Regions: Asia and Pacific
Enormous development challenges with India and China emerging as powerhouses for growth.
Home to three fourths of the world's population and most of the world's poor, the Asia and Pacific region faces enormous development challenges as well as significant opportunities. Critical challenges include reducing high illiteracy and maternal mortality, rebuilding Afghanistan, and preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS in South Asia. Across the region strengthening governance and public accountability at the national and sub-national levels, empowering poor people, building a climate for investment, and improving environmental and natural resource management are critical issues. With China and India emerging together as economic powerhouses there are significant new opportunities for regional trade, cooperation and economic growth.
Since the early 1990s SI has worked in or consulted on projects in roughly 40 Asian countries. Our initial activities in the region focused on community forestry, education and health mainly through the British foreign aid program. We currently support long term projects in Afghanistan, Indonesia and Pakistan, and collaborate with USAID, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and various NGOs to strengthen programs in governance, education, economic growth, civil society and environment.
- PROJECT details
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SI helps Asian Development Bank engage governments and local communities in development.
The success of development depends on the degree to which governments and local communities share ownership over development initiatives. Through several years of work with ADB, SI has enhanced the skills of ADB staff to engage local groups, including governments, grassroots communities and private sector actors in development planning and management. Through training, consulting on public participation strategies and development of a new Staff Guide on Consultation and Participation that is enjoying widespread use in the Bank and with Developing Member Countries, SI is helping ADB become more effective promoting Asian development.
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Support to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): 2007-2011
SI is a partner of Nathan Associates on a $150 million USAID project to support ASEAN-US Enhanced Partnership activities over the next five to eight years. The project-the ASEAN Development Vision to Advance National Cooperation and Economic Integration (ADVANCE)-will allow USAID Missions in the region to support the ASEAN Secretariat and work with and through ASEAN member country governments, civil society, and the private sector to achieve Partnership goals in economic development and trade, health, ICT, transport, disaster management, and the environment. One of the most successful regional organizations in the developing world, ASEAN intends to further integrate its member countries into an ASEAN community by 2015. SI supports ASEAN/ADVANCE to integrate gender and results-based management into a wide array of project activities.
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Financial Management Practice and Indicator Consulting Services for South Asia Region: World Bank, 2006-2007
As the World Bank is currently pursuing a major anti-corruption agenda, the Financial Management (FM) group was asked to enhance its fiduciary activities in the investment portfolio because donors are keenly interested in how funds are used. In response, FM mobilized to address these needs but it was not necessary apparent how additional FM preparation and supervision activities will impact fiduciary results. This was a challenge because FM fiduciary performance is difficult to measure—many judgments are subjective and no baseline data was available. FM contracted SI to conduct an independent FM review of the current and past World Bank projects in Bangladesh. SI's review of the World Bank project in Bangladesh centered on analyzing the quality of fiduciary management at all stages in a project's life cycle. Following an extensive desk review, a series of interviews and a collaborative workshop, SI finalized a common set of FM indicators to effectively monitor the impact and quality of FM fiduciary work. The common set of FM indicators allows World Bank FM staff to actively compare the quality of FM interventions across projects, portfolios, countries and regions. In addition, SI provided training on measuring FM results to 40 South Asia Region staff in Pakistan. The result is that the FM team has a better understanding of how to manage FM activities in the region with a view towards increasing borrower transparency and accountability managing donor funds.
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Indonesia Orangutan Conservation Services Program (OCSP): USAID, 2007-2010
The OCSP is a crisis response program that aims to maximize protection and long-term survival of viable orangutan populations in the wild. As part of the DAI team, Social Impact works to arrest and reduce the threats to orangutans as well as address the major drivers of those threats; mainly habitat loss and population decline through forest conversion and logging. SI leads project monitoring and evaluation activities to ensure that conservation, habitat and species protection goals and targets are achieved. Timely and accurate monitoring information is used for management decision-making and demonstrating results to communities, USAID and other stakeholders. SI also leads the gender strategy for OCSP to ensure that both women and men participate in--and receive benefits from—conservation schemes such as alternative farming practices and resource management activities including community education, boundary patrol and social sanctions.
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Afghanistan - Capacity Development Program (CDP): USAID, 2007-2012
Since 2002, the Government of Afghanistan and the international community have focused on supporting the establishment of national government structures, education and health systems, civil society and private-sector economy in Afghanistan. These initiatives were part of the emergency reconstruction plan and reliant on foreign assistance to achieve results. The CDP program seeks to shift the focus away from emergency reconstruction towards developing Afghan capacity to plan and manage the economic and social development process over the long-term. As a partner to BearingPoint, SI provides training in capacity building across the public, private and NGO sectors to strengthen Afghani institutions, increase their effectiveness, and streamline their operations. SI also designed and manages the CDP integrated performance monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system. The M&E approach relates program activities to demonstrable impacts, thereby helping to foster sustained capacity in Afghan institutions, and ultimately helping to facilitate the political, social and economic development of Afghanistan.
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Building Capacity for Participatory Development: Asian Development Bank, 2001-present
SI works with the ADB to build its skills and capabilities in participatory development (PD). SI assessed ADB staff skills and reviewed incentives, procedures and good practices, and benchmarked ADB's work against that of other donors. SI designed and delivered a series of training programs on PD skills on topics ranging from participatory project design, to participatory M&E and gender analysis. SI is currently developing guidelines and a Staff Handbook on Consultation and Participation. The training and capacity building inputs are being used by ADB to improve its approach to development in the Asia region.
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Afghanistan—Alternative Livelihoods Program: USAID, 2005-09
For many years, poppy and opium production have been a vital part of Afghanistan's economy and rural livelihoods. SI is supporting DAI in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province to promote alternative livelihoods and reduce reliance on poppy production. The $100 million program introduces high-value crops that can be sold domestically and internationally, improves access to microfinance, strengthens small enterprises, works with government officials to reform public policies, and manages essential infrastructure and public works projects. SI established the performance monitoring and evaluation system for the large, politically sensitive project and provides two full-time M&E staff as part of the project team.
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Indonesia-Strengthening Environmental Management: USAID Environmental Services Project, 2005-09
Social Impact works with DAI on this large project that, through community and municipal linkages, promotes comprehensive policy reform and expansion of water supply and services throughout Indonesia. SI works on the ground to develop and implement a gender strategy for the project, to ensure that women fully participate in all aspects of the project and receive improved water quality and services. SI is also supporting effective project collaboration between local and international NGOs, especially in the Tsunami-affected areas of Ache.
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Pakistan-Legislative Strengthening Program: USAID, 2005-09
The purpose of the project is to strengthen parliamentary processes within Pakistan's legislative bodies: the National Assembly, Senate and four Provincial Assemblies. Project activities focus on strengthening the parliament's oversight capacity and lawmaking ability with enhanced research and information access; increasing public participation in parliamentary decision-making processes; and strengthening avenues for public input and/or training of journalists who cover parliamentary proceedings. As a subcontractor to DAI, SI supports the project with monitoring and evaluation expertise.
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Afghanistan—Final Evaluation of USAID/Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) Program, 2005
USAID/OTI had worked in Afghanistan for three and a half years supporting the process of recovery, rehabilitation and political development. OTI worked to build national, provincial and local governance capacities and to extend governmental presence and services to all regions. SI performed the final evaluation of OTI's first mega-program in Afghanistan, assessing: OTI's strategic plan; OTI's success in building government legitimacy; and OTI's use of participatory democratic processes in connecting Afghans to each other and to their local authorities. OTI is using the evaluation to improve new programs and to demonstrate results from its experience in Afghanistan.
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Pakistan—Strengthening M&E for Country Portfolio: World Bank, 2004
Pakistan represents one of the Bank's larger portfolios in South Asia with 17 active loans and commitments of roughly $1 billion. SI conducted an in-depth assessment of the full portfolio to strengthen its results-orientation and performance monitoring systems, including the government's M&E systems and capacity. Recommendations from the assessment, developed jointly with the Bank's Operational Core Services Group, were used by the Pakistan country team to improve the quality of existing projects; improve Bank and government M&E systems; better align projects with the Bank's Country Assistance Strategy (CAS); and to better align the CAS with Pakistan's Poverty Reduction Strategy.
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Strengthening Asia Region Program Quality: World Bank, 2000-03
SI supported the World Bank project design teams working in the South and East Asia regions to improve program performance through better quality project and program designs (or Quality at Entry—QAE). Working with Logical Frameworks and Results Frameworks-SI strengthened the design of over 40 Asia projects and programs in all sectors covering most of the countries in the region. SI also facilitated project design workshops with Bank staff and host-country officials, delivered specialized project design training and technical assistance for design teams and advised on participatory planning methods. SI's support led to marked improvements in QAE for assisted projects.
Sample projects that SI assisted include: Sri Lanka Village Development, Bhuton Private Sector Development, Mararashtra Rural Water Supply and Chhattisgarh Forestry (India), Sind On-Farm Water Management (Pakistan), Karnataka Health and Rajastan Health (India).
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Bangladesh-Building Capacity for Performance Management: USAID/Bangladesh, 2003
USAID democracy program in Bangladesh focused on obtaining three main results related to building a constituency for strong local government, improving responsiveness of parliament to citizens and strengthening civil society. SI worked with the Mission Democracy team and civil society representatives to revise and finalize the preliminary performance management plan and to develop the Results Framework and indicators for the USAID Education team. Both components are being used to better manage the USAID program in Bangladesh.