what i'll be doing this year...

...aside from stocking up on candles and immodium, like always.
so at the risk of cursing this whole situation (because things can always go wrong in truly unexpected ways in nepal...adds spice to life), it looks like i've got a visa AND a project i'm really excited about coming up. as the only native english speaker in the office aside from my boss, the director, it's sort of inevitable that i write a lot of grants and edit a lot of reports. this is fine. it's necessary, i'm pretty decent at it, and it's even enjoyable...but it's not really super productive in terms of career path for me. so imagine my glee now that it looks like i'll be doing research for TMI (where i've been for the last year) and the UN World Food Programme for whom TMI implements food aid delivery in karnali. hopefully i'll be producing a more theoretically informed, academic piece, as well as a more slimmed-down publication for an NGO audience. ANYWAY... i figured i would just post my proposal below for people who are interested. feedback and reading recommendations totally welcome.

The NGO-ization of Service Delivery: Food Security and Community Response in Jumla District, Nepal

In countries where governments have little capacity to address basic social service delivery, the responsibility for service delivery across multiple sectors often shifts to non-governmental and/or non-profit organizations, funded (in the case of developing countries) largely by foreign donors. Focusing on food insecurity in Jumla district, in the remote Karnali region of Nepal, I aim to describe the division of labor (and changes in that division over time) between government and non-governmental organizations as a function of social, historical, and political processes. Then, I aim to analyze the effect of this division of labor on the strategies and understandings of local communities, specifically, how systems and methods of delivery affect local food security and livelihood adaptation strategies (for instance, crop choices or labor migration patterns).

I intend to conduct my research in partnership with the UN World Food Programme and The Mountain Institute (TMI). TMI, as the implementing partner for the WFP’s Food for Work (FFW) project (part of its Protracted Relief and Recovery Operations in the country) has a working presence in eight of the most vulnerable VDCs in Jumla district, in which research will be conducted. Jumla was selected based on its overall Human Development Index (HDI), which ranks 69th out of Nepal’s 75 districts, with 74.1 percent of children under five classified as chronically malnourished. Since 2008 TMI has distributed over 1,170.15 metric tons of rice and built strong relationships and trust with the some of the most vulnerable members of the district. These eight VDCs, identified as the most vulnerable clusters in the district, based on the WFP’s mapping for food sufficiency, include 4,591 households with a total population of 26,928 people.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

There is significant debate in the literature concerning the pros and cons of the “NGO-ization” of service delivery (as well as capacity building, good governance promotion, and other functions); the legitimacy of INGOs; and their effects on state sovereignty, capacity, and governance structures. This debate is extensive and largely beyond the scope of a brief research proposal, although it will be considered in more detail as background in the final report resulting from this research. It does, however, inform the framework of inquiry. This research is aimed at contributing to the broader debates outlined above, as well as those on the efficacy of food aid paradigms, but seeks to do so through a necessarily limited case study.

The first component of this research, describing the division of responsibilities between governmental and non-governmental agencies in the delivery of food security services in Jumla district, seeks to identify the structural and historical causes of the current status of service delivery. Currently, government capacity to deliver basic services is at such a nadir in the region that most service delivery is performed by non-governmental organizations. This project seeks to identify more accurately and specifically the extent to which “NGO-ization” of service delivery has taken place in the region, and the factors that have influenced this outcome (ie levels of centralized and local corruption, lack of government presence, political instability, etc) both in current moment and historically. Furthermore it seeks to address questions of future service delivery: who is best placed to provide social protection? To what extent can NGO and donors work through local government and what needs to happen to shift the balance so that major development partners can begin to work through local governments? This research also aims to be a sort of organizational ethnography, describing the understandings of actors within organizations as well as the organizational cultures that influence the formulation of policy. 

The second component of the research takes as a premise that food aid does not merely serve as a supplement to local livelihoods. Instead, communities will adapt their existing livelihood practices (for instance crop choice, patterns of labor migration, and/or production of marketable goods), in order to effectively leverage the new inputs while managing risk and conserving energies. By focusing first on how current food aid systems affect local livelihood practices, the research hopes to offer insight on how to create more sustainable and effective delivery mechanisms, both governmental and non-governmental, and how to transition successfully from short-term aid delivery to a long-term sustainable development model.

METHODS

In addition to a literature review and development of a theoretical framework, my research will be based on qualitative data collection, primarily through a semi-structured interview format. Since the project concerns both the formation of service delivery policy and strategy, as well as community responses to that strategy, interviews will include those with the staffs of NGOs concerned with food security service delivery in Jumla, specifically the World Food Programme, The Mountain Institute, TMI’s local NGO partner (Integrated Community Development-Jumla), and concerned government entities, such as the Ministries of Local Development and Health and Population.

Although research staff will be based in Kathmandu, extended field trips to Jumla district, of three to five weeks each, are planned for both the Fall and Spring, when travel remains easier. This timing also coincides with major planting and harvesting phases, which will allow research staff to simultaneously observe and discuss subsistence and livelihood choices with residents. The trusted nature of the relationship that exists between TMI and their local NGO partner staff and local communities will allow research staff to reduce the amount of time normally required to build relationships necessary for deeper qualitative research and to access local knowledge. As research staff will be working closely with NGO staff implementing programming in the area, there will also be a component of participation observation to the research.

Interviews will be conducted in English and Nepali, as necessary, with a translator present if the situation demands, although all members of the research team will possess at least basic Nepali language skills.

TIMELINE

Literature review and the development of a theoretical framework will be done in the summer months before the fall field trip. Winter months will be utilized to build relationships and conduct the majority of NGO-based research in Kathmandu and Nepalgunj, as well as to analyze findings from the first half of the research period. The spring field trip to Jumla will be used to deepen the understanding of the issues initially researched in the fall, and explore issues uncovered during the Kathmandu phase of the research. After returning from spring fieldwork, research will be compiled into several formats: a policy briefing appropriate for NGO and government reference, as well as a more extended and theoretically informed piece suitable for distribution in academic contexts. Information sharing will also be facilitated by two workshops, one for each component of the project, a) the “NGO-ization” of food security service delivery policy as a function of historical, economic, and political processes and b) community response to delivery policy in terms of livelihood strategy adaptation.

originally, i had planned a third "component" to the research, which i've posted below. unfortunately, it's a pretty big project already, and it's not really in WFP or TMI's wheelhouse. i still think it's pretty cool though, so i'm going to try to answer the question anyway, and maybe write something separately.

This research is also concerned with local communities’ understandings of and aspirations for governance, particularly at this critical political juncture in the country. Although food aid (governmental and non-governmental) fashions itself as deliberately apolitical, this research takes as a starting point that the delivery by non-state actors of any basic service that is commonly understood as the province of the state will fundamentally affect people’s understandings of what a government should be, as well as their rights and responsibilities, and those of non-governmental actors. This component of the research seeks to reveal the unintended consequences of even “non-political” service delivery on communities’ political understandings and participation.