EMOPS Guidance on Remote Programming Background Papers
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The Security Environment
Historically the security situation in Afghanistan is generally observed to have been deteriorating since
2001 -- from 2008 to 2009 security related incidents were observed as rising by 30 to 35% 2 . The situation has particularly affected the southern provinces of the country negatively, which historically has, and continues to be, a Taliban strong hold. As noted by observations made by UNICEF staff, the general freedom of movement in Kandahar town has historically been (and continues to be) severely restricted -- limited to other UN offices in the vicinity to UNICEF’s office. All movement in the town required amoured vehicles, and later escalated to require travel in convoys with armed escorts. Travel outside Kandahar City -- the provinces of Kandahar,
Helmand, Zabul, Uruzgan and Nimroz -- is only possible for UNICEF staff by UNAMA helicopters. The security situation continues to deteriorate. As a consequence remote programming modality instruments are regularly utilized by UNICEF and other humanitarian and development actors.
Management Arrangement
UNICEF Afghanistan implements its CP through a range of modalities, including Annual Work Plans
(AWP) agreed with the authorities; Project Cooperation Agreements (PCA) with NGO and CBOs;
Institutional SSAs with private sector entities; and Individual SSAs with national and international consultants.
UNICEF currently has offices in 18 locations in Afghanistan 3 , which are all manned by UNICEF staff. The cost of operating such a large number of offices has increased significantly over the past years, due to the deteriorating security situation. It was noted that over the past few years the security budget has increased from roughly USD 280,000 to USD 3.8 million. The main cost derives from protection arrangement required for UNICEF’s offices (MOSS). The UN relies on national authorities -- Afghan
National Police and Military -- international and local security contractors to provide the required security management arrangements in Afghanistan. Such an increase in operating costs in complex security environment is not unusual; however, donors are expressing a growing concerns that these costs are considered too high vis-à-vis the overall operational costs in Afghanistan.
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The current findings and observations are based upon interviews with former and current UNICEF staff 1 , the EMOPS Debriefing Notes Series 1 and personal observations made by the EMOPS consultant with in-country experience from Afghanistan from 2007 to 2010
2 2010 Humanitarian Action Plan, United Nations, page 1.
3 These include zone offices for: Badghis, Bamyan, Daikundi, Faizabad, Farah, Faryab, Gardez, Ghor, Herat, Jalalabad, Kandahar, Kunduz, Mazar-
I-Sharif, Nimroz and Parwan; Country Office in Kabul; and Programme Offices in Kabul (Islamabad, Pakistan, APO) and Kabul (Peshawar,
Pakistan, APO),
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Summary of Experiences with Remote Programming in Afghanistan
Assessment of Priority Sector Activities
A first step to move to remote programming was to identify the criticality levels of the programme
activities and thereby determine which programme priorities were to continue under remote programming implementation. As a result of the exercise, it was decided to continue with the majority of the initially planned programme activities.
Assessment of Humanitarian Needs
UNICEF Afghanistan is primarily relying on secondary data sources to assess the humanitarian case load in Afghanistan. This approach is a consequence of the access restrictions faced by UNICEF staff in conducting field visit in particular in the Southern provinces. Key national partners in this regard are:
Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority 4 (ANDMA) and the Provincial Disaster
Management Commission 5 (PDMC). UNICEF also closely collaborates with other UN sister agencies with humanitarian mandates, i.e. OCHA, UNHCR and WFP, as well as national and international NGOs to assess the humanitarian needs. Where the security environment allows for it, UNICEF also conducts its own humanitarian assessments. A significant risk arises from the reliance on external parties
conducting assessment on behalf of UNICEF, can cause the humanitarian needs to become overinflated or simply be inaccurate.
Collaboration with International, National and Military Partners
Military Partners
The diminishing access for UNICEF staff to provincial and district levels is complicating both the implementation, and in particular monitoring, verification of results, and ensuring due diligence in
partner selection. The ACO is relying on the support from the international military presence in
Afghanistan -- ISAF and US led OEF to obtain access to the local population in the Southern provinces.
Meetings with national stakeholders and the local population typically has to take place at the facilities of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT). This is obviously problematic with regards to humanitarian principles. UNICEF has therefore made it a priority to reach out to PRTs, ISAF and OEF units in Kandahar, to provide information on humanitarian principles.
National Partners
The selection of credible and competent UNICEF remote programming partners was noted as a critical
element to ensure the overall quality and effectiveness of the CP and UNICEF’s reputation as an humanitarian organization in Afghanistan (and globally). The ACO has taken several steps to ensure the quality of the services implemented by partners under remote programming:
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Local accounting company has been hired to assess the capacity (financial and organizational capacity) of all current partners -- and potential new partners -- to ensure they have the necessary technical skills and financial resources to enter into PCA with UNICEF 6
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Contracting of third party monitors to independently monitor programme activities and verify programme results
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Exploring the possibility of distributing cellular phones to community based organizations and local population to receive monitoring input via SMS
4 ANDMA has received technical assistance from UNDP Afghanistan through the Comprehensive Disaster Risk Reduction Programme. It would be interesting to explore joint approach to support ANDMA by UNICEF and UNDP.
5 PDMA is receiving technical assistance from UNDP Afghanistan through the National Disaster Management Project - http://www.undp.org.af/whoweare/undpinafghanistan/Projects/psl/prj_ndmp.htm
. It would be of interest to UNICEF to explore the possibility of collaborating with UNDP in this regard.
6 This initiative is part of HACT, which is still not fully implemented in Afghanistan. The terms of reference was developed on the basis of temples available at UNDG’s website:
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Summary of Experiences with Remote Programming in Afghanistan
UNICEF has to date made significant progress in sensitizing national partners on humanitarian principles and UNICEF’s CCCs in Humanitarian Action. Partners are presented with such concepts as UNICEF’s CCCs in Humanitarian Action, humanitarian principles, gender in emergencies and the cluster approach in emergencies. This is primarily done through orientation workshops, where the topics are presented to partners in the appropriate local language. UNICEF has taken the initiative to translate UNICEF’s CCCs in
Humanitarian Action to Dari and Pashto, thereby ensuring the widest possible dissemination. UNICEF also actively shares information vis-à-vis UNICEF’s role in emergencies with relevant partners. It was therefore assessed that UNICEF partners have a firm understanding of UNICEF’s CCCs in Humanitarian
Action, humanitarian principles, and the importance of reaching out to the most vulnerable.
UN Partners
UN collaboration vis-à-vis remote programming has been noted to have the potential to be further developed and strengthened. One concrete example that was mentioned was to explore the possibility of utilizing contracted third party monitor across different UN organizations through inter-agency Long
Term Agreement (LTA). This could potentially create large savings.
In particular coordination with humanitarian stakeholders is assessed to have led to increased collaboration within the UN System, i.e. with humanitarian mandates, in utilization of remote programming.
UNICEF has worked with WFP through a joint programme on education with the aim to strengthening the quality monitoring of programme interventions. WFP, utilizing a remote programming monitoring modality, has established an institutional contract with an international private company, CTG Global, to carry out on the ground monitoring of programme activities. UNICEF had similarly taken the decision to contract an engineer, through an institutional contract, to ensure monitoring of school constructions in
Kandahar, which resulted in uncovering several irregularities in school construction.
National Capacity Development
UNICEF works closely with all Afghan partners to strengthen their capacity when engaging in partnership. While UNICEF does not have a formalized national capacity development strategy for its engagement in remote programming, the regular programme work done with ANDMA and PDMA is formalized in a national capacity development plan. UNICEF is also in the process of pre-qualifying implementing partners through macro assessments (as mentioned above). These pre-qualified partners will also become available for other UN agencies in Afghanistan, hence representing one concrete example of increased UN collaboration.
The Afghan, and in particular Kandahar, context is characterized by having a limited number of partners
-- NGOs/CSOs/private sector -- with the required capacity to take on the full responsibility to implement
UNICEF priority programmes. In Kandahar, it is noted, that in 2009 only one NGO was assessed to have the necessary level of capacity and reputation to work with UNICEF. UNICEF therefore took several steps to strengthening its involvement with this NGO to build its capacity. Due to the low national capacity, UNICEF is highly dependent on the Afghan government to implement UNICEF priority programmes. UNICEF transfers significant amounts of resources through government channels (PCAG), which however is known to be facing issues of corruption and lack of oversight. Hence, there are significant risks involved in taking such an approach for UNICEF.
Remote Programming Monitoring Mechanisms
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Summary of Experiences with Remote Programming in Afghanistan
In the first quarter of 2009, UNICEF international staff members were evacuated from the Kandahar
Office, making it difficult for UNICEF to continue its operations in the Southern provinces. The overall management of the UNICEF programme in Kandahar was following the evacuation done remotely from
Kabul. After the relocation to Kabul, UNICEF staff conducted weekly missions to Kandahar, whenever possible, and had daily conference calls with the Officer-In-Charge (OIC) of the office. The OIC was selected on the basis of being the most trusted staff member in the office, rather than purely on the basis of seniority. Critically it was noted that the programme management -- administratively and programmatically – did not change significantly to adapt to the new operational context.
The shift to remote programming is overall assessed to have taken place gradually as a consequence of the deteriorating security situation, and the modality is not considered to have been officially formalized. One extreme case of remote programming was highlighted in of the interviews. A UN organization in Afghanistan has contracted out all its operations and programme implementation, including all its core priorities, as a consequence of their shift to remote programming. Donors in
Afghanistan have questioned and criticized such a radical approach, as the organization has not able to clearly demonstrate the added-value.
UNICEF globally works with implementing partners to deliver services with the aim of achieving long term results as specified in UNICEF’s CCCs in Humanitarian Action. This approach is also taken in the
Southern provinces in Afghanistan; however as also noted above, the security environment is highly volatile, thereby complicating such an approach. Over the past 1½ years UNICEF has utilized third party monitoring, to carry out monitoring of UNICEF implemented activities.
UNICEF, assessing the need to establish third party monitoring arrangement as critical as part of
remote programming, initiated the necessary procurement procedures to establish an institutional contract to monitor programme priorities during 2010/11. The process resulted in the submission of three proposals, two proposals from Afghan organizations -- their proposals were assessed as not meeting the quality criteria -- and one from an international private company, CTG Global -- with budget of USD 1.8 million. Due to the low quality and high costs of the proposals, the procurement process was never finalized. The ACO has also taken steps to strengthen the capacity of national partners to
develop their capability to deliver quality results for programme implementation and monitoring.
This included identifying NGOs with the potential to partner or to be contracted by UNICEF. UNICEF subsequently delivered trainings and training-of-trainers activities to strengthen their capacity within programme implementation and monitoring. Limited focus has however been on measuring the impact on the quality of the programme delivery from these trainings. It is noted that capacity building is a long-term process, requiring long-term investments.
UNICEF has through the joint programme been able to utilize the remote monitoring capacity of WFP 7 .
Activating remote programming modalities could hence be seen as an opportunity to explore areas where the UN can further collaborate.
UNICEF is actively identifying instruments and ways to deliver humanitarian assistance at both the national level and specifically for the Southern provinces, utilizing remote programming modalities.
UNICEF collaborates closely with national authorities, through AWPs, to deliver the regular and
7 Such arrangement should be further explored, particular due to the high cost implication involved in establishing institutional contract arrangements. One suggested option could be to develop agency wide long term agreement (LTA) with a range of service providers -- national and international. Such arrangement could potentially be facilitated for international companies at HQ level, to ease the burden to country offices, and to attract a wider range of interest.
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Summary of Experiences with Remote Programming in Afghanistan emergency programmes. The key risk faced by UNICEF is the inability to properly monitor the
implementation of the activities implemented by government partners. UNICEF is as a mitigation measure, working with various partners and has contracted a third party monitoring entity to carry out the necessary monitoring for UNICEF. UNICEF is additionally working directly with NGOs, through PCA, as well as local partners, to deliver services in Helmand and Nimroz 8 . UNICEF is working closely with these partners, providing technical assistance to ensure the quality of the assistance delivered. UNICEF is currently also exploring the possibility of partnering with a cellular company, to utilize SMS as a
monitoring component to receive input from local partners/ community 9 .
Donor Coordination
UNICEF’s Kandahar office primarily deals with Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) through monthly technical meetings. CIDA fully appreciates the value-added by UNICEF in Kandahar, which UNICEF amongst others demonstrates by the constructive cooperation with the Government at central and subnational levels. Overall UNICEF is assessed to have a good relationship CIDA in
Afghanistan. The partnership with CIDA was initially challenged by pressure on UNICEF to continue the operations in Kandahar. It was noted that UNICEF HQ has an important role vis-à-vis engaging actively
with donors, to establish a common understanding of the reality on the ground. It is therefore essential for UNICEF to effectively communicate with donors with one voice from headquarters and field levels.
UNICEF should also advocate for adherence to institutional donor agreements, and not establish
unnecessary additional reporting requirements. This was observed as initially happening in
Afghanistan, thereby directing already very limited human resources away from programme implementation.
Remote Programme Exit Strategy
UNICEF Afghanistan does not have a formalized exit strategy in place for the use of remote programming instruments. The office is working closely with all partners, national authorities and civil society organizations, to support national capacity development and providing the necessary technical assistance, to enable them to take over the programme implementation in the long term. At the same time, the CP is assessed to have the required level of flexibility to adjust to the changing security environment.
Remote Programming Lessons Learned
Key lessons learned from UNICEF Afghanistan’s use of remote programming modality in Kandahar can be summarized as:
Training/Capacity Building
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Careful attention to building staff capacity to fully understand UNICEF’s mandate and approaches within remote programming
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Capacity building of staff and partners has to be a priority - this requires long-term strategies
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Remote programming must include a strong focus national capacity development of local
 partners to ensure the sustainability of programme activities, but can also function as possible exit strategies for remote programming
Strengthening of the capacity of the government’s early warning system to take the lead in humanitarian emergency interventions
8 UNICEF has a zone office in Nimroz
9 UNICEF Afghanistan received support from UNICEF HQ to develop such a strategy - Erika ??
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Summary of Experiences with Remote Programming in Afghanistan
Operational Procedures and Security
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In complex security environments, programme and security planning should integrate the consideration of different scenarios during planning.
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Remote programming modality can raise the cost of doing business in insecure environments - these costs should be standardized into the way of doing business, e.g. including specific security budget lines in humanitarian appeals and donor proposals
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Security Risk Assessments and the implication on programme implementation should be a standing item on the agenda of the Country Management Team
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All relevant -- both international and national -- staff members should be fully included -- whenever possible - in Security Risk Assessments procedures as they possess valuable information not otherwise available.
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Whenever possible UNICEF should ensure to keep a minimum presence and operations going, even in highly volatile security environments, since once access is lost it is extremely difficult to re-establish
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Managers should take calculated (non-security) risks, according to the criticality level of an activity. Risk decisions should always be made at the appropriate level.. This can potentially require a different type of managers in remote programming
Coordination
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Utilizing of UN Missions to engage with military actors and to shape the civil-military coordination appears to be an suitable approach, as it allows UNICEF to keep a healthy distance from military actors
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Careful consideration about how to be support an effective Cluster approach in remote programing environment should be further explored
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Strategic opportunities to work with the UN System through joint programmes to build the institutional capacity of national counterparts should be further explored/
Monitoring
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Third party monitoring can significantly increasing programme costs.
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Joint monitoring with other UN funds and programmes can save money and other resources.
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It is critical to ensure the participation of children and women in the programme activities under remote programming, including monitoring input.
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National authorities and affected communities (with gender balance) must be involved in monitoring
Communication and Advocacy
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Communication and advocacy efforts should be strengthened when moving to remote programming.
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It is critical to pro-actively re-enforce community ownership and acceptance of the programme
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A constructive dialogue with donors must be maintained to establish realistic benchmarks for programme interventions in a remote programme context, and learn to say no to donors when unrealistic expectation are presented
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