Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Title
Please provide a name for your action learning plan.
Participation without leaving anyone behind
Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
EXPLORATORY
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
Our challenge is that the current mechanisms for the participation of society in local development decisions are not being efficient ways to address the needs of the most vulnerable groups.
Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?
With the transition to democracy in Guatemala in 1984, the new constitution included an important emphasis in the participation of society for local development. In particular, article 119 vowed to promote decentralization. However, the participation of society was viewed as a threat to the autonomy of local governments, and it became difficult to implement decentralization mechanisms. After the peace accords in 1996, discussions to improve the participation of society increased leading, in 2002, to develop the current Law of Urban and Rural Development Committees (Decree 14-2002), the General Law of Decentralization (Decree 14-2002), and the Municipal Code (Decree 12-2002).
The current system for development committees is designed in a pyramidal fashion, where society and public institutions make proposals from the bottom up regarding local development initiatives. It contemplates the participation of all sectors of society from the community to the national level, including community residents, civil society organizations, private sector, academia, and governmental institutions. The coordination of the system is directly linked to the Presidency through its Executive Coordination Secretariat and its General Planing Secretariat. The system determines the yearly use of over Q3,350,000,000.00 (about US$450 million), over twice the whole budget of the Ministry of Development.
At first glance, the drivers of inefficiency of these participatory mechanisms for addressing the needs of most vulnerable grupos include: asymmetries in political power when negotiating which projects to fund; distortions in the representation of preferences; barriers for the participation of vulnerable groups in discussions; lack of information; lack of mechanisms for accountability and monitoring the quality of implementation; lack of trust; incentives that result in neglecting the needs of most vulnerable populations; among others.
The current situation looks like it undermines the value of democratic and participatory processes for development. In practice, the spaces for social participation become a formalism to validate the interest of the Local Governments, rather than enrich development initiatives with the input from society. The participation of society is done in unequal conditions, as those who participate need incur in costs to do so. Also, beyond the community level, decisions are dominated by institutions. It is argued that there are corruption practices where non-governmental organizations with links to political figures compete for the funds to execute the projects, as a important amount of projects involve the development of infrastructure such as roads. There is little evidence of the impact the projects implemented have on development, and poverty levels continue to be high.
Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.
The development system spends over US$450 million a year, however, human development indicators remain low: about half of children under the age of 5 al malnourished; access to education and health services is low; violence is high; inequality is high ... [We can check information from the national census, ministry of education, ministry of health, ministry of governance. Also, SEGEPLAN and SCEP would have information regarding who participates in the system of development committees, and the types of projects that are being implemented]
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Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.
[We can check public surveys regarding the levels of participation in the system as well as trust and perceptions about the efficacy of the system. Also we can revise the academic literature that has studied democratic participation in the system that offer accounts that in practice the system excludes vulnerable populations and reproduces asymmetries]
For example, news media articles often show that the development committees system is used to build stadiums and roads, when people are hungry, sick, and without shelter. There are accounts that participation of women, indigenous groups, youth, people with disabilities, people in poverty is low].
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Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?
UNDP Accelerator Lab in Guatemala can identify innovations in the way participatory process are conducted and ways to use digital technologies and alternative sources of data that are able to improve the way participatory process address the needs of vulnerable populations. UNDP Accelerator Lab is needed because there are not pre-identified solutions to be implemented, and it has the flexibility to discover and adapt. For example, we can test whether changing the "rules of the game" can have positive effects; of if there are digital technologies that facilitate the generation of new data, increase the voice of those who are not heard.
Marketing phrase: "UNDP Accelerator Lab can show how the participation of society is an effective way to address the needs of vulnerable populations that are currently unsolved or overlooked".
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
We are working on uncapping ways in which the participation of society can help public institutions become more effective at addressing the unsolved and overlooked needs of vulnerable populations.
Partners
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
Local governments
What sector does our partner belong to?
Government (&related)
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
Local governments are responsible for coordinating the system of development committees in their locations. We will collaborate with local governments in the introduction of innovations in the system.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
SCEP: Executive Coordination Secretariat from the Presidency; and SEGEPLAN: General Planning Secretariat of the Presidency
What sector does our partner belong to?
Government (&related)
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
SCEP and SEGEPLAN are the key institutions that coordinate the system of development committees at the national level. We will collaborate with them for scaling learnings in the system.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
Members of community development committees
What sector does our partner belong to?
Civil Society
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
Members of community development committees are residents and members of civil society organizations that contributes with proposals for development projects. They will be key actors in testing innovations introduced in the system and identifying needs for improvement.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
Yes
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
Volunteer organizations and innovation cluster
What sector does our partner belong to?
Civil Society
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
We have a partnership with a cluster of volunteer organizations who are eager to engage in activities to map, explore, test, and learn how innovation can help local development.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
Yes
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
Think tanks and Universities
What sector does our partner belong to?
Academia
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
We will work with Universidad Rafael Landivar, Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Universidad del Valle, Flacso, Asies, Fundesa, NIMD, NDI and other academic organizations that have expertises in democratic processes for development to understand experiences and the causes of the effectiveness of participatory process for addressing collective problems.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
Yes
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
How does the system of development committees currently works in practice to address the needs of vulnerable populations?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Explore
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
We need a broad understanding of how the system of development committees work. So we need to explore the existing information from a variety of sources: legal frameworks, research documents, media news, interviews. From these we need to make sense on which are the relevant components and how they interact.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
The main data gaps for answering the learning question is that the information is unstructured and dispersed. We also do not have systematic information on the histories of how proposals go from the idea to the implementation stage.
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
What are the gaps between the development demands in the proposals made by society and the projects implemented as a response by public institutions?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Explore
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
We will need to do quick data collection and classification in order to contrast the social demand and the government response. This will offer insights regarding which stages of the process are key starting points to address the needs of vulnerable populations.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
The main data gaps anticipated are the lack of systematic information. Also, information is not in formats easy to access.
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
Who are the actors involved in the system of development committees and how?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Sense
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
We will perform participatory observation and interviews to profile the variety of actors involved in the system of development committees with an aim to understand their role in facilitating or limiting the attention to needs of vulnerable groups.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
We do not have information before hand about which roles people play in the system of development committees. The array of actors is very wide.
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
What are some successful experiences when the needs of vulnerable groups have been addressed by participatory processes?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Sense
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
We will try to inform field work through the use of positive deviances to identify places where the needs of vulnerable populations have been better addressed in order to understand which role participatory processes have played and the interventions that were made.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
There is little information about changes in how the needs of vulnerable populations have been addressed. Impact evaluation is small, and there are no histories on how these interventions resulted from participatory processes.
Closing
Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?
We have the attention of the Executive Coordination Secretariat of the Presidency to introduce innovations that can improve the results of social participation in development. Local governments are interested in improving their effectiveness and visibility, so they are a good space to amplify participatory practices.
END OF ACTION LEARNING PLAN: Thank you! The form saves automatically and your submission has been recorded. You may now exit this window.
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10Reduced innequalities
16Peace, justice and strong institutions
17Partnerships for the goals
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