Compass assessment: 2002 document 44 august 2002

Recommendations

(1) The above summary shows that disbursements for the small grants programme are on schedule. The predominance of afforestation projects is understandable in view of the acute degradation being experienced throughout the country. However, since the COMPASS projects are meant to draw out lessons, it will be important in the remaining period of the Activity to fund other CBNRM projects that are underrepresented or absent in the above list.

(2) The mission concludes that an 18-month grant period should be considered, with the second year carefully planned to ensure consolidation of mechanisms for asset maintenance. Although the duration of COMPASS grants is not fixed, the majority of the grantees visited had 12-months grants and showed evidence that this period was too short, such as operations being initiated towards the end of the project, thus leaving little time for completion.
(3) Considerable marketing problems as experienced by the Ndirande and Songani Groups suggest that briquette marketing must first be solved before further replication of this activity is undertaken. The mission learned that several communities were contemplating briquette making. These are IEF-sponsored communities in Chikwawa and the Chipusile VNRMC in Ntcheu.
(4) More Youth Organisations should be encouraged to apply for COMPASS grants and efforts made to provide them with adequate training as these appear to hold much promise for the furtherance of CBNRM.
(5) COMPASS should put in place or clarify guidelines on how to handle cases involving grantees that may need to benefit out of face-to-face consultations when they have under-performed.
(6) COMPASS should continue to provide training in participatory monitoring and should ensure that the grantees use the knowledge in running their own projects.
(7) COMPASS should re-examine the criteria for project screening to include an evaluation of the appropriateness of the technology being proposed, particularly with respect to technical sustainability.
(8) It will remain a source of conflict if a service provider is paid from the community’s project budget for rendering a service, especially when the community is illiterate. The mission recommends that other sources of funding should be identified and separated from the main budget held by the community.
(9) COMPASS should provide further guidelines to the evaluation panel to critically examine project proposals that tend to be overly diversified and ambitious so as to make them more focussed and gain on maximising impact.
(10) It is apparent that standardised procedures for CBNRM implementation cannot be achieved because there are major coordination problems within and across Ministries and service providers. Through the CBNRM Working Group, COMPASS should, therefore, continue to lobby for the establishment of the principle that service providers will only work with communities on NRM activities if those same communities make commitments to share costs. There is danger that some current CBNRM project implementation procedures are creating dependency by the community because CBNRM is being implemented as a welfare activity rather than a development activity.

3.4 Gender Issues
COMPASS has done commendable work to promote the participation of women in project activities. So far about 57% of the grant beneficiaries are women. The project plan is to have 60% of the grant beneficiaries being female. The formation of CBNRM groups in the community and the skills training has enhanced the capacity of groups to manage natural resources management initiatives.
Working with partner NGOs, CBOs and Government agencies in the project has enhanced the work of the otherwise few COMPASS staff. There are advantages of working with partners because they work with the community, have skills relevant to assist the community in their (specific) initiatives. In the case of the COMPASS project, a multiplier effect has been realised in terms of number of established CBNRM groups and people trained with skills to manage groups and activities.
However, although a lot of effort has been made by COMPASS to promote the participation of women in project activities, there are some gender gaps that need to be addressed by the project if gender equity has to be achieved. These gaps are reflected in the recommendations:

3.4.1 TR1: Capacity for effective CBNRM administrative and technical services

The objective in the TR1 is to establish an effective CBNRM Coordinating Group to facilitate rational planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of CBNRM activities in Malawi. The group has so far developed and launched a Framework for Strategic Planning for CBNRM activities, and a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. Following are some of the conclusions and recommendations relating to this component.

• 
  There is an imbalance in gender representation in the Working Group and in addition there is no gender expert in the group who can advise on matters related to gender and gender equity. It is recommended that the working group should have a gender specialist in the committee or an organisation that advises the working group whenever there are issues related to gender
  

• 
  COMPASS does not have a gender policy and strategic framework that can be used as a basis for planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of project activities. COMPASS should therefore develop a gender policy that defines the organisation’s core values and how gender equity should be mainstreamed in project supported activities.
  

• 
  The Working Group has already developed a Strategic Plan for CBNRM activities. (Document 35: Strategic Plan for CBNRM in Malawi: COMPASS, November 2001) the strategic plan has 4 Strategic Actions. It is recommended that gender be integrated in the strategic actions of the plan. Gender can be integrated in Strategic Action1: ‘Developing a Commonly Understood CBNRM Concept and Vision’ (pages 2&3) and Strategic Action 4: Developing Planning and Implementation Tools (pages 8&9). In this strategic action gender should be part of sub-action 4.6. ‘Review Participatory Methodology Toolbox to Assist Community Level Decision Making, with special reference to CBNRM Aspects’. This sub action provides an opportunity to introduce and train people on gender analytic tools. Some of the participatory tools like PRA can be engendered to collect gender disaggregated data. This exercise can be part of the PRA training for capacity building planned for the first quarter of 2002.
  

• 
  The membership of the Working Group need to be sensitised first and also have a gender expert who can provide direction of the group and activities. A local NGO, the Co-ordination Unit for the Rehabilitation of the Environment (CURE) is a member of the Working Group but the gender experts of the organisation do not attend the meetings. It is important to either have the gender experts attend or form a gender experts sub-group to assist in the issues of gender mainstreaming.
  

3.4.2 TR3: Improvement of community mobilisation skills within government, NGOs and community groups
The objective of community mobilisation is to improve the skills and a positive attitude of Government, NGOs and Community Groups towards environmental protection within communities and promoting their own vision of sustainable resource utilisation and biodiversity conservation. There are three broad areas of support provided by the project which include: basic skills in training, extension and community mobilisation, technical skills building in natural resources management and, business skills for sustainable natural resource-based enterprises.
There are two levels of training; one conducted by COMPASS for capacity building of partners and that conducted by partners for improving management and technical skills of CBNRM groups and management of natural resource initiatives.
So far, COMPASS has conducted twenty training workshops for partners since 1999 where 3030 people have been trained. Of those trained, 31% are women. However, for the community level training, there is evidence that the number of women trained is much higher.
COMPASS works with partners in improving the skills of CBNRM groups to manage their initiatives. However, the majority of the partners do not have gender skills. Two out of seven partners interviewed had skills in gender and appreciate the importance of gender in program performance.
It is therefore recommended that COMPASS facilitates development of gender skills on the concepts of gender and appreciate gender analysis as a tool for project planning, monitoring and evaluation.