Mid-term review of CHN - 2152 Capacity Building on Environmental Protection Bureau in Guizhou Province

The Project

A bilateral Agreement was entered into between the Norwegian Embassy in Beijing and the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) on 17 January 2005 providing NOK 7 million in support from Norway to the Project entitled "Capacity Building on Environmental Protection Bureau in Guizhou Province". On12. January 2005 a contract was signed between Zunyi Environmental Protection Bureau (ZEPB) and the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority (SFT), being the two leading executing partners in the Project. The Project activities had been under preparation since 2001 awaiting the funding approval. The goal of the project was formulated as:"Industrial pollution in Zunyi Municipality is reduced". The following purpose has been formulated for the Project: "Improved quantitative and qualitative performance of Zunyi EPB, especially the staff dealing with monitoring, inspection and information management". In the Agreement an addition to the purpose stated in the AD has been made …", and to increase knowledge of cleaner production in local industries."

The project lists four main outputs to be achieved:
1. Monitoring and inspection staff will be able to verify compliance with discharge permits;
2. The level of knowledge with EPB staff on appropriate environmental management procedures is substantially raised;
3. ZEPB's reporting system and reports are substantially improved; and
4. Environmental awareness raised in selected key pollution enterprises.

Interesting Findings:

• Need to develop a comprehensive baseline. In this Project, as well as in most other development cooperation projects, the baseline is inadequate to use as a basis for assessing performance and achievements. Furthermore, there is a need to develop a baseline to consider the counterfactual situation, i.e. what would have happened without the Project.
• Update PD. The PD should be updated to reflect changes suggested by the appraisal, the AD and the Agreement and possible changes in the overall setting the Project will be implemented in. This Project is based on a PD which was almost three years old when implementation commenced. The PD should also include staffing requirements/criteria.
• LFA-type of exercise considered useful. Project participants have confirmed the importance and usefulness of having a consistent project formulation approach (using LFA defining objectives, outputs and activities). Overall, the Chinese side welcomed the LFA planning process.
• Develop an exit strategy. Most development cooperation programs do not prepare an exit strategy. In this Project there is an expectation among the partners that the Project will enter into a Phase II. All development programs should have a clear exist strategy addressing the issue of how to achieve long-term sustainability. An exit strategy could be based on the "train the trainers" concept.
• Ensure continuity in provision of translation and interpretation services. ZEPB is responsible for ensuring translation services and interpreters. This component has proved to be important and this should preferably have been included in the foreign, e.g. SFT, component. However, the Norwegian partner should also consider to hire Chinese-speaking staff.
• Allow for sufficient time to build trust. Successful institutional cooperation depends to a large extent on the initial efforts to build relations. Initially, it could be useful to post advisers for longer periods, thereby ensuring a quicker building of trust and enhanced understanding of local conditions. Furthermore, a time horizon of four years for a capacity building program is too short. It also takes a long time for foreign staff to develop the necessary understanding of the local conditions.
• Individual training does not necessarily lead to institutional development. Training of individuals alone is not enough to ensure institutional development. The trained staff may eventually leave the organization and thus leave it vulnerable to loss of institutional memory. Other factors such as an established ongoing internal training program, mainstreamed decision-making processes, management approaches, well-defined compliance strategies and tools, etc. must complement individual training in order to achieve successful institutional development.