Work experience of 8 years count nothing in front of experts who have been involved in the field of development for decades. With due respect to all the experts, it is a high time question (?) to ask yourself what differences have been made to the community and what visible changes have been made in the life of voiceless and disadvantaged people.
We work in projects, we work with local community, local organizations and government organizations to showcase beautiful and amazing goals. And when we put forth the results, we just count the numbers, showing them in bold letters with beautiful pictures. We talk about great terms like sustainability, synergy, coordination, partnership, gender mainstreaming, social inclusiveness, disaster preparedness and response and so on. Using these terms are becoming more of a fashion.
Now back to reality. I was just randomly looking at the progress and contribution my professional life has brought towards the development of the nation; towards the perspective of being independent (linking to livelihood). And the result was as expected and as clear as a mirror. My performance might have contributed towards changes, changes in the lives of people which is very low, most probably I can just count them in my fingers. Looking back to where I started, I am feeling that I surely have been lost. I was just focusing on capturing results based on numbers and a check-list with things "Done or Not Done".
Have I thought about sustainability? I would say Yes. Because I have been involved in attaining results towards livelihood. But what have I done to sustain that livelihood? Have I supported on preparing a concrete business plan, market analysis, supply chain mechanism? Mhmmm .. Sort of!! I did initiate on preparing a broad supply chain mechanism book but very much limited to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector.
Similarly in the sector of synergy, coordination and partnership, projects are so much guided and limited to their own pre-designed concept; the core essence of why the project has been developed get faded out leaving behind the necessity to serve for the community. Professionals get so much attached and intimidated with their projects that they forget the bigger picture of organizational vision, missions and goals. One of the examples that I had to sadly face was with one of the managers (at the high organizational position). I was under his supervision and expected guidance on a very urgent issue. I knew he had to supervise two other projects apart from mine. But I did not expect a response so blunt.
The issue was related to building synergy between the projects at Surkhet. And his response to that was, "My first priority is XYZ project, then ABC project and then yours. I will finish my priorities and come to your point later". And that "later" never happened. We did our best to build on the synergy and partnership. But this is not going to happen unless it is built in in the organizational system. No body is going to care about it because it does not matter to anybody except the organization itself. Employees get hired, they deliver as per their TOR and leave. If things that matter are built in in the system, employees are compelled to do it by default. Otherwise someone's priority might not be the priority to others.
There is another example of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI). Every projects cover the numbers of people disagregated by gender and social inclusion. But how much of that is contributing towards gender mainstreaming. Have we ever thought about it? What changes have it brought to the community? Have we ever critically thought about it? We might have thought about it but it hardly gets documented and talked about. I personally feel that the number of women who have been involved in decision making processes, whose voices are being heard now and who have been visibly involved as a change agent in the community have significantly increased as compared to eight years' back. But articulation and visibility of these things are very much lacking. Few projects show what they have done very profoundly. But lots of others lack.
It is very much necessary that we start thinking about the organizational system that needs to improve how we show our results and portray our progress. At the end, the system reflects where to organization will lead to. I know this is going to talk time, firstly to realize where we lag behind and secondly to exercise on improving this further. Building the important terms into the system for better results still requires a long way to go.
I am starting the exercise NOW, when are you??
We work in projects, we work with local community, local organizations and government organizations to showcase beautiful and amazing goals. And when we put forth the results, we just count the numbers, showing them in bold letters with beautiful pictures. We talk about great terms like sustainability, synergy, coordination, partnership, gender mainstreaming, social inclusiveness, disaster preparedness and response and so on. Using these terms are becoming more of a fashion.
Now back to reality. I was just randomly looking at the progress and contribution my professional life has brought towards the development of the nation; towards the perspective of being independent (linking to livelihood). And the result was as expected and as clear as a mirror. My performance might have contributed towards changes, changes in the lives of people which is very low, most probably I can just count them in my fingers. Looking back to where I started, I am feeling that I surely have been lost. I was just focusing on capturing results based on numbers and a check-list with things "Done or Not Done".
Have I thought about sustainability? I would say Yes. Because I have been involved in attaining results towards livelihood. But what have I done to sustain that livelihood? Have I supported on preparing a concrete business plan, market analysis, supply chain mechanism? Mhmmm .. Sort of!! I did initiate on preparing a broad supply chain mechanism book but very much limited to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector.
Similarly in the sector of synergy, coordination and partnership, projects are so much guided and limited to their own pre-designed concept; the core essence of why the project has been developed get faded out leaving behind the necessity to serve for the community. Professionals get so much attached and intimidated with their projects that they forget the bigger picture of organizational vision, missions and goals. One of the examples that I had to sadly face was with one of the managers (at the high organizational position). I was under his supervision and expected guidance on a very urgent issue. I knew he had to supervise two other projects apart from mine. But I did not expect a response so blunt.
The issue was related to building synergy between the projects at Surkhet. And his response to that was, "My first priority is XYZ project, then ABC project and then yours. I will finish my priorities and come to your point later". And that "later" never happened. We did our best to build on the synergy and partnership. But this is not going to happen unless it is built in in the organizational system. No body is going to care about it because it does not matter to anybody except the organization itself. Employees get hired, they deliver as per their TOR and leave. If things that matter are built in in the system, employees are compelled to do it by default. Otherwise someone's priority might not be the priority to others.There is another example of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI). Every projects cover the numbers of people disagregated by gender and social inclusion. But how much of that is contributing towards gender mainstreaming. Have we ever thought about it? What changes have it brought to the community? Have we ever critically thought about it? We might have thought about it but it hardly gets documented and talked about. I personally feel that the number of women who have been involved in decision making processes, whose voices are being heard now and who have been visibly involved as a change agent in the community have significantly increased as compared to eight years' back. But articulation and visibility of these things are very much lacking. Few projects show what they have done very profoundly. But lots of others lack.
It is very much necessary that we start thinking about the organizational system that needs to improve how we show our results and portray our progress. At the end, the system reflects where to organization will lead to. I know this is going to talk time, firstly to realize where we lag behind and secondly to exercise on improving this further. Building the important terms into the system for better results still requires a long way to go.
I am starting the exercise NOW, when are you??
