“ Now this is the phase where you assess your own sustainability. We provided the place and training. Now it is up to you how far you can make it successful, how you can make yourself empowered.”
— Saidullah Baig, CAI project manager in Paksitan’ s Gilgit region
projects viable long term.”
One of CAI’ s most promising communitydriven projects in Pakistan this past year was in a remote district of northern Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa province. Baig said the new Yarkhun Lasht College— a six-classroom building with an office, staff room, and examination hall— offers the first-ever opportunity for local students to pursue post-secondary education. The project is also important because of its proximity to Taliban havens.
“ Local people told me that many children were not even going to class 10,” Baig said.“ Girls stayed at home and got married, started making babies, and raised the population of these poor areas. Only a few boys got a chance to go to Chitral or other cities for higher education. That is why there are no college-level teachers and we have to bring teachers far from home.”
But with community support,“ when classes started in September, 70 percent of the students were girls,” Baig said.
Once again, CAI focused on a region overlooked by government and other nongovernmental organizations( NGO), Baig said.“ The area is not easy to approach. Other NGOs only go where they can get easy access and where the people recognize them. CAI is working for the benefit of the remotest-areas’ people. We go places where we don’ t always know people at first, but we surely know their problems.”
DEVELOPMENTAL PROJECTS Demand for bricks-and-mortar projects, like the small college, seems endless. Yet CAI has had to become more selective about where it invests time and resources going forward, said C AI Board Chairman Steve Barrett. With an inventory of 191 schools, maintenance plus student and teacher support consume a large chunk of the budget.
“ Our core mission is doing what we do in places where no one else can or will do it, remote places at the end of the road,” Barrett said.“ We’ ve looked at all of CAI’ s projects, one at a time. We have a lot to support and sustain. That leaves a modest amount for new building. Our resources are limited. And there are also on-the-ground realities.”
Which means for now, he said,“ Our work building schools is just more limited.”
One notable exception in 2014 was the push to finish 16 partially completed schools in central and eastern Afghanistan, most of them in Taliban-controlled areas such as Wardak, Kunar, Urozgan, Nangarhar and Logar provinces. In spite of shrinking reserves, CAI committed $ 1.6 million in the 2014-15 fiscal year to this effort.
“ Keeping our promise to finish construction on 16 new schools is a really big deal, especially as other NGOs are pulling back or retreating altogether from these areas,” Executive Director Thaden said.“ We remain committed to providing opportunities for literacy
What works, and why
People in the international development world, especially funders, are always on the hunt for the“ secret sauce” that leads to successful aid programs.
In September 2014, Duncan Green, a strategic advisor for Oxfam in the UK, identified some new research along these lines. In his From Poverty to Power blog, Green wrote about a paper entitled“ Politically smart, locally led development” from the Overseas Development Institute( ODI), an independent think tank in the UK.
ODI’ s David Booth and Sue Unsworth looked at seven large, successful aid programs in search of the ingredients that, when combined, allow NGOs to succeed“ despite the odds” working against them.
The research did not include Central Asia Institute( CAI). However, their findings reveal common elements for success that underscore CAI’ s philosophy and approach. Those elements include:
�“ Purposive muddling:” Project teams experimented, hit dead ends, and tried something else. Spending and results built up over time. There was a lot of learning from previous failures, which required having experienced staff.
� Brokering relationships: Teams invested in the time-consuming effort to establish relationships and build trust and credibility with partners and institutions.
� Politically smart: Leaders were politically well informed and had the skills to use that knowledge effectively. They acquired their knowledge and skills in a variety of ways( personal experience, commissioned political economy analysis, well-connected intermediaries).
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