Objectives and Context

The RMAP team of the UNDP office in BiH has been nominated by the global UNDP staff forum for the innovation and creativity award. The RMAP programme was selected from 70 UNDP Country Offices and was short-listed among 10 other UNDP projects up for the creativity and innovation award, highlighting the dynamic and innovative approach of UNDP in BiH.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is a lower-middle-income developing country in the process of decentralization.  Four years of devastating war have been followed by several years of reconstruction, recover and reforms. Relative dependence on external technical and financial assistance has been accompanied by political prioritization of EU accession, which requires the adoption, incorporation and respect of international and regional human rights obligations.  In response to a concern that information about human rights was not available at the grassroots level, making problems faced by vulnerable groups difficult to overcome, UNDP BiH cooperated with the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the BiH Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees (MHRR) to create the RMAP programme as a human rights assessment and monitoring project.  This project developed and was later expanded to become the Rights-based Municipal Development Programme - RMAP_2006, which assists municipalities in developing and implementing rights-based municipal development strategies, and aims to provide a model for BiH local development in the future. The long term aim of the project is to address inequitable development and patterns of exclusion at the local and national levels, and to show that making a concrete, positive change in the local community is possible and within the reach of municipalities.

Links, Strategies and Tools

One of RMAP_2006’s key insights has been to understand how human rights and human rights based analyses could be combined with existing development practices to meet the development needs of municipalities. An evaluation of existing municipal development programming revealed that municipal plans tended to address only economic factors, treating social factors such as health and education either as symptoms of economic factors, or instruments for economic growth, if they were treated at all. A human rights based approach to analysis and capacity building was thus incorporated into a programming package of best practices in development. This human rights complement added concrete value for municipalities in addressing local social issues, and simultaneously legitimized a human rights based approach by integrating it with established development practices. 

This insight was not immediately apparent however, and the RMAP programme has evolved significantly in terms of the strategies and the tools it employs. The strategies here described are those currently employed by RMAP_2006. At the end of this section, all of the tools produced by RMAP are listed, with a brief identification of the period at which they were developed.

Key Strategies:

An integrated approach to human rights and development:

Instead of attempting to “reinvent development practice” through the application of human rights, RMAP integrates a human rights based approach into elements of the analysis and capacity building stages, in order to complement existing best practices in development and municipal development.  This is seen to have four essential advantages over other approaches. 

Firstly, municipal development planning and programming becomes inherently more participatory, and produces programmes that would not have resulted from traditional economic municipal development programming. RMAP-facilitated strategies matches projects benefiting the community at large with projects targeting specific vulnerable groups.  Recently implemented projects have included the supply of health services to densely populated rural areas, home care to the elderly, facilities for the mentally disabled and water supply networks for Roma settlement.  Secondly, the integration approach endows human rights based planning and analysis with a certain rigour by virtue of its close interaction with standard economic analysis. According to RMAP programmers, this has not only added legitimacy to human rights based practices, but added rigour, and ensured that targets are realizable in the municipal development context, rather than simply ‘wish lists’.

Thirdly, RMAP has also worked to stimulate feedback between human rights and other development practices, by constantly addressing the contributions and interactions of both in informal settings. This creates “learning cycles” as an entry point and integration point for human rights principles in standard development programming. By establishing a perpetual ‘dialogue’ in programming, between human rights principles and economic analysis, the integrated approach ensures that human rights principles constantly influence planning and programming processes, rather than simply being discussed at any given stage and then bypassed in practice.

Fourthly, and closely related to learning cycles, the integration of human rights and other best practices in development also integrates human rights institutionally in development practice. By transferring human rights competence from privileged actors and partners to programme teams, this avoids the danger that a human rights consultant may come and go, leaving a principally sound but pragmatically unworkable programme to be adapted by local practitioners, and discourages partnerships that will ‘outsource’ human rights competence to special organizations.

Stimulating Ownership:

The RMAP employs "learning by doing" approach to capacity building component.  Each workshop and training session begins with the creation and testing of a tailored agenda and curriculum, which is then applied for key stakeholders in small workshops.  This takes place throughout the assessment, planning and implementation phases, and always in direct connection with actual programming activities. This establishes an practical connection between capacity building exercises and the development activities of local stakeholders. This not only involves and educates local stakeholders in development processes that they may not otherwise have had access to, but ensures that local stakeholders can effectively take the lead in the development planning and programming phases that occur at the same time as, or just following capacity building exercises. 

In keeping with the dynamic of right holders and duty bearers, the ownership of development processes by local stakeholders must of course be complemented by a sense of ownership among municipalities and their officials. This is accomplished not only by ensuring that municipal officials participate in RMAP programmes and capacity building exercises, but also by targeting institutional and budgeting activities. A noticeable example which takes place in the implementation phase is the co-financing requirement, by which UNDP BiH provides seed funds to selected municipal development projects while imposing a co-financing requirement of a minimum 20% from the municipality. This requires that Municipalities set up a separate budget line within their budget documents. These funds are earmarked for the implementation of specific development projects as prioritized by the annual action plan, and UNDP seed funding is not released until specific projects have commenced. Surprisingly, many projects have been co-funded by as much as 70-80% by other partners and duty bearers (such as the local business community, civil society, the implementing partner itself, and beneficiaries). In fact, for many projects in the social sector, the duty bearer may not be the municipality, but a higher level of government. In such cases, municipalities lobby the duty bearers to co-fund the project implementation since they are legally obliged to assure that certain rights are exercised. So far, the municipalities have consistently obtained between 20-70% of funding from other specific duty bearers.

Operationalizing Participation:

RMAP establishes several institutional groups to promote and implement the principle of participation during the planning and assessment stages.  They are the Municipal Development Team, the Steering Committee, the Partnership Group, Working Groups and Focus Groups, and are described in greater detail in the Process section.

Briefly, the Municipal Development Team (MDT) is an executive body composed of representatives from the public, business and civil society sectors, in charge of coordination and writing municipal development plans. The Partnership Group (PG) meets regularly throughout the planning process to determine priorities for development planning, and approves the work of the Municipal Development Team. Representative sectors of the population are invited to participate in the Partnership Group, which is open to anyone who is interested. Within the Partnership Group, Working Groups are established to address specific issues of relevance in different sectors, while ad hoc Focus Group discussions are organized with members of the most vulnerable population unable to participate and voice their concerns within the Partnership Group.  The interaction of these groups throughout the planning and assessment phase not only has an inclusive and participatory function, but serves to encourage dialogue between majority and minority groups on the future and development of municipalities. This may also contribute to a foundation of trust and cooperation sorely lacking following the country’s recent conflict.

Upon the implementation phase, the MDT remains operative, and a Steering Committee (SC) is established to guide project selection and implementation.  The SC is composed of the Mayor, the President of the Municipal Council, the President of the MDT and a civil society representative. The SC helps to coordinate action between partners and ensure the quality of development projects. 

Key Tools:

Originally, RMAP was solely a human rights assessment  and analysis programme.  At this stage, a number of tools were developed, which are now collected in the document Methodology and Tools for Human Rights-based Assessment and Analysis, published in 2004.  (For comments on the relative utility of these tools, see lessons learned.)

 

Methodology and Tools for Human Rights-based Assessment and Analysis contains the following tools:

• Human Rights Checklists: A compilation of Human Rights standards, principles, the normative contents of rights, obligations of duty bearers, entitlements of claim holders and relevant jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights. It also provides a reference guide on the international human rights standards underlying all assessment and analysis.

• Domestic Legal Framework Checklists: A compilation of relevant national laws according to sectors and human rights assessed in RMAP, formatted in a similar manner to the Human Rights Checklists.

• Vulnerable Groups List: This is a list of pertinent indicators and questions anchored in a human rights framework to identify potentially vulnerable groups, and assess likely human rights issues affecting them in the country context.

• Civil Society Organizations List: This list of questions guides the assessment in extracting human rights-based information relevant to civil society organizations, and their role in promoting and protecting human rights.

• Gender Baseline List: This list of baseline indicators helps to assess gender equality and women’s rights, and to conduct a gender analysis.

• Tools of Analysis: Based on the training manual ‘Human Rights Centred Development: Theory and Practice’ (Diokno 2002), these tools operationalize (a) a Symptom-Cause-Effect Analysis, (b) a Capacity Analysis of Claim Holders and Entitlements Mapping, (c) a Vulnerability Analysis, (d) a Capacity of Duty Bearers and Obligations Mapping, and (e) a Forces at Work Analysis. The tools of Analysis are comprised of two concrete tools:
• Brainstorming Grid:  An electronic spreadsheet which lists all pertinent human rights issues.  The Grid prompts programmers to find issues’ interconnections and connect them to the ‘bigger picture’, thereby addressing their structural causes and underlying societal patterns and effects.
• Human Rights-Based Analysis Chart:  A flipchart tool for linking specific problems to causes, effects and all actors involved, the Chart operationalizes a Swot-analysis of duty bearers and claim holders and a vulnerability analysis of vulnerable groups.  The Chart facilitates brainstorming on specific issues.

• Human Rights-Based Quality Assurance Checklist: This Checklist guides the presentation of a Human Rights Based Approach in reporting, ensuring that all elements are represented.

Phase 2 tools will be compiled and presented along with RMAP’s current methodologies in a Primer for community leaders, to be published in summer 2007. 

The Primer for Community Leaders on Inclusive Local Development will include:

• Human rights checklists, establishing targets, indicators and analytical methodologies for evaluating human rights enjoyment at the municipal level in BiH. Checklists are used to orient and inform the initial collection of data, to facilitate and ensure quality in assessment exercises, and in capacity and responsibility analyses. At each of these stages, the checklists integrate the human rights and economic approaches procedurally, by linking principled goals to indicators set in traditional economic terms.
  (For an example of a checklist on the right to education, click here)

• Legal background papers, which are intended to assist teams in assessing human rights and development. Background papers are organized according to the 7 sectors generally included in RMAP strategies, and provide basic information on relevant legislation, organization and funding for each sector. Background papers also identify the duty bearers in each sector at the state, canton and municipal levels.
  (For an example of a legal background paper on the education sector, click here)

• Data collection forms, as well as other forms and instruments used to facilitate the planning process

RMAP_2006 has also published an ‘Implementation Manual’, for municipalities.  This document outlines various processes, including project selection, proposal drafting and project implementation.

The Implementation Manual includes:

• Descriptions of implementation processes, including the establishment of necessary bodies (see operationalizing participation), proposal drafting, project selection, and necessary steps for administration and funding.

• Tools to assist in these processes, such as a sample MoU, a pre-selection grid for evaluation of project ideas, a project proposal outline and forms for proposal evaluation according to human rights and administrative criteria. 

RMAP has also produced a Case Study outlining its experiences and lessons learned (2006).

Process and Status

Programme Development

RMAP was first launched as a human rights monitoring and assessment programme in 2002. At this point, the Phase I Tools listed above were used primarily to write human rights assessment reports. In 2004, the programme was expanded to include a planning component, and in 2005 RMAP facilitated the production of local development strategies in 13 municipalities. At the end of 2005,officially launched in January 2006.

A survey conducted by RMAP in November 2005 revealed a huge need for a comprehensive and multi-sectoral approach to local development, in that nearly 50% of BiH municipalities had not come up with local strategies to better target local needs and improve municipal performance. In response to these findings, the RMAP_2006 project developed a comprehensive, three-phased approach to local development planning, aiming to provide a model for BiH local development in future.

RMAP currently consists of 3 components:

1. Facilitation of a participatory and inclusive local assessment and planning process (PHASE I)
2. Technical and financial assistance to implementation of priority projects (PHASE II)
3. Policy development and Capacity Development for a more unified and inclusive approach to local development planning in BiH. (CROSS CUTTING)

RMAP has secured seed funding in the amount of more than USD 600,000 for the implementation of priority rights-based projects.  RMAP currently works with 15 municipalities, and the first programmes have begun to complete the implementation phase. 

Programmeme Application

Phase I:           ASSESSMENT AND PLANNING

The assessment and planning phase begins when a Memorandum of Understanding is signed by the UNDP and the mayor of a given municipality. Subsequently, the following planning bodies are established:

•  Municipal Development Team (MDT): an executive and coordination body in charge of leading the planning, assessment and drafting processes at the municipal level. It provides logistics for organization of Partnership and Working Groups and gathers all relevant information needed for strategy development. It is also a communication channel with other municipal authorities (Municipal Council, Mayor, etc.) and in charge of drafting Municipal Development Strategies. The MDT is comprised of municipal experts representing legislative and executive powers, as well as civil society and the business community. MDT members are also members of the Partnership Group, and work in close cooperation with RMAP teams.

• Partnership Group (PG): this body discusses and agrees upon crucial elements of the strategy as they are completed throughout the process, and approves development strategies before they are submitted to the Municipal Council for approval. The PG also serves as a communication platform between local administration and population, and articulates the needs and priorities of communities.  PG is intended to engage the participation of the broader public, and is established following invitations to a broad range of stakeholders. PG is typically composed of 10-40 members and is open to any who are interested. PG sets development priorities to be incorporated by the MDT, and is subdivided into Working Groups.

• Working Groups: ad hoc thematic or sector-based groups composed of members of the PG with specific expertise. The WG leader is usually a member of the Municipal Development Team, while WG participants represent the interests and views of stakeholders from various sectors of the community. WGs are used for elaborating and preparing the main elements of the strategy for the PG approval.
• FocusGroups:  an ad hoc mechanism utilized by RMAP teams to ensure that groups unable to participate in PG deliberations may still have their views represented. FG discussions are conducted with members of identified marginalized population groups, such as the Roma, rural population, children, persons with disabilities, returnees, elderly, youth, etc. They are also organized in geographically remote areas where access to development processes is challenging.  Concerns are then presented to both PG and MDT. 

The group meetings and discussions at the planning and assessment stage are complemented by capacity development activities, organized into workshops and including case work and peer review. These workshops focus on Data Collection & Assessment for Local Development Planning, SWOT Analysis and Defining of Strategies, Vision and Development Goals, and Defining Objectives, Programmes and Projects. The planning and assessment phase concludes when Municipal Development Strategies have been drafted by MDTs, approved by PGs, and submitted to Municipal Councils for adoption.

Phase II:          IMPLEMENTATION

Once Municipal Development Strategies have been drafted by MDTs and approved by PGs, they must be adopted by Municipal Councils. This is a precondition for inclusion in the RMAP_2006 implementation phase. After the Strategies have been adopted by the Municipal Councils, a Memorandum of Understanding on Implementation is signed between the municipality and the UNDP, outlining main responsibilities and financial requirements of each. A Steering Committee (SC) is then established, consisting of the Mayor, the presidents of the Municipal Council and the MDT, and a civil society representative.  The SC provides technical assistance in the preparation of project proposals, and prioritizes projects when resources are limited.  UNDP commits to the provision of seed funding for the implementation of priority municipal development projects in amount of US$ 30-50,000, while municipalities are expected to contribute with a minimum 20%. 

RMAP conducts technical assistance and capacity development measures throughout the implementation phase, including workshops on project selection, project cycle management, project proposal preparation, proposal evaluation and final selection, as well as monitoring and procurement. All workshops are conducted with a ‘learning by doing’ approach and targeted towards specific development partners.

An overview of municipal development projects supported by the RMAP implementation phase is available at http://www.rmap.undp.ba/

Impact

Per April 2007, RMAP has facilitated the development planning process in 17 BiH municipalities and 14 municipal strategies have been adopted by Municipal Councils. So far, 8 priority projects have been selected from 3 municipal development plans and implemented, while 10 more projects from 4 other municipalities are in the process of implementation and are expected o be implemented by the end of April 2007, which will make it a total of 18 projects implemented since 2006.  By the end of the programme, RMAP expects approximately 40 projects to be implemented in a total of 15 municipalities. RMAP has developed a reputation for quality programming which engenders the cooperation of other municipalities, and work has begun on building up municipal training centres as part of an effort to upgrade RMAP to the national level. 

The RMAP team stresses that perhaps the most lasting impact has been a strengthening of municipal capacities. In 2006 alone, more than 15 custom local capacity building workshops were held, strengthening capacities for assessment, planning and project implementation of more than 400 local stakeholders in all 15 partner municipalities. 

A number of knowledge tools have been developed, which are described above. 

Challenges

Key challenges in addressing marginalized groups and patterns of exclusion include the lack of accurate census data and the impact this has on various aspects of the programming process. Elite capture is also a persistent problem, especially when local ownership and sustainability considerations make it necessary to rely on ‘local champions’. Project teams have also struggled with what to do when the outcomes and priorities of participatory processes conflict with the priorities established by human rights based assessments. Furthermore, although there is wide participation among stakeholders, it has proven difficult to attract active participation of the private sector. 

Generally, RMAP has struggled with finding ways to meaningfully address complex social patterns, and has had difficulty showing results for their efforts within donor timeframes. The general capacity limitations of municipalities have also been a reoccurring challenge.  This is especially problematic when municipalities are expected to choose human rights based development plans over other development plans, which may appear significantly less complex and demanding.

Lessons Learned

Lessons for integration in programming:

In the course of the programme’s development, one of the key lessons learned by RMAP staff regards the practicability of human rights in development programming. This is especially evident in the Phase I tools, which were developed for human rights assessment.  Though principally and methodologically coherent, they are quite complex, and demand a high degree of proficiency. In this sense, they are largely unusable in the programme’s current modus, which focuses so heavily on performance and ownership by local actors. As expressed by the programme manager, a human rights specialist, “If I look at these tools and think that I am not capable of implementing them, imagine how they seem to local, non-expert staff.” For a programme that intends to build the long term capacities of local stakeholders, it is important to develop tools that are both principally sound and practicable for stakeholders. At some point in the course of their development, tools must be tested to see if they are clear and accessible to local partners—what the RAMP programme manager calls their “reality check.”

For RMAP_2006, this is characteristic of the ‘complementary’ value of human rights, and the programme’s integrated approach.  RMAP_2006 is built on the premise that human rights principals and approaches contribute best to development programming when they complement existing best practices. This is seen as in keeping with the impact of the human rights framework generally, whose consequences are “always incremental” and long term.    Pragmatically, RMAP has found that human rights principles and approaches are legitimized and operationalized to a greater degree by their complementary integration into existing best practices, than when they attempt to provide the entire solution to development problems, and to thereby “reinvent development.”

This integration of practices must be implemented throughout a project’s phases and aspects, however. In this respect, it is especially important that programme teams are multidisciplinary.  A number of expertises are required to solve contemporary development problems, and it is not realistic to expect experts from any single field to comprehensively address complex issues.  This is true at the level of senior management too, where it is very important to have support for the integration of human rights principles and approaches, and very helpful if management has human rights competence. 

Using multidisciplinary teams in each programme activity ensures the perpetual integration of practices.  This also encourages “learning cycles” within a programme.   Though RMAP has not developed a formal protocol for these activities, it has been of fundamental importance to the programme’s evolution and performance to continually review principles in light of practice, and vice versa, with input from all relevant fields of expertise.  Informally implementing such a dialogue during regular staff meetings and other events has allowed the programme to continually refine its strategies and practices, as they are informed by conceptual reflection and input from a variety of disciplines.  

Lessons for interaction with stakeholders:

RMAP_2006 is noteworthy for the strong focus it places on local performance and ownership, and learning-by-doing capacity development.  In this regard, much has been learned about selecting partners and projects from local counterparts. 

Some lessons reflect fundamental participatory principles:
It is important to engage the participationof all stake-holders from the very beginning of the assessment process, since they will be called upon again in the planning and implementation phases.  In country contexts where the distribution of authority is very complex, it is important to remain continuously engaged both vertically (across the state-canton-local government levels) and horizontal (across all actors on one level: government, CSO, private sector, international community).  When selecting municipalities, it is important to have a systematic and non-biased selection process that encourages competition, and thereby ensures partnership with the most proactive municipalities.

Other lessons reflect capacities and commitments: 
Preliminary analyses must attempt to distinguish between ‘inability’ and ‘unwillingness’, so that capacity development exercises are not directed towards the latter. When programming focuses on enabling municipal actors to develop and implement development strategies and plans independently, linking funding arrangements to substantive and procedural requirements, as thru the co-financing requirement for seed funds, has enabled RMAP to monitor processes and helped to ensure the quality of projects and their implementation. Building the capacities of stakeholders can take significant amounts of time, however, and it can take even longer to produce visible results.  This should be acknowledged in the assessment and planning phases, and ample time and flexibility for capacity development should be allowed from the very beginning of the programming cycle.

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