Technology and Development Institute. Case Studies in Public Policy Implementation and Project Management
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Technology and Development Institute (TDI), with its unique East-West partnership relationships, formulated plans for cooperative research to develop an innovative and comprehensive approach to project management education and training. The project focused on serious (and costly) management difficulties in the United States and the nations of Asia and the Pacific in view of their common problems rooted in mutual concerns and resulting in similar consequences. The basic approach was to develop a new prototype curriculum for educating and training project managers to understand the entire project cycle as a basis for expediting the necessary decision-making to successfully implement development projects for any sector of the economy or society. It also attempted to broaden the perspectives of international assistance policy-makers, national policy-makers, local planners, and project implementers in understanding the relationships between national goals and local project requirements.
Basic to the curriculum is this series of case studies, covering agricultural, industrial, public works, and social sectors. The case studies will be used extensively as a learning tool to provide relevance, practicability, and reality to both classroom discussions and the follow-up field practicum.
Basic to the curriculum is this series of case studies, covering agricultural, industrial, public works, and social sectors. The case studies will be used extensively as a learning tool to provide relevance, practicability, and reality to both classroom discussions and the follow-up field practicum.
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ItemPacific island livestock development(Honolulu, Hawaii : East-West Technology and Development Institute, 1977)This case study concerns livestock development project carried out in 1972-1975 in the small, independent country of Rabona (Rabona is a pseudonym for a real South Pacific country. For reasons relating to political and personal sensitivity, the names of specific places and individuals are disguised in this study. All other factual description is accurately represented) in the South Pacific. This nation of many islands and relatively few people had remained basically traditional in its orientation, subsistence agricultural economy, land tenure system, and communal social relationships. An increasing desire for foreign imports placed a heavy burden on Rabonans, for the copra produced from coconuts for export was the only cash crop. The Rabonan Cabinet decided to give high priority to developing a local cattle industry to reduce Rahonan dependence on costly meat imports. Financial support and technical assistance were requested from New Zealand's aid program.
The N.Z. Ministry of Foreign Affairs approved the request, and delegated responsibility to plan and implement the project to the N.Z. Department of Agriculture. A retired Department field officer with livestock experience was asked to conduct a feasibility study in Rabona. He proposed a project with twenty-one task units, aimed chiefly at building up a beef breeding herd and expanding facilities at the Government's experimental farm. Subsequently he was appointed to manage the project.
Prior to this, the Agriculture Director in Rabona, a native of the islands, unofficially commissioned two former staffers to do an informal survey on the subject, before they left for Australia to continue their graduate studies in agriculture. The two men, also native Rabonans, approached their task with full attention to the constraints of local custom and local resources, and developed a plan which took this into account and heavily involved local farmers from the start. For private reasons, the Director did not forward this proposal to his Minister nor to New Zealand officials on the project. This was unfortunate for the scheme was soundly based on local realities and promised quicker results than the expatriates plan.
The project, as conducted under expatriate direction, met numerous problems in implementation, including delays and cost overruns resulting mainly from the director's lack of professional management experience, his failure to correctly estimate the limitations of Pacific shipping schedules, a lack of skilled local workers, the leisurely pace of Rabonan administration, and his difficulty in working closely with Rabonan personnel because of their cultural differences. As a whole, the project failed to attain the goal of beef self-sufficiency, although some positive, short-term benefits did accrue from the separate task activities.
Of the problems encountered in the Rabona venture, many are common to development projects elsewhere in the Pacific. Project design and management control need to be flexible in response to the reality of local cultural and environmental constraints, and the lack of skilled manpower at all levels and the relative unfamiliarity with Western management practices have to be recognized by planners. -
ItemBancom Institute of Development Technology(Honolulu, Hawaii : East-West Technology and Development Institute, 1978)This case study deals with a project launched by a group of companies headed by a private investment bank in the Philippines in its attempt to evolve a significant private sector formula for integrated rural area development.
The Bancom Development Corporation, part of the Bancom Group of Companies, established a wholly owned, not-for-profit subsidiary called the Bancom Institute for Development Technology (Bidtech) in 1975 to explore human settlement management as a private enterprise activity. As personnel was recruited and as ideas and objectives crystallized, the focus of Bidtech became documenting the technology in Bancom and its various subsidiary companies, and then communicating and adapting this technology to the rural countryside.
The case study traces the activities of Bidtech's three divisions--documentation, communication, and application. Special attention is given to the application division, a subproject at a field site experimental setting in Licab, a town of 14,000, in a remote area about three hours north of Manila.
The Bidtech team sent to Licab found the usual severe problems that beset a small rice-based Philippine village: heavy debts from overextended crop loans, low levels of health and education, a fatalistic attitude fostered by regular typhoons, droughts, infestations of field rats and plant disease, low community cooperation and morale. When it entered this situation, however, Bidtech was operating neither as a government agency with an appropriated budget nor as a Church-related or philanthropic group with a grant; it came rather from the private, profit-oriented (and therefore cost-efficiency conscious) tradition of its parent group of companies. Its goal was therefore to come up with new formulas that would guarantee not profit per se (since Bidtech was a nonprofit institute) but self-viability for the project and its overhead as soon as possible.
Under the supervision of the Bidtech application function, training of local leadership started in earnest. With the help of a comprehensive framework, Bidtech soon involved itself in a wide range of community concerns, including hog breeding, bamboo craft and other cottage industries, town square beautification, a community preschool, street theater, a town newspaper, and so on.
With failures reported as well as successes, and seeing no significant transformation in the town at large after several months, Bidtech management conducted a townwide meeting to assess the community's articulated needs and plans. Based partly on this four-day meeting, partly on outside expertise, and partly on the analysis of its own experience, Bancom and Bidtech management finally concluded that the only way to change the community significantly would be to touch its very lifeline, rice production. As a result, the field team concentrated its efforts on an outlying 60-family village of the town. With the introduction of technology, management, and motivation, it was able to triple rice production records and start to erase significant debts. The formula was gradually applied in other areas, and added income was used not only to cover all overhead but to support other community projects.
The case study traces the progress and difficulties of a private enterprise experiment in human settlement management, its organizational framework, information-reporting mechanisms, funding complexities, and attempts to apply sophisticated business management techniques to a rural environment. Various aspects of this experience illustrate sometimes correct and sometimes incorrect ways of handling key managerial issues in the integrated project cycle. -
ItemThe Philippines' rice self-sufficiency programs : 1966-68 and 1973-75(Honolulu, Hawaii : East-West Technology and Development Institute, 1977)Achieving self-sufficiency in rice production has been one of the top priorities of the Philippine government. This case study discusses the government's two programs to attain this goal.
The case study is divided into two parts. The first one focuses on the 1966-68 program instituted soon after Ferdinand E. Marcos took over as president. This study discusses in detail the overall environment, program design, and implementation of the rice program, with special emphasis on production goal setting, marketing and distribution, field organization structure, and the framework for overall coordination and control. It brings out the numerous problems encountered at the various stages of the program; and the organizational and administrative steps taken to make this program yield significant results. The pivotal role of leadership in success of this program is also emphasized.
The second part of the study describes a second rice self-sufficiency program, Masagana 99, launched in 1973. The two programs are similar in content and are strongly linked to each other. They have, however, entirely different political environments, behavioral components, and major explanatory variables. The 1973 program provides a longer-term perspective for the 1966-68 program and clarifies the nature of the project management cycle. In the context of rice production, attaining self-sufficiency is an on-going effort and one that cannot be set aside with the achievement of original goals.
Both rice self-sufficiency programs are a complex of many subprograms and subprojects, requiring participation of many agencies. This study examines the administration of an interagency umbrella that coordinates, directs, and controls the operations of various agencies. -
ItemWay Abung transmigration project(Honolulu, Hawaii : East-West Technology and Development Institute, 1977)Transmigration projects are a vital part of the Republic of Indonesia's efforts in regional development and nation-building. The planned resettlement of needy families from overpopulated sections of Java also helps to meet the demand for agricultural workers to develop the sparsely populated Outer Islands. The project at Way Abung in North Lampung Province, South Sumatra, is reviewed against the background of "colonization" projects carried out by the Netherlands Indies government from 1905 to 1941 and the "transmigration" program initiated by the Republican government following World War II. The study covers a period (1969-1974) when planning and implementation of Indonesian resettlement conformed with the Republic's First Five-Year Development Plan (REPELITA I) and fell within the responsibility of the Department (Ministry) of Manpower, Transmigration, and Cooperatives.
Way Abung was administered during this time as a sub-project of the Lampung Province Transmigration Project. The Directorate General For Transmigration recruited settlers in Java who then traveled by train and ship at the expense of the Government to South Sumatra. There the agency gave them land, housing materials, agricultural aids, and community facilities to get started. After five years, the colonists were transferred to the jurisdiction of the regular provincial administration. With program modifications suggested by the experience gained in five years at Way Ahung, the project continued in operation after 1974.
The author analyzes the problems encountered at Way Abung and the attempts to solve them. These included relating the project to national development goals, coordinating the responsibilities of various agencies and government levels that were involved, appraising project components systematically by use of approved management techniques, and monitoring project progress for informative feedback and evaluation. During the period described, Way Abung was neither a successful venture nor a project that failed, but it is one from which much can be learned. -
ItemBangkok metropolitan immediate water improvement program(Honolulu, Hawaii : East-West Technology and Development Institute, 1977)Bangkok's water supply system in the 1960's suffered from chronic shortages and service failures owing to rapid urban growth, limited resources, deficient technology, and faulty administration. Remedial action by the Government established the Bangkok Metropolitan Water Works Authority (MWWA) and brought in a consultant engineering firm to conduct surveys and draw up plans both for immediate water improvement and for long-term modification of management and physical infrastructure toward ensuring a more satisfactory MWWA operation. This case study describes planning and implementation of the immediate improvement program from 1969 to 1972.
This was an interim undertaking during a crisis situation to gain time for planning a more permanent program for the entire metropolitan area. It consisted of four independent projects to increase water resources, to repair the pipeline system for greater water conservation, and to overhaul the metering system for better monitoring of water consumption and collection of consumer service charges. Outside consultant and construction firms were called in to offset MWWA's lack of expertise and resources. The changes introduced by the program were more technological than behavioral or attitudinal, although MWWA was reorganized in critical areas of its regular operation. The program was well supported morally and financially by the National Government.
The public water system did improve as a result, but it took longer to accomplish than was expected. Planning consultants counted too much on the organizational capacity of MWWA, and certain physical problems cropped up during field operations that were not anticipated in preliminary surveys. The whole experience demonstrated that flexibility is the key to resolving the differences which inevitably arise between planning and implementation.