Welcome to the Improving Development Evaluation Podcast.
I'm your host David Wand and welcome to episode eight,
part one, where we in this part one introduce you
to a new international development organization
and we give you a brief description of the project
delivered by that international development organization
and a little summary of my review of the outcomes
and the outcome indicators for this project.
So I'll begin by saying we're doing a little bit
of a different one on this episode eight.
If you've been following the podcast,
all of the episodes focus on delivering services
to actual human beings, which means you can measure
those actual human beings and that's the only way
you're gonna get proper measurement and evaluation.
And as you've learned from this podcast,
a lot of these international development organizations
are avoiding direct measurement
and only they know the reasons why.
But anyway, in this episode eight,
instead of delivering a bunch of services
to a bunch of human beings,
we are going to look at a product that's delivered
to a bunch of human beings and then what are the expected
outcomes from delivering that product.
The new international development organization
for episode eight, part one is
the United Nations Development Program.
You can learn more about the UNDP at their website,
UNDP.org and the particular project here
is in Bangladesh at Cox's Bazaar District
and in particular, the Cox's Bazaar Refugee Camp
for the Rohingyas who've escaped from,
depends who you ask, Myanmar or Burma,
but it also includes the host Bangladesh communities
around the refugee camp at Cox's Bazaar.
That's the location.
The title of the project is called
Fighting Environmental Degradation
and Promoting Greener Energy.
The cost to the Canadian taxpayer for this project
is $30 million and the magical product
that they're delivering is LPG,
liquefied petroleum gas to the refugees
and the purpose of that is to replace
the refugees having to go out and collect firewood
to then burn to cook their meals.
Now the interesting thing is in the project,
they indicate that it also is delivering this LPG
to the Bangladesh communities outside of the refugee camp
but in the performance measurement framework
that I've acquired through an access to information request,
there are no monitoring indicators at all
on the LPG that's been delivered
to the host Bangladesh communities
outside of the refugee camp.
So that's something that I would love to discuss
with the UNDP representative for part two
if they show up for the podcast.
So let me get into the outputs for this project.
The first one obviously is liquefied petroleum gas
to refugee households.
They have a target of 827,611 refills per year
of the LPG in the tanks.
They also have an output called energy studies
to assess alternatives to LPG, liquefied petroleum gas
because you're hoping in the long term,
even the firewood that's replaced by the LPG,
then the LPG you hope will be replaced
by something more renewable.
If you're familiar with refugee camps,
there are solar cookers that use the sun to cook meals
and there's also biogas.
That's at the refugee camp if I remember in South Sudan.
I've also been to the Cox's Bazaar refugee camp.
So this is why I picked this one just out of interest.
But forget about me, let's get back to the project.
So one point I'd like to make here
is that on these studies,
if those studies don't look at solar cookers or biogas,
then it's a waste of money out of the 30 million.
So let's hope that the studies,
it would be nice if they were on the Global Affairs Canada
project browser website, but they're not.
But that would be nice if they were there.
So we could see what plan they have
and if it's feasible to then phase out the LPG
and bring in solar cookers or biogas systems
to replace the LPG.
And one other final point is since the Canadian taxpayers
popping out 30 million bucks to pay for these LPG tanks,
827,611 is the target per year.
Another curious question I would ask UNDP
if they show up for part two is,
did you hire a Canadian oil company
to supply with this 30 million dollars the LPG tanks?
So that's number one output.
And the idea is obviously to replace the firewood
that they have to go out and collect
because there's a whole bunch of negative consequences
from going out and collecting firewood.
One is it's not safe for the women to do that
because they're susceptible to sexual assault and rape.
Number two, the children when they burn the firewood,
they inhale the smoke, it's not good.
And obviously it's not environmentally sound.
And another reason, if you're gonna notice
from the outputs that I'm gonna describe later,
is it degrades the surrounding forest
because they have to cut down the trees deforestation
and which then leads to mudslides,
landslides, flooding, et cetera,
because the forest isn't there to absorb the water.
So those are the reasons for wanting to replace
the firewood with liquidified petroleum gas.
Another output outside of just delivering the LPG
is the monitoring and the management of the forest
where refugees go to collect firewood
before the LPG arrives and to make sure
that the forest is maintained, protected, and restored.
And related to that, the output number three is the land,
including the forest, is quote, rehabilitated
and revegetated, but also they indicate
in the performance measurement framework
some of the outputs are the stream banks
are rehabilitated and maintained.
And some other pieces of the $30 million
the Canadian taxpayer is paying for
is cash that's given to the refugees
to pay them for the labor for rehabilitating the land
and revegetating it,
because there's a lot of labor involved in doing that,
probably clearing the brush
and also the planting of seedlings, et cetera.
And then finally, there's another payment
from the $30 million, which is cash for quote,
workers provided with equipment.
So I'm assuming that means they're paying workers
for the rental of the equipment that they provide.
Maybe it's the Bangladesh local businesses
that have the equipment available
for them to clear the land.
It's not clear, but I think that's what's going on here.
It's payment for the rental of the equipment
to quote, rehabilitate, revegetate the land.
And another fourth output is the training.
There is some services to human beings in this project,
not just the delivery of LPG.
And that is the training to the refugees
on resolving conflicts over natural resources.
And that would be the fighting that goes on
over the firewood, access to firewood,
but you would hope as the LPG comes in,
less people will be going out and getting firewood.
And also the growing of the crops,
because part of the training is also to do gardening,
so that they can grow vegetables and alternatives
to what they're currently depending on.
Also in this output, they're providing households
with renewable energy technology,
but they don't indicate in the performance
measurement framework, what types for this project.
I'm assuming and hoping it's related to the project,
which is to get them to cook with alternatives
other than firewood and other than liquidified petroleum gas.
So you would hope that they're introducing solar cookers
or biogas as alternatives, but we don't know,
because the current focus of the project
is simply to bring in the liquefied petroleum gas
to replace their need to go out and collect firewood.
And some little issues in the outputs.
One of the output indicators is the percent of conflicts
over natural resources successfully managed.
That's an outcome, so that should be moved
into the outcome area, which we'll talk about in part two.
They also have training on home gardening
and fresh food waste management,
hint, hint, composting.
So that's good, that's another output.
And they've got another outcome indicator
that they call incorrectly an output indicator,
which is percent of targeted households
practicing sustainable skills development.
So that's an outcome, after you train them,
you expect them to be doing it.
No targets provided in the PMF for that indicator,
which is another issue, but the major point is
that is an outcome indicator
that should be moved into the outcomes.
And what's interesting, as I mentioned earlier,
is these outputs only focus on the refugees,
but if you read in the project browser
on Global Affairs Canada, they mention the host communities,
the Bangladesh communities.
So there may be liquefied petroleum gas
going into the host communities
outside of the refugee project.
But we don't know, from the PMF,
there's no separate target group
of host Bangladesh communities.
So there's no output indicators there,
so that would be another question to ask UNDP.
Are you only serving the refugees inside the camp,
or are also you delivering liquefied petroleum gas
to the host Bangladesh communities?
So that's basically the project.
Now, the interesting thing is, as I alluded to earlier,
the logic of replacing the firewood with the LPG
is so that a variety of expected outcomes
should be achieved, right?
So I'm logically just telling you what they are.
One is reduce the number of times
they have to go out and collect firewood
because they now have LPG.
Also, they have quicker access to being able to cook
with the LPG, they just fire up the smoke
with the LPG, they just fire up the stove.
And that means that they probably can prepare
more frequently nutritious meals
rather than with firewood.
Which means you would expect, particularly the children,
their nutritional status, that is, their weights to go up.
Also, the reduction in burning firewood
also reduces smoke inhalation, which is a related illness.
So you would expect reported illnesses related
to smoke inhalation from the firewood burning
would also be going down.
So those are some expected outcomes from it.
And in part two, we'll talk about some of the issues
with the outcome indicators and even the outcomes
that they've defined based on what I've just told you there
of what you would expect to achieve as an outcome
when you bring in this LPG to replace the firewood.
They have only three outcomes
in the performance measurement framework
and a total of nine outcome indicators
measuring those three outcomes
as to whether they've been achieved.
I've looked at all nine outcome indicators.
Two of them are really good out of the nine.
The other seven are not good,
but I'm not going to jump to the conclusion
that they can't claim the project is achieving its outcomes.
It's not that severe because it is a product
you're just bringing in LPG.
It's not a lot of measurement going on with human beings,
but there are still some issues that we'll talk about
on the remaining seven outcome indicators in part two.
So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna send this part one
along with my summary of the nine outcome indicators
indicating that only two of them are really properly done.
And I'm gonna send it to UNDP in New York,
but I'm also gonna send it to the UNDP office email address
in Bangladesh, because that's where they're delivering it.
And also the regional Asia office
that oversees Bangladesh at UNDP.
And I also had the opportunity to,
when I was at Cox's Bazaar,
work with the NGO, I think I have it right, called SAFE.
I think they're the local NGO responsible
for delivering the LPG and those other outputs,
but I may be wrong there.
It could be UNDP is doing it directly,
but often they'll contract out a local partner,
international development, non-governmental organization
to deliver the outputs into the camp.
And we'll see if they agree to show up and or
give a written response if they don't show up
to part two of the podcast.
And I'll hopefully have that done by the end of June,
part two.
So stay tuned for part two of this podcast,
episode eight, United Nations Development Program
for LPG and Cox's Bazaar.
And again, if you're interested in receiving
any of the performance measurement frameworks
and my critique of those performance measurement frameworks,
feel free to send me an email at evaluatecanadaaidatgmail.com
and I'd be happy to send them to you.
Stay tuned for episode eight, part two.
Bye for now.