Appendix A4 Mid-term Evaluation Report (February 2003) Introduction

Management Recommendations

1. Essential Management Changes

To place the project management office on a professional footing, we recommend that SFA and UNDP both be responsible for approving the two co-manager and the capacity development candidates, as the quality of professionals filling these positions will largely determine the success of the project. Also we suggest that the CTA position be changed to technical advisor co-manager (the CTA’s TORs would need to be changed), as this will provide the project with continuity and stability. See section 6.4.2 for more discussion about the CTA. If possible, qualified candidates for the other positions should be recruited from within SFA. However, it may be difficult to find qualified and available staff from within SFA to fill all of the positions²⁷. If this is the case, qualified external experts should be recruited to fill positions that cannot be filled by SFA staff. To recruit outside experts, UNDP hiring policies and procedures should be followed (e.g. advertise the jobs, establish a selection panel and document the hiring process). Before filling any positions, proper job descriptions should be developed for all positions and UNDP must approve these job descriptions.

Table 6.1: Suggested Positions for Central Project Office

• 
  Administrative project co-manager. This person would be responsible for setting up the new project office systems, recruiting and training all other project office members except the technical co-manager and the capacity development specialits, designing/implementing the project’s financial and administrative systems in the provinces. He/she would be responsible for ongoing administration of the project over its lifetime. This manager should have extensive experience implementing UNDP and other donor projects, be able to work in English and also be able to jointly manage the project with a technical advisor.
  
• 
  Technical advisor co-manager. This person should have a broad background in capacity building, biodiversity conservation and experience designing and implementing programs that work from the local/community level to the top decision-makers at the state levels. He/she would be responsible for guiding the overall direction and strategy of the project and as such should be strategic rather than detailed oriented. The technical manager would assist SFA/UNDP with recruiting the capacity development specialist and would have joint responsibility, along with the administrative co-manager, for recruiting the technical advisors who will guide the four provincial demonstration programs. The technical co-manager would be expected to coordinate the state policy development program (program #7), assist with provincial work planning, monitor the project’s overall progress and provide technical input into 1 or more of the provincial programs. Also, it would be desirable if the technical co-manager could work in both languages.
  
• 
  Capacity development technical specialist – the functions of this person are described in section 6.3.2. This would be a full time position for the first two years, with the option for it to become part-time for the remainder of project. (TRP to decide if it should become part-time). He/she must be fluent in both languages, have extensive and broad experience designing and implementing capacity programs that involve coaching, on-the-job training and learning by doing rather than traditional training. He/she must have with environmental and biodiversity issues and with working with government staff at the local level.
  
• 
  Accountant – accounting background, experience doing accounting for UNDP/donor projects. Basic knowledge of English and able to provide reports and financial statements that fit UNDP standards. Computer literate and familiar with management and financial computer packages.
  
• 
  Bookkeeper/secretary – workable English, bookkeeping experience, typing skills, computer literate and familiar with spreadsheets and basic computer packages.
  
• 
  Translator/Interpreter – able to do both verbal and written translation and interpretation.
  

• 
  UNDP rules for paying Government employees should be followed for all SFA staff working in the project office. These rules would apply to SFA staff working in both project office positions or as counterparts.
  
• 
  Financial, documentation and administration systems need to be set-up that conform to UNDP requirements and provide the level of reporting and transparency needed.
  
• 
  Procedures need to be developed for training, hiring of consultants and equipment procurement that conform to the requirement of UNDP’s NEX manual.
  

Flexible project planning, implementation and monitoring – this project needs to use flexible and adaptive processes that allow learning and reallocation of resources from activities that are not working to those that are working. This means that:

• 
  The redesigned project should not be as detailed as what is in the project document. The activities for the redesigned programming should not be detailed in the reprogramming framework; only the main sub-components of each program area and the general phases of work should be outlined. The specific activities for each year should be worked out during annual work planning. This means that this project will not follow the outline given in either UNDP’s Programming Manual or the NEX manual for project documents. Instead it will stop short of defining activities, but will define intermediate objectives, outputs and the responsible parties.
  
• 
  Provinces and nature reserve staff should participate in the work planning for all activities to be done in their sites. Some training and support may be needed to help provinces/nature reserves prepare their work plans. The project should provide some financial assistance to the provinces/nature reserves for work planning.
  
• 
  CPMU’s role in provincial/nature reserve work planning is only to guide and coordinate preparation of the planning work done at these levels. CPMU also would prepare the work plans for national policy develops activities and would consolidate the work done by the provinces and nature reserves.
  
• 
  Progress should be tracked and used to help work planning. Progress monitoring should focus on whether capacity is being built (i.e. capacity development results and accomplishment) rather than reporting on activities and inputs.
  

• 
  The Tripartite Project Review should include provincial representation
  
• 
  The location of the TPR should rotate among the sites each year.
  
• 
  Two meetings should be held per year for the implementers to share experiences and identify management improvements that need to be made. These meetings would be held in Chinese. One should be immediately before the TPR and involve provincial officials. The second should be half a year later and would involve provincial and nature reserve representatives.
  
• 
  The CPMU should report progress semi-annually, once for the PRI/APR and once a month before annual work planning begins.
  
• 
  UNDP should circulate these progress reports to all project partners (provinces, nature reserves and sub-contract 4 contractors) for comment.
  
• 
  UNDP should review the project’s progress each year, with the aim of confirming the outputs reported by the CPMU in progress reports and identifying strategic issues that need the attention of the TRP. To do this we suggest UNDP lead a project review mission with the NPD that examines progress at the national levels as well as some provinces and sites. If possible a GEF representative (and maybe AusAID) also should participate in the annual missions.
  

It is critical that UNDP/GEF provide the level of technical and strategic support this projects needs. We estimate that approximately 30-35 days per year will be needed for monitoring and technical advisory work after the project is redesigned (to review quarterly work plans and advances, participate in annual monitoring mission, etc.). We recognize that both organizations are stretched and may not be able to provide the technical advisory/monitoring resources from within their organizations at this point in time. If this is the case, we recommend that an external advisor be hired until qualified technical resources are available internally. The costs for this technical support/monitoring should be paid for by UNDP/GEF management overheads not by the project budget²⁸.

2. Management of the Programs

CMPU/National office

The project should support three Key National Functions, these functions are:

• 
  Coordination of NR Basic capacity building (with money for planning and implementing the activities in the NR going direct from the state level to the nature reserves). This would involve collection of lessons learned and distribution of these lessons.
  
• 
  Policy Development/Follow-up from Programs/Approaches developed at the Provincial Level.
  
• 
  Policy Development of national Wetland Biodiversity Priorities, plans and policies.
  

In addition to these three functions, the CPMU/national office would provide broad guidance and coordination of the overall project and would therefore have a final technical function:

• 
  Broad technical advice and integration of the design and implementation of the overall program.
  

PPMU/provincial offices

At the provincial level, the following functions would be done:

• 
  Training and support NR to do work planning and implement their basic capacity building programs
  
• 
  Replication of successful NR capacity building approaches to other nature reserves in the area
  
• 
  Design/management of programs for Dong Ting lake and Ruoergai
  
• 
  Design/management of approach for Sanjiang Plains
  
• 
  Joint design of Environmental Education program with Yancheng (this may not work, as PPMU is FB and NR is EPB).
  

Nature Reserve Roles and Responsibilities

• 
  Work planning for the basic capacity building program for their reserve
  
• 
  Implementation of this program – so they will get a modest amount of money for this.