Outline of the Project

Project Title

Technical Cooperation Project in Strengthening Participatory Planning and Community
Development Cycle for Good Local Governance (O&OD Project) Phase 2

Background of the Project

The Government of Tanzania has been making significant efforts to accelerate Decentralization by Devolution (D by D) since 1996. Among such efforts, as a part of the Local Government Reform Program (LGRP) framework, the Opportunities and Obstacles to Development (O&OD) was initiated in 2001 to be rolled-out to all Local Government Authorities (LGAs).

JICA, with an aim to propose recommendations to address the challenges arose during the roll-out of O&OD, conducted a Study on Improvements of Opportunities and Obstacles to Development (O&OD) Planning Process (June 2006 – March 2008) followed by a technical cooperation project, Strengthening Participatory Planning and Community Development Cycle for Good Local Governance, or "O&OD Project Phase 1" (October 2009 - 2014). The Study concluded that in order to make O&OD process functional not only as a planning method but also as a system that strengthens LGAs' supportiveness to community development process as a whole, (1) capacity development of stakeholders and (2) creating an environment for strengthening local governance in a society are crucial.

O&OD Project Phase 2 commenced in January 2015, focusing more on holistic policy recommendations that derived from the experiences of O&OD Project Phase 1, through conducting various activities in 31 target villages together with 6 target LGAs^[1]. O&OD Project Phase 2 aims to establish supporting mechanisms that enables the central and the local governments to sustain and replicate Improved O&OD whereby local service delivery and local development are to be improved through encouraging and promoting Community Initiatives.

Overall Goal

Through Improved O&OD, Government of Tanzania (Central Government and LGAs) implements local service delivery and local development by supporting and promoting Community Initiatives

Project Purpose

Supporting mechanisms for Improved O&OD implementation and replication are developed and implemented at LGAs and PO-RALG

Implementing Agency

Department of Local Government, President's Office-Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG)

Duration

January 2015 to January 2020 (5 years)

Target Group

(1) Nationwide Foundation:
PO-RALG, LGA officials of all LGAs

(2) Consolidated Approach:
LGA officials and Ward level officials of the target LGAs.
During the project, the original 6 LGAs (Bagamoyo, Kisarawe, Morogoro, Ulanga, Kilombero, Kondoa, the target LGAs of Phase 1), 3 LGAs in Kilimanjaro (Hai, Siha and Same replicated in 2015) as well as 16 new LGAs will be the target LGAs.

Key Words and Concepts of the Project

• "Improved O&OD"
  A methodology to build and sustain collaborative relationship between LGA and community for better local service delivery and local development by encouraging and promoting Community Initiatives (CIs), as described below. It addresses the shortcomings of the Conventional O&OD introduced in 2001 as a part of D by D. It aims not to limit its focus on participatory community planning but to go further to realize collaborative relationship between LGA and community whereby:
  
  Community
  People make efforts to overcome challenges by themselves whenever they can, instead of waiting for the government action.
  
  Government
  The central government and LGAs recognize the importance of Community Initiatives to overcome the shortfalls in local service delivery. LGA encourages and support Community Initiatives.
  
  It is composed of: (1) Nationwide Foundation and (2) Consolidated Approach.
• "Community Initiatives" (CIs)
  Community Initiatives are the collective actions in which the community people proactively participate in decision making and implementation process.
• "Nationwide Foundation"
  It is an enhanced process of LGAs in identifying existing Community Initiatives and appropriately encouraging them, through the operations of the Reformed Local Government Development Grant (LGDG). By the end of the project, the concept of identifying and encouraging existing Community Initiatives becomes a mainstream in the LGAs nationwide with an established operational mechanism.
  
  Operational mechanism is a set of routine works to be implemented by LGA staff such as Ward Executive Officers (WEOs), Village Executive Officers (VEOs) and District Planning Officer (DPLO) and consists of the following components:
  (1) Procedure to identify and compile information of existing Community Initiatives by utilizing particular formats.
  (2) Procedure to select Community Initiatives for LGDG support based on set criteria
  (3) Procedure to monitor selected Community Initiatives to provide adequate response (not only financial, but also technical and moral inputs, as well as information sharing)
• "Consolidated Approach"
  In Consolidated Approach, by establishing an added function of "facilitation," LGAs not only identify and encourage existing Community Initiatives, but also promote (strengthen existing Community Initiatives, generate new ones, and adequately support them), as well as sustain activeness of communities.
  
  Consolidated Approach will be replicated to LGAs which desire to strengthen their efforts in promoting and sustaining Community Initiatives, and show their commitment, willingness and capacity in terms of budget. Intensive and continuous supports by PO-RALG through provision of human resources (such as Senior Facilitators and Trainers etc.) for the capacity building of the LGA officers, as well as direct supervision will be provided to target LGAs.
• "Facilitation"
  Facilitation in the context of Improved O&OD means to assist community throughout the community development process (not only the planning process but also awareness building, organizational building, implementation and Monitoring and Evaluation of Community Initiatives) in order to assist the community's capacity building through experience-based learning, in an aim to promote and sustain Community Initiatives.
  
  Facilitation is key in deepening LGAs' efforts from only taking care of existing Community Initiatives (Nationwide Foundation) into sustaining and strengthening them, and generating new Community Initiatives (Consolidated Approach).

Main Activities

OUTPUT 1: The concept of identifying and encouraging existing Community Initiatives becomes a mainstream in the LGAs nationwide with an established operational mechanism (NATIONWIDE FOUNDATION)

1.1	Develop tentative operational mechanism for identifying and supporting Community Initiatives through LGDG
1.2	Formulate guidelines of the mechanism, including general criteria to identify appropriate Community Initiatives
1.3	Conduct the first round of zonal workshops to introduce the mechanism nationwide
1.4	Follow-up selected LGAs in utilizing the operational mechanism together with Regional Secretariats (RSs)
1.5	Give technical guidance to LGDG taskforce on how to assess LGA's performance in relation to Community Initiatives
1.6	Establish annual follow-up activities for O&OD team through RSs (based on the result of LGDG Annual Assessment, extract good practices as well as poor performing LGAs and provide specific advices)
1.7	Establish awarding system by PO-RALG toward good performing LGAs and communities based on the result from 1.6
1.8	Conduct the second round of zonal workshops reflecting the lessons learned from 1.4 and 1.6
1.9	Revise guidelines of the mechanism

OUTPUT 2: Institutional training system for Improved O&OD is established

2.1	Establish Training Taskforce (TTF)[2]
2.2	Develop curriculum and materials for respective training; for Ward Facilitator (WF)[3] , District Taskforce (DTF)[4] , Senior Facilitator (SF)[5], Trainer[6]
2.3	Develop Trainer system
2.4	Develop Senior Facilitator (SF) system
2.5	Develop M&E system of Improved O&OD training
2.6	Plan and provide training for different stakeholders; Trainer, SF, DTF and WF
2.7	Revise curriculum and materials for the above trainings

OUTPUT 3: Replicable mechanism^[7] of Improved O&OD at the LGA level to promote and sustain Community Initiatives through facilitation is developed (CONSOLIDATED APPROACH)

3.1	Draw lessons learnt from the 6 target LGAs (initial target LGAs from Phase 1)
3.2	Formulate guidelines for WFs, SFs and DTF to promote and sustain Community Initiatives
3.3	Support initial target LGAs to complete the mechanism to promote and sustain Community Initiatives, and replicate within the respective LGAs
3.4	Support DTF in all target LGAs to develop LGA strategy and action plan[8] on supporting Community Initiatives
3.5	Support newly-selected LGA to establish a mechanism to promote and sustain Community Initiatives
3.6	Revise the guidelines

OUTOUT 4: Mechanism of PO-RALG to supervise and replicate Improved O&OD is developed

4.1	Develop capacity of O&OD team through project activities (e.g. training, supervision, promotion, etc.)
4.2	Develop a framework paper to describe roles of each institution involved in Improved O&OD
4.3	Continuously discuss with PO-RALG management on organizational setup for Improved O&OD
4.4	Develop guidelines on Improved O&OD supervision and replication for PO-RALG
4.5	Conduct PR activities on Improved O&OD by utilizing existing occasions to LGAs
4.6	Revise the guidelines
4.7	Conduct financial planning of the Improved O&OD activities including the nationwide foundation and consolidated approach and examine its financial feasibility

Contact:
O&OD Project Office
PO-RALG (Sokoine House), Room No. 164, Ground Floor, Wing B
P.O. Box 509, Dodoma, Tanzania
Tel: +255 (0)26 232 3660
Fax: +255 (0)26 232 3661
E-mail: pmoralg.ood@gmail.com