At first glance, the Center of Development Excellence in Pakistan seems to be selling the company secrets of a leading U.S. government’s contractor. But the sole financiers at DAI, the Washington-based consulting firm, see the center as an investment in their organizational sustainability as well as a hub to help build the capacity of Pakistani organizations.
“We’ve been operating in Pakistan for more than 25 years, and from our own experience, we feel the need for this capacity building,” Mehreen Tanvir, the center’s program director, tells Devex. “Going forward, the way we feel and where we think the development marketplace is going to be, we want to ensure networks are in place, because that’s the only way we think development efforts can be successful.”
The development marketplace in Pakistan is poised to remain replete. Over the next five years, the U.S. government has pledged $7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan, identified by the Obama administration as a frontline state along with Iraq and Afghanistan. Other major contributors to Pakistan include the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the U.N. Development Program, and the U.K. Department for International Development.
Increasingly, these donors are showing a predilection for partnering with Pakistani organizations, not only to implement projects but also to prepare implementers for meeting donor standards, according to Steven O’Connor, DAI’s director of communications.
The U.S. Agency for International Development in Pakistan, for instance, recently solicited applications for a $25-million grant that would “allow for the provision of the technical assistance required to build [local implementing partners and host government institutions] institutional capacity up to USAID standards.” Only Pakistani organizations were eligible for the grant, entitled “Assessment and Strengthening Program (ASP) for Civil Society Organizations and Government of Pakistan.”
In this light, DAI and others have identified a demand for courses teaching professionals how to train others.
“We’re not doing it for purely altruistic reasons – we do see ourselves as providing a public good here – but we’re doing this because we see it as the wave of the future,” O’Connor says. “Development will be more driven by local implementing partners in the decades to come, and we realize we’re going to have to be part of that and we want it to be done well. We also want to be part of it, so we can keep going as the development organization that we are.”
DAI President and CEO James Boomgard announced the Center of Development Excellence, which DAI bills as the first of its kind in Pakistan, in November 2009. It opened in January. Before designing its courses, DAI conducted a needs assessment with Pakistani non-governmental organizations and development stakeholders.
“A lot of times people don’t know how USAID is structured or how the reporting mechanisms work,” Tanvir notes. “They feel like they haven’t had a chance to interact or learn about the organization directly. So were hoping that through our center, we can have some networking events where donors meet with small NGOs on the ground.”
The first pilot seminar in February enlisted 16 participants from 14 local organizations, including NGOs, private consultancies and certified public accountant firms. Eventually, Tanvir expects the center to increase the influence of Pakistanis on how development dollars are spent in their country.
“Currently, it seems like they are just recipients of this money but they’re not actively involved in how it’s used,” she argues.
Initially, however, CDE is concentrating on enabling Pakistani development actors – individuals and institutions – to work with international donors, and constructing a network for participants to share best practices.
“There are definitely some more prominent consulting firms and NGOs that are more experienced working with international donors,” Tanvir said. “In our pilot training, we had a mix of people with different levels of exposure to USAID – some had worked as subs [subcontractors], some had never worked on any USAID projects – and we saw the exchange of information, knowledge and business cards, with the more inexperienced organizations eager to connect with the more prominent ones.”
After the success of the first course, DAI decided it would hold two more – on USAID contracting procedures and financial management.
“One of the things that makes people most nervous is financial management,” Tanvir said. “The penalties if you don’t manage the funds properly are daunting for all of these firms.”
The interest in these courses was immense, with close to 100 people enrolling in the weeks following the initial training. The center’s below-market rates have been one reason for the strong demand, according to O’Connor. DAI charged $120 for the five-day pilot course. The center priced the upcoming three- and two-day courses closer to standard rates, at $695 and $595, respectively.
The center’s focus on the details of running a development organization may add to its salience.
“It’s not an academic exercise,” O’Connor says. “I think there are a lot of valuable university programs that do development studies programs, but this is a course taught by practitioners for practitioners – the real nuts and bolts of running an organization on the ground.”
DAI next plans to launch similar ventures in Afghanistan, Jordan, Palestine, Mexico and South Africa, countries where DAI already has an established presence. To bolster its capacity, DAI recently acquired the Center for Public Management, a training firm specializing in government contracting. DAI may hire additional consultants to work in its centers but doesn’t foresee bringing aboard large numbers of new employees, O’Connor says.
“We’re definitely committing resources to it, but it’s not going to be a big recruiting push,” he explains. “We’ll be hiring consultants to train in cases, but our first stop is going to be within the DAI network.”
While the center is still too new to show quantifiable results, according to O’Connor, early indications are encouraging – for the business prospects of Pakistani development organizations and DAI.
“We see it as connecting with the best people there and sharing our expertise,” he said. “Going forward, we think we’ll have the network and the esteem to make a difference in that evolving environment. And we think it’s the right thing to do.”