provincial Support Unit monitors procurement and other implementation procedures. Despite well-defined and simple procedures, procurement can be very slow, mostly due to the logistical challenge of communities, particularly in remote areas, procuring their own materials. Concerning human resources, there was an intention to reduce external management costs over time. The management and other costs to capital investment ratio is the highest across the four projects36. In addition, the number of project staff was the highest with 126 of whom 85 were CHs. Various ministries at the national level attend steering committee meetings and the provincial authorizing officer is the PS. There is some evidence of benchmarking unit costs undertaken by water project engineers, in particular, who often design or assess the sub-project community designs. For the purchase of goods up to SBD 40,000, three quotations are recommended and, for purchases over SBD 40,000, three quotations must be sourced. This practice assists with improving knowledge about expected unit costs and seeking value for money. In terms of productivity, there was no evidence that across provinces for the exact same bill of quantity and design within the RDP, that inputs are compared for costing. However, there is some value of outputs being optimized through timely delivery and operation of prior RDP projects. 36 The ratio of grant funds to other costs for RDP is 69:31 and in that order. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 37 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities Under the effectiveness rankings, RDP has strong monitoring and links to the log frame processes and satisfactory leverage and links to sectors processes. There is evidence of regular monitoring and reporting from the provincial teams, CHs and from monitoring trips out of Honiara. A Management Information System is in place which tracks sub-project progress and allows for portfolio management. There is a clear link between the outputs and outcomes in the project log frame and documentary evidence that the actual beneficiaries are from the investments. RDP’s leverage attempts are weak as management costs are too high and greater alignment with provincial government processes and procedures is needed in areas such as planning and sector priorities. Closer alignment of line ministry programs, such as sectors plans with RDP sub- projects, is needed to increase the likelihood of support for operations and maintenance, particularly for education and health facilities. 6.4 EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS - FINDINGS 1. Weak mechanisms for ensuring value for money, such as cost comparisons and defined and observed procurement methods, yield better performance in terms of fund utilization/speed of delivery, as is the case for RCLF. The RCLF funds appear to move very quickly as there was little-to-no technical or financial review or processes and the absence of such mechanisms significantly increases the risk funds will be used ineffectively or inappropriately. 2. Making better use of provincial staff can bring down management costs and assist with sector alignment. While provincial staff spend a significant amount of time managing PCDF funds, these costs are a recurrent budget cost covered in the national budget, and, therefore, not an additional cost to PCDF management. If RDP, RAMP, and RCLF were to more fully utilize already paid provincial staff, their overall program management costs would come down. 3. Expanding program presence at the sub-provincial/ward level, particularly in the case of RCLF (via CDOs) and RDP (via CHs), increases monitoring capability but also increases program costs. If these costs were absorbed or shared by provincial government, it would bring costs down and enhance provincial monitoring and outcome tracking capability. 4. While weak application of procurement procedures can speed fund disbursement, the application of light, rural-friendly procedures can improve value for money without slowing fund disbursement significantly. RDP’s community procurement procedures and requirement of community contributions enhance the value of program investment, but efficiency improvements and perhaps strengthening provincial supply markets are needed to overcome logistical challenges. 5. Heavy technical review and proposal validation procedures can significantly slow the project cycle and lead to disillusionment and loss of ownership for community 38 projects. This has particularly been the case for RAMP, and somewhat the case for RDP, although fund flows have been the primary cause of delays for RDP. 6.2 EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS - RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Consider integrating RDP’s Provincial Support Unit (PSU) functions in the provincial government administration to bring down overall management cost and achieve greater provincial and sector alignment. For example, the provincial planner, project officer or a new position, could fill the RDP team leader role. The finance officer function could be allocated to the Provincial Treasurer. 2. In addition to the core PSU functions, RDP CHs could also come under the management of provincial government. Their functions could be expanded to serve other provincial government needs, particularly in planning, monitoring, and community feedback and response. The cost of CHs could either be fully financed by provincial governments or cost-shared with RDP including incremental operating costs for CH travel on a per-sub-project or ward allocation basis. 3. Leveraging RDP operational funds for travel to bring provincial sector officers/staff (i.e. health and education) to the field would better support sector facilities and services. Provincial sector staff are often starved of operational budget and unable to travel so they could piggyback on the RDP expenditures on fuel costs or for the hiring of boats. RDP operational funds could also be provided directly to provincial governments so that they could make the most efficient use of funds for both RDP-specific and other provincial travel needs. 4. Work towards a consolidated, online, interactive database of small-to-medium scale rural investment projects. This database could be managed at the national level with the allowance of a decentralized data entry from provincial and all of the way down to the ward and community levels. Such a database would allow for easy generation of reports for planning and monitoring purposes. 5. An implementation manual such as those used by PCDF, RDP and RAMP should be developed for RCLF and all CDFs so that procedures to enhance efficiency and effectiveness can be standardized and applied across the use of funds. The CDF Act and associated draft CDF regulations have provided some sorely needed clarity to the process, but there is still much detail in the operations of the CDFs that need to be captured to provide wider scope for interpretation and to identify potential abuse. 6. As a part of the implementation manual for RCLF/CDFs, community procurement guidelines should be developed for RCLF to allow it to remain quick at disbursement, but to also strengthen the likelihood best prices for procured goods and services are secured. In Jamaica, constituency funds are channeled through the most appropriate government agency for the identified project need (for example, education, health, etc.). This facilitates both compliance with government financial management regulations and speed of service delivery. The RDP processes offer a light, community-friendly Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 39 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities approach, which could be considered. RDP and RCLF processes could even be unified so that funding recipients only need to familiarize themselves with one set of procedures. 7. Unit cost data should be shared across the programs to allow for more effective budget preparation and review, and to bring costs overall public investment costs down. 40 7. Accountability, transparency and dispute management 7.1 WHAT IS ACCOUNTABILITY, TRANSPARENCY AND DISPUTE MANAGEMENT (ATDM)? ccountability comprises the processes and rules whereby project implementers both at the local and provincial levels advise the public of their plans, justify their behavior and results, and take responsibility for their actions. Measures to enhance project accountability may include citizen participation in key project decisions; the publication of project documentation and/or the announcement of key project decisions; and citizen monitoring of project-related activities. The accountability relationships are multidirectional: downwards from project staff to community beneficiaries, upwards from communities to project staff as well as provincial to national entities, and vertically amongst community members and/or provincial stakeholders. Transparency comprises the processes and rules whereby project implementers communicate with project beneficiaries and the general public. Information regarding the project including financial and budget data, updates, and the rules relating to contracting and procurement is shared. Measures to enhance project transparency may include the display of written sub-project information at sites, the holding of community or ‘town hall’ meetings, publicizing procurement or contracting rules and issuing guidelines and policies around public access to project and sub-project information. Dispute Management comprises the systems utilized by project implementers to manage or resolve disputes that arise around sub-projects and their implementation. Such systems may be project specific or may seek to utilize pre-existing community or state Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 41 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities processes to mediate and resolve grievances. Across Solomon Islands it is generally community leaders, chiefs and church leaders, who resolve sub-project disputes. 7.2 ACCOUNTABILITY 7.2.1 Accountability within the Rural Development Program37 On paper, the RDP has the most robust accountability measures of all of the projects reviewed. However, there is a gap between prescribed rules and practice. At the community level this is not necessarily problematic as many communities are adept at dealing with accountability issues outside of project requirements. A key objective of the original project design was to improve Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) accountabilities, as written in the Project Appraisal Document (2007): Improved accountability and responsiveness of elected government to community needs is at the heart of the governance objective of the RDP. Therefore the program would include existing local representatives (the ward councilors) in the decision- 38 making processes. However, improved MPA accountability has not occurred. This relates to what is perceived to be a minimal role for MPAs and provincial administrators around sub-project selection and implementation. An MPA in Choiseul Province expressed the view that RDP was undermining his role as an elected representative and creating parallel lines of accountability. The MPA voiced particular dissatisfaction with the CH role, believing that the potential for politicization was great. A Premier and Provincial Secretary expressed similar concerns in particular seeing the PARC process as a “rubber-stamping” exercise. The political economy of local-level politics has a bearing on the role that MPAs play in relation to the RDP. SIC members in Malaita Province indicated that there had been no involvement of their MPA in relation to their sub-projects. This was because of poor relations between the serving member and the host community. In one instance the member was said to have not attended the WDC meeting.39 This situation might arise in communities that are not politically aligned to their MPA (i.e. who did not support their member at the last provincial 37 Source: The World Bank, 2007. ‘Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Grant in the Amount of SDR 2.20 Million (US 3.2 Million Equivalent) to Solomon Islands for a Rural Development Program’ 19. 38 Ibid footnote above. 39 Ward members chair the WDC. In the situation where the member does not attend the WDC will proceed with the chairmanship being delegated to another member. 42 election). By contrast, instances of MPAs making significant monetary contributions to RDP projects from their ward grants were encountered, particularly in Western Province.40 The nature of relationships determines communication between Provincial Secretary and the RDP project. Accountability from the PSU of the RDP to members of the provincial executive appears to be confined largely to prescribed project procedures (such as quarterly reporting and the co-signing of cheques). In one province, the RDP Provincial Team Leader had met with the Provincial Secretary once in six months. In another, the Provincial Secretary had met with the RDP Team Leader on a daily basis. Despite the rarity of meetings, communities have a good understanding of the project. Information sharing is strongest at the commencement of sub-projects when project selection is carried out by CHs. Upon formation of the SIC, and during project implementation, structured information sharing is less common. SICs do not appear to be sharing information on project procurement as per the requirements. SIC community discussions during implementation focus mainly on the need to garner community support, organize in-kind contributions or to address monetary shortfalls. The RDP team leaders answer questions from the general public and SIC members about the sub-project. The PSUs have an open-door policy and SIC members often visit the PSU to share information and obtain advice. In remote areas, SIC members were often able to contact CHs by mobile phone or radio. This good communication helps to reduce issues at the community level or have them resolved early in the project cycle. Much of this communication occurs on an informal and ad hoc basis and is not detailed in project documentation. SICs that include existing trusted community leaders are likely to fair better in terms of local-level accountability issues. This may be because community members in leadership positions, such as chiefs, have additional expectations, and, in turn accountabilities, imposed on them by community members. This situation is variable though and including chiefs in SICs or any other sub-project related body is not a guarantee of improved accountability or sub- project success. Some chiefs have been discredited in the eyes of their community, often for inappropriate behavior. 40 Each MPA across Solomon Islands receives a base ward-touring grant of SBD 50,000 from the central government. This is added to at the provincial-level using provincial revenue in the form of other discretionary spending streams. For example, for Malaita Province each MPA receives SBD 50,000 (ward grant), Western Province, SBD 135,000 (SBD 100,000 ward grant and SBD 35,000 micro-projects grants), and Choiseul Province, SBD 100,000 (SBD 60,000 ward grant and SBD 40,000 micro-projects grant). It is not possible to say if MPA co-contributions to RDP sub-projects necessarily equate to improved accountabilities and ownership, although in some villages MPAs who did not contribute to RDP projects were the subject of derision by SIC members for failing to use public funds for what they considered was a public good. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 43 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 7.2.2 Accountability within the Provincial Capacity Development Fund41 The relevant rules and processes around the PCDF are very similar to SIG. The accountability measures documented relate to PCDF funding and not on the specifics of community infrastructure sub-projects. PCDF funded sub-projects have little community level ownership and do not establish vertical accountability between communities as might occur under the RDP. Likewise, this approach also means that upwards accountability from community to provincial/central government is absent. The PCDF has the strongest provincial level accountabilities out of all of the projects. Accountability measures relate to provincial level processes around planning, budgeting and procurement. It was observed that the relationship between PCDF provincial national staff and the provincial administration and executive is much stronger than that of the RDP and meetings occur more frequently. The exception to this provincial level focus is provision for ‘community monitoring groups’ (CMGs). These groups are established in remote locations and attempt to bring local accountability to sub-project contractors. Their stated role is to monitor: “the day-to-day implementation of the contract by the contractor, and to represent the interests of the project beneficiaries in ensuring that the project is implemented to a good standard.” CMGs are mainly a modification of existing community sectoral committees, such as school and health committees. They play a monitoring role over project contractors.42 Unfortunately, no examples of these groups functioning were witnessed. PCDF sub-project information is included in key provincial planning documents, including the provincial annual budget estimates and development plans, both are public documents enacted by provincial assemblies. For example, the Choiseul Province Draft Budget Estimates 2012/2013 details 12 PCDF sub-projects with past expenditure and budgeted costs listed.43 Similarly, the province’s medium-term development plan for 2012 to 2014 details project profiles for all 2012 PCDF sub-projects including a work plan and budget.44 41 Sources: Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, 2012. ‘A Policy Framework on Participatory Planning in Provincial Governments in Solomon Islands’; Government of Solomon Islands, 2012. ‘Operation Manual for the Provincial Capacity Development Fund (PCDF)’; Provincial Governance Strengthening Program, 2008. ‘Public Expenditure Management Cycle, Procurement and Contract Administration, Training Materials’; Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, 2008. ‘Provincial Government Procurement and Contract Administration Manual’. 42 Project documents state CMGs are not “normally” established where the contract implementation is carried out under the community contracting modality or where the project pertains to provincial administration facilities. They are only established for contracts valued at more than SBD 10,000. 43 Source: Choiseul Provincial Government, Draft Budget Estimates 2012/2013, p. 75, pp. 78-81. 44 Source: Choiseul Provincial Government, Medium Term Development Plan 2012-2014, July 2012, Appendix 2. The document also contains 2012 project costs for the RDP. 44 PCDF sub-projects are not subject to wide consultation although community implementation takes place in remote locations. There is no formal requirement for any type of community contribution in cash or kind. There is minimal community involvement in PCDF funded sub-projects, which is questioned or met with resentment by community members. Communities expressed a preference to be actively informed and engaged and also indicated that PCDF projects were providing necessary infrastructure. Ward members were thought to have an appreciation of what was required in their communities, so extensive community consultation around project selection is not considered to be necessary. There is a risk of reliance on PGSP staff to implement PCDF funded sub-projects. In one province there appeared to be a strong reliance on the PGSP adviser to assist with sub- project implementation, to the extent that community members in sub-project sites referred to the adviser by name, detailed his role and went to him instead of provincial staff when they had project-related queries.45 Despite this being valued by provincial staff, this approach risks running contrary to the PGSP core objective of building provincial capacity, raises sustainability questions and has the potential to blur lines of accountability. 7.2.3 Accountability within Rural Advancement Micro Projects Program46 Provincial and community-level accountability provisions of RAMP are difficult to ascertain. This is because three-and-a-half years after signing the initial financing agreement, implementation had not commenced. On reading project documentation, relevant accountability measures appear to be heavily focused upwards from MDPAC to the EU. The provinces did not think RAMP was aligned to provincial priorities, budgets or processes. There was no communication between RAMP and provincial administration staff. In 2012, there were two provincially based RAMP offices, one in Auki, Malaita Province and another in Gizo, Western Province. The relationship between RAMP and national plans and priorities is not defined in project documents. The RAMP Financing Agreement stipulates MDPAC must obtain EU approval for some steps. Accordingly, there is minimal scope for SIG autonomy. At the national level this undoubtedly affects issues of ownership and the accountability of SIG and the donor. Failure to communicate effectively is having a detrimental effect on local-level accountability. Communication within RAMP was seen to be a challenge. In Choiseul Province, one successful applicant was so hostile toward the RAMP project he had ceased 45 All PGSP National Adviser contracts finished the week of 10 December 2012. As at January 2013, positions in Malaita, Western and Guadalcanal provinces were being advertised. 46 Source: Information derived from Rural Advancement Micro Projects Programme, 2010. ‘Guidelines for Grant Applicants’. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 45 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities communicating with project staff and, despite having access to project funds, was no longer checking the project bank account. He expressed a fear of an apparent project requirement that he would need to repay project funds if the project was not completed on time. This was following years of confusing, conflicting and delayed communications with project staff. The constant and long delay in the disbursement of funds was also a concern. This demonstrates how an absence or failure of downward accountability (from project implementers to beneficiaries) has a potential to create frustrations or lead to conflict. It also raises a risk of project failure. 7.2.4 Accountability within the Rural Constituency Livelihood Fund47 There was no evidence of capacity development of MRD staff, the CDOs or MPs on procedures that deal with funds in an accountable and transparent manner. MPs have direct control over the bank account and payments and no accountability measures are observed. There are no public documents stipulating rules or guidelines in relation to CDFs including applicable accountability measures. RCLF is being used on a narrow range of personal household and relatively small items: metal roofing, solar panels, water tanks, outboard motors, chainsaws, portable milling equipment, farm tools and fuel.48 The most substantial RCLF expenditure is in North West Choiseul Constituency where the MP had used SBD $23,692 in 2010 on metal roofing for a church. This is in contrast to the majority of expenditure, which is on individual households for roofing, solar panels or lights. Not one output was linked to relevant provincial or national plans nor was any participatory planning process observed. Despite no documented procedures or rules, there are past initiatives that have attempted to improve accountabilities and transparency around the CDF including: 1. Efforts made by MRD to collect basic data around RCLF spending. A dataset has been prepared, which includes basic information and data for 2010. 2. Taiwan, China (ROC) started an acquittal process across all constituency funds in 2011/12. ROC constituency funds, which in 2012 comprised of some SBD $1 million per year per constituency, are released throughout the year in three tranches with the release of each tranche being contingent upon acquittal of the previous. Towards the end of 2012, it was reported that ROC was withholding the payment of around SBD 5.4 49 million pending the submission of constituency acquittal reports. 47 No definition of ‘Constituency Development Funds’ is provided in the legislation. 48 A 2012 application form for the RCLF, which was produced by the MRD, states that RCLF is for “social development project[s]” with the “nature of [RCLF] project[s]” being “housing, solar lighting, fishing, transportation, agricultural/commercial projects and small infrastructure”. 49 Source: Transparency Solomon Islands, ‘Time to come clean on RCDF’, The Solomon Star, 9 November 2012, p. 7. 46 3. MPs who misuse funds risk being investigated, prosecuted and ultimately sanctioned. They may also lose their seat in Parliament. A number of MPs have been convicted in the past for misusing CDFs. A recent well-publicized case saw one MP jailed for 14 months for misusing rural micro-fisheries funds. Owing to his conviction and imprisonment he lost his seat in Parliament. 4. In 2003 and 2008 individual MPs introduced motions in Parliament calling for increased accountability in relation to CDFs. In the latter year a “management and regulatory 50 mechanism” for the disbursement of CDFs was requested. Other MPs have also 51 publically argued for the introduction of improved accountabilities for CDFs. The Constituency Development Funds Bill 2013 was passed in March 2013. The purpose of the Act is to provide for “developing, supervising and regulating the management and disbursement of Constituency Development Funds in a transparent and accountable manner”52. The Act provides for the preparation of a ‘Constituency Development Plan’ based on a ‘Constituency Profile’ as the basis for the disbursement of funds. It also indicates that CDOs will pay suppliers in accordance with the Public Finance and Audit Act. It provides power to the MRD to investigate instances of alleged mismanagement of funds. The PS of the MRD has explained that the new Act is the first in a series of legislative reforms with a “bigger bill” anticipated in 2014.53 Despite the above initiatives, provincial and local-level sentiment toward RCLF is negative due to a lack of accountability and transparency. Provincial executive members have no knowledge of what rural livelihood funds were spent on in their province. In the process of formulating his provinces’ medium- term development plan, one Premier invited national MPs to meet to discuss a possible alignment between provincial plans and priorities and constituency spending. None of the MPs or CDOs accepted his invitation. There are low levels of understanding at the community level about the amount of funds available to MPs, how they are administered and what they are spent on. When asked if they were aware of the sums involved those who replied nominated a figure well below the current SBD 5.2 million allocated annually. During election campaigning, visits by candidates were said to have provided some awareness around available constituency funds with prospective MPs detailing to constituents what they intended spending CDF monies on. The minority with access to media, such as newspapers, was overall better informed. 50 Source: Hansard, 29 August 2008, available at: (accessed on 6 March 2013). Also detailed in this document is the history of discretionary funds being channeled through MPs in Solomon Islands. 51 Source: Transparency Solomon Islands, ‘Time to come clean on RCDF’, The Solomon Star, 9 November 2012, p.7. 52 Source: Constituency Development Funds Bill, 12 February 2013. 53 Boso, S, 2013. Submission to the ‘Bills and Legislation Inquiry into the Constituency Development Fund Bill 2013’, Parliament House, Solomon Islands, 12 March 2013. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 47 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities Communities view RCLF, and CDFs more broadly, as a means of rewarding political supporters. In Malaita Province, it appears common knowledge that incumbent members could obtain a list of those individuals in their constituency who voted for them. In contrast, in Choiseul Province the incumbent member was said to distribute items purchased using RCLF for everyone. One CDO indicated that initially his MP had adopted an approach of only favoring individuals who voted for him. This was said to be largely because of pressure from his supporters to do so. The practice of only rewarding political supporters would therefore appear to be variable across the country and particularly dominant in Malaita Province. The Prime Minister has acknowledged the public’s poor perception of CDFs, commenting that the 2013 Constituency Fund Bill was produced because of “the public’s distrust of MPs’ handling of constituency development funds.”54 7.3 TRANSPARENCY 7.3.1 Transparency within RDP RDP is a development model that empowers people and is well supported by the Government. A newspaper reported: “Experience with RDP has shown that when rural communities are given the responsibility and funding to address their highest priorities, they can do so in a highly inclusive and transparent manner with high quality infrastructure.”55 The Community-Driven Development (CDD) approach of RDP is meant to ensure information is widely shared and accessible. As SIC members are drawn from the ranks of community members, and most SIC members have access to project information, there is scope for individuals at the village level to access relevant project data within their communities. CHs also regularly visit communities providing another source for information. Team leaders and staff from PSUs spend time answering questions from the public and explaining RDP processes.56 Unique to RDP is a detailed communications strategy and several RDP produced brochures and posters. Communities are proficient at sharing information on local initiatives, such as church fundraising activities. This is achieved through financial information placed on a public notice board (see Figure 6). Announcements are also made during public meetings or after church services. This was observed in homegrown initiatives but not in any of the sub-projects. RDP sub-project community meetings were held in public spaces, often after church or in a public meeting space such as a dedicated community building. 54 Source: Namosuaia, D. and Dawea, E., ‘Revealed: Original of CDF Bill draft leaves out MPs from handling funds’, The Solomon Star, March 15, 2013, 1. 55 Sources: World Bank website (worldbank.org) and quoting Minister for MDPAC Connelly Sandakabatu. 56 This includes answering queries via mobile phones, the coverage of which have markedly increased in Solomon Islands over the last four years such that all of the project sites visited in Malaita Province had phone coverage. 48 Sub-project transparency could still be improved in areas such as SIC communication. Community discussions not including individuals directly involved in project implementation indicated that the level of knowledge around projects was low. This was especially the case amongst women. Individuals in a number of communities had no knowledge about who the specific donor of a project was or which ministry was responsible for implementing the project. However, more common and problematic was a lack of knowledge around project financial information. This was also observed within SIC committees that had experienced high member turnover. 7.3.2 Transparency within the Figure 6: Church Financial Information on Provincial Capacity Development Fund57 a Community Notice Board at Voruvoru Information sharing under PCDF at the Choiseul. community level is more problematic than that of RDP. In most communities with PCDF funded projects there was no knowledge about specific project costs and where funds originated. Again, this stems from the different modalities the projects adopt, with the PCDF focusing on provincial-level systems and processes. Unlike RDP and RAMP, PCDF project typically involves a contractor from outside the beneficiary community bidding for sub-project work in an open tender process. The winning bidder will carry out the work with no requisite community contribution. This process can result in little information for communities. However, efforts are made in transparency and communication. One PGSP adviser in Malaita Province travels to host communities, often with the serving MPA to discuss prospective sub-projects. At a footbridge project in Choiseul Province, the provincial administration had been actively involved in the establishment of a PCDF ‘bridge committee’, whose terms of reference included disseminating relevant project information and answering “any questions from the public”. PCDF is also the only project utilizing display boards to share project information (see Figure 7). 57 Sources: Government of Solomon Islands, 2012. ‘Operation Manual for the Provincial Capacity Development Fund (PCDF)’; Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, 2008. ‘Provincial Government Procurement and Contract Administration Manual’. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 49 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities In Taro, Choiseul Province, a number of display boards (see Figure 7) were visible at project sites but unfortunately did not contain financial or contact information. Conversely, a school classroom completed in 2009 was one out of five PCDF sub-projects in Malaita Province that had a display board containing details of the relevant donors and final project cost. 7.3.3 Transparency within Rural Advancement Micro Projects Program 58 RAMP documentation contains minimal transparency requirements. General project information is not shared both with intended applicants and host communities transparently. Such a situation places an increased burden on project staff, as they are required to constantly translate project requirements, often needing to seek information and advice from staff based in Honiara. RAMP processes and procedures are inaccessible to local-level beneficiaries and poorly communicated. The key transparency Figure 7: PCDF Project Notice Board Taro problem within RAMP is the inaccessibility and Choiseul Province intelligibility of documents and processes, in particular the grant application form. This was highlighted in the mid-term review (MTR) of RAMP: “ the guidelines for the Call for Proposals were exclusive for many remote and isolated communities, not being able to express their needs due to the highly complex character of the guidelines, reducing the relevance of the programme from its onset.”59 RAMP employs a competitive application process of placing advertisements in the national media. At the community level it is thought that only ‘educated’ people could respond to the proposals. This creates transparency and accountability problems. If successful applicants do not have sufficient knowledge of what they are implementing, how can they understand and follow the accountability provisions? The selection process did not include important criteria relating to local-level accountabilities such as social inclusion, good governance and human rights.60 Successful applicants were able to attend workshops providing a better understanding of RAMP procedures. 58 Source: Rural Advancement Micro Projects Programme, 2010. ‘Guidelines for Grant Applicants’. 59 Source: Boersma, S., 2012. ‘Mid Term Review of RAMP Project: Final Report’. 60 Ibid, p. 1. A further frequent source of complaint relayed during the fieldwork was the requirement that application forms had to be typed and submitted in both electronic (CD) and paper form. Applicants spoken to point out this was unfeasible in remote rural communities, which did not have access to reliable electricity or computer equipment. 50 Similar to PCDF, RAMP sub-project documents were silent in relation to intra- community processes for sharing relevant project information. Nevertheless, three successful applicants had adopted existing community processes and structures to impart project information. Given the RAMP requirement for a community contribution, it was clearly necessary to mobilize community members as a group. Successful applicants indicated that it was common practice to inform community members of what was happening and share views and ideas. It was also noted that the agenda of one of the pre-implementation training modules related to how to hold effective meetings. 7.3.4 Transparency within the Rural Constituency Livelihood Fund Aside from the requirement that CDF funds be audited and figures published in the annual SIG Budget Estimates, there appears to be no structured transparency measures for RCLF. Community members lack knowledge about the amount of funds available to their MP, where this money is coming from and where it is being allocated. There is a strong belief at the community level that the funds are used for political purposes and are a reward for voters. The application processes for CDFs vary between constituencies. Some individual community members communicate directly with their MPs to seek assistance. In other cases a structured and open process is employed. In West New Georgia, Vona Vona Constituency in Western Province, a ‘project proposal form’ must be completed. These forms can be obtained for a small fee from a local store. The form includes a requirement to detail project objectives, project beneficiaries, details of ‘local contribution’ and how the project will be managed. An advisory board vets prospective projects before the MP endorses them. Similarly, in Malaita Outer Islands Constituency a committee exists to screen and assess applications (which also involve the completion of a written application form) and make recommendations to the serving MP. The committee is said to comprise of a cross-section of community members. In 2012 the MRD devised a standard RCLF application form. These are completed by CDOs after receiving requests from citizens and are then presented to MPs. 7.4 DISPUTE MANAGEMENT 7.4.1 Dispute management within the Rural Development Program 61 RDP is the only project with a dispute management process that addresses intra- community disputation. However, despite the existence of a ‘Feedback Handling System’, provincially based RDP staff were unaware or unable to produce a copy of the document. Similarly, provincial government staff members were unaware of an RDP project dispute management process. Both groups thought that community members wished for disputes to be referred to existing community structures for possible resolution. The RDP team leader in Malaita Province stated that if a problem could not be resolved within the host community, then the Provincial Secretary would write to SIC members 61 Source: Rural Development Program (undated), ‘Feedback Handling System’. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 51 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities outlining the repercussions of failing to reach a satisfactory outcome (i.e. cessation of the sub- project). After an allocated period, if the problem remained he would then write to the PS of MDPAC recommending the termination of the sub-project. Land disputes are regarded by project implementers as one of the main causes of disputation in rural Solomon Islands. RDP requires “resource owners” to sign a “land commitment letter”. This occurs prior to project implementation. The letter attests that the land is not the subject of any dispute and is free to be used for the purposes of the project. Various SIC members referred to this letter when explaining why land related problems had not arisen in relation to their sub-project. Efforts are made by communities to vet possible land issues prior to choosing a sub- project. For a number of sub-projects the location or type of sub-project had changed without any input from project staff so as to avoid any possible land related problems. Despite such measures, disputes still arise and may come to the attention of project staff. Four out of the five RDP terminated sub-projects involved customary land-related disputes. Communities that had experienced disputation related to their RDP sub-project had universally utilized existing community resources and, in most instances, this appeared to have resulted in a satisfactory outcome. It also helped that members of the SIC were commonly prominent community leaders, including chiefs and church leaders. 7.4.2 Dispute management within The Provincial Capacity Development Fund62 The documented dispute resolution procedure of PCDF relates exclusively to contract related disputes between provincial governments and PCDF contractors. No written provisions or procedures were seen for intra-community related disputes. At PCDF sub-project sites communities prefer to deal internally with sub-project related disputes. However, there was an active role for the province in the resolution of disputes, which could not be resolved at the local level. The key provincial player in resolving disputes is the provincial secretary. In relation to land-related disputes, one PGSP adviser indicated that PCDF projects would only be implemented on registered land. The PGSP ‘Planning and Budgeting’ training material states that projects that fall within a defined list will not be funded. This includes projects on land with ‘unsettled’ issues: “Any project that requires the use of land that is encumbered in a way [will not receive funding] . land must already belong to the Assembly 62 Sources: Provincial Governance Strengthening Program, 2008. ‘Public Expenditure Management Cycle, Procurement and Contract Administration, Training Materials’; Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, 2008. ‘Provincial Government Procurement and Contract Administration Manual’. 52 or it must be known that legal ownership can and will be transferred to the Assembly prior to the commencement of intended project.” 63 Some PCDF sub-projects were seen to be on customary land, although most are on registered land. One project on customary land had triggered a land related dispute, which the relevant provincial government had been trying to remedy 64. Implementing projects on registered land is not a guarantee that land-related disputes will not arise. A land-related dispute had arisen in relation to a PCDF staff housing project on registered land in Malu’u, north Malaita, reportedly with a need to hire private security to secure the land in question. 7.4.3 Dispute management within The Rural Advancement Micro Projects Program65 Similar to PCDF, the dispute resolution procedure within RAMP is exclusively focused on contract-related disputes. There are no procedures to guide communities in relation to disputes. Only a limited number of successful RAMP applicants were consulted and no intra- community disputes were encountered. Sub-project implementation had yet to commence. In relation to potential land-related disputes, similar to the RDP, the RAMP application form requires applicants to detail who owns the land on which the sub-project will be constructed and calls for a “land ownership certificate” to be completed. 7.4.4 Dispute management within Rural Constituency Livelihood Fund RCLF has no documented dispute resolution procedure. Interestingly, the politicization of constituency funds was not a visible concern in the communities. There was a clear view that the RCLF was a political fund and there was little expectation that the funds would be used for broader community development. There was also little agitation around the use of the funds and even a degree of humor among some when sharing a belief that non-supporters of serving MPs would simply have to wait four years (Solomon Islands’ election cycle) before their preferred candidate would be elected and then they too would benefit from the RCLF. There was very little expectation, or understanding, that MPs should be accountable for RCLF spending. 7.5 ATDM - FINDINGS 1. While there were no obvious cases of misuse of funds or corruption encountered during the fieldwork, there are significant risks that such leakage could occur as most 63 Source: Provincial Governance Strengthening Program, 2008. Training Materials, Public Expenditure Management Cycle, Planning and Budgeting’. 64 This situation is detailed in the Background Paper on Accountability, Transparency and Dispute Management. 65 Source: Rural Advancement Micro Projects Programme, 2010. ‘Guidelines for Grant Applicants.’ Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 53 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities of the expenditures for these programs take place at the sub-national, even community level, where activity monitoring is difficult. There is significant concern regarding the misuse of public funds at the national level, but this concern is not usually sufficiently substantiated. The public’s interest in ensuring proper use of public funds is an opportunity to improve the governance of the programs reviewed for this study, but this interest is not met with data and information regarding the operations of these programs that would substantially enhance their accountability. 2. On the whole, there is insufficient public information about each of the programs and all programs could do better in providing more visual printed materials to affected/beneficiary communities so that they can develop a better understanding as to how these programs work. 3. None of the programs have functional grievance redress mechanisms for beneficiary/affected communities. Communities rely mainly on traditional dispute resolution systems so they lack channels of communication, which would allow them to go outside of traditional systems if they needed or wanted to. 4. There are limited-to-no accountability mechanisms in place between communities and service providers to monitor the quality of service delivery once sub-project construction is complete. 5. Media coverage of the programs reviewed in this study is mostly ad hoc, with no systematic reporting of progress and the use of funds to the public. Public meetings are held, for PCDF in particular, but these are not covered on the radio and most people cannot afford to travel to participate. 6. While there have been disputes regarding land, this has not escalated to violence. In this sense, it seems that the informal and/or traditional mechanisms for resolving disputes are working even if they are not able to uphold agreements made with respect to the sub-projects. 7. Accountability from the programs to the National Government is reasonably strong in the cases of PCDF and RDP, with each convening regular project committee meetings and sharing progress reports. RCLF has no means of reporting progress to government stakeholders except through ad hoc audits done by the Auditor General, which to-date, have not been circulated even within government. 8. RCLF is especially problematic with respect to accountability and transparency. Aside from the audits mentioned above, there is very little information as to how RCLF funds are used at all levels of government and society. This lack of information and accountability stokes concern and criticism of waste, fraud and corruption, which occasionally make their way into the media and public discourse. 7.6 ATDM - Recommendations 54 1. Develop a robust set of accountability and transparency measures for RCLF and all CDFs including a realistic financial auditing approach that reflects capacity requirements; regular public reporting requirements including information on funding allocations, expenditures, types of activities funded and recipients; and social accountability mechanisms to allow citizens to monitor the use of funds in their communities, etc. There are instructive lessons from other countries that have experience with CDFs, such as the use of a social audit and an independent constituency fund board in Kenya. 2. Develop and pilot social accountability mechanisms, such as community scorecards, to enable community members/beneficiaries to hold service providers accountable for the quality of service delivery and not just the quality of infrastructure construction. 3. All of the programs should instigate a project-level dispute management policy and process. Sanctioned dispute management systems are important for a number of reasons including potentially curtailing sub-project related problems before they escalate. While most communities are generally capable of dealing internally with the majority of sub-project-related disputes, this is not a universal situation and disputes can arise that cannot be dealt with at the local-level. 4. Cultivate a culture of transparency to counter either resistance or disinterest in providing access to information. This is important because invariably funds being used are public monies and, accordingly, project implementers need to be held accountable in relation to its use. A culture of transparency can be fostered in a number of ways including ensuring that project participants at training events are informed of the requirement to share project information with the public; guidelines or policies are enacted by project implementers in relation to sharing project information (and are then publicized) and instituting an open-door policy for relevant project/government offices. Each program should regularly (once or twice a year) publish updates on progress, in particular for the allocation and use of funds. 5. Utilize mobile phone and Internet smartphone technology to allow community members to easily provide feedback to program management units and to allow the public to find information online as to basic sub-project details and progress. 6. Develop simple, visual printed materials explaining how each program works for use in rural areas with low levels of literacy. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 55 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities FIGURE 8: A COMPARATIVE INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE – THE GRIEVANCE REDRESS SYSTEM OF THE NATIONAL SOLIDARITY PROGRAMME OF AFGHANISTAN The National Solidarity Program (NSP) is a nationwide effort in Afghanistan to address the infrastructure needs of rural communities through the establishment of Community Development Councils (CDCs) elected by local communities. CDCs select priority rural infrastructure sub- projects in areas such as water supply and sanitation, roads, bridges and rural energy. The NSP is implemented through the Ministry for Rural Rehabilitation and Development with the assistance of the World Bank. From its inception in 2003 to mid-2011 a total of 27,800 elected CDCs have been mobilized and more than 48,400 community infrastructure projects have been approved and implemented of which 46,000 have been completed. In 2010 a comprehensive project level grievance redress mechanism was developed for the NSP, being rolled out in January 2011. A six- person complaints handling unit was established at the headquarters of the NSP with designated focal points at provincial, district, and community level offices. Channels for complaints include submission via telephone, email, website, mobile phone SMS, and complaint boxes. All complaints received are consolidated in a central database where they are categorized and assigned to the most appropriate level to resolve. Depending on the nature of the grievance, clear timelines are established within which each level is required to respond before it is referred to the next level. Since the implementation of the grievance redress mechanism some 532 complaints have been received at headquarters and field offices of which it is reported that only 40 are unresolved. Of the total number of complaints registered, 265 were social in nature (including land acquisition), 47 were procurement related, 110 were financial, 65 were technical and 45 related to process delays. 56 8. Sustainability – cross cutting analysis across programs 8.1 WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY? ith respect to small-scale infrastructure, the primary focus of this study, sustainability, has two main dimensions: quality and appropriateness of design and construction; and financial and human resources for maintenance. In short, sustainable infrastructure is built to last and has an institutional mechanism for operations and maintenance, which will ensure uninterrupted and long-lasting benefit to the community. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own 66 needs. 66 Sources: Bruntland Commission 1987 and UN General Assembly Resolution 24/187. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 57 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 8.2 REVIEW OF INFRASTRUCTURE POLICIES Although there have been mixed outcomes67 in the implementation of sub-projects, construction standards across the various programs are high. This applies particularly to education, health and water supply infrastructure and to a lesser extent, economic infrastructure sub-projects. The latter projects would benefit significantly from adopting a more strict business planning approach. 8.2.1 Building codes AusAID funded development of building codes for six Pacific island countries including Solomon Islands. This resulted in the National Building Code and House Building Manual, published in 1990, for each of the countries. The purpose of the code was to improve the structural standards of buildings to enable them to withstand the repeated and widespread damage caused by natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, storm surges and tsunamis). Adoption of the codes has been slow, with the consequence that houses and other buildings continue to be damaged heavily during disasters. The main cause of the slow adoption has been weak administration and enforcement procedures, particularly outside the building inspectorate of Honiara. Some provinces have formulated their own regulations to govern and control building development and construction. The provinces use the physical planners and provincial works officers to administer and enforce building by-laws. However, this has not been the case with building works in rural areas outside of the provincial capitals. 8.2.2 Standard designs Comparing the building works constructed under the different programs there is not a significant difference in design approach and in construction quality. Most conform to the “House Building Manual” specifications. For public buildings with standard architectural and structural design drawings, specifications and bills of quantities are generally available (for example, the NZAID standard designs for double classrooms and library/offices) and only need some site-specific modifications to make them suitable. Typical modifications are in site formation and earth grading, internal planning of room partitions and the type and finishes of external cladding used. Exceptions to the standardized cases are social infrastructure, such as women’s centres and kindergartens and child care centres, which are more ad hoc in design. 8.2.3 Quality control Construction codes install quality control. While codes cannot prevent damage from a natural disaster, they are intended to provide a degree of resilience that can protect people inside buildings and allow them to safely evacuate. Fully complying with seismic codes, for example, would only add one to two per cent extra to construction costs. Effective site supervision is the key to quality control. Rural infrastructure projects all appear to have been well supervised and are a reflection of the good standard of vocational training given to craft persons. 67 Source: John Tracey White for World Bank Solomon Islands, Sustainability Note, March 2013. 58 The sub-projects have adopted standardized procedures for supervision, generally using a checklist approach (for example the RDP technical audit form). This approach has its limitations in circumstances where disaster hazards are present as it does not take a sufficiently holistic view of structures at risk, particularly in ensuring that the critical parts of structures such as roof and suspended floor holding down fixings, cross bracing, gable/eaves fixings and continuity of steel reinforcement, are effective. 8.2.4 Economic or Environmental protection infrastructure Some additional works have been implemented under all four programs mainly as “economic” or “environmental protection” infrastructure. Most of the economic infrastructure is investment in private sector income generating sub-projects (for example piggeries, beehives, restaurants). These types of projects are not standardized and are designed to meet particular site and operational needs. Another type of economic infrastructure are market halls; again not standardized and over-designed for the purposes of providing primary market facilities, usually for a single weekday usage. Environmental protection infrastructure relates primarily to appropriate technology and includes simple sheds for solar charging stations. 8.3 COMPARISON OF SUB-PROJECT COSTS This section reviews data available on sub-project costs, looking at variations between programs, provinces and sectors. Table 28 summarizes the costs and benefits of selected sub-projects. Comparing the cost per capita with other water supply data shows that the projects are low cost largely because they are upgrading schemes. Building costs for staff housing and kindergartens compared well with other cost data. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 59 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities TABLE 28: COSTS AND BENEFITS OF 29 SUB-PROJECTS VISITED Table 29 summarizes the water supply schemes executed and completed under the various programs and provides an indication of the average cost per scheme. The cost variation is wide, ranging from a very low cost in Western Province (SBD 3,036) to a maximum in Central Province (SBD 25,512), although most cluster around the average of SBD 5,248, indicating a broadly consistent approach to the design and competitive pricing of the schemes. 60 TABLE 29: AVERAGE COST COMPARISON OF COMPLETED WATER SUPPLY SCHEMES, BY PROVINCE & EXCLUDING RAMP AND RCLF (IN SBD) Table 30 gives a comparison of water supply based on RDP data taking account of the cost per beneficiary, per standpipe and per gallon. These show very consistent costs on a standpipe basis. The schemes are a mixture of new and upgraded/repaired systems. TABLE 30: COST COMPARISON OF RDP RURAL WATER SUPPLY SCHEMES, BY CYCLE (IN SBD)68 Table 31 provides a cost comparison of three common building types constructed under RDP: kindergarten (single storey ground level masonry structure); nurse aid post (ground level); and staff housing (raised building structure). All are timber-framed structures. Although there is a large variation in cost per square metre for the kindergartens and staff houses (25 to 30 per cent) this is consistent with the local variation. The average cost per square metre is consistent with international practice for low-cost permanent structures. 68 Of the 137 schemes, some 71 are gravity-fed and 45 rain-fed. Four are wells. Five pumped schemes and the balance of 12 are sanitation projects. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 61 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities TABLE 31: COMPARISON OF TYPICAL RDP BUILDING COSTS (IN SBD) 8.4 MAINTENANCE 8.4.1 Maintenance responsibilities Operations and maintenance (O&M) of infrastructure and assets is a key issue in optimizing its use and sustainability. To achieve this optimization, the type of infrastructure, the roles of the different stakeholders and their relationships to funding sources as well as the overall governance framework needs to be clarified. Below in Table 32 is a typical breakdown of responsibilities for various types of infrastructure reviewed in this study. The study did not investigate the extent to which these responsibilities were being fulfilled, but there were several examples where community maintenance was active (particularly for water supply), as well as examples where economic infrastructure (piggeries, for example), were not maintained and are no longer operating. TABLE 32: BREAKDOWN OF MAINTENANCE RESPONSIBILITIES 62 8.4.2 Example of community-based user fee: community standpipes The majority of rural water supply systems are un-metered community standpipes. Revenue collection is a monthly fee, collected by the committee. Variants on this system are for the committee to appoint somebody to collect revenues and also be responsible for maintenance or to franchise the standpipe to an individual entrepreneur to operate a water shop or kiosk. The main problem with standpipes is to ensure that the population being served by the standpipe will be sufficient to generate enough revenue to cover all the maintenance and repair costs. The water supply community group leaders suggested that the likely and acceptable water supply levy would be SBD 2 to 5 per month per family. On the basis of the average cost per capita being SBD 328 (see Figure 9), the monthly charge would need to be SBD 5 per household to cover the maintenance cost. FIGURE 9: WATER USE CHARGES (EXCLUDING COST RECOVERY) 8.4.3 Maintenance planning Depending upon the type of infrastructure, a preventative maintenance plan can be established, (see Table 33) including estimated maintenance costs including: routine maintenance; repairs and retro-fitting; utilities and cleaning running costs; depreciation and equipment replacement costs; other expenses (fees, defects replacement etc.). TABLE 33: TYPICAL MAINTENANCE CYCLES FOR MAIN INFRASTRUCTURE TYPES Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 63 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 8.5 COMPARISON OF SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE Drawing on the same approach used in the earlier chapter on Efficiency and Effectiveness, the following Table 34 provides a comparative framework to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each of the programs with respect to the key dimensions of sustainability. The rankings were derived from the field visits, interviews and a review of reports and applied across the four programs and based on the 29 sub-projects. Using these ranking against the 29 sub-projects visited in Guadalcanal (5 sites) and Malaita (24 sites). The results of applying the sustainability criteria against the 29 sub-projects representative of the four programs are as described in the text which follows and Figure 10. TABLE 34: INDICATORS FOR SUSTAINABILITY 64 FIGURE 10: SUSTAINABILITY COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ACROSS THE FOUR PROGRAMS 8.5.1 RCLF sustainability results RCLF is rated weak for all of the sustainability indicators, as there are no guidelines or technical reviews to ensure quality, social and environmentally sound design and construction. There are neither any documents, nor staff, to support or enforce any codes or standards with regards to the projects funded from RCLF. 8.5.2 PCDF sustainability results Within the procurement and contract arrangements applied for PCDF-funded activities there are a range of provisions that are aimed at enhancing the quality of infrastructure constructed. There are basic environmental management requirements, but provincial governments lack staff with environmental expertise to monitor and enforce the requirements. The public benefit of PCDF-funded infrastructure is also satisfactory as this is assessed against the benefit of other projects that may be funded at the provincial level, and debated amongst provincial assembly members. Operations and maintenance support, particularly within the health and education sectors, receives recurrent budget expenditures, but these transfers are not budgeted according to actual expenditures requirements according to the extent of public facilities. There may be some light analysis of cost-benefit taking place, but this not apparent from the decision-making documents used for PCDF. Decisions are made on a political level with some sector input, but with little-to-no economic analysis. Also, despite the strategic Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 65 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities advantage the province has in terms of its access to various kinds of provincial maps, there is little evidence that projects chosen for funding were located according to land-use plans. There is an effort towards equity in the geographic spread of resources, but this is not a strategic location of resources. 8.5.3 RAMP sustainability results The EU funding provided for RAMP brings with it a set of standards that aim to ensure that EU funds are applied in a social and environmentally responsible way. As such, there are guidelines for RAMP-funded projects in environmental management and inclusive access to services, which are validated at the time of proposal. Funding proposals also require a case to be made regarding the broad public benefit of the projects as well as plans for maintaining infrastructure. However, there is no monitoring, certification of environmental management or ongoing maintenance. Similar to the other programs, there is no means of cost-benefit analysis nor is there any spatial planning as projects are awarded funding based on merit rather than planning process. 8.5.4 RDP sustainability results One of RDP’s strengths is its inclusive, participatory process which helps to ensure that projects are designed in such a way as to meet the needs of all community members, including the disadvantaged or disabled. The RDP Project Manual also includes a rigorous social and environmental screening checklist, and RDP employs full-time staff to monitor and certify compliance at the time of completion. While RDP requires every project to have an Operations and Maintenance Plan, there is no recurrent budget at the disposal of the program to ensure a flow of funds for maintenance. Maintenance arrangements must either be organized by the community, or negotiated with responsible sector ministries. Given the demand-driven nature of RDP, there is no spatial planning at a provincial level, some at the ward level and little at the village level. There is now some data available for cost-benefit analysis of water supply projects, but this has yet to be applied to guide and optimize the economic benefit of design. 8.6 SUSTAINABILITY - FINDINGS 1. Overall, the quality of construction of rural infrastructure is sound and appropriate for the supply base available in country. The difficulty in accessing supplies as well as budget shortfalls pose a risk to the full completion of projects, which must be monitored to ensure that this does not affect the integrity of the structures. 2. Per unit and per beneficiary costs vary by province, but are generally consistent with similar types of small-scale rural projects in other parts of the world. There are some outliers identified on both the high and low side, but mechanisms are not currently in pace to identify such extreme cases and treat them accordingly. 66 3. The likelihood of financial sustainability varies widely depending upon the type of infrastructure and the location. However, there is insufficient data on the extent to which maintenance funds are flowing from the various sources including national government transfers for education and health, user fees for water and rural health services, etc. Sector-specific studies are investigating some of these areas (i.e. health), but this information is not being fed into the planning and design of any of the programs included in this study. 4. Most buildings seem to conform to national home building specifications, but the adoption of structural standards that would enable buildings to withstand natural disasters has been slow. There are some modest efforts being made to help rural communities to design more climate and disaster resilient infrastructure, but these are only in their early stages. 5. Application of social and environmental risk mitigation mechanisms is mixed. Even for programs that include such provisions, monitoring for compliance is generally weak, except for RDP. 6. Despite the widespread support for new water supply systems, there is no systematic water quality testing to ensure that water is safe to drink. 7. Projects that are focused on business/economic activity have little focus on sustainability. There are no business plans, and no means of monitoring and supporting the ongoing operations of these projects (i.e. through technical assistance). 8.7 SUSTAINABILITY - RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Review construction codes and update seismic and hurricane design approaches. The current codes for the Pacific were developed 25 years ago. Design theory and practice has developed in that time, particularly relating to earthquake design, tsunamis and storm surges. 2. Build climate change adaptation approaches into project design as it is now recognised that the smaller Pacific islands are at severe risk of the effects of climatic change. 3. Develop a systematic process of monitor the quality of potable water for water supply projects. 4. Develop a different proposal model for economic/income-generating projects, which includes business plans. Business development assistance should also be made available to these businesses to improve the likelihood of sustainability. 5. Develop a guide to budgeting for the maintenance of various types of infrastructure drawing on available O&M plans and accumulated experience in different sectors. This information should be shared with communities and other stakeholders at the type of project initiation, as well as through training on operations and maintenance. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 67 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 6. Compile a catalogue of standard designs and unit costs from across these and other programs to use as a resource to speed the process of design and to ensure quality design standards. The Ministry of Development Planning and Cooperation (MDPAC), as the lead planning ministry, could maintain this catalogue. 7. Continue to collect cost per beneficiary data for project types, share this information across programs and apply it to project appraisal to ensure that projects are good value for money. This national data should also be benchmarked against other countries to assess whether the logistics and economies of scale in Solomon Islands do results in higher costs, and whether there are ways to reduce these costs. 68 9. Recommendations – Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities s this report was being prepared, major policy and program shifts were underway for rural community infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands, including a policy guiding use of constituency funds (2013 CDF Act and draft Regulations). The Rural Development Program is entering its second phase (RDP 2). The Provincial Government Strengthening Program, which previously supported PCDF, has concluded, so PCDF is solely supported by government now. RAMP has come to an end. While each province is different, and flexibility is therefore required, a framework is needed to illustrate how these and other rural, sub-national investment programs and activities fit together and how public and donor funds can be leveraged to the greatest effect. When the first wave of these programs came into being it was still in the wake of the public sector revival and public confidence-building period after the end of civil conflict and the entry of RAMSI. Efforts were made at that time to align rural development and sub-national Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 69 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities service delivery support, but the main push was to get these programs up and running and to work out the linkages later. These linkages were never sufficiently worked out, and that is why this report has endeavored to take a fresh look at the experience of the last 5-10 years, and propose a new architecture for rural service delivery. Please note that specific and operational recommendations are also provided at the end of each section in this report. 9.1 REDEFINING THE FUNDING STREAMS To begin to conceptualize a new architecture for rural service delivery, the three streams of funding analyzed in this report should be further defined and understood as one integrated system of support which targets different types of development outcomes and mandates depending upon the mode of delivery. These three funding streams and their current sources of funding are shown again in Table 35. TABLE 35: CURRENT FUNDING STREAMS AND FUNDING SOURCES The lines are currently blurred as to what each of these streams can and cannot finance and there is considerable overlap. In order to enhance the effectiveness of each stream, an effort should be made to better define what funds should and should not be used for. Table 36 outlines a suggested breakdown of the use of funds from each stream under the assumptions that each stream will be maintained. It is based mainly on assigned functions where these exist and adjusts for areas where there is significant overlap, where the outcomes may not match well with the institutional set-up for managing the use of the funds, and ‘best fit’ in terms of capacities. 70 TABLE 36: PROPOSED REFOCUS OF FUNDING STREAMS 9.2 REDISTRIBUTION OF FUNDS At present, the overall distribution is skewed heavily towards the constituency funds. To ensure all three of these streams of funding continue to flow, government should make a long-term commitment through its development plans and regularly allocated budget resources. PCDF and RDP have been financed to a degree through the SIG budget, but the Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 71 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities continuation of this funding remains uncertain. Donor funding may remain part of the mix, but this should be positioned mainly as support for capacity building, supplementary grant support (in addition to government support), program management, and further institutionalization of these delivery systems. Now that the provincial and community streams of support have proven to be effective service delivery mechanisms, with considerable advantages compared to constituency funds, there should be a redistribution of government funds so that they are not so disproportionately skewed towards constituency funds. The total amount spent on the four programs included in this study since 2008 is $US 134,226,722. Of this amount, 60 per cent went to RCLF ($US 74,479,079); 20 per cent to RDP ($US 26,530,000); 13 per cent to PCDF ($US 18,099,461) and seven per cent to RAMP ($US 9,718,182). Figure 11 shows the distribution of the budget amongst the programs from 2008 to 2012. Clearly the vast majority of the funds are directed through the constituency level. FIGURE 11: RDP, RAMP, PCDF AND RCLF TOTAL FUNDING FROM 2008 TO 2012 (IN SBD) PGSP, 18,099,461 RDP, CDF , 26,530,000 79,879,079 RAMP , 9,718,182 It is worth noting the SIG contributions to these four programs between 2008 and 2012. Figure 12 shows that from the total amount of SIG funding spent on these four programs from 2008 to 2012, RCLF received the highest portion of funds at 87 per cent ($US 74,479,079); PGSP/PCDF with eight per cent ($US 6,821,955); RDP at five per cent ($US 4,285,714) and RAMP at zero. 72 FIGURE 12: SIG FUNDS TO THE FOUR PROGRAMS FROM 2008 TO 2012 CDF 87% PGSP 8% RAMP RDP 0% 5% Considering the largest portion of SIG funds is going to the mechanism with the weakest governance,69 and SIG is already funding the PCDF and RDP, it is proposed that SIG consider a redistribution of some SIG funds from CDF to the other streams. For example, if the SIG followed a more modest annual CDF allocation to MPs, as evidenced in other countries (Uganda at $US 4,000 per MP or Pakistan at $US 60,000 per MP70), there would be a balance of resources available for other funding streams and for other public programs. The shift from CDF to other streams could also be incremental. It would be important to first consider the need for establishing principles for funding streams; ensuring the corresponding capacity is in place to implement the funds; formulae for allocation of funds to each stream; etc. Some considerations on formula are that RDP could continue to allocate funds according to an equal amount for every ward, based on an amount sufficient to undertake small scale infrastructure in rural areas. RDP coverage would include every ward other than those in Honiara. PCDF could continue to apply a combined formula taking into consideration population, equity and performance. However, the use of minimum conditions to possibly exclude a province should be reconsidered as this penalizes people living in those provinces for the poor performance on the provincial administration. Lastly, a formula for the allocation of constituency funds should be developed. The equal distribution of funds across constituencies regardless of their size is a blunt instrument, which floods small constituencies with funds they cannot effectively absorb and leaves larger constituencies with insufficient funds to reach a critical mass of beneficiaries. A formula similar to that used by PCDF should be considered, 69 See chapters 6 to 8 on efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, transparency and dispute management and sustainability. 70 Refer to Annex 2. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 73 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities namely, a base amount for each constituency (perhaps 40 per cent), and then an additional amount distributed on a per capita basis (perhaps 60 per cent). One simple performance criteria could be considered (constituting perhaps 5 per cent of the total), such as the submission of a list and description of all funds committed by 15 December of each year. To ensure all three funding streams continue to flow beyond donor financing, SIG should make a long-term commitment through its development plans and through allocated resources. These grants could be made into recurrent grants such as a Provincial Development Grant to complement the existing Provincial Service Grant that largely funds staff and operating expenses. Community or Ward Development Grants could allow Members of Provincial Assembly to minimize the use of their discretionary funds on development and focus instead on constituency engagement. 9.3 INTEGRATE PLANNING AND BUDGET PROCESSES To reduce the administrative costs of managing the three funding streams, an effort should be made to integrate the planning and budgeting processes associated with the allocation of resources. The planning process should be fed from the bottom-up, starting with participatory planning at the village and ward levels then advancing up through the provincial and national levels. Constituency development plans can be derived from data and views generated through the village/ward and provincial planning, and also through a separate competitive process of generating proposals for income-generating projects and other needs emerging from constituents over the course of the year. The main shift required in this integration is to place a premium on village-level, participatory planning and to resource this through additional funds to provincial governments, perhaps as part of their provincial service delivery grants. This would draw heavily on the use of RDP Community Helpers, in cooperation with the provincial government planning division, and utilizing them to facilitate participatory planning, ward profiling, etc. By placing more of an emphasis on bottom-up planning, additional focus will need to be placed on the structure, functions and capacity of Ward Development Committees to identify ward-levels priorities, compile data and monitor community investments. Table 38 provides an illustration of what an integrated planning process might look like. A more detailed description of how this would work is provided in Annex 5. 74 TABLE 37: PROPOSED INTEGRATED PLANNING PROCESS Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 75 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 9.4 ALIGN AND BUILD CAPACITY AND INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACROSS LEVELS The proposed integrated planning and budgeting process and aligned management of associated funding presents opportunities for reducing administrative costs and gaining efficiencies. However, it also requires a realignment of resources to support a more robust provincial capacity to support not only provincial-level investments, but community and constituency-level investments as well. Much of the administrative responsibility across all three streams would be centered in the provincial government. RDP provincial support would be better integrated into the provincial administration and much of the administrative responsibility for constituency funds would be anchored in the provincial government. Efficiencies can be gained by maximizing the use of travel to communities by including both Community Helpers and various sector officers. Provincial Planning Division: CHs would work closely with the Planning Division to facilitate and support the village and ward- level profiling and planning processes. Provincial government planning divisions would need to be supported so they can acquire the appropriate IT systems for the storage of data gathered from the village data collection and ward profiling. They will also require support to develop systems that are appropriate for storing the data and analyzing data so it is accessible for planning purposes. Ward Development Committees: In addition to the consolidation of administrative responsibility at the provincial level, the capacity of WDCs need to be built in order for them to play a more active role in the provincial planning process, approving and monitoring community-level activities, consolidating village- level data, etc. The composition of WDCs should be reviewed, in particular to aim for more gender balance, and to ensure that they are adequately representative of their constituent villages. The role of the MPA could also be enhanced to catalyze the ward planning process and ensure accountability for ward and community-level activity. 9.5 STRENGTHEN STANDARDS AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT SYSTEMS TO IMPROVE QUALITY AND EFFICIENCY While the overall quality of construction of the infrastructure evaluated under this study was of good quality, there are several improvements in the current approach that can be made to gain cost savings, enhance design quality, facilitate more efficient procurement, and provide additional technical support. As recommended in the section on Sustainability (Chapter 8), the establishment of a baseline system for costing and a catalogue of standard designs, both housed at the provincial and national levels, would greatly enhance value for money. This data could also be used to develop methodology and guidelines for cost benefit analysis of various types of infrastructure. 76 Rather than deploying technical specialists from Honiara to rural areas to supervise and advise on construction, capacity could be built in the provinces to provide such technical inputs. Building capacity within the provinces would also enhance the capability to properly maintain infrastructure assets. Consideration could be given to use of the “Barefoot Engineers” training, which has been used in Indonesia to build capacity closer to the point of construction. 9.6 DEVELOP MECHANISMS FOR COMMUNITY/CITIZEN ACCOUNTABILITY TO ENSURE PUBLIC BENEFIT AND QUALITY SERVICE DELIVERY There is a range of improvements at various levels that can be made to enhance transparency and accountability across the three funding streams. Several of these are described in Chapter 7 of this report. Most of the recommendations refer to enhancements to the current practice. However, one area of accountability currently not included in the management of any of these streams of funds is rural service provider accountability to the community. Once infrastructure is completed, there is no organized mechanism for ensuring that the service that is being provided is satisfactory to its intended beneficiaries. To address this accountability gap, instruments such as community scorecards, simple social accountability tools, could be developed and tested in one or two sectors, for specific types of services (i.e. rural aid posts and kindergartens). The use of information and communication technologies such as SMS/mobile and smart phones would also help open up the lines of communications between isolated communities and program management. In light of the severe lack of accountability and transparency in the use of constituency funds, there is a range of measures that could be proposed. Several are mentioned in Chapter 7. Some measures will likely be included in the forthcoming CDF Regulations, but there may still need to be a continued effort in this area to ensure public funds are used for broad public benefit rather than for political supporters alone. There will also need to be sufficient funding allocated to support these activities. Post-completion community measures put in place to improve accountability are recommended. This will determine whether or not community members are utilizing investments once completed and if envisaged services are being provided to a satisfactory standard. This should go beyond ensuring that individual sub-projects are delivered according to project plans, that goods are received as intended or that all monies expended have been appropriately acquitted. These could include citizen report cards or community scorecards; simple social accountability tools that are increasingly used around the world to solicit user feedback on good and services provided.71 The lessons learnt from such a process would not 71 For a detailed overview of Citizen Report Cards and how to implement these see World Bank, 2012. ‘How to Notes – Citizen Report Cards: Monitoring Citizen Perspectives to Improve Service Delivery’ available at accessed on 20 March 2013. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 77 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities only help to inform project implementers as to the effectiveness of their efforts but also alert all parties about service delivery problems and whether sub-projects are being sustainable managed. 9.7 BUILD ROBUST INFORMATION SYSTEMS WHICH CONSOLIDATE INFO FOR PUBLIC VIEWING, FEEDBACK AND REVIEWING RESULTS While a database of development assistance, including small grants such as those reviewed as a part of this study, is maintained by MDPAC, the information is incomplete. It has, as yet, not been possible to include constituency funds in this database nor has this data reached the point where it can be used as a monitoring, planning and policymaking tool. The integration of provincial, constituency and community-level funding streams should allow for sub-project data to be compiled into one data platform and used to generate customized reports. Such a system should be made public, with access online, so as to allow anyone who is interested to see what is being funded, for how much and where. Available technologies would also allow for the integration of online and SMS feedback mechanisms so that program management could be better informed and more responsive to beneficiary communities. 9.8 IMPLEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS WITH AN INTER-MINISTERIAL COORDINATION GROUP Since the recommendations contained in this report would entail a restructuring and integration of existing funding streams and their associated management structures, units responsible for their management would need to review this report, come to a consensus on agreed changes and map out an action plan. The main ministries are MPGIS, MDPAC, MRD, and MoFT since there are implications for funding flows and development budget. The technical specialists responsible for the implementation of RDP, PCDF and further refinements of the CDFs should also be involved in such an Inter-ministerial Subnational Financing Coordination Group (SFCG). The SFCG should first meet to discuss this report including basic coordination recommendations. The group should meet quarterly or half-yearly to discuss the alignment and harmonization issues. lxxviii ANNEXES Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 1 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 2 Annexes Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 3 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 4 Annexes Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 5 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 6 Annexes Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 7 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 8 Annexes Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 9 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 10 Annexes 72 Source: The Constitution of Solomon Islands (COSI). 1978 number 783. 73 Source: The Provincial Government Act Solomon Islands, 1997. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 11 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities 12 Annexes Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 13 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities Summary of decentralized legal framework in Solomon Islands Political dimension Solomon Islands is currently a unitary state with two levels of government, National and Provincial. Provincial Government evolved out of the local government features of the colonial bureaucracy, which divided the country into four districts, each headed by an expatriate District Officer. Provincial Governments are envisaged in Solomon Islands Constitution and were established in Solomon Islands law through the 1981 Provincial Government Act (PGA), which was re-enacted in 1997 legislation. This Act created a Provincial Assembly for each Province, with elected politicians from each ward empowered to pass ordinances,74 which are not to be in conflict with National policy or legislation. The size of each Provincial Assembly varies according to the number of wards- typically between nine and 30 members. The table below shows the number of electoral wards for each province. NUMBER OF PROVINCIAL ELECTORAL WARDS 77 A new federal constitution is under development and the following structural/administrative arrangements are proposed: i) central federal government ii) federal state governments and iii) community governments. The government of Honiara City is also provided for under separate articles in the new draft constitution. The draft constitution also refers to each level having its own development plan and an intergovernmental fiscal commission responsible for revenue sharing amongst the three levels of government. It is essential that the levels below the central government develop and maintain a 74 Subsidiary legislation. 75 Population data source: SIG 2009 Population and Housing Censuses. Honiara data not included, which is 64,870. 76 Adapted from: PGSP Review of Functional Assignment for Provinces/Provincial Governments in Solomon Islands. Discussion Paper December 2009, page 3. 77 Source: Government of Solomon Islands. The 2011 Draft Federal Constitution of Solomon Islands. 14 Annexes 78 core set of public expenditure management competencies which are embedded in solid governance practice. Under the PGA, an Executive heads each Provincial Assembly. The total numbers of the Provincial Executive shall not be more than half of the Assembly. The Premier, who is elected by an absolute majority of Provincial Assembly members, leads the Provincial Executive. Once elected, the Minister of MPGIS (in consultation with the Premier) appoints a Deputy Premier and Ministers with portfolio responsibilities, even where the sectoral responsibilities of the Province for services delivery are minimal. The Provincial Secretary is a staff member from the MPGIS and is accountable to the Premier and the Executive, in the same way as National Permanent Secretaries are accountable to their Ministers. The Provincial Assembly is elected by direct elections of registered voters every four years from respective wards using a first past the post method. Each Assembly elects a speaker who in turn appoints a clerk. The relevant government election authority does not organize these elections; MPGIS and the Minister have the powers to also dissolve the Assemblies. This system of Ministerial appointment to the Executive creates local government autonomy. In addition the running of provincial assembly elections through the MPGIS and not the Office of the Election Commission as well as the vested power in the Minister of MPGIS to dissolve provincial assemblies make for fair elections and e autonomy of provincial governments. The 1997 PGA is silent on the structure for a provincial administration as well as the usual oversight functions of the elected members to the administration. Schedule 6 of the PGA mentions the appointment of staff to be charged with the responsibilities of accounting tasks and these are to be described in the financial management ordinance. Revenue collections functions are mandated to provincial government but no mention of staff that will fulfill these functions. The PGA also envisaged a third tier of government, allowing Provincial Assemblies to create Area Councils for local administration. Area Councils were abolished in 1996/7 leaving a gap between the Provincial administration and the village level. This gap has been further eroded by the closure of many Provincial sub-stations due to financial cuts exacerbated by the tension, although remnants of these still exist in Malaita today. Most Provincial Governments are cut off from their constituents and are only rarely able to travel to villages. This link between the village and the Provincial Government is now notionally filled by Provincial Assembly Members. The PGA does not address matters to do with local participation and accountability and there was little evidence of citizen oversight and any degree of depth of participation yet in place. There is currently no legislation on political parties although there was a White Paper prepared in 2009 on the topic. Fiscal decentralization dimension 78 Local level public expenditure management competencies include the ability to undertake participatory development planning, raise revenue and budgets, procurement and implementation plans, manage assets, monitoring and evaluate plans and provide reports and to fulfill these tasks in an accountable, transparent and participatory manner. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 15 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities It is essential that local governments (LGs) be empowered with adequate financial and human resources to fulfill their mandates and functions. Currently in Solomon Islands the provincial governments have the following sources of income: own sources revenues as permitted in the PGA, and provincial service grants (called the provincial fund in the PGA). Both of these revenue sources are reportedly utilized for provincial recurrent costs with negligible portions or none at all being assigned for capital investments. With the commencement of PGSP in 2008/9 some provinces have been eligible for a discretionary block grant called the PCDF. The PGA states that the Provincial Executive presents the budget estimates for revenues and expenditures before the beginning of each financial year and that a financial management ordinance must be prepared and approved by the Assembly. The PGA is quite prescriptive on the contents of the financial management ordinance. The PGA also states that the Provincial Government is to establish an Accounts Committee whose task is to examine and report on the accounts to the Assembly. There is no evidence that these Committees have been established although Cabinet approved a document supporting an expanded role for the Accounts Committee in May 2012. The PGA also states that the Provincial Assemblies are to publish their accounts, audit and Accounts Committee reports and again there was no evidence seen of any public reporting on the budgets and accounts in provinces visited. The main issue with the fiscal decentralization dimension is that there is not an arrangement for effective intergovernmental transfer of funds in place and the funds that are transferred are inadequate to cover mandated functions let alone any sector devolved functions that could occur. In addition there is no requirement for a provincial plan to be in place so it is difficult to plan realistic budget expenditures and track outcomes without a corresponding plan. The PGSP program has been working on putting in place a provincial plan over the past four years but this requirement is still not regularized. This planning process is lacking in any interface with villages and their development priorities as well as any horizontal links to sector planning and budgets. 79 Many countries will have a type of Fiscal Commission in place which is a government body that conducts fiscal research and advises the government on financial assistance to the sub national 80 levels of government with the aim of achieving horizontal fiscal equalization. Equalization payments are cash payments made in some systems of government from the central government to subnational governments with the objective of offsetting differences in available revenue or in the cost of providing services. This is not the case in Solomon Islands although the new draft Federal Constitution does have a similar body mentioned called the National Finance Commission but it is described as having more monitoring and advisory functions. Administrative decentralization dimension The key issues of devolution and decentralization debated in Solomon Islands 1970s and 80s remain current today. There have been many reviews and several changes to the system over time, making it difficult to distinguish legal functions and responsibilities from bureaucratic habit or from popular assumptions and expectations. This is made more difficult by the fact that there is very little 79 Kenya, Papua New Guinea and Australia have fiscal commissions. 80 Morris Alan. The Commonwealth Grants Commission and Fiscal Equalization. In the Australian Economic Review Vol. 35, Issue 3, pages 318-324, Sept. 2009. 16 Annexes documentation of these changes. Provinces do not hold key documents such as Devolution Orders, nor by the MPGIS, which means that, whatever may theoretically be in place in the formal legal system, in practice, these documents are not being used to determine roles and responsibilities of Provincial Governments. More often, funding and competent staff are the key determinants of functions. The role of coordinating National Government activities at local level is nowhere articulated in writing, yet this role seems to be implicit in the understanding of most Provincial Government politicians and employees when asked about their activities and functions. The PGA allows the National Government to devolve responsibility for particular functions to Provincial Governments. Major government service functions such as health and education were not necessarily envisaged as fully devolved functions under the Act. While there is no explicit enunciation of the role of Provincial Government in the Act, the functions of Schedules 3, 4 and 5 imply a minimal role for Provincial Governments in rural and economic development, the collection of taxes and then permissible service delivery functions but requiring devolution orders to operate. Functions are divided into two categories as detailed in Schedules 3, 4 and 5 of the PGA. The PGA mandates the functions listed in Schedule 3 matters of their own functions and are delegated to each provincial government. They include minor local administrative matters such as licensing of local businesses, including bars and hotels, markets, fire protection and waste disposal. Provincial governments were also responsible for the (now abolished) Area Councils. Schedule 3 also includes functions in local shipping, including maintenance of harbors, roads and bridges. Some responsibilities for agriculture and fisheries are also included as is physical planning and codification of customary law regarding land use and fishing rights. Provincial Governments are responsible for control and use of river water, water pollution and provision of water supplies in rural areas. Schedule 4 provides a further list of functions, which may be devolved by mutual agreement between the respective Minister and the Provincial Assembly concerned. These expand on the basic functions in Schedule 3 but confer only minor powers in respect of roads, harbors, cocoa and copra licensing. The most significant powers conferred under Schedule 4 relate to forestry, where Provincial Governments are empowered to make regulations for improved administration of timber agreements approved by National Government in respect of customary land. They may also grant timber-milling licenses and declare forest reserves in order to preserve water catchments. The status of Schedule 4 in respect of each Province is unclear, although it appears that most Provinces have had Functions of Schedule 4 devolved. In Schedule 5, the PGA distinguishes Provincial services from functions. Provincial Governments may not have direct responsibility for sectoral services and budgets even though the actual service delivery takes place within a Province. The PGA allows Provincial Executives to provide or facilitate such services, apparently with some independence of the National Ministry responsible. This seems to envisage a much more comprehensive scale of devolution and makes it very difficult to achieve clarity of National and Provincial Government roles in respect of service delivery. The PGA envisages “Agency Agreements” between a Premier and any public body, which would allow functions to be discharged by one or the other party. It is not clear whether any Agency Agreements have been signed in this way or what Agreements may remain in force in each Province. Provinces have ill-defined responsibilities from sector to sector. For example, in education, Provinces are responsible for returning teachers to their homes at the end of the school year. This is despite the fact that terms and conditions of service for teachers are a clear National Government responsibility. Education is particularly complex as a sector because Provinces may also act in their Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 17 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities capacity as Education Authorities (as do churches and some private operators), which is independent of the Provincial Government Act. As an Education Authority, a Province is responsible for Provincial secondary schools and for disciplining teachers. Again, this role is not explicitly delineated in writing, or if it is, documents are not readily available. The complexity of roles is also illustrated in rural water supply. This is a clear provincial function under Schedule 3, yet execution of this function requires skilled staff from the Environmental Health Division. While the Province directly employs some of these staff, the direct staff are usually lower skilled employees who report to professional seconded staff from the Ministry of Health. Although seconded staff are technically under the Provincial Government, in practice, the Province relies on National Government staff to execute even basic functions. Then in reality donor small grants programs such as RDP provide most household water supply schemes. Services under schedules 4 and 5 are most often those services, which are mandatory in LG legislation in other countries, such as education, roads, tourism, agriculture and sports and culture. There is notable absence of births, death and marriage registration function which is again a common mandated function of LGs in other countries. Note however these functions are included in the new draft Federal Constitution. 18 Annexes ANNEX 4: DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO DURING CONSULTANCY ADB 2005. Solomon Islands Country Environmental Analysis: mainstreaming environmental considerations in economic and development planning processes. Asian Development Bank, Manila, Philippines. AESA Consortium 2012. Mid Term Review of RAMP Project – Final Report. Agri-consulting Europe SA. Funded by European Union. Andrew Parker et al. Papua New Guinea. 2007 Stocktaking of Participatory Community Based Development Initiatives Issues, Options and Opportunities for Strengthening Governance and Improving Service Delivery at the Local Level. ANU Enterprise Pty Limited (undated), RDP Baseline Survey Report, Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination, Honiara. Bahl RW 1999, Implementation Rules for Fiscal Decentralization, International Studies Programme Working Paper Series 99-01, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University Baskin Mark, Centre for International Development Rockefeller College University at Albany SUNY/CID. Constituency Development Funds as a Tool of Decentralized Development, September 2010. Birdsall N, Kharas H and Perakis R 2011, Measuring the Quality of Aid, QuODA Second Edition, Centre for Global Development, http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1425642/ Brinkerhoff, D W and Johnson, R W (2009) “Decentralized Local Governance In Fragile States: Learning from Iraq”. Boex J and Yilmaz S. 2010, ‘An Analytical Framework for Assessing Decentralized Local Governance and the Local Public Sector’, Urban Institute Centre on International Development and Governance, Working Paper No. 2010-06. Boyle, Charles. Disaster-Resistant Construction for Traditional Bush Houses. Australian Overseas Disaster Response Organization. Cardno, Emerging Markets (UK) Limited – Lead Member of Cardno Agrisystems Consortium, End of Term Evaluation (ETE) of the Micro Projects Programme Phase II, 9th EDF, Financing Agreement No. 9290 and Project No SOL/001/04. CARDNO 2011. Solomon Islands. Second Road Improvement Project: Engineering Report. Prepared for Solomon Islands Government, Ministry of Infrastructure Development. Asian Development Bank, Manila, Philippines Cox, J and Morrison, J, 2004, Solomon Islands Provincial Government Diagnostic Study. Craig, P S, 2010, Solomon Islands Development Program Mid Term Review Evaluation Report, Development Partners Working Group on Decentralization & Local Governance 2011, Busan and Beyond: Localizing Paris Principles for More Effective Support to Decentralization and Local Governance Reforms, Development Partners Working Group on Decentralization & Local Governance (DeLoG). ESCAP/ISDR, 2010. Protecting Development Gains: Reducing Disaster Vulnerability and Building Resilience in Asia and the Pacific. The Asia Pacific Disaster Report 2010. Crawford P and Bryce P. International Journal of Project Management Vol. 21, Issue 5 July 2003. Government of Solomon Islands. National Development Strategy 2011 -2020. Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination, July 2011 Honiara. Hedley Centre, UK Met Office, 2011. Solomon Islands Second Road Improvement Project: Building Climate Change Resilience for Road-works within the Sustainable Transport Initiative. Prepared for Solomon Islands Government, Ministry of Infrastructure Development. Asian Development Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 19 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities Bank, Manila, Philippines. Hickey Alison. International Budget Partnership. Constituency Development Funds: Scoping Paper. January 2010 International Budget Partnership. Budget Brief. What is Wrong with Constituency Development Funds? Year 03. No 10. 2010. International Dialogue Peacebuilding and State Building. A New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States. Busan 2012. Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney, 2011. Solomon Islands Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Sector Brief. Prepared for AusAID. Kimani Francis, Praxides Nekesa and Ngunga Bernard. Best Practices in Constituency Development Fund. Collaborative Centre for Gender and Development, Nairobi 2009. Kimani Francis, University of Connecticut Department of Economics Working Paper Series. Efficiency and Efficacy of Kenya’s Constituency Development Fund: Theory and Evidence April 2005 Working Paper 2005 – 42. Malaita Provincial Government, 2011, Brief Report of Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme in Malaita Province. Malaita Provincial Government, 2010, Malaita Province Development 2010 to 2013. McLean Keith, Helling Louis, Orac Jana and Serrano Rodrigo. Exploring Partnerships between Communities and Local Government: A Framework June 2009. Mansuri Ghazala and Rao Vijayendra. Localizing Development: Does Participation Work? World Bank Policy Research Report, forthcoming November 2012. MECDM, 2012. National Climate Change Policy 2012-2017. Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology, Solomon Islands Government, Honiara, Solomon Islands. Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination, 2011, Solomon Islands Rural Development Program Component 1 Implementation Manual, Volume 1. Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination, 2011, Solomon Islands Rural Development Program Component 1 Programme Implementation Manual, Volume 2. Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination, 2007. Solomon Islands Rural Development Program: Draft Environmental Assessment/Environment and Social Management Framework. Solomon Islands Government, Honiara. Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination, 2007. Solomon Islands Rural Development Program: (undated) The RDP Operations and Maintenance (O & M) Strategy. MPDAC, Honiara, Solomon Islands. Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination, Solomon Islands Rural Development Program: 2012 Semi-Annual Report to December 2012. Honiara, Solomon Islands. Ministry of Environment, 2010. Environmental Impact Assessment Guidelines. Solomon Islands Government, Honiara, Solomon Islands. Ministry of Health and Medical Services, 2013. Solomon Islands Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene Policy (Concept Draft 10). Solomon Islands Government, Honiara Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, 2012, A Policy Framework on Participatory Planning in the Provincial Governments in Solomon Islands. Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, 2011, Policy Reforms: Conceptual Frameworks for the Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening. Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, 2009, Review of Functional Assignments for Provinces/ Provincial Governments in Solomon Islands, Discussion Paper. 20 Annexes Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening, 2012, PGSP Annual Report 2011. Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Rural Development Project Application Format. National Disaster Council, 2009. National Disaster Risk Management Plan. Solomon Islands Government, Honiara, Solomon Islands. National Parliament of Solomon Islands. Constitution Review Committee. Report on the Constitution (Political Parties Amendment) Bill 2009 Number 24. NP Paper number 41/2009 November 2009. Ojendal, J and Kim, S. (2012)“Reconstruction in Cambodia? Decentralization as a post conflict strategy” in The Imperative of Good Local Governance: Challenges for the next decade of decentralization. UN University Press, forthcoming (2013) Ojendal, J and Dellnas, 2013. The Imperative of Good Local Governance: Challenges for the next decade of decentralization. UN University Press, Tokyo. Forthcoming. Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development 2003, Harmonizing Donor Practices for Effective Aid Delivery, DAC Guidelines and Reference Series. Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development 2011, Aid Effectiveness 2005-10: Progress in Implementing the Paris Declaration, OECD Publishing. Pacific Building Standards Project, 1990. National Building Code – Solomon Islands, Australian International Development Assistance Bureau Pacific Building Standards Project, 1990. House Building Manual – Solomon Islands, Australian International Development Assistance Bureau. Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme, 2010, Annual Performance Assessment: Assessment in relation to the 2011/12 Provincial Government Financial Year – Summary Report. Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme, 2012, Operational Manual for the Provincial Capacity Development Fund, United Nations Development Programme, Solomon Islands Government and United Nations Capital Development Fund. Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme, 2012, Performance Assessment Manual: Guidelines and Reporting Formats for the Provincial Capacity Development Fund – Annual Performance Assessment of the Provincial Governments (Assessment in relation to the Allocations for 2013/14 Financial Year), United Nations Development Programme, Solomon Islands Government and United Nations Capital Development Fund. Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme, 2012, Mid Term Evaluation: Provincial Governance Support Programme Solomon Islands, United Nations Development Programme, Solomon Islands Government and United Nations Capital Development Fund. Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme, 2008, Public Expenditure Management Cycle: Planning and Budgeting Training Materials – Participant Book. Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme, 2008, Public Expenditure Management Cycle: Planning and Budgeting Training Materials – Trainer Guide. Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme, 2008, Public Expenditure Management Cycle: Procurement and Contract Administration Training Materials – Participant Book. Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme, 2008, Public Expenditure Management Cycle: Procurement and Contract Administration Training Materials – Trainer Guide. Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme, Mid Term Evaluation February 2012. Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme, Review of Functional Assignments for Provinces/Provincial Governments in Solomon Islands, December 2009. Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme, Annual Report 2001. th Rural Advancement Micro Projects Programme, Guidelines for grant applicants, 10 European Development Fund. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 21 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities Rural Advancement Micro Projects Programme, Financing Agreement between the European Commission and Solomon Islands, Agreement No. SB/FED/2008/020-944. Smoke P and Winters MS 2011, Donor Harmonization, Aid Effectiveness and Decentralized Governance, Local Governance and Decentralization. Solomon Islands Government, 2006, Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme: Program Concept Note, Ministry of Provincial Government, National Reconciliation, Peace and Home Affairs, Honiara. Solomon Islands Government, 2007, Solomon Islands Agriculture and Rural Development Strategy: Building Local Foundations for Rural Development, Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination, Honiara. Solomon Islands Government, Solomon Islands Government Approved 2012 Development Estimates. Solomon Islands Government, Solomon Islands Government 2012 Approved Recurrent Estimates. Solomon Islands Government Rural Development Program, RDP Fact Sheet No. 1. Western Provincial Government, 2012, Western Province Development Plan 2011 to 2014. st Western Provincial Government Approved Budget Estimates 2012/2013: Fiscal Year from 1 April st 2012 to 31 March 2012. World Bank Susan Wong. 2012, What Have Been the Impacts of World Bank Community Driven Development Programs? CDD Impact Evaluation Review and Operational and research Implications. The World Bank Social Development Department Sustainable Development Network. World Bank, 2012, Afghanistan in Transition: Looking Beyond 2014, Volume 2: Main Report. World Bank, 2012, Solomon Islands Line Ministry Expenditure Analyses: Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Report No. ACS1223 World Bank (1999). The World Bank Operations Manual. Environmental Assessments. World Bank, Washington DC. United Nations Capital Development Fund, 2011, Mid Term Evaluation: Provincial Governance Support Programme – PGSP Solomon Islands. United Nations Development Programme, Solomon Islands Government and United Nations Capital Development Fund, 2008, National Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme – Joint Programme Document. Legislation Provincial Government Act 1997, Laws of Solomon Islands of Solomon Islands. Solomon Islands Government First Draft Federal Constitution. 26 June 2009. Solomon Islands Independence Order 1978. 31 May 1978. The Constitution of Solomon Islands 22 October 1982 Sub-project Documents th EU End of Term Evaluation (ETE) of the Micro Projects Programme Phase 11 (MPP2) 9 EDF. Solomon Islands Final Report September 2010. Government of Solomon Islands National Provincial Governance Strengthening Programme (PGSP) Joint Programme Document, April 2008. Rural Advancement Micro Projects Programme, EDF 10, Grant Contract for Gizo Community High School Staff Housing Project, Project No. 565 Rural Advancement Micro Projects Programme, EDF 10, Grant Contract for Epaga Island Tourist 22 Annexes Resort, Project No. 106. Rural Development Program Form C1:15 Technical Design Form for Kena Water Supply Committee. Rural Development Program Form C1:15 Technical Design Form for Pailoqe Water Tank Committee. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 23 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities ANNEX 5: DETAILED INTEGRATED PLANNING PROCESS The following is a more detailed elaboration of the proposed integrated planning process described in Chapter 5 of this report. Provincial Planning Product: Plans produced include Strategic Plan (every 6 years), Medium Term Development plan (every 3 years), Annual Plans and Budgets (every year). Budgets must be inclusive of recurrent budgets for the operation and maintenance of infrastructure. These plans would include village and ward profile data and ranked development priorities. Village and Ward Development priorities identified would include built infrastructure, such as schools, clinics, wharfs, roads, etc. and non-built development priorities which could include employment, policy and planning, training and education, law and order, culture and environment. Village and ward data would help build a provincial situation analysis and guide the development of provincial objectives and actions, which would be reflected across all plans and budgets. People: The planning division will guide the integrated planning process and be responsible for the development and production of all the planning documents. It would be supported by the TPBU (assisted by CDOs) for technical planning and budget input. A provincial forum (amalgamated PPDC/PARC) would be a key provincial forum to validate projects and budget. Minor changes to this forum composition to allow for increased participation of women would be required. If significant financial and staff resource restrictions exist in a province then there would be no requirement PPDC process as adequate community input should occur village, ward levels and through the public submission phase. Frequency: Strategic Plans would be developed at six-year intervals (currently five years) so they align with the production of Medium Term Development Plans, medium term plans would be developed at three yearly intervals, Annual Plans and Budgets would be produced annually. Synchronizing the development of Strategic Plans with Medium Term Plans will allow provinces to be able to produce both at the same time using available village and ward data and project information. Approval Process: Strategic, Medium Term Development and Annual plan and budget drafts developed by planning divisions would be presented at provincial forum (amalgamated PPDC/PARC) and then endorsed by the provincial executive before released for public consultation. Once consultation has been completed a report of submissions would be presented to the provincial executive for consideration and approval of changes to draft plans. All final plans would go to the full provincial assembly for adoption and subsequent public release. Once this has been agreed the Provincial Assembly will endorse and adopt the stated development priorities. As a starting point CDOs would state at the TPBU stage that they support allocating their constituency funds Funding Stream: Ward/Village (RDP), Provincial (PCDF) and possibly Constituency (CDF) funding streams will come together at the provincial level. The provincial forum would be a ‘town hall’ type meeting to gain community input on development priorities and support allocation of three funding streams across all projects. A provincial funding stream (currently PCDF) would be the main mechanism for projects that address provincial investment areas, beyond the life of the PCDF program the SIG would provide recurrent funding for the provincial funding stream. Constituency Planning Product: Constituencies will develop Constituency Development Plans as stated in the CDF Bill (2013). Plans should be developed from ward profile data and project priorities developed 24 Annexes through the integrated planning process. A format for constituency plans is yet to be determined but the integrated planning process would benefit from constituency plans having clear links with provincial Strategic, Medium Term Development and Annual plans and budgets. This would be achieved through adopting constituency projects identified through the integrated planning process and that fit the investment criteria (Table 28). People: Beyond the MP and CDO for constituency it is unclear who else would support plan development of Constituency Development Plans. A recommendation is that provincial planning divisions and TPBU would be part of a technical advisory body (similar to TPBU) to assist preparation of Constituency Development Plans. Constituencies would be integrated into the integrated planning process by CDOs becoming advisory members of TPBU, this would mean CDOs are aware of the development priorities determined by villages and wards and would contribute their knowledge to the integrated planning process and also give some indication of which of the projects identified by wards and communities would contribute funding. Frequency: The frequency of Constituency Plan developments is yet to be determined. To be of most benefit to an integrated process it would need to be linked to either medium term development plans (every three years) or Strategic Plans (every five years). Approval Process: The approval process for development priorities contained in the Constituency Development Plan is unclear; it should have a strong link with the integrated planning process. CDOs would indicate which projects nominated by communities and villages in their respective constituency they support and these projects would go through the same approval process as projects from the other funding streams. Once they have been through the normal approval phase and supported they will be reflected in provincial planning documents. Funding Stream: In the short term, CDOs would use the existing CDF stream as currently occurs. Over time, the CDF recurrent budget would shrink as part of the budget is reallocated to provincial governments to provide increased financial resources to support integrated provincial planning process. Ward Planning Product: WDCs would develop ward profiles that include both consolidated village data and WDC ranked village development priorities. Ward consolidated development priorities being the issues villages deemed the highest priority and ranked accordingly by WDCs Ward profile information would be consolidated village data from the village data collection and development priority identification and ranking process. People: The composition of the WDC would be consistent with RDP WDC structure and would consist of representation of women, youth (male and female), traditional authority, church representative and the member of provincial assembly. WDCs would compile ward profiles with support from CHs and provincial planning divisions. Frequency: WDCs would develop a ward profile that includes projects to be implemented every three years. This process would occur at the same time as the development of the provincial Medium Term Development Plan with ward profile data and project information forming the core part of Medium Term Development Plans. Validation of profile data and project information would occur annually. Approval process: Projects that have been nominated and approved through the village profiling process would be forwarded to the relevant WDCs. Each WDC member would rank built and non-built development priorities individually against set criteria; this would provide 2 lists of ranked development priorities, both infrastructure related and those that with a non-built solution, which would be approved by the WDC. Issues could be resolved by using consensus. Once ward profiles and the two streams of development priorities are approved they would be forwarded to the provincial government planning division. Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 25 Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities Funding stream: Ward priority projects would be prioritized by WDC from a consolidated list of prioritized village projects. WDCs would also do preliminary allocation of projects across the three funding streams for their specific ward. A provincial funding stream (currently PCDF) would be the main mechanism for projects that address provincial investment areas. Beyond the life of the PCDF, the SIG would provide recurrent funding for the provincial funding stream. Village Planning Product: Village profiles would be developed containing both primary and secondary community data on population, natural resources, social services, economic infrastructure, private business, natural hazards. They would also contain both built infrastructure and non-built development priorities identified and prioritized by villages. These projects will address the community development priorities. People: At the village level the full community will have access to the village profile and development priority identification and ranking process. CHs will assist communities that take part in the process to ensure they have the capacity to develop a community/village profile but also to support women and youth input into the process. Frequency: Full village profiling and development priority identification and ranking would take place every three years and would coincide with Medium Term Plan development. Annually there would be a revalidation of the village profile and development priorities, which would ensure village data information and project information is still valid. Approval process: The approval process requires communities to rank projects and agree on them in an open village forum. Separate groups may be formed to work through projects priorities as a group. Youth, women, men would identify and rank project priorities with these becoming the priority projects for the community. There would need to be consensus by the community on which development priorities are forwarded to WDCs if the ranking process was not clear in determining priorities. CHs would help guide the process to ensure participants are able to contribute to the process and not be excluded. Funding stream: The Funding stream for village profiling is the same stream utilized by WDCs under the RDP program. For the purposes of the integrated planning process the one stream would support both villages and wards. The SIG will need to provide recurrent funding to support this funding stream past the life of the RDP program so villages can continue to have input into provincial planning. Ensuring Gender Equality in Planning A way to ensure there is an increased and sustained role for women in the planning process is to ensure they have equitable representation on the main decision making bodies. Recommendations for this include: Change the PPDC structure so it has representation comprising 50% women as occurs in RDP PARC meetings. Change the WDC structure so that it comprises 50% representation by women (3 out of 6 members from the existing 2 of 6 members). Train CHs so they have the ability to support the participation of women during the community and ward profiling and identification of development priorities and prioritization process. 26 Annexes Produced in May 2014, Solomon Islands: Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities explores ams investing in rural infrastructure and service delivery in the Solomon Islands. It identifies ways to hen the current mechanisms for investing in rural service delivery by examining the three main types of for small-scale infrastructure and livelihood activities across four key programs between 2008 and 2012. 27