|
Kavita Charanji F The agenda for this year’s conference was a brief opening address by Dr Ashok Khosla, the President of DA, presentations by the units on work done in 1998 and future business plans, discussions on organisational strategy, fund raising, financial management and future organisational structure. On the last day of the conference, participants put their heads together to discuss common strategic issues as well as expectations and responses within the group. As the conference neared to a close, staff members repeated an annual exercise —the attempt to gauge the health of the organisation based on vital indicators such as the impact created, synergies, achievements vis a vis last year, multipliers and the level of ownerhip, among others. Setting the tone for the annual review conference, Dr Khosla pointed out: "Any living organism has to be very self critical and be ready to make changes as are needed. Some of our basic concepts need to be rethought every year." He elaborated that a critical issue that should be worked out was the linkage between DA, TARA (the marketing wing of DA) and People’s First - a body that works towards changing colonial systems of governance. He added that, "We have to find out how the three organisations are going to work together towards mutual advantage, rather than pull in different directions". What was worrying, said Dr Khosla, was that in the 15 years since DA had been set up to deal with issues of poverty, environment and resource management, things had become worse (not better) in the country. "What gives me hope is that basically there is no other organisation which can compare with DA, TARA and People First", added Dr. Khosla. On that optimistic note, the Conference got off to a start with presentations by the Technology Systems Branch (TSB), Environment Systems Branch (ESB) and the Bangalore office of DA. The exercise continued with presentations by the Jhansi office, communication unit, information unit, Small Grants Programme, administration and finance. A simultaneous review was carried out at the DA headquarters by TARA, TARA Nirman Kendra, DESI Power and TARA-BKF Rural Technologies. As a follow up to last year’s annual review, considerable time was devoted to the progress of DA’s missions. Discussions focussed on the water, training, rehabilitation and resettlement and impact assessment missions. The main aim of the water mission is to conceptualise a programme on water at the national level on vital issues in the field of water conservation and management. The mission has been dealing with issues ranging from source development to policy issues. The Rehabilitation and Resettlement Mission has so far focussed on two projects: the Rio Tinto project in Chandrapur and the Keonjar project in Orissa. The idea is to offer a holistic R&R package e.g., appropriate building technologies and sustainable enterprises promoted by DA, along with the policy perspective on R & R. DA has set up a number of check dams in the Bundelkhand over the last 10 years. In a first of its kind impact assessment, some heartening preliminary results have emerged:
Though there are a few drawbacks as well, on the whole the results have been encouraging for DA. In the long term, as the presenter pointed out, a further testing of the evaluation methodology is needed. An important feature of the annual review is identifying emerging business opportunities. In keeping with DA’s ethos, all the participants got an opportunity to put forward ideas on this front. Discussions centred on expanding the ambit of DA’s activities in areas of Madhya Pradesh where the organisation has already made a considerable headway. Another concept that attracted attention was enterprise development modules based on reports that DA has already prepared or preparing fresh ones. As the annual review meet neared its end, participants got a chance to evaluate DA and TARA on vital indices such as achievements vis a vis last year’s projections, impact created externally, synergies achieved, level of ownership and client satisfaction. While DA scored well on most fronts, there were clearly some problem areas such as business sense and client satisfaction. Likewise, TARA could have scored better on parameters such as achievements vis a vis last year, impact created externally and synergies achieved. The conference concluded on an optimistic note with DA staff members singing the famous song, "We shall overcome some day..." Though tempers may have got somewhat frayed at the end of the three day review, there was a consensus that the organisation was going into 1999 with a renewed sense of purpose and the willingness to work as a cohesive team. qThe author is the Consultant Editor, Com-munication Unit, Development Alternatives
|
||||
|
||||