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3.3Impact through skills

The complementary services component of the PASP, which includes projects aimed at increasing beneficiaries’ skills, has not yet been implemented. Since the programme does not provide any significant training, skills are unlikely to be enhanced in any meaningful way.

Box : PWP graduation and complementary interventions – international evidence

The literature suggests that the provision of complementary interventions alongside PWPs – e.g. agricultural extension, social development services and micro-finance – has the potential to play a role in promoting the impact of transfers on food security (Holmes et al. 2013). The objective of graduation out of poverty as a result of PWP employment is common in sub-Saharan Africa (largely inspired by the Productive Safety Nets Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia and the BRAC graduation model – see Hashemi and de Montesquiou 2011), there is a very limited evidence base on the potential of complementary interventions to contribute to such outcomes. The question of the feasibility of this approach is an issue of contestation (see Devereux and Sabates Wheeler (2015) for a discussion on this). Although the provision of complementary interventions to promote graduation among programme participants has been attempted in the PSNP in Ethiopia through the Complimentary Community Investment Programme (CCI)), and as one component of the Vision Umurenge Programme (VUP) in Rwanda, outcomes have been modest and sustained graduation has been minimal from both programmes (Devereux and Sabates Wheeler 2015; DFID VUP Annual Review 2014). This is largely due to the challenges inherent in implementing complementary programmes in association with a PWP, given the institutional and operational complexity of attempting to coordinate such disparate inputs with PWP implementation. It is also due to the low wages paid, which means that the additional resources available for investment in complementary activities such as investment or income generation, are minimal, and also due to the lack of competence or mandate on the part of government or other agencies delivering PWPs, in terms of complementary programming (income generation, micro-finance, etc.). The lack of competence and skills in this area can undermine the quality of the complementary service provided and, critically, divert social protection staff from their core mandate in terms of delivering transfers. The PSNP aims to ‘graduate’ employees into food security over a five-year period by means of this combination of interventions; however, the technical and logistical requirements for successfully implementing PWP programming together with complementary interventions on the scale required to stimulate such development represents a significant fiscal and administrative burden. This burden has not been easily accommodated in either the PSNP or the Rwandan VUP, which shares similar objectives (DFID VUP Annual Review 2014; McCord 2016a). In these programmes the success of complementary activities was compromised by financial constraints and the scarcity of relevant skills (e.g. in micro-finance) among PWP implementers, and in the case of the VUP attempts by programme staff to provide such services detrimentally affected their capacity to deliver the core elements of the PWP. In neither case was large-scale graduation achieved as a result of programme participation, and both programmes were partially redesigned to accommodate longer-term programme participation in recognition of this fact. Overall, there is little evidence on the impact of complementary interventions implemented through PWPs in terms of enhancing livelihoods and promoting graduation in sub-Saharan Africa and although graduation has been identified as a result of intensive community inputs in a small number of celebrated programmes, such as the BRAC in Bangladesh, these findings have not been widely replicated in relation to PWPs (McCord 2013). Some large-scale programmes, such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India, and many smaller ones, focus exclusively on achieving the single objective of PWP employment and wage delivery rather than integrating development objectives relating to increased productivity and graduation into their public works programming, in recognition of the delivery challenges represented by a more complex approach (McCord 2013). Complementary interventions may be better implemented outside the constraints of a PWP, by the agencies with the core mandate to deliver them, which can coordinate with the implementing agency to ensure beneficiaries are included. Inasmuch as graduation has occurred in the PSNP and VUP it has been largely administrative, with workers removed from the programme (‘being graduated’) when achieving arbitrary milestones of asset ownership, rather than actually graduating out of poverty on a sustained basis through the accumulation of assets (Devereux and Sabates Wheeler 2015).

3.4Other key design and implementation issues

This section will focus on key aspects of the PASP , including capacity, budget, and processes, such as monitoring and evaluation, that affect the three impact vectors of wages, assets and skills acquisition.

3.4.1Capacity

The implementation of a PWP like PASP imposes a number of additional challenges compared to the cash transfer scheme PSSB, the biggest programme run by INAS. On top of delivering cash on time, monitoring and evaluating the activities, and handling grievances, PASP requires significant technical management for the design, selection and oversight of infrastructure development. The programme also needs to provide beneficiaries with insurance, safety gear, worksite facilities, etc.

If PASP is to play a role in emergency response, as the ENSSB II documentation indicates, then INAS needs to establish mechanisms for coordinating with other entities like INGC, the WFP, the Red Cross, etc., at both national and local level. All these activities require INAS and its partners to have adequate capacity from central to community level.

However, PASP capacity seems extremely limited. The number of INAS staff at district level is scarce, and the same is true at the local administrations. INAS has no staff at the lower administrative levels, which implies that all activities should either be carried out by district officials or delegated to local leaders. District officials however, do not have the time or resources to visit each community with the frequency that a programme like PASP requires. The alternative, delegating these duties to local leaders is also problematic inasmuch as it is unlikely that they have the capacity (or incentives) to perform the range of requisite activities to the standards required, without significant training. Furthermore, their performance of these functions may also also reinforce unequal community power relationships.

Technical capacity on climate change resilience is another layer of limitation. People at district and lower levels have limited understanding of climate change and related resilience interventions. As result most of the interventions are not only of low quality but also follow the ‘business as usual’ model that adds very little to climate resilience.

These serious capacity constraints are exacerbated by the fact that key processes, like payment outsourcing or the MIS, are still not developed/implemented. As a result, INAS district PASP staff spend most of their time on enrolments and payments, without significant time to support other processes.

3.4.2Budget

PASP budget is currently distributed in the following way:

70% for beneficiaries’ wages;

10% for the administrative costs of district services;

5% for INAS administrative costs; and

15% for materials, capital and equipment.

Given that the main objective of PASP is to create employment and the fact that projects need to be labour-intensive, the allocation of 70% of the cost to wages is understandable. However, in practice this allocation compromises the other budget lines of the PASP. Due to capacity shortages, the number of activities and the distances between communities, both INAS delegations and district services find the budget allocated to them insufficient. Likewise, the allocation for capital inputs is inadequate, resulting in inadequate expenditure on construction materials and equipment, contributing to the problem of low quality assets, and the noted absence of basic safety clothing. The 5% for administration and 15% for capital inputs is insufficient, leading to inadequate management oversight and poor quality assets (with insufficient funds for the necessary material inputs to comply with the specifications in the PASP handbook and district technical specifications). The PASP allocation to labour is towards the high end of the spectrum when compared to the range of allocations internationally, with labour costs ranging between 30% and 70% of the total budget (McCord 2013). This suggests that budget allocations need further assessment.

3.4.3Targeting

In PASP, the quantity of employment provided is supply-driven (i.e. limited by constraints within the programme, rather than responsive to the level of demand for employment), with only limited employment created in each district on the basis of administratively determined district allocations of workdays. As a result, the amount of employment provided is significantly less than the employment demanded, and so access to the programme is highly rationed.

In theory, the approach for targeting access to PASP combines geographical and CBT with the administration of a PMT. This triple approach is common for cash transfers but is almost unique internationally in relation to PWPs, where a combination of geographical and community or self-selection approaches are typically used. Communities select candidates either on the basis of need, or sometimes where needs are not easy to differentiate, on the basis of a lottery. Where self-selection takes place, the wage level may play a role in determining who participates. A low wage may result in the exclusion of the poor, for whom the opportunity cost of being in a programme may be too high, compared to less poor households in which ‘spare’ labour is available with a lower opportunity cost (see McCord 2004. Self-selection in a rationed context often means a first-come, first-served approach, rather than a poverty or needs based allocation.³

The adoption of a PMT to identify eligible PWP participants is not common in the region, and creates a significant additional administrative burden on implementing agents and financial cost to the project in comparison to the adoption of more conventional approaches. Given the homogeneity of poverty in the bottom deciles of the population, adoption of a PMT is unlikely to offer additional accuracy of targeting and may not represent good value for money (see Hodges et al. (2014), although it could in principle reduce the bias in the current system. See, Ellis (2011) on the prevalence of the challenge of poverty targeting in sub-Saharan Africa more widely, and Kidd and Wylde (2011) on the limitations of PMT as an alternative to community targeting, in terms of accuracy and community acceptability.

In practice, however, targeting of PASP beneficiaries in rural areas seems to be conducted differently. The PMT is still not operational in most districts and it has been reported that, instead of CBT, local leaders are usually in charge of selecting beneficiaries based on their own judgement. As a consequence, the PASP targeting process is still incipient, and not conducted as described in the manual of operations; financial and personnel constraints meaning that INAS does not carry out the screening process as anticipated, to validate community selection of participants.

3.4.4Monitoring and evaluation (M&E)

By design, PASP relies on an MIS for most monitoring activities. This system, which will integrate the data of all INAS programmes, has been under development for the last four years and will not be operational until at least 2017. As a result of this delay, PASP activities are conducted without an electronic system allowing for timely and reliable data collection for monitoring purposes at different levels. In order to overcome this problem, INAS is planning to operationalise a basic MIS for PASP only, which is expected to launch in a few months.

Without an MIS, PASP monitoring is in practice negligible. INAS district staff have neither time nor resources to conduct frequent visits to communities and worksites for monitoring purposes. Without monitoring, the programme impact is reduced. This finding is confirmed by Irish Aid and IIED, 2016.

In relation to the evaluation component, PASP and World Bank plans for conducting an impact evaluation have been seriously delayed. It is now expected that baseline data will be collected in August 2016.

3.4.5Other processes

Other processes like grievance handling, case management and worksite management are also seriously affected by the capacity constraints and the absence of the MIS. In practice, beneficiaries and local leaders are in charge of these processes with few INAS inputs.

3.4.6New initiatives

A number of new initiatives may put even more pressure on a programme that is not performing as expected and staff that are already overloaded. These initiatives are:

‘Inclusive’ PASP – This is a new scheme within PASP which is due to be trialled in some provinces in 2016, although not yet fully operationalised. The scheme’s main innovation is that instead of producing infrastructure, beneficiaries will engage in civic education activities (e.g. disseminating information about health issues).

Graduation component (complementary activities) – In rural areas, PASP activities will be complemented with a number of activities to increase beneficiaries’ skills and income-generating capacity. These activities are likely to include financial literacy, income-generating activities, micro-finance, etc. The main objective of this component, which is still under development, is that after three years in the programme beneficiaries will graduate out of PASP without falling back into poverty.

PMT roll-out– It is envisaged that the roll-out will be carried out in 2016 and 2017. The re-registration of all beneficiaries and the level of data collection the PMT requires will require huge efforts.

DRM – The ENSSB II envisages that PASP will play a role in emergency response. This will imply coordinating with agencies at various levels, like INGC, the WFP, the Red Cross, etc., and will entail having the capacity to provide timely support.

Guidelines for PASP climate change asset selection - the World Bank has developed new guidelines for the identification of climate change related assets in the PASP which are to be rolled out during the coming year

Other INAS reforms – As per the ENSSB II, INAS will pursue a significant expansion of coverage and will launch new programmes (e.g. a Child Grant Programme). These reforms will challenge the capacity of INAS at different levels.