Part VI:EDFF, the Multi-Donor Fund, and the case of the vanishing databases

When I first started doing projects in Aceh in 2005, all of us (the NGOs, the community groups, everyone) were told that we had to enter all our programmatic and financial information on a database called RAN. 

As you remember, BRR (Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency of Aceh and Nias) was established to coordinate the recovery program and to jointly administer the reconstruction funds ($7 billion) with World Bank acting as fiduciary, through its Multi-Donor Trust Fund program. BRR’s mission was “to restore livelihoods and strengthen communities in Aceh and Nias by designing and overseeing a coordinated, community-driven reconstruction and development program implemented according to the highest professional standards.”

One of the things BRR (or rather, its well-paid international consultants) did very, very well was create impressive hundrd-page documents outlining the proojects, heralding their successes, and making even their failures (“lessons learned”) sound positive and hopeful. (their 16-book, 3,200 "BRR Books" series is a marvel.) One of the shorter documents  at 23 pages was a Power Point Presentation on the RAN Database.

Here is what BRR said about it:

What is the RAN Database?

•RAN Database is a system for collecting, tracking, analyzing and displaying project  and funding information.

Who will use it?

•NGOs, donors, BRR, local government, media and the public will have access to RAN Database and to paper based reports.

How will RAN Database benefit the reconstruction effort?

•RAN Database will provide up to date, transparent and accountable information on  the recovery process in Aceh and Nias.

•RAN Database will be used by BRR to coordinate more effectively, pinpoint gaps

and overlaps in the recovery process and resolve bottlenecks and issues.

•RAN Database will enable all organisations to plan and coordinate their projects with

other actors working in the same sectors and locations.

Sounds great!! 

But let me tell you, even in its heyday, with IT personnel at their battle stations, and money flowing like wine, none of us could wrestle this multi-tentacled monster to the ground.   Still, the developer (Synergy) touted it as a godsend: “The RAN Database won the Innovative Government Technology Award in the Information Management category at the 2008 FutureGov Summit. RAND was . . . recognised as an innovative model of information management that has successfully promoted improvement in public services, modernisation of government administration and efficiency of public sector management.” 

And just as soon as it appeared, with a halo round its head, it disappeared.

Well, that's not entirely true; the website still exists, with a helpful list of 500+ recipient agencies.  But every link is broken and no one is maintaining the site.

http://rand.bappenas.go.id/RAND/rc?requesttype=html&topmodel=[AM_MonoFrame]&now=1413834974744&sessionid=141383497335656&clickedModelId=*54# 

I do have to say, however, that its Help section and instructions for using the thing, were it live, are quit extensive, so I am sure that the database itself exists.

Just not in Aceh.

http://rand.bappenas.go.id/RAND/Documents/help/Application/index.htm

 

It has no backup that anyoe knows of.

It stopped being used after 2 years.

Why?

First and foremost, because of the same bloody thing that I have been harping about in this space for over 5 years: no one ever thought, with all their money and all their wonderful ideas, to teach Acehnese survivors how to implement the projects that were supposed to “save” them.

So when the highly paid IT people left, no one knew the system, including government employees, BRR, Bappenas, Bappeda, World Bank’s PMU, etc.

I wish I could think that this was just a horrible oversight.

But I can’t.

Those in charge simply did not care about sustainability.  They operated a reconstruction program in recovery mode, and because of that, the province has neither recovered nor been reconstructed.

But I digress.

The BRR document goes on to say that “Within the RAN Database, Synergy developed a number of other systems to build the capacity of the Government to track tsunami reconstruction and enhance the management of the work-flow processes. These included a Donor/Partner Profiles Module and a Concept Note Submission and Approval Module for organizing the bottom-up and top-down budget planning process of the reconstruction. The Concept Notes online submission and approval process involved the entire NGO community in sharing data on their planned activities for better coordination.  

Ahahahahahahahahahaha.  

 The RAN has become the central coordinating database for Tsunami recovery data in Indonesia, tracking 1700 projects and a total of USD 3.7 billion in commitments.  

And nobody bothered to use it or maintain it .

“Synergy worked with the government of Indonesia to define Sector specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for measuring progress of reconstruction at various levels including the project level and overall sector level.”

If these KSI’s existed in document form, they are in the wind now.

“RAN provides a tool to analyze trends of KPIs against baseline and target values, as well as financial and other project data. The RAN was also integrated with the Regional DAD that includes information from other Tsunami affected countries including Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Maldives. “

Could be.  Haven’t chatted with  Maldives yet. But over the past year when I have quizzed former colleagues working with both NGOs and directly with the Indonesian government regarding this and other possible locations about programmatic information concerning any of the MDF/EDFF projects, no one has mentioned this database as being an information archive .  It appears to have been a multi-million dollar boondoggle from right out of the gate, global prizes notwithstanding.  Don't get me wrong--I think Synergy developed a bang-up program.  I don't know whether it was charged with teaching anyone to use it, however.  Someone kind of fell down on the job on that one.

So counting on RAN as being the receptacle of any further information on AAA’s cocoa improvement project, or Keumang’s community development/participatory rural appraisal work in the five districts, was pretty much out of the question.

Happily (in a surreal, mildly hysterical John Waters sort of way), EDFF, MDF and the World Bank had not run out of money to spend on phantom databases.  I was next introduced to something called KNOW--the kinder, gentler reconstruction database.

Since there are no appropriate photos to accompany this post (unless photos of me crying into a big handkerchief and gnashing my teeth in frustration will do), I’ll stop here.  More tomorrow!

RAN Database gush-fest:

http://www.recoveryplatform.org/assets/meetings_trainings/international%20forum%20on%20tsunami%20and%20earthquake/c3.pdf

Why we should still be concerned with the effects of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami (1st part in a series)

Terrible things are happening all over the world. 

Even in Aceh, the media is speculating about how soon the Ebola virus will get to Sumatra, and how religious intolerance in the province is contributing to the near-global view of the perils of unchecked fundamentalism.

This may be why current stories and reports, such as that of Bill Clinton’s April trip to the province, seem to place the devastation and political/economic collapse following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami firmly in the past, with current stories of herculean reconstruction, improved living conditions, and reconciliation between a once-hostile province and a national government that only wanted the best for its people.

Indeed, if you look at the headlines, Aceh almost seems utopic in comparison to other troubled regions.

But it is not, and this unfortunate masking of some serious issues, many caused by the response to the tsunami and subsequent peace accord, is contributing to Aceh’s spooky trajectory towards being a repressive dictatorship of kleptocrats that parallels, albeit on a lesser scale, the uncontrolled brutality we’ve been witnessing in the Middle East.

Do not forget that it was only 5 years ago that Acehnese men were reported to be the largest Muslim group per capita to volunteer to join Pakistan/Afghanistan Al Qaeda for the jihad against the West.

Something made them this way, and it’s my contention that it wasn’t just misguided religious fervor.  It was desperation, and seething anger at Jakarta for having once again sold them down the river in terms of livelihoods, assistance, government positions, compensation, land acquisition, political self-determination . . . and these acts of marginalization didn’t just happen over years and years; they were also immediate products of the tsunami and subsequent reconstruction. 

I have been interested in the reconstruction efforts ever since I became part of them in early 2005.  And I witnessed firsthand how certain funds always went to certain groups.  And I kept track of this, because I knew that sooner or later this seeming inequity would affect me personally and the agency I supported.  And it did.

So during this year, the 10-year anniversary of the tsunami and the peace accord, what we will see around November is the media beginning to ramp up stories like Bill Clinton’s visit in April, where he was shown all the good things that reconstruction did.

I am not interested in demonstrating that the mismanagement of the funds led to further political instability and environmental devastation in the province, although they did.  I’m interested in helping the global donor community change its practices in the future, so that when a natural or man-made disaster hits a developing region, the first act of assistance after the emergency lifesaving measures have been accomplished is the empowerment of the local community to take charge and run the reconstruction—no matter how hard that is and how much money the foreign NGO will not be able to take back to its homeland. 

I want to start with one story.  It’s not the first example of how we knew something was not right with the reconstruction money, and it’s certainly not the most glaring example of problems with the multi-donor funds, but what it does show is how the mismanagement of 2004 reconstruction funds continues to have negative economic, environmental and political repercussions on an entire region well into 2014.

And it involves, of course, cocoa.

Stay tuned!

Bll Clinton's Visit to Aceh: unfortunately, he saw far less than half the picture

Lots of media outlets covered President Clinton’s visit to Aceh last Sunday.  Since we were posting abut the elections, I didn’t chime in.

But now, the coast, as they say, is clear.

Let me just start by saying I’ll be visiting the offices of the Clinton Global Initiative in August to speak to one of the officers there about some information that either wasn’t given to President Clinton during his visit, wasn’t reported on, or both. [the quotes below are taken from the Wall Street Journal and the Jakarta Post.]

I know that the CGI and the Clinton Foundation are not in the business of badmouthing recovery efforts and humanitarian initiatives.  So there couldn’t have been an article coming out of their office that did anything but heap praise upon Aceh’s progress in the 10 years since the tsunami.

But seriously.  Who are we kidding?

Apart from the initial medial and shelter crisis tat was addressed admirably, I have yet to hear of one project--whether it be road reconstruction, airport/port rebuilding, housing projects, or my favorite—“sustainable livelihoods—“ that has been successfully taken over and maintained by wither the Acehnese/Indonesian government or local organization. 

As the Post reported, President Clinton “wanted to see the level of recovery and development that has been achieved during the post-tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction process.”  [Aceh was hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004.] “Clinton has visited Aceh several times in the past. The founder of the Clinton Foundation was at one time the United Nation’s special envoy for tsunami relief, who raised money for tsunami victims under the administration of former president George W. Bush.”

Clinton visited several sites around greater Banda Aceh/Aceh Besar, which while admirable for any foreign dignitary, doesn’t really tell the story of the rest of the province. He met with Aceh Governor Zaini Abdulah and Nanggroe Aceh customary leader Malik Mahmud Al Haytar.

“During his tour, Clinton was also accompanied by the head of the Presidential Working Unit for the Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4), Kuntoro Mangkusubroto.”  And where have we heard that name before?   Yes, you guessed it, Pak Kuntoro, director of BRR, the agency developed to oversee the reconstruction process and after an admirable start became so horribly mismanaged that it closed with no records, no database of projects, an not a soul left to confirm where any of the money went.

Any of it.

“Clinton praised the well-coordinated reconstruction efforts in Aceh.
‘This disaster united the international community and non-governmental organizations in cooperation to help the reconstruction of Aceh,’ he said.”

And he came to this conclusion how???

See, that’s the problem.  If there is no one here refuting those claims, if there are no local NGOs or local media left to talk about the EDFF and multi-donor fund process, if there is no one from the World Bank who is going to admit that well, yes, we kind of lost track of the money, or rather we tracked it on paper but never went to the field to view the projects that the multi-donor fund was supposed to implement, or if we did see the projects we didn’t ask local people if they had wanted the projects in the first place, and we certainly have no idea if anything is still standing now.” Because it’s a big, rugged, spooky province, full of bad roads and impenetrable jungle and furious separatists promised the world but given nothing, and it’s just as easy to say “Oh, I’m sure the reconstruction went well.” Or to read a press brief by one of the multinational NGOs who made a fortune out of this disaster.  No one knows what local NGOs think about the effort . . . because over 90% were bankrupted by the reconstruction money.

So I’m wondering: exactly why do I want to set President Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative straight?  Will it do anyone anywhere any good to know that a significant portion of the world’s largesse 10 years ago never made it to the people who needed it most?  It will only sour us to making these donations when disaster strikes, and I certainly don’t want that.  What I would like, though, is for there to be an honest oversight of the funds and the projects, and that someone, somewhere, has a real idea of what sustainability means.  And it doesn’t mean spending hundreds of millions fixing a road and then letting it fall apart.  It doesn’t mean putting a $6 million livelihood project on paper and then never checking to see if he implementer actually followed through.  It doesn’t mean getting $3 million for a project to train ex-combatants to be forest rangers and expect them to go back into their communities and arrest friends and family members.

I think President Clinton and the Clinton Foundation can make a huge difference in Aceh, especially with Jokowi as president.  But both of them need to start from an accurate and truthful picture of what happened to all that money, and where to go from here.