Promoting Violence Prevention through Civic Activities

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Lisa Lau | April 9, 2012

The power of fostering crime prevention through civic activities that are designed and implemented at the local level was reaffirmed for me on my recent trip to Panama.  I visited Panama on March 4-10, 2012 as part ICMA’s Municipal Partnerships for Violence Prevention in Central America Program (AMUPREV), which develops violence prevention strategies and initiatives by working in collaboration with local governments, community groups, and the national police.   This was my second trip to Panama and a follow up to my first visit in May 2011. 

On my first visit, I remember the pangs of hopelessness I felt when I took an evening and daytime tour of Colon in a Police Patrol Bus.  I travelled with a retired Police Officer and a Deputy Officer from the United States who, with their many years of experience, agreed that they would not want to patrol these streets.  They noted the many challenges that the local police faced there—Dim Street lighting, or no lighting at all, and abandoned and dilapidated buildings that created eye sores on every street corner and spawned spaces for criminal activity.  It was also hard to ignore the enormous amount of trash that poured into these streets that were once known for its vibrancy in this former wealthy seaport city.     

In May 2011, with support from AMUPREV and the Alcance Positivo Project, which ICMA is implementing as a subcontractor to Creative Associates in Panama, Colon and San Miguelito formed their respective Violence Prevention Committees to organize crime prevention activities for the community.  The Committees consist of staff from the municipality and police department, national government agencies, community and NGO leaders, and concerned citizens.  When we first met them, planning was still in the beginning stages.  As we listened to their concerns, I could sense the deep mistrust and historical contempt between the police and community.  With ICMA’s technical guidance, we pointed out the assets that already exist, offered suggestions, and identified possible solutions to help Committee members and police see  the shared goal of making their streets safer for their families. 

From my trip, I learned that focusing exclusively on controlling crime may not be a useful strategy as it may lead to more insecurity and violence in a place already entrenched in mistrust of law enforcement and scorn for police who have been known for their mano dura (strong arm) tactics.  A better strategy is to understand and provide the needs of the community that may deter criminal activity, such as improving school resources and infrastructure, youth and sports facilities, and better lighting.  Such initiatives have the potential to provide common grounds for citizens who are not involved in crime-related activities and provide opportunities for those who may be at-risk so that conflict or violence will be minimized in the long run.  During the meetings with the Committee, we urged them to work towards improving the quality of public spaces, installing better street lighting, and even more basic—cleaning up the streets.   By the end of the meetings, the Committee members began to envisage together the planning and implementation of programs to bring about change to the community.    

I remember leaving Panama in that first trip in May, feeling invigorated by the fervor for change that the Committee members displayed.  Undeniably, however, my optimism was also punctuated by bouts of skepticism.  The environment in which they lived posed so many challenges and risks – I wondered how quickly change could come.  But as I learned, when you harness the energy and resources of local communities, change will manifest in small doses, but in sustainable ways.

Responding to ICMA’s suggestions, in July, 2011, the Committee in Colon launched the Clean Neighborhood, Secure Neighborhood (Barrio Limpio, Barrio Seguro) Campaign.  The Committee conducted meetings with community leaders and provincial directors of institutions that worked on improving building infrastructure and cleaning streets.  They even engaged the local company that manages waste collection.  Throughout several months, community members met with local authorities to discuss an action plan to clean the streets and solve the problem of poor housing conditions and water spills.  By emphasizing the involvement of the local government to ensure coordination with other public policies and local institutions, ICMA helped the Committee gather its strength and capacity to identify resources and address the problems of insecurity that all citizens in Colon experienced. 

When I returned to Panama in March 2012, seeing the streets of Colon again dissolved any doubts that I had held in my first trip.  The streets were clean, the park benches were clear of debris, and trash was collected in small piles on certain street corners.  The cleanliness had the effect of transforming the streets into a less intimidating place to walk around.  Having experienced the process of overcoming the seemingly insurmountable challenges and resistances to change, I have a deeper appreciation that real change cannot be imposed.  Changes take place and become sustainable only when they are internalized or owned by the people and communities affected.  Those living in Colon were the most familiar with their own problems, so providing them the platform to shape and drive their own development strategy provided the best recipe for success.  I am inspired to have been a direct witness of how solutions for crime are developed at the local level and happy to see that the Committee has become the agent of change needed to build a healthier community for their families, their neighbors, and for future generations.

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Trends in Ethiopia

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David Grossman | March 28, 2012

I just returned from my first trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where ICMA has been working in the border regions of Somali and Gambella. These areas are experiencing significant levels of conflict, as they neighbor the failing states of Somalia and Sudan, respectively.

At 7,546 feet (2,300 meters), the altitude can catch the newcomer off-guard. Fortunately, I had help, literally, to carry my bag to our fourth floor walk-up office.

Severe drought caused by changing climatic patterns is creating rapid and dramatic change for Ethiopia's many nomadic livestock herders, known as pastoralists, and bringing to an end a way of subsistence that is no longer viable given diminishing pastures and the government's promotion of a more sedentary way of life. Yet, Ethiopia remains the primary producer of meat, dairy products, and leather on the continent, so a shift to modern methods of production would allow for an improving quality of life.

USAID’s strategic approach to these changes in Ethiopia is called Transition Out of Pastoral Livelihoods, or TOPS. In turn, TOPS relates directly to the USAID global strategy addressing food security, known as Feed the Future. It means, in large part, a renewed focus on growing cities and the need for strengthening local government to facilitate the required infrastructure investments (e.g., markets, slaughterhouses, storage facilities, processing plants) and associated economic development efforts that ICMA members understand so well.

ICMA has been working with the planning authorities of the two regions to help them acquire the tools (computer systems) and data collection and analysis systems to undertake a strategic economic development planning process. In the secondary cities of Jijiga and Gambella, ICMA is promoting economic development at the "kabele" or community level as well. We have helped establish the first public-private partnership (PPP) franchise in the country for solid waste collection, and we’re advising on the renovation of underutilized structures for conversion to Internet cafes and attractive shops.

As our project winds down over the course of 2012, we leave behind a lasting technical legacy in the country and hope for new opportunities to assist Ethiopia's city managers to be "leaders at the core of better communities."

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Happy Farmer's Day!

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Caroline Bixiones | March 27, 2012

 

 

 

Ag Fair Stage

I’m back in Kabul for my second visit to work with the Capacity Building and Change Management Program (CBCMP).  Frozen snow piles are melting away to green grass and buds on the trees.  The skies are clear, the sun is out, it’s the perfect Spring weather to spend a day outside learning more about Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, March 22nd, the day after the lunar New Year, is known as Farmer’s Day.  For the past several years, the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock (MAIL) has hosted an agriculture fair on this day.  This year, for the first time, MAIL funded and organized the fair without international donor support and it was a huge success!  CBCMP, which works at MAIL was invited to attend the opening ceremony and explore the fair before it was open to the public.  Many of the Change Management Specialists (CMS) who coach and mentor civil servants for

CBCMP assisted their MAIL counterparts in organizing the fair and were excited to show off their hard work.  The fair was located on the outskirts of Kabul in Badam Bagh (Almond Garden) where the ministry has several acres of land used for their research.  This is also where the Kabul District office of MAIL is located.  It is a beautiful location tucked at the foot of the mountains surrounding Kabul.  

 

Plant Protection and Quarantine Directorate's booth

 

The legenday cow

The fair held several dozen booths with displays from many of the MAIL directorates (departments) such as the Plant Protection and Quarantine Directorate, who showed many types of pests infecting Afghanistan crops and the products and tools MAIL uses to battle these

infestations.  There were also several booths from private companies selling their agriculture products. One such company is Fruit Plus, a juice company that produces their delicious juices entirely in Afghanistan from planting to packaging.  Their pomegranate juice is a staff favorite!

A few other highlights include the healthiest cows I’ve ever seen in a developing nation, whose size in re-telling has reached mythic proportion.  Our resident expert Mark Glover, former city manager and ICMA member (he’s the only one who’s ever milked a cow), informed us that the large animals on display weren’t even full grown yet, but already they were quite impressive.  The tractor display and Kuchi (nomadic herders) tent were also favorite attractions. 

 

Mark Glover

The Minister of MAIL and the Minister of Finance both made speeches, and after a few short presentations, the fair was open to the public!  Thousands of people were streaming down the road to reach the fair.  With few other entertainment options in Kabul, the fair was a fantastic family activity during the New Year holiday.  CBCMP was pleased to be invited to celebrate this momentous accomplishment with the ministry and are very proud of our staff’s contributions to the event.  Happy New Year and Farmer’s Day!

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Working in Kabul in Winter

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Caroline Bixiones | February 9, 2012

My time in Kabul is coming to a close.  This was my first trip to Afghanistan and my first field visit as an ICMA employee.  Since I joined ICMA last July, I’ve been looking forward to the opportunity to visit this country and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here.  Many people questioned my interest in going to Afghanistan and when they heard I was going in the middle of winter, they thought I was crazy, but flying in over the snow-covered mountains was a beautiful sight with few comparisons in the world that I’ve ever seen.  While it is cold and we struggle to get heat in our offices most days, I am very glad that my first experiences of Kabul were of a peaceful snow-covered city.

Caroline Bixiones

Snow-covered Kabul

Yes, I said peaceful.  Men with guns standing every few feet in the street is the reality of living and working in Kabul.  There is no traffic pattern, and people and animals walk across the street at any time.  Though this all sounds like chaos, when you step off the street and into a shop, the office, or home, you encounter nothing but friendly people.  They are eager to meet you, help you, and work with you.  I came to Kabul to work with my colleagues on the Capacity Building and Change Management Program (CBCMP) with the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock (MAIL).  ICMA leads one half of the project called Component 2 focused on capacity building.  CBCMP is working to improve organizational capacity and enhance service delivery at the Ministry (MAIL) and District (DAIL) levels.

The primary goal of my visit to the field was to work on operations and Human Resources issues that the project had faced in its first year.  I found that our wonderful staff, HR Officer Najib and Finance Officer Rabia, has things well under control.  I was very impressed with their dedication to the project and enthusiasm for their work.  They have flow charts for every process that my grad school professors would be thrilled with!  I was also overwhelmed with their hospitality in welcoming me to their country.  They treated me to a traditional Afghan meal at one of the hotels closer to downtown and took me out shopping.  I was even lucky enough to meet some of their family members, Najib’s wife and Rabia’s two precious sons.  It is a brand new experience for me to be in a place where I can’t just hop in and out of the car freely, but our staff and security are just looking out for us and waiting until they say it’s okay to go in the store is an easy thing to do to protect ourselves.

Jaco Griesel

Getting a view of Kabul

Working with our ICMA staff was a delight and the operations and HR issues took far less time than expected, so I was free to participate and contribute much more to the programmatic work.  In these two weeks I worked with our Deputy Chief of Party Mark Glover (see some of his own blog posts and photos too!) on the CBCMP Component 2 Action Plan, Road Map, and the DAIL Roll-out Plan.  All of the great work we have gotten started at MAIL so far, in year two, is going to be brought down to the District level (DAIL).  All of these products were submitted to our donor the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).  While here, I also met with our USDA counterparts and many colleagues at MAIL.  I look forward to future visits when I can explore other parts of Afghanistan and work with the staff at the seven DAILs where the project is expanding.  Overall, it was a very exciting time to pay a visit to the project.

When I leave later this week, I’ll be bringing back an incredible work experience, a few souvenirs, a great deal of respect for my colleagues, and an excitement for this project and my next visit to Afghanistan.

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The many license plates in Jordan

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Laura Hagg | February 9, 2012

I worked in Jordan for nearly a year as a business volunteer in 2008-2009 through USAID’s Emerging Market Development Advisor Program.  So I was thrilled to be able to come back to Jordan with ICMA to meet with USAID Mission staff in the region (Jordan and West Bank/Gaza) to talk to them about our new CityLinks program as well as hear about their development priorities in the region.

As we all know, this past year has brought tremendous change to the region.  In Jordan, there has been only peaceful protests and King Abdullah is implementing reforms to keep pace with the needed changes and demands from the citizens.  As Jordanians say, we are a very safe and stable country – we are just in a difficult neighborhood. Very true.

When I was here in 2008, there was upheaval in the region.  There were Iraqi refugees fleeing the war and the battles between Gaza and Israel.  Jordan provided goods, clothing and medical care to the refugees as well as donations of food and medical equipment to the people in Gaza.  

When I drove around Amman, I would see Jordanian license plates – and maybe a few Iraqi license plates.  Sometimes in the summer, I would see cars from the Gulf States – families not fleeing war – but the very hot weather.

However, in Jordan now, I see license plates from many different countries—Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.  My friends tell me how lucky I was to get a hotel room because many Libyans have come to Jordan to flee the violence and seek medical care.  Jordan has also just set up the first refugee camp for Syrians fleeing the violence in their country. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has few natural resources, but they do have lots of resources of hospitality and a desire to help and welcome in their neighbors.

So when people in the region need safety and stability – they come to Jordan. 

Ahlan wa Sahlan (Welcome in Arabic)

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Local governments in Uganda engaging slum dwellers on public service delivery challenges

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Laura Hagg | December 8, 2011

When you meet Sarah Nandudu, you may need to lean a bit closer to hear what she says.  But don’t let that soft spoken approach belie the strength of this amazing woman.  Sarah works in Jinja, Uganda with the Ugandan Slum Dwellers Federation, an affiliate of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI).  ICMA is working with her in Jinja and in four other cities as part of the Transforming the Settlements of the Urban Poor in Uganda (TSUPU) project, which is supported by the World Bank and Cities Alliance. ICMA and its partners will help five municipalities (Arua, Jinja, Kabale, Mbale, and Mbarara) improve their urban management and planning systems and help strengthen UAAU as a sustainable municipal organization representing the interests of urban local governments in the country.  ICMA is also helping these municipalities engage their citizens through Urban Forums, citizens like Sarah.

I just returned from Uganda and went to visit with staff and project stakeholders to check in on project progress. My colleague Alan Edmond and I met with the Jinja Town Clerk (City Manager), Francis Barabanawe and the city’s coordinator for the project, Geofrey Muzusa to learn how the city is implementing the project.  Geofrey then took us to meet with Sarah and her colleagues at the slum/informal settlement of Rubaga in Jinja.

We pulled up on a badly damaged dirt road of Rubaga, a small, informal settlement of 1,000.  The tiny houses are made of wood and tin, with maybe one window.  Informal drainage ditches line the pathways of the slum.  There are no sanitation – only pit latrines and little electricity.  We met in a small room in the slum, with the doors wide open to allow the Uganda sunshine in.  We then took turns telling about ourselves, our work and sharing experiences.

Sarah and her colleagues are setting up networks around Uganda that create saving schemes/groups

Laura Hagg

Sarah Nandudu speaks with us and her colleagues about the work of the savings groups/schemes with Slum Dwellers International in Uganda.

. Saving groups are comprised of slum dwellers and SDI brings them together and teaches them how to save so they can increase their incomes and livelihoods. The group pools their savings so small loans can be made to participants. These loans can be used to start small micro businesses such as candle making, weaving or jewelry.  Or it can be used to pay for school fees or for an unexpected emergency.  These groups provide some economic stability to slum dwellers. Creating economic stability creates opportunity to also save for housing, pay for water and advocate to local government for these types of services.  TSUPU has supported SDI in creating new saving schemes/groups to not only achieve some economic stability but also to unite them in speaking with a stronger voice in the community.

We met with them to find ways that the local government can engage them on service delivery needs such as water access and sanitation service.  Check out the ICMA’s You Tube page and see the video where Sarah describes their efforts - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh7pqaXQkCY.

The Municipality of Jinja has donated land near the slum so people can save money to build houses.  In addition, through this project, they are building their first sanitation building, which will have three toilets and a bathing area. 

The strength of the folks we met was humbling and I am glad ICMA is able to help cities engage their most vulnerable citizens and hear their voices for better public service delivery. 

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Ski the Balkans

Hidden until November 24, 2011

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Alan Edmond | November 24, 2011

“Ski the Balkans”. You won’t be seeing that bumper sticker in the near future, but you may hear or read about a resurgent tourism industry in Kosovo. Other “ex Yugoslavia” countries are carrying on effective campaigns to capitalize on the international tourism market. Part of their success is due to the natural draw of the geography and culture. Croatia and Montenegro, for instance, have the most beautiful coast line in Europe, and combined with Old World architectural themes and a developed tourism infrastructure, those countries are benefitting from  an influx of tourists spending big Euros.

 

Bresovica base lodge

I was recently in Kosovo as part of our CityLinks component for a USAID program. We’re working with Golden, Colorado (Mike Bestor, CM) to improve the downtown livability of four communities, and also to improve the tourism promotion efforts of four other municipalities. Golden’s Economic Development Director Steve Glueck and I traveled to those municipalities to help them form and start to execute action plans for bringing in local, and some international, tourists, and to increase the average length of stay.  In other words, we are trying to help the municipalities become tourist destinations rather than day trip stops.

The key to tourism development, according to experts like Steve, is to have a concerted promotion program which emphasizes a close working relationship among the local government, the local hospitality and commercial interests, and the travel industry. In addition to the need for local government as the facilitator of the tourism improvement process, it is crucial that the local government provide for the infrastructure to serve visitor needs and to motivate them to return. This of course means that the local government needs to adopt tourism as a major economic goal, and to back up that commitment with public works funds and new sources of revenue such as a locally collected and retained hotel room occupancy tax.

Steve will continue with his CityLinks tourism effort in a very hands-on manner, and he will supplement his onsite mentoring with emailed “how to” information on managing visitor centers, and also on branding of tourism areas. Some areas are known by names from more than one ethnic group, and making everyone happy with a name is a real challenge.  He will also work with agricultural and artisanal groups to promote local products for visitors to stock up on and take back to their home communities. I’ll keep you posted as Steve makes progress. Meanwhile you can check out the Kosovo skiing scene by going to http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=kosovo+bresovica&qpvt=kosovo+bresovica&FORM=IGRE

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Gardens of Babur in Kabul, Afghanistan

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Mark Glover | October 19, 2011

Very long stairs through the center of the Gardens

Mark Glover

 

This past summer, I had the pleasure of visiting the Gardens of Babur in Kabul, Afghanistan.   These gardens are a historic park in Kabul and the last resting-place of the first Mughal emperor Babur.   Although no one knows for sure, the Gardens are thought to have been developed around 1528 AD.  Going to  the Gardens was a welcome restive from our busy work schedule and all the hustle and bustle of Kabul traffic, second only to Cairo when I think about frightening traffic.  Two places you never want to drive a car.  Here's the Wikipedia site for the Babur Gardens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagh-e_Babur

Mark Glover

 

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Paraguay Update

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Emily Elledge | October 18, 2011

Group picture of Ricardo (in red) with the 24 participants.

Hi Everyone, my name is Emily Elledge and I am the Communications/Business Development intern for the International team at ICMA. I will be blogging and posting photos periodically to keep you all updated on our international programs.

As a newcomer to ICMA, it has been exciting to learn about each of our current international programs from staff members and consultants who have worked on these projects in DC and overseas. I recently had the opportunity to interview Ricardo Garcia, ICMA’s assessment and training consultant for Paraguay, regarding our program to help improve rescue and fire response in that country. Ricardo is a retired captain from the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department who lent his expertise to Paraguay’s volunteer firefighter organization, Cuerpo de Bomberos Voluntarios del Paraguay (CBVP). I wrote a news article about how he went about his assignment and you can read about it here!

Ricardo told me that he faced very few obstacles while conducting the assessments and training course on incident command. The members of the CBVP had positive attitudes and were eager to learn how to respond more efficiently and effectively in emergency situations. They readily cooperated and willingly provided information requested for the evaluation.

The most difficult challenge Ricardo faced was dealing with Paraguay’s Bicentennial Celebration the weekend before the training course. These days were critical for the preparation and set up required for the course, and it was challenging to keep the attention of the firefighters with celebrations galore to commemorate Paraguay’s independence. In addition, the finals of the national soccer league happened to fall on the weekend of the course. Paraguayans are particularly passionate about soccer, so you can imagine how attentive the firefighters must have been that weekend! However, Ricardo proudly claimed that the training session concluded nicely, and the program was an overall success.

According to Ricardo, “It was really great to get a chance to work again with the CBVP. During my career at Miami Dade Fire Rescue I had the privilege of managing the International Training Program under a grant from USAID/OFDA…I knew quite a few of the participants in the course having worked with them all those years, although I had not been back to Paraguay in over 5 years, it was like being back home again.”

SOUTHCOM has future plans for Paraguay, and hopefully ICMA will have the opportunity to become involved with these exciting projects. We’ll keep you posted!

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Less than one percent

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Emily Elledge | October 12, 2011

When asked how much of the federal budget the U.S. Government spends on foreign aid, the average American response is “25 percent.” Shockingly, the real answer is less than one percent!

I attended a Speaker Series on The Power of One Percent at the Newseum on Monday, October 3, which discussed how 1 percent of the U.S. federal budget builds stronger economies, ensures better health for some of the most vulnerable people worldwide, and strengthens national security. Speakers from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), World Vision International, the ONE Campaign, Population Services International, PATH, and FHI 360 elaborated on these topics and shared their experiences working abroad.

Each of the speakers expressed a similar message about the importance of foreign aid. They spoke about how difficult it is to justify the budget for development assistance since we are facing an economic dilemma in the United States, However, they said we should look at this activity as an investment in health, societies, and building markets abroad. Investing in foreign aid is one of the best things we can do, because it leads to growth and greater export opportunities. Right now, approximately half of all U.S. exports go to developing nations, and these exports have grown six times faster than exports to wealthier countries. According to USAID, we exported around half-a-trillion dollars in U.S. goods and services to developing countries, and 97 percent of those export revenues went to U.S. companies. If we reach out to the two to three billion poverty-stricken people around the world now, the speakers noted, we can position American companies to sell them goods. Therefore, we should view these situations as global opportunities, not burdens.

The speakers also mentioned that investing in foreign aid promotes security, because when we provide vaccinations for diseases like measles, polio, and tuberculosis to people in developing countries, we reduce the risk of allowing these diseases to enter the United States. So by donating our resources, we save lives abroad, protect our own citizens, and save money that we would have otherwise used to analyze and treat an epidemic outbreak on American soil.

It is amazing to think about how little of the federal budget we spend on foreign aid but how effective our efforts can be if we support these projects. There is still much work to be accomplished in developing countries around the world.

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The Challenges of Cost Recovery for an Afghan Utility

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Nate Engle | October 10, 2011

This is the third "international dispatch" from my trip to visit ICMA's Commercialization of Afghan Water and Sanitation Activities (CAWSA) project in Afghanistan.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Today, Sunday, was the first day of the Afghan work week. This morning I was able to meet the majority of the CAWSA staff when they came in to the office. I attended a senior management meeting with the COP, Deputy COP, and department heads in charge of operations, finance, procurement, infrastructure and commercialization. It was very enlightening. I learned that AUWSSC has requested additional assistance from CAWSA to help with its organizational structure. CAWSA staff are working diligently to assist AUWSSC with establishing a system of reporting, accountability and functionality that will work for it, given the challenges of the human capacity, external pressures and funding.

The overarching hope for CAWSA is to assist AUWSSC in achieving 85% cost-recovery in selected branches of the utility. The Strategic Business Units (SBUs) of AUWSSC (the local water supply branches located in Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif, Gardez, Ghazni and Kandahar and Kandahar's related satellite locations) are all at various stages of achieving this goal. Some of the challenges the SBUs are facing include having high numbers of past due accounts, an inability to raise the rates, and identifying who is actually connected to the water supply system (supply infrastructure typically existed in some form in the SBUs prior to AUWSSC’s formation).

Unlike in the United States, chronically past due accounts in Afghanistan won’t just have the water turned off on them as a result of failing to pay. Cultural and political reasons in Afghanistan make that option impossible for AUWSSC. Another challenge AUWSSC has is the inability to raise the rates for a unit price of water despite the fact rising costs, like fuel prices, impact AUWSSC on a monthly basis. On paper, the decision to raise the rates can only be made by the AUWSSC board of directors. A fully owned government corporation, AUWSSC’s board of directors is made up of representatives from several ministries and the municipality of Kabul. Due to the schedules of these directors, the board is rarely able to reach a quorum and when it does, politics has so far rendered the board unable to raise the unit price for water. The President’s cabinet also stepped in and directed AUWSSC to maintain current rates. Despite this, ICMA's CAWSA is utilizing its team of professionals to work with AUWSCC and train the utility's staff in the areas of financial management, general management, and engineering so that the organization can be managed sustainably by professional Afghan managers once the political will exists at the higher levels to make certain structural changes that will allow for cost-recovery. In some ways, the structure can be compared to a traditional council-manager form of government that ICMA and its members are familiar with.

Tomorrow, I’m looking forward to getting into some of the detailed budget planning for CAWSA as the project moves forward to 2012. I’m putting in long hours but I’m loving every second of this visit and am enjoying learning and working with the Afghan staff.

All for now.

Nate

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Shangri-La

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Nate Engle | October 7, 2011

My name is Nate and I work ICMA's International Team. If you're just taking a look at my blog posting for the first time, I suggest you go back a few and look for a blog posted by Laura Hagg on behalf me, titled 'All Roads Lead to Kabul'. Over the next few weeks, I'll be providing international dispatches about my trip on behalf of ICMA to support the Commercialization of Afghanistan Water and Sanitation Activities (known as 'CAWSA') project taking place in several cities in Afghanistan. 'All Roads Lead to Kabul' will provide you a little more information about me.These dispatches offer my personal experiences traveling to, in and from Afghanistan while discussing some of the great work that ICMA's team-on-the-ground for CAWSA is accomplishing here.

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Great! Now that you've read 'All Roads Lead to Kabul', I'm combing two days of my thoughts and experiences with these dispatches, below.

Thursday, October 6, 2011,

I had a bit of time in Dubai Thursday morning to walk around. My hotel was near one of Dubai’s many miles of coast line, so I wanted to get up early and explore a little. I found myself walking along “Dubai Creek”. Dubai’s definition of ‘creek’ must be a little different than mine, because for all intensive purposes, the Dubai ‘creek’ seemed to be as wide as the Mississippi River is in some of its wider locations. In the early morning, the weather was perfect and there was an ocean breeze. Cargo ships and yachts were not far from each other and floating restaurant ships were docked nearby as well. At 6:30am, the wharf was already humming. Ship hands from Pakistan and India were loading unloading what seemed like every type of good imaginable. Some of the cargo included garlic, tires, rebar, concrete, soda pop, and refrigerators. There was much more beyond my immediate view that I couldn’t make out.  The cargo boats were of all shapes and sizes, many made out of wood, which contrasted sharply with the more modern yachts that appeared to be formed from plastic molds. Walking along the ‘creek’ I thought of ICMA members fortunate enough to have water running through their communities and the various efforts that many members have made to capitalize on such assets. Surely what I was seeing was unique, as Dubai is a global city, but looking out at the ships, the ‘creek’ and the city beyond, I was reminded that with a little ingenuity and hard work, almost anything is possible. Originally from Michigan, I thought to the successes that Grand Rapids and Lansing have had revitalizing their river fronts.

After taking in a bit more I headed to the airport. I couldn’t get over the size of the airport. It went on for several miles. After checking in, I boarded the plane to Kabul. A commercial flight, it hosted a variety of passengers, including businessmen, private security contractors and several Afghan families with small children. After three hours in the air, we descended quickly in to Kabul.  I made it through passport control, security and connected with ICMA staff waiting to pick me up. I was taken to the CAWSA project office which also has a small room available for use as a guesthouse for when visitors arrive. The CAWSA Afghan Chief of Party (the international development industry’s term for the director of a project) was waiting late Thursday afternoon to greet me (in Afghanistan, work weeks are from Sunday through Thursday, so I appreciated his willingness to stay late on the final day of the work week). I was greeted with open arms and to a hot cup of tea upon my arrival in his office. One of the special things about the CAWSA project is that it’s truly led by Afghans. The Chief of Party, or COP, is an Afghan with a depth of experience in the development industry. Unfortunately, with human capacity being such a challenge in Afghanistan, not as many projects in the country are actually led by host country nationals, so ICMA is fortunate to have such a capable person at CAWSA’s helm. Much credit goes to several ICMA home office staff for identifying and keeping this COP. We were both happy to meet each other face to face after having had so many phone conversations. We briefly went over our schedules for the next several weeks and after spending about a half of an hour talking, I realized that I had to let him go to get home and be with his family and not miss the call to prayer.

From my guestroom in the CAWSA building, I could see a bit of Kabul and, although it was dark, the city seemed beautiful glistening across the valley. Prior to 30 years of war, many had referred to this place as a “Shangri La”, a gorgeous, mystic city set in the mountains of Afghanistan. Kabul had been a place where young women studied medicine, where men labored away in light industry and where measurable leaps in basic health and sanitation were taking place. An American friend recently told me how his parents, who were working in Pakistan at the time, had actually fled TO Kabul for safety in the 1970s when there was unrest in Pakistan. Kabul was seen as a progressive, safe and open place. 

I’m looking forward to the coming weeks, interacting with CAWSA staff, the Afghan beneficiaries, USAID and playing my small part on behalf of ICMA’s members to further the commercialization of municipal water in Afghanistan. All for now.

Nate

Friday, October 7, 2011

I still haven’t fully adjusted to the time yet, and woke up this morning when it was still dark out. I walked out on to the rooftop deck of the CAWSA guesthouse and watched the light come over the mountains surrounding Kabul. Quite a site as I began to see dark, grey mountains give way to construction cranes, orante buildings surrounded by a smattering of dirt and newly paved roads that seemed to strakly contrast with each other. The weather was crisp and I enjoyed hearing the sounds of this city waking up while sipping a hot cup of tea, a drink which is ever-so-prevalent here.

After attending to some ICMA business on the computer, I coordinated with security staff to go out and stock up on some food and supplies for my time here, as well as drop by the offices of ICMA’s RAMP UP project. As we headed out into the city, I noted that shop keepers are selling all kinds of vegetables, household goods, hardware and clothing. Many vegetables found on the streets of Kabul, I’m told, are imported from neighboring Pakistan. Afghan security forces are everywhere. Police, Army, etc. Every compound seems to be fortified. Today was a day off and things were quiet and only a few cars on the streets. I’ll be curious to see how the main arteries of the city function during a normal work day. Streets generally are wide, but we did go down a few very narrow alleys. My thoughts turned to things like the flow of traffic, security on these roads, service delivery of fire and police in state of such fragile condition. I saw a few mature trees lining some streets, though I’m told that Kabul used to be much more forested than it is today. We passed a few men working on a construction project, several women carrying bags full of produce and some younger men haggling over the price of what appeared to be canned peppers. I saw a young boy who must have been about eight years old running down an alley flying a kite, just like a scene out of the book Kite Runner. The ethnic diversity of Afghanistan is immediately apparent. Down any given street, you may see people with Asian features, with rounder faces and darker hair or you may see people with blue eyes, blonde hair and pale skin. And everything in between. Yet, they’re all Afghans. And, as the title of my first dispatch suggested, for many people (approximately four million of them) all roads have led to Kabul.

After getting a taste of the city, I headed back to the CAWSA office where I spent a good deal of time chatting with the project’s Deputy Chief of Party. He provided a wealth of information on the history of CAWSA and the challenges faced in the water sector in Afghanistan. CAWSA helped set up the Afghan Urban Water Supply and Sewerage Company (AUWSSC), a fully owned government corporation responsible for municipal water supply. CAWSA is attempting to assist AUWSCC with the commercialization of water so that the supply is sustainable for people in the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif, Jalalabad, Gardez, Ghazni, Kandahar, Zaranj, Lashkar Gar, Mehterlam and Torin Kot. CAWSA provides training on finance, cash flow management, budget tracking, technical assistance, maintenance planning, and overall management advice and support to AUWSCC (some or all of the above, depending on a variety of factors). The goal is to get the utility as far ahead as possible in order to allow it to continue to deliver water in the locations just mentioned as Afghanistan continues to take the reigns of its own development. Today, I’ve started familiarizing myself with matters that take place at the field level (in Afghanistan, as opposed to CAWSA-related things that I typically deal with at the ICMA home office in Washingtion, DC) on a daily basis. I’ve been studying organizational charts of AUWSCC, reading CAWSA reports to the Afghan Ministry of Urban Development and asking the Deputy COP lots of questions about the challenges for CAWSA from now until spring of 2012.

I’m looking forward to learning more in the coming days. I’ve spent a lot of time on the African continent and a popular expression there is, “T.I.A.” meaning, “This Is Africa”. When spoken, it generally refers to all the uniqueness, the wonders, and the challenges of that continent. For my trip to support ICMA’s CAWSA project, I’ve decided I’m going to borrow that expression from my friends in Africa. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the challenges and opportunities are different here. T.I.A.—This Is Afghanistan. All for now.

-Nate

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All Roads Lead to Kabul

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Nate Engle | October 6, 2011

My name is Nate and I’m a Program Manager on ICMA’s International Team based in Washington, DC. I recently joined ICMA to help manage international local governance-related projects in Afghanistan and Ethiopia, as well as to support other ICMA initiatives. I’ve worked overseas for most of the last seven years in Madagascar and Southern Sudan and have visited and spent time in several other African countries. Much of my work has revolved around issues of food security and land use. I have an academic background in urban planning and public administration and am excited at the opportunity to be a part of the ICMA family to further my interests and work in all of the fields mentioned above.

Since joining ICMA, I have been extremely impressed with the organization’s members and its staff. The projects I work on for ICMA are currently funded by the United States Agency for International Development. USAID has and continues to recognize ICMA as a premier professional association and understands the importance of connecting ICMA to countries around the world where USAID is involved in the areas of improving local governance.

My trip for the next two weeks will be to visit one of the projects I support from Washington, DC, called Commercialization of Afghanistan Water and Sanitation Activities (or, CAWSA). CAWSA, in short, is working with several municipalities in Afghanistan to commercialize the water sector. The project has been ongoing since late in 2008 and will complete sometime in the spring of 2012 and has been very successful to date. USAID granted CAWSA an extension from November 2011 to the spring of 2012 to allow ICMA to complete some important work in several provincial sites where CAWSA is being implemented. Because of this extension, I’m visiting the project site to help move the work along, and work with our team to finish strong in the coming months. This will be my first time in Kabul and in Afghanistan. It’s become quickly apparent to me how professional and capable ICMA’s membership, domestic staff and international staff are, and I’m thrilled at this opportunity to meet our CAWSA staff in Afghanistan face to face, after having had so many dealings with them on the telephone and over email during the last two months. We’ve got a lot of work to do during my short, several week visit, but I’m looking forward to digging in, learning and helping ICMA continue to be leaders at the core of better communities!

Getting to Kabul for me, means going through Dubai. This is my first time in Dubai. Landing at the airport, I can tell that Dubai is everything it’s cracked up to be—the glitz, the glamour, the wealth and the diversity. Although I arrived after dark, as someone who has studied urban design and who has an appreciation for cities, Dubai seems to be amazing. From the air, certain things struck me immediately, including apparently high density, what looks like thoughtful planning, and the buzz of commerce in the form of lights everywhere. Between landing at the airport through to checking in at my hotel, I have already encountered a plethora of nationalities; a UAE passport control officer; a Philippino working at the currency exchange desk; an Indonesian baggage handler; an Egyptian cab driver; Indian staff at the hotel; and a British man haggling over his bill at the front desk. After only a few hours, it really does seem like the whole world can be found in Dubai!

I’ll have a little time tomorrow morning to check out a bit of the city, then it’s back to the airport and off to Kabul.

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All Roads Lead to Kabul

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Laura Hagg | October 6, 2011

Hi everyone - this is Laura and I am helping Nate out by posting his first blog post from Dubai as he makes his way to Kabul.  When he reaches Kabul to work on our Commercialization of Afghanistan Water and Sanitation Activities Project - he will update us on all the activities we have going on.   As ICMA International Staff know - all roads lead to Kabul . . . even if you have to travel through Dubai, Delhi, Frankfurt, New York or some other city to get there!

My name is Nate and I’m a Program Manager on ICMA’s International Team based in Washington, DC. I recently joined ICMA to help manage international local governance-related projects in Afghanistan and Ethiopia, as well as to support other ICMA initiatives. I’ve worked overseas for most of the last seven years in Madagascar and Southern Sudan and have visited and spent time in several other African countries. Much of my work has revolved around issues of food security and land use. I have an academic background in urban planning and public administration and am excited at the opportunity to be a part of the ICMA family to further my interests and work in all of the fields mentioned above.

Since joining ICMA, I have been extremely impressed with the organization’s members and its staff. The projects I work on for ICMA are currently funded by the United States Agency for International Development. USAID has and continues to recognize ICMA as a premier professional association and understands the importance of connecting ICMA to countries around the world where USAID is involved in the areas of improving local governance.

My trip for the next two weeks will be to visit one of the projects I support from Washington, DC, called Commercialization of Afghanistan Water and Sanitation Activities (or, CAWSA).  CAWSA, in short, is working with several municipalities in Afghanistan to commercialize the water sector. The project has been ongoing since late in 2008 and will complete sometime in the spring of 2012 and has been very successful to date. USAID granted CAWSA an extension from November 2011 to the spring of 2012 to allow ICMA to complete some important work in several provincial sites where CAWSA is being implemented. Because of this extension, I’m visiting the project site to help move the work along, and work with our team to finish strong in the coming months. This will be my first time in Kabul and in Afghanistan. It’s become quickly apparent to me how professional and capable ICMA’s membership, domestic staff and international staff are, and I’m thrilled at this opportunity to meet our CAWSA staff in Afghanistan face to face, after having had so many dealings with them on the telephone and over email during the last two months. We’ve got a lot of work to do during my short, several week visit, but I’m looking forward to digging in, learning and helping ICMA continue to be leaders at the core of better communities!

Getting to Kabul for me, means going through Dubai. This is my first time in Dubai. Landing at the airport, I can tell that Dubai is everything it’s cracked up to be—the glitz, the glamour, the wealth and the diversity. Although I arrived after dark, as someone who has studied urban design and who has an appreciation for cities, Dubai seems to be amazing. From the air, certain things struck me immediately, including apparently high density, what looks like thoughtful planning, and the buzz of commerce in the form of lights everywhere. Between landing at the airport through to checking in at my hotel, I have already encountered a plethora of nationalities; a UAE passport control officer; a Philippino working at the currency exchange desk; an Indonesian baggage handler; an Egyptian cab driver; Indian staff at the hotel; and a British man haggling over his bill at the front desk. After only a few hours, it really does seem like the whole world can be found in Dubai!

I’ll have a little time tomorrow morning to check out a bit of the city, then it’s back to the airport and off to Kabul.

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Community Policing in El Salvador: an impressive exchange experience

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Carlos Loría-Chaves | October 6, 2011

Officer Garrido, Chief of the National Salvadoran Police in Nahuizalco and Santa Ana Police’ Deputy Chief Carlos Rojas, share with the students

"It has been so impressive to me, to be the witness to a great result achieved. Since the start of the Partnership, Officer Garrido has shown great interest and has been eager to learn about the work developed by the Santa Ana Police. The results are clear - he and all the officers have taken a very proactive role in all the activities that have been developed in Nahuizalco with the participation of a violence prevention council led by the Mayor of Nahuizalco and made up of civil society, police and government representatives. It is impressive that even in the language used by Garrido and the rest of the officers, it is clear that they have assimilated in an excellent way the philosophy of community policing and they apply it in their daily work" 

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Measuring performance in Mexican Municipalities

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Jaime Villasana | July 7, 2011

Hello everyone, my name is Jaime and I have been working with ICMA-Latin America (ICMA-LA) since 2002. Currently I am the Operations Director.

ICMA-LA has been working in Latin America since the early 1990s helping local municipalities to strengthen  institutional capacities, to measure their effectiveness and efficiency, to share public information with their citizens and to foster citizen’s participation. ICMA-LA also promotes the Municipal Administrator position, as a way to professionalize public administration in local government.

One of the ICMA-LA´s programs in the region is the SINDES Program (SINDES stands in Spanish for Performance Indicators System), which is under my responsibility. SINDES was created ten years ago as a vehicle to promote performance measurement. It has been the Program goal to serve as foundation for participating municipal governments to develop their own measurement system.

Implementing measurement systems (MS) into the government is not an easy task. Officials look at this tool almost as an “enemy” instead of a “friend”. The reason is because MS reveals how well or poor a person or a department is performing. It also makes more accountable the whole organization.

Since its conception, SINDES has been an active player promoting MS in Mexico and more than 55 municipalities have been involved in the program. Annually, 10 to 15 municipalities are “active participants”.

Every six months SINDES releases a report to the public. This issue presents the results of 78 performance indicators related to the 1st and 2nd half of 2010. The report has been useful to academia, media, public bodies and society in general because it relies on the comparison of performance beyond traditional concepts of actions or expenditure or money invested in public works and programs, a fact that has distorted the appropriate monitoring of government performance in Mexico.

For this year’s report, there were 14 Mexican municipalities which voluntarily contributed data to generate results; Atizapán de Zaragoza (Edo. Méx.), Badiraguato (Sin.), Chihuahua (Chih.), Guadalajara (Jal.), Guasave (Sin.), Guaymas (Son.), Hermosillo (Son.), Mocorito (Sin.), Navolato (Sin.), Nogales (Son.), Puebla (Pue.), Salvador Alvarado (Sin.), San Nicolás de los Garza (N.L.) y San Pedro Garza García (N.L.).

The results of the 1st half of 2010 were based on the date provided by eight municipalities, while for the 2nd half eleven municipality were involved.

SINDES 78 indicators, having biannual and annual frequency, are distributed in nine key areas of local government: General condition, Government and Administration, Legal Framework, Public Services, Public Finance, Planning, Public Safety, Public Policy Development and Infrastructure.

A sample of the report results are:

Note: Results in currency are in Mexican pesos. Exchange rate; US$ 1.00 = $12.00 pesos.

To download the full report 2010 (in Spanish) press here and to download previous reports 2001-2009 (in Spanish) and for further information I invite you to visit www.sindes.org

Mexican municipal governments are invited to participate in SINDES anytime in the year, and contribute to greater transparency and compliance with the provisions of law to generate valuable information, useful for decision-making.

Before I go I want to share with you a couple of experiences with SINDES Program. I remember when a Mayor called years ago and told us that, being part of SINDES, he could not see any kind of benefits to his municipality. Then we asked him “Mayor did you use the indicators results in any way?” He answered, “No, the report has been just right here over my desk since I received it”. We quickly replied “Mayor, the report does not take decisions, you do”. 

Other experience occurred last year when the Municipality of Puebla won a national award in a public administration contest, which is organized by a very well-known university (CIDE), thanks to its MS whose name is SEDEM (Municipal Performance Evaluation System). SEDEM was developed in part thanks to SINDES back in 2005. One lesson learned confirmed was that leadership, perseverance and political support are key elements for a MS to succeed.  SINDES Program team was very proud of Puebla´s achievement. To download the SEDEM presentation (in Spanish) that was explained to the jury press here

Finally, I want to tell you that SINDES Program can be adapted to any country. If you want a SINDES presentation in English just let me know at jvillasana@icma.org I will be happy to share it. See you next time.

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Making a difference for women and girls in Mazar

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Laura Hagg | June 22, 2011

Young girl in Mazar e sharif

This wil be the last post from Afghanistan.  Tomorrow we take an early flight to Dubai with a long layover then home to Washington, DC.  The last two days we spent in Mazar e sharif was solely focused on recruiting.  We had hired or extended offers to many of the priority positions – but we had a few more interviews before we could leave. 

There are two young amazing women I must tell you about.

One woman interviewed for the positions of Team Leader for the municipality of Sherbeghan (for security concerns, I won’t use names).  She is a petite young woman who was full of fire.  When her last position was eliminated because the project was completed, she started looking for jobs.  But when nothing turned up right away – she started a fitness center for women in Sherbeghan, a provincial capital in the northern region.  Others asked if she was concerned than she would receive threats and she emphatically said no and that she did not care – it was important to her.  She was smart, full of spirit and had applied to be the team leader so she could be the first woman leader in Sherbeghan.  Although she lacked some technical knowledge critical to the position, we have found she had other great skills that would work well in other positions.  With the right opportunity and mentoring, she will flourish and move up in her career.  I am looking forward to keeping in touch with her and watching her grow.

On our last day in Mazar, we met a woman who had applied to be Urban Planning Director for RAMP UP North.  We were anxious to interview her since she had good, relevant experience and was returning from the U.S. after a 14 month fellowship at M.I.T. to study urban planning.  She was supposed to fly United out of Boston but due to all their issues, her flights were delayed and she did not get back to Mazar until the day before we were supposed to leave.  We spoke with her husband often as he was helpful in keeping us updated about when she was returning.

Although she was completely jet lagged, extremely tired and spoke often in a quiet voice, she was extremely knowledgeable and had great examples and ideas for solving some urban planning challenges in the northern region.  However, she became very animated in response to one of our questions.

In all of our interviews with candidates, we tell them about a RAMP UP North’s priority-to increase the involvement of women in municipal activities and to hire as many women as possible as staff members on the project.  Since the more than 90 percent of our candidates are men, we do ask them if they would have any problems working with or for women.  Many candidates have worked in international organizations and work with women often – so no problem.

I reversed the question for our female candidate for Urban Planning Director and asked if she had worked with men who did not want to work with her because she was a woman and how did she handle that?  That is when her eyes lit up and she said yes, but it is a long story. 

She has a Bachelors in Engineering from a local university and after having worked with the International Red Cross and other organizations, she worked with the International Organization for Migration, where she was hired to help plan and build girls’ schools in the northern region.  This project was supported by USAID.  She told us how they surveyed the available public land in this one district in Mazar province and found a location that would be good for a school.  But when she started discussing this with other local staff, they thought it was not a good idea since a Commander (a type of warlord/fighter) was occupying/using the land illegally.  Everyone was afraid of this commander.  But she did not give up.  She then went to the local elder and asked him for help.  He backed off and said no – but you can go ahead.  She told us then that she did not care if she would be killed – it was more important for this school to be built.

So eventually she was able to set up a meeting with this Commander.  Immediately he said no – females don’t need to be educated.  She spoke about how this school would allow his daughters to go to school.  He said no.  Then he remarked that the Koran said that females should not be educated.  She challenged him and said where did it say that?  He told her that his Mullah told him that.  Then he finally confessed that he could not read.  So she opened up her Koran and translated passages for him where the Prophet Mohammad spoke about the importance of education for males and females and how both should gain knowledge.  The Commander was surprised and a bit angry that his Mullah did not tell him this.  He relented and allowed the school to be built. Amazing. The school is operating to this day.

I was awed by the soft spoken woman who risked her life to further education for girls.  One woman can make a difference and we are making a difference one person at a time here in Afghanistan.  And yes, she was hired as Urban Planning Director.

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Helping to create safer communities in Panama

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Isabelle Bully-Omictin | June 22, 2011

Apartment buildings in Colon

I am a Senior Governance Advisor at ICMA and have been with ICMA International since 1997 working mostly on programs in Latin America. I recently traveled to Panama on a USAID-funded Program, Alcance Positivo, which strives to advance citizen security and community safety through USG-assisted youth-at-risk development gang prevention activities in target municipalities and communities. ICMA is a member of the implementation team, which is headed by Creative Associates International. The three-year program began in August 2010. It is only my second time to Panama and the first time I only spent 2 nights in Panama City, so that didn’t really count. This time I was able to go to Colón, which is the second largest province in Panama (2000 pop. 204,208), at the Caribbean end of the Panama Canal. Colón was surrounded by, but not part of, the former Panama Canal Zone. It was made a free trade zone in 1953 and is the world's second largest duty-free port. Outside of the free trade zone (which I didn’t visit), the city (with an aprox. population of 50,000 habitants) itself though doesn’t show any signs of prosperity. The old Spanish-style buildings with large balconies in the city center are all decayed, with paint having peeled off several decades ago. The newer 5-6 story apartment buildings are in no better shape and alleyways throughout the city are strewn with garbage and rodents. I only saw mice as apparently the rats come out at night… I’ll take their word for it and won’t be going back to check. I’m lucky, I have a choice…

The city is crowded. The Colonenses, as the people who live there are called, actually build makeshift shacks on the balconies of the old Spanish-style buildings, renting them presumably from the people who are living inside. Frankly, I’d rather live outside as it is HOT in Colón. Luckily there is a breeze from the ocean but you have to be outside in the street to feel it.

The city is made up of 18 streets, each of which essentially belongs to a gang. In fact, many Colonenses, whether by direct affiliation with a gang, or family relationship or other connection, are prisoners of their blocks. Should they cross the block into the territory of another gang – literally across the street – they would likely be shot. There is a park that runs right through the city to the ocean. Parts of that park are also off-limits to certain gangs or people affiliated with gangs. What really struck me is that there is nowhere for kids to go and play – no playgrounds, no green spaces, very few internet cafes and no sports centers.

The  Alcance Positivo Program is providing grants to NGOs to fund community centers called “Centros de Alcance” (outreach centers) for at-risk-youth in several cities in Panama, including Colon. ALL kids in Colon are at risk as far as I’m concerned. At the Center I went to see, which is still under construction, there was one ping-pong table, 2 rackets, one ball and 6 kids who wanted to play. They took turns such that when one kid lost a point he would pass the racket along to the next kid to play. It worked like clockwork but I wondered as I witnessed this if this would play out as well in a YMCA in the States… Clearly these kids had learned to work together in a resource-poor world. It was a pretty powerful and hopeful image in a way. One has to believe that if these kids are able to avail themselves of the programs that ultimately will be provided by the Centro de Alcance, they will not take them for granted and they will share what they learn with others in the community. I’m pleased to play a small part through my work at ICMA in fostering these types of programs. ICMA’s assistance on this Project is not at the grassroots level, building these centers, for example, but at a broader strategic level. We are helping to put into place and strengthen mechanisms, in this case, Inter-Institutional Municipal Crime Prevention Committees, to coordinate the efforts of NGOs, police, private sector and government officials to support projects like the Centros de Alcance and put into place programs that benefit youth-at-risk and create a more positive climate for the families of Colón and several other cities in Panama. Our work is easy – it’s the folks that live in these neighborhoods day in and day out who volunteer to participate on these committees who have the hard work. We just have to give them the skills so that they are prepared and motivated to continue on after the Project ends.

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Recruiting for ICMA in Mazar e Sharif

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Laura Hagg | June 17, 2011

The launch of any new development project or program begins with operations and recruiting, recruiting, and recruiting.  As subcontractors to DAI for RAMP UP North, ICMA staff do not have to find office space, guesthouses, order computers, etc.  Our main job is to work with DAI to recruit the most talented local staff.  From Sunday, June 12 to Thursday, June 16, we have conducted nearly 20 interviews with 4 more scheduled for Saturday, June 18. Whew. In total, we are looking to recruit more than 70 local staff in technical and administrative positions.

Van James, ICMA’s senior person in the field, serves as Municipal Governance Advisor.  He has been participating in the interviews and working with the Chief of Party, Shaun McNally, to develop a workplan, organize training and will lead the senior technical team in capacity building. Shaun and Van worked together in Iraq and they have a great working relationship.  Van is an ICMA member and was a city manager for more than 25 years in Texas and Colorado.  We are lucky to have him here.

RAMP UP North will have a central senior leadership team to provide technical expertise to the 9 provincial capitals of the northern region:  Aibak, Faizabad, Kunduz, Maimana, Mazar e Sharif, Pul-e-Khumri, Sar-e-Pul, Sherbeghan and Taloquan. Each municipality will have a team to support them in three important efforts:  build capacity within municipal staff; improve delivery of public services  through the identification and implementation of infrastructure projects; and identify and implement activities that generate revenue for the municipality.  The senior technical advisors will mentor and train the embedded teams, building capacity and strengthening their ability to implement projects and programs with the municipalities. 

Each team is led by a Team Leader, who is supported by a Public Administration Advisor, Public Works Advisor, Engineer, Economic Development Advisor and Public Financial Management Advisor.  This embedded team will be co-located at municipal offices and will work side-by-side with municipal staff to train, mentor and provide on the job training to help them become a financially sustainable municipality that is operating transparently and providing improved public services to citizens. 

We have interviewed some phenomenal candidates – especially for Public Administration Director.  This may be surprising since Afghanistan has been an unstable battleground for nearly 30 years.  What would they know about Public Administration and the business of running a city?  A lot.  One candidate who just finished his Masters in Public Administration quoted Woodrow Wilson and discussed several good ideas about how to improve the administration of municipalities here.  A Revenue Enhancement Director candidate arrived at the interview with a list of ways for increasing revenue, many of which involved creating innovative public private partnerships. 

We have extended 3 offers of employment and plan on extending close to 10 more before the end of next week. We have certainly hit the

 

Shaun McNally, Chief of Party (left), and Van James, Municipal Governance Advisor, reviewing the work plan for RAMP UP North.

ground running here in Mazar e Sharif! 

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ICMA in Kabul

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Laura Hagg | June 14, 2011

 

Jalil (starting from right - HR Manager) and Brit along with Pamir (Finance Officer), Karim (Finance Intern), and Nasim (HR Officer) enjoy a traditional Afghan lunch at the PSO.

The ICMA Team of Shraddha, Brit and I spent a week in Kabul working out of ICMA’s Project Support Office (PSO) finalizing organizational charts, position control lists, and position descriptions so we could hit the ground running once we landed in Mazar e sharif to help launch RAMP UP North.  Our colleague Megan arrived a few days later and was in Kabul one day before heading out to Herat to help launch RAMP UP West. 

As I mentioned in a previous post, ICMA is a subcontractor to DAI under the Regional Afghan Municipalities Program for Urban Populations - Regional Command East, North and West. RAMP UP is a USAID-funded program focused on creating effective, responsive, democratic, transparent, accountable, and gender sensitive municipal governance in provincial capitals.  This project focuses on the expertise that ICMA staff and its members can offer – good governance and improved service delivery to citizens. 

While we were in Kabul, it was great to meet our local staff and put faces with names at the PSO.  We have staff who work in human resources, finance and operations that support all of our RAMP UP Projects.  The first position we interviewed and hired for is HR Manager – someone who we could work with to hire the many positions (60-70 now – more later as the project gets underway) that we would need in Mazar e sharif and the eight other provincial capitals we will work in.  The great news is that a staff member, Jalil, who has been an HR Officer for RAMP UP East applied for the position HR Manager and we were happy to promote him to his position.  He has family in Mazar so it works well that he could easily relocate. 

Back in Washington, DC, sometimes our staff eats lunch together.  Well at our PSO, we eat lunch together every day, as you can see from the photos.  It is definitely a family affair.  Because of travel and security restrictions, we do not go out to lunch– instead our office has a cook that can create some delicious meals for us every day.  We have enjoyed eating local Afghan food and being able to catch up with our colleagues. 

We arrived in Mazar e sharif on the evening of Friday June 10 and the workday started on Saturday.  Next post I will write about our work  in Mazar and some of the differences I noticed between Kabul and Mazar.

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