Summary of Experiences with Remote Programming in Pakistan

Summary of Experiences with Remote Programming in Pakistan

UNICEF and Remote Programming:

Pakistan case study

Introduction

The current findings and observations are based upon interviews with a UNICEF staff[1]and personal observations made by the EMOPS consultant from in-country experience in Pakistan from the end 2005 to 2006[2].

Pakistan’s Disaster Context

Pakistan has experienced severe natural and man-made disasters over the past years, resulting in significant demand for humanitarian support from UNICEF and other humanitarian partners operating in Pakistan.

Management Arrangement

UNICEF is generally a highly decentralized organization, enabling the Pakistan Country Office to operate effectively. UNICEF Pakistan has hired five assurance specialists who are certified accountants. They are working within the programme section with the responsibility to strengthen amongst others: Results-Based Management and budgeting aspects of UNICEF’s programme work. This need initially emerged as an audit compliance requirement.

UNICEF Operation Support

The UNICEF Pakistan Country Office is headed by highly experienced Chief of Operations. In the preparations to move to remote programming, which was initiated in 2009 following a UNCHR kidnapping incident, the Chief of Operations was actively involved in the conceptualization phase. He was,amongst others,responsible for the development for the tendering processes to access the required capacity of external consultants, NGOs and private companies to utilize remote programming instruments.

UNICEF Field Operations Support

UNICEF Pakistan Country Office also has a Chief of Field Operations (CFO), who covers four provincial offices and two hubs. The CFO is responsible for providing guidance to UNICEF’s field operations. The current CFO joined the Pakistan office in late January 2011. One of the key challenges faced by UNICEF’s field offices in Pakistan is monitoring and verification of programme activities and results.

UNICEF Peshawar Office

UNICEF’s office in Peshawar was led by the Emergency Specialist, who also functioned as the by Officer-In-Charge (OIC) from August 2010 to September 2011[3]. The Peshawar office implements programme activities in KPK and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). UNICEF is required to coordinate it programme with two separate government entities: The provincial government for KPK and the FATA administration, which is under the direct executive authority of the President. KPK and FATA are characterized as being highly volatile security environments, and have over the past years been exposed to several man-made and natural disasters (see above). During the 2010 floods crisis the Emergency Specialist functioned as the emergency coordinator for the floods, and was responsible for leading the implementation of remote programming for KPK and FATA. The Pakistani authorities and civil society partners are characterized as having high levels of humanitarian experience. One significant concern for UNICEF in KPK and FATA is how to move away from only providing humanitarian assistance, to include more regular programme support.

UNICEF Quetta Office

UNICEF’s office in Quetta, Baluchistan, is led by a Chief Field Officer who has worked in Quetta since January 2010. The area of operation in Baluchistan is characterized as challenging due to geographical remoteness and permanent high level of security risks. The CFO described his primary role vis-à-vis remote programming as coaching and providing guiding to UNICEF staff members and implementing partners. The aim is to ensure the quality of the programme and to address the needs of people in need in the area of UNICEF operation. UNICEF’s re-focus on equity in programming has also had an impact on the way how work is conducted by UNICEF in Baluchistan.

Contracting Modalities

UNICEF utilizes a range of contract modalities in Pakistan: Multi-year work plans with Government counterparts; Project Cooperation Agreements (PCA) with NGOs; Long-term Agreements (LTA) with private companies (for WASH activities) and Individual SSAs with local consultants[4]. The PCA modality is the primary modality used in Pakistan. NGOs have expressed a strong preference for the PCA modality, as it portraits an equal partnership, rather than being perceived as an implementing entity. NGOs are also allowed to charge higher overhead costs, thereby also making it financially more lucrative compared to Institutional /Corporate Contracts (‘Institutional SSA’). The use of PCA may not be advantageous, as many NGOs face capacity and liquidity problems, and may make only limited contributions to the partnership with UNICEF.The Chief of Operations emphasized that the preferred contract modality to be used in remote programming should be Institutional SSAs. The funding for implementation of remote programme modality within the UNICEF Country Office is coming primarily from emergency activities

Assessment of Priority Sector Activities

UNICEF conducted a programme criticality exercise for the Peshawar Office as part of moving to utilizing remote programming. The exercise was conducted in collaboration with the Area Security Coordinator and Area Security Management Team (ASMT). The exercise was approved by the Security Management Team (SMT). The exercise resulted in a decrease of the number of activities implemented by UNICEF, and a strengthened focus on interventions such as immunization. The Quetta Office also deliberated on effective ways to strengthen the internal capacity to effective implement the remote programme modality.

The UNICEF Quetta office similarly carried out a programme criticality exercise to assess the type of programmes to implement under remote programming. The aim of the excise was also to identify innovative ways to implement the programme in Baluchistan. UNICEF Pakistan did not formally request support from UNICEF HQ (EMOPS) in their implementation of the remote programme modality. The remote programming experience in Baluchistan is characterized by “learning by doing”.

Remote Programming

Since 2008, the deteriorating security situation has been a major concern for the Peshawar office. In particular the Pakistani military’s push into the Swat valley severely limited UNICEF’s humanitarian space. In 2009, the overall security situation further deteriorated with the attack on the WFP office in Islamabad, killing five WFP colleagues. These incidents resulted in the relocation of UNICEF staff from Peshawar to Islamabad for an interim period. UNICEF did not have a permanent presence of staff in Peshawar for an interim period of time. UNICEF following implemented upgrades to security arrangements in residential housing (MORSS) and the UNICEF office (MOSS). UNICEF also initiated the implementation of remote programming as a consequence to the change in the increasing level of security risks.

The deteriorating security situation resulted in a gradual shift to remote programming in Pakistan. The office utilizes implementing partners to deliver UNICEF services. The office has signed to multi-year work plans with the national authorities for KPK and FATA, and established PCAs with international and national NGOs. LTAs are in place to ease the contracting of private companies for the purpose of delivering and monitoring of programme activities.

Following the kidnapping incident in Quetta, national staff members continued to conduct field visits to monitor programme interventions in Baluchistan. This was, however, quickly terminated due of security risks.

Due to the limited capacity of national partners, UNICEF generally conducts orientation session on remote programming as a way to build their capacity. However, the overall process has more been characterized by learned by doing.

Exit Strategy for Remote Programming

Security risks continue to be a major obstacle for UNICEF in Pakistan[5] and UNICEF does not have an exit strategy in place for the use of remote programing. An exit strategy will be highly dependent on the development of the security situation in the country.

Dedicated Security Support

UNICEF has a security team based in Quetta that is responsible for conducting security risk assessments (SRAs). SRAsare therefore referred to more often in programme design, planning and implementation.

Monitoring Mechanisms

Travel is severely restricted in Pakistan. The Peshawar office monitoring mission requires a Not Objection Certificate (NOC) from the national authorities for the majority of the areas of operation, including all of FATA. The NOC typically takes ten day to obtain. The national authorities additionally require UNICEF to have military escorts for all movements FATA. UNICEF’s internal security procedures prescribe staff to obtain police escorts for attending meetings outside University Town -- where the UNICEF office is located. A number of locations within FATA and KPF are completely off-limits to UNICEF staff, because of the high security risk. The Quetta Office is currently only able to conduct field visit to the flood affected areas. UNICEF generally keeps a low visibility profile, and has removed all logos from UNICEF vehicles and offices in Quetta. This is a serious concern, as it is increasing making it difficult to distinction between humanitarian and non-humanitarian actors for the local population.

The UNICEF Quetta office utilizes external third party entities to conduct the required monitoring of programme activities. The use of third party monitors for verification of programme results is a critical component in UNICEF monitoring strategy in Pakistan. A Pakistani NGO has been contracted through an institutional contract. The monitoring that is conducted by the NGO was initially purely focused on work in the flood affected areas, however was later expanded to also include the regular UNICEF programme. The NGO has two persons dedicated to monitor the emergency programme in the flood affected areas, and two persons dedicated for each of the respective programme areas, i.e. Education, WASH, Child Protection and Nutrition. The quality of the monitoring conducted by the NGO was at initially assessed to be below the required quality standards. As a consequence, UNICEF decided to invest in national capacity building through coaching and training. The NGO has improved the quality of the monitoring and introduced new technical instruments in their monitoring work, e.g. usage of electronic media etc. Monitoring is practically conducted through formal visits to the areas of operations. Due to the security level in most of the UNICEF areas, unannounced visits are not possible.

A key challenge observed by the office is to ensure high quality monitoring of programme results. Currently the Peshawar office operates with a monitoring strategy based on three components: i) Individual consultants to monitor specific activities according to the approved work plan; ii) PCAs with 7 NGOs to carry out general monitoring of UNICEF activities; and iii) third party monitors conducting field visits and providing daily field reports. UNICEF is also providing support to strengthen the monitoring capacity of partners.

Humanitarian Principles and Remote Programming

The Chief of Operations raised the question of whether adherence to Humanitarian principles could be made conditional in standard procurement contracts as a way to ensure contracted partners are adhering and operating accordingly. The current procedure is to conduct orientation sessions for contractors to sensitize them on the humanitarian principles.

The UNICEF Quetta office practically works with implementing partners and external third parties to ensure the dissimilation of information on the humanitarian principles. This has typically been done in conjunction with orientation sessions aimed at raising their security awareness. These types of training have been implemented for a small number of national NGOs. The CFO noted that if the security situation was to further deteriorate, preventing the access of NGOs/Implementing Partners/Government, UNICEF could be forced to terminate all its operations in Baluchistan.

The Peshawar Office noted that the knowledge of humanitarian principles is generally considered to be low, and is not always apparent in civilian-military coordination. It was noted that OCHA and the Humanitarian Coordinator should take a stronger position on this issue.

Collaboration with Stakeholders in Pakistan

National NGOs

The majority of NGOs partnering with UNICEF in Pakistan have similar mission statements and core values as UNICEF. UNICEF is in this way able increase the likelihood that programme activities operate according to humanitarian principles and facilitate positive cooperation in general. Capacity assessments are formally conducted for NGOs recommended and selected for PCAs and/or implementing partner status -- including operational and financial capacity. The CFO noted that UNICEF also could sign contracts with community based organizations and/or other local stakeholders, to strengthen UNCIEF’s monitoring capacity.

Military involvement

The close involvement by the Pakistan military in delivering relief aid was noted as a concern to UNICEF. In particular the perception of the local population, who may find it difficult to distinguish between the roles of humanitarian and non-humanitarian actors, is a serious concern.

Collaboration within the UN System

Despite being one of the pilot ‘Delivering as One’ countries’ the Quetta CFO noted that the level of UN collaboration is relatively low, and that more should be invested to strengthen the UN’s collaboration in Baluchistan. The collaboration amongst the UN System in Peshawar was characterized as fragmented. It was noted that to date the UN has no coherent approach in KPK and FATA.

UNICEF is an active stakeholder in humanitarian coordination and donor meetings in general. UNICEF actively engages in knowledge sharing vis-à-vis remote programming, including the risks, challenges and successes of operating in highly volatile security environments. UNICEF has experienced positive collaboration with the broader UN System, in particular in the area of Early Recovery. Within remote programming, it was noted that lower level of collaboration exist.

Donor Coordination

The relationship between donors and UNICEF is assessed to be positive and continues to evolve within the context of the constant changing security situation. UNICEF is considered by donors to be at the cutting-edge vis-à-vis providing humanitarian assistance. It was expressed by the interviewees that donors in Pakistan are generally impressed with the approach taken by UNICEF vis-à-vis implementing remote programme and remote monitoring. Donors are able to provide funding and humanitarian assistance to the affected areas through UNICEF, where other organizations generally do not operate, due to the high level of security risk.

The UNICEF office in Quetta does not deal directly with donors on a day-to-day basis. The main interphase with donors is handled in the capital, Islamabad. Donors do however on occasion visit the Baluchistan province, and in this way UNICEF Quetta office is able to directly demonstrate the value-addedby UNICEF in utilizing remote programming modalities. It is assessed that donors appreciate the work done by UNICEF in Baluchistan, as the organization has proved that it is able to deliver humanitarian assistance in a high security risk environment.

The partnership between donors and UNICEF is, as noted above, handled by the UNICEF Country Office in Islamabad. Several donors have permanent representation in Peshawar, through consulates or representation -- Japan, US and DfID. From interactions with donors in Peshawar, the assessment is that donors recognize and support the work of UNICEF, and fully acknowledge the value-added provided.

Remote Programming Lessons Learned

Key lessons learned from UNICEF Pakistan’s use of remote programming modality can be summarized as:

Guidance

• Providing guidance on remote programme modalities -- addressing practical and policy aspects is necessary, including on how to structure the country programme once the remote programme modality is triggered;
• Country examples of good practice of remote programming modalities are useful references;
• Development of a formal checklist to identify when remote programming is applicable and how to use the modality is needed.

Training

• On-demand training on remote programming, done by experienced UNICEF staff, should be available in-country to UNICEF offices either before or when a remote programming modality is triggered;
• Remote Programming support should be available on a regular basis from EMOPS;
• The understanding by UNICEF staff on how to operate according to humanitarian principles in complex emergencies in needed.

Operational Procedures

• Programme policy and procedure must be flexible and sensitive to a constantly changing environment when operating in highly volatile security environments;
• While security risk assessment is a key issue, and should be conducted rigorously, a balanced approach must be taken to ensure that the country programme can continue;
• Sample contract applicable to remote programme (Institutional SSA)should be available within EMOPS

Monitoring

• Monitoring strategies in remote programming should apply multiple mechanisms - including the use of local population service providers contracted through Individual SSA contract to enable the local population to be UNICEF’s ears and eyes on the ground.
• Different types of media should be usedin monitoring under remote programming to ensure the monitoring quality -- video, pictures, GPS etc. -- and should preferably include input from the affected population (video clips/statements from beneficiaries);

Communication and Advocacy

• Strong advocacy and visibility should be key component in remote programming, to ensure the local population is aware of UNICEF’s programme activities and humanitarian principles.

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[1]The following UNICEF staffs were interview for the background paper: Mr. Robert Hanawalt, Chief of Operations, Pakistan, September 6, 2011; Mr. Stefano Save, Chief Field Officer, Quetta, Baluchistan, Pakistan, September 7, 2011; Mr. LucioMelendri, Emergency Specialist, Peshawar, Pakistan September 9, 2011 and Mr. Alhaji Bah, Chief of Field Operations, September 9, 2011.

[2] Mr. Michael Schaadt worked with the Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) Earthquake Emergency Response Programme in NWFP (Abbottabad and Mansera) from December 2005 to October 2006J, covering reporting and advocacy activities for the NRC programme.

[3] The new Chief of the Field Office arrived in Peshawar on September 6, 2011.

[4] Individual SSAs with permanent residence in the areas of operations are granted permission by DSS to work in the affected areas

[5] On September 7, 2011, a bomb exploded in Quetta killing 20 people. The explosion made the windows of the UNICEF office shake.