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Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Dimzon: Stakeholders as policy makers
By Alain Russ Dimzon
Routes
THERE is the delivery of social justice when stakeholders are made policy makers.
While the conclusive object of development is the stakeholder, past practices centered on traditional government institution-driven initiatives. This made government the locus of development and marginalized the stakeholders. Cross-sector interests have been grossly neglected.
Following are excerpts of a paper, which my friend Victor Prodigo and I co-authored. We have six papers considered for presentation in Adelaide, Australia on the latter part of this year and for publication by the International Society of Equity on Health (ISEH-Canada).
The paper, I think, is relevant to the emergence of the socio-politico-economic philosophy of decentralization in governance in Iloilo City. This can institutionalize the making of stakeholders as policy makers.
Participatory approach
Many government-initiated health projects failed due the absence of an effective monitoring and evaluation system. Those projects concentrated on result-oriented activities, but were not sustainable in long terms. Managers believed that the achievement of intermediate objectives were adequate to improve health. With no proper venue and with the lack of a system to discuss interventions and project progress, clients had no clear bases in knowing accurate project status.
Donors and government agencies tend to hire experts from the academia and other organizations to conduct monitoring and evaluation. Observations showed that experts approach were very scholastic. Indicators and parameters were not adaptable to local contexts. Evaluators went the project locales for short visits and specific missions, which failed to yield holistic evaluative reports.
Stakeholders and the mass clientele were not involved in monitoring and evaluation because these were perceived as mere recipients. Effective monitoring and evaluation should utilize multi-stakeholder participation in all project implementation stages.
Methodologies should be adaptable to the local people. These must be a people-led initiative to start from system design, identification of indicators and parameters, formulation of strategies, schedule of integration of vital information and feedback for management of decisions."
(June 27, 2006 issue)
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