In this interview, Leticia Madriaga discusses her experiences working with the Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government (CCAGG), a group set up by citizens to monitor government and public works to deter corruption and ensure accountability. She explains the connection of CCAGG to the Catholic Church of the Philippines, as well as the extent to which students and professors of the Divine Word College of Bangued have been involved in the project. Madriaga recalls the history of the CCAGG as a voluntary organization initiated by concerned citizens and the ways in which it has transformed in Bangued as well as been replicated in other areas of the country. She concludes by commenting that CCAGG could be improved by integrating more influential actors into its programming. She also discusses the sustainability of the group into the future. 

In this interview, Scott Guggenheim, as a founding party of the Kecamatan Development Program (KDP), details the program’s background and the measures taken to initiate its implementation in Indonesia. He discusses how there was a need for a program in the country that created greater local accountability. Seen through the failure of the Inpres Desa Tertinggal (IDT) development program, Guggenheim explains how the Suharto government became so corrupt and disorganized that no money was going to make its way from the top down to the bottom. Thus, a solution to this problem of corruption would be the distribution of funds directly to the villages in order to eliminate the middlemen who often siphoned off the money. This solution served as the foundation of the Kecamatan Development Program. Guggenheim emphasizes the importance of having an effective and simple disbursement system, to assure that money would be dispersed directly to the communities. Therefore, he states how grateful the designing team was to the National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS) who worked out how to make the financing aspect of the project function. The simple design of the KDP that was developed is a facilitative planning system mapped against a disbursement system. There is a direct transfer that does not go through the government, but down to the sub-district. That sub-district allocation gets mapped against village level plans that are prioritized by the villagers. The money is given to the projects in the order that they are ranked in until the money runs out.

He discusses how in 1997, they launched the pilot program of KDP, applying their system to twelve sub-districts. He explains the trepidation in scaling up the program, which was due to the uncertainty as to whether the increase in size would make it vulnerable for corruption. Nevertheless, KDP scaled up to 250 villages in the following year, and Guggenheim talks about the components of the program that stayed constant and that needed to be altered in order for the program to thrive.  One of the components that led to KDP’s success was the microfinance, which allowed for the money to reach the poorest people of the villages. Furthermore, the fact that the KDP was a community run organization, and that each village was responsible for their individual funds, makes it so they felt local ownership over the money.  It was their responsibility if projects failed within their community.  

In this interview, Dr. Ashraf Ghani discussed his role as Minister of Finance throughout the implementation of Afghanistan’s National Solidarity Program (NSP). The interview highlighted the immense challenges faced by the Transition Government in a country decimated by war, drought, and a very large refugee and displaced population. After 24 years away from the country, Dr. Ghani returned to Afghanistan in order to assist in rebuilding the nation. Throughout the interview, he stressed the importance of design thinking as unique from project implementation. Restructuring the government required innovative thinking that incorporated the preferences and opinions of all Afghani citizens including the most impoverished rural populations and women, two segments of society traditionally excluded from the decision making process. Additionally, he explained how this approach was revolutionary and challenging for the new government and NGOs who had previously operated in a more patronizing capacity perceiving rural Afghans as recipients rather than agents of change. Dr. Ghani emphasized the notion that villagers should set their own priorities and have the same rights and obligations as the populations from more urban and prosperous regions. Furthermore, he discussed the challenges of scalability for such a program and the need to mobilize the existing capabilities to areas of poverty and exclusion. The interview concluded with advice for others looking to implement similar national development projects in similarly devastated environments.    

Case Study:  Building Trust in Government: Afghanistan's National Solidarity Program, 2002-2013

In this interview, Herman Haeruman of Indonesia discusses the origins and evolution of the Kecamatan Development Program in Indonesia. The KDP was a joint effort between the World Bank and the Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning (BAPPENAS) with an overarching goal of poverty alleviation in Indonesia’s poorest and generally rural areas. Haeruman explains how decentralization of power from central to local governments played an important role in the success and inherent value of the KDP, and touches on topics such as the empowerment and autonomy that resulted from the program’s sub-national scale. Haeruman delves into the monetary and executive relationship between the World Bank and BAPPENAS, and describes how an independent monitoring system for money allocations was created to guarantee transparency and prevent corruption in allowing villages to choose how to spend their grant money. Haeruman concludes by discussing the difficulties in scaling up KDP from a local, pilot-based program to a nation-wide agenda, as well as other obstacles faced along the way.

Case Study:  Services for the People, by the People: Indonesia's Program for Community Empowerment, 1998-2006

In 2003 Afghanistan developed its National Solidarity Program (NSP) with its international partners including the World Bank. This program was modeled after the PNPM development program in Indonesia. In the first phase of NSP, over 17,000 communities were reached as experts contextualized the resources to the needs of the various communities. In 2007, the NSP underwent a nationalization process in which the international management structure transitioned to the oversight of local and government officials. Rusha Majeed’s interview with Ghulam Rasoul Rasouli in November of 2013 discussed this transitional process for NSP including the challenges associated with development activities at the local level. Among these challenges included managing donor relations and intergovernmental interactions, overseeing the six regional offices and thirty-four provincial offices, and ensuring an efficient disbursement process of funds. Furthermore, this program relied on its facilitating partners including NGOs to assist with implementation of projects at the village level. Part of this nationalization process included designating more authority to the provincial teams with regards to difficult financial decisions. Throughout this process, due-diligence, accountability and transparency have remained paramount aspects of designing and implementing projects at the village level. Additionally, the interview details the three phases of NSP that took place prior to 2013 including the expansion into new communities, given security restraints, and the maintenance of relations in communities that have already received previous NSP grants.       

Case Study:  Building Trust in Government: Afghanistan's National Solidarity Program, 2002-2013

In this interview, Abdul Baqi Popal discusses his role in designing and implementing the National Solidarity Program (NSP), a rural development program in Afghanistan, as an employee of UN-Habitat. He elaborates on how the roots of the NSP program lay in the Community Fora initiative utilized in Afghanistan in the mid to late 1990s. Popal outlines the basic mechanisms and function of the NSP program, the initial government and UN oversight that took place, and challenging conditions that the team confronted in early stages of the project. Specifically, he discusses winning community trust, changing rural perceptions on voting with the creation of the Community Development Councils (CDCs), and encouraging inclusive consultation procedures in villages. Popal also discusses how the team involved in the NSP program confronted the issue of continuing to function under Taliban rule. Moreover, he addresses prescient modern issues in the NSP program, including how the involvement of various stakeholders in the NSP program, many of which have different goals, has created inefficiencies. Finally, Popal envisions modifications he believes will be necessary in the NSP program moving forward.

Case Study:  Building Trust in Government: Afghanistan's National Solidarity Program, 2002-2013