Interview with Mr. Donovan Williams, Executive Director of the Poverty Reduction Fund

YOU'RE THE NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE PRF:
"I am the acting Executive Director until the new director, who is
contracted. I am actually a member of the board - my substantive position is with the Ministry of Planning."

HOW MANY PEOPLE DOES THE PRF EMPLOY?
"We have a staff compliment of eight, including myself. There is a Project
Design Coordinator; Public Relations Officer; Community Liaison Officer;
Accountant; Technical Officer; Accounts Clerk/Receptionist; and an Office Assistant."

WHAT IS THE POVERTY REDUCTION FUND?
"The PRF is modelled on social funds that have been in operation in Latin
America and Africa for the past 30 years or so. These agencies were set-up almost as a departure from the normal central government type of operation. The idea was to have an agency that was a little quicker in its response to demands from communities for various services and projects.

"Our approach is to foster that type of activity through the direct
participation of communities. If a proposal comes to us (and that proposal
can come from any source - an individual within a community, a group,
district representative - either in writing of verbally) we take that as a
starting point to go into the community and have that validated by the
community through a number of community meetings.

"We ask them if the suggested project is their greatest priority. If not, we
can develop with them something they believe to be their greatest priority.
We move on from that and say 'we know this is your priority, what is it
you're prepared to do to assist in ensuring that this particular project
comes to fruition?' They may provide free or reduced cost labour while we
provide the materials.

IS THIS HOW THE PRF PROVIDES JOBS IN THE COMMUNITY?
"The PRF does not provide jobs. While indirectly it may help in providing
some relief in terms of employment, that's not its main aim. What is
important is that the activities of the PRF, Its main aim, is to provide a
certain level of community capacity building through the implementation of a project. A lot of persons perhaps see it a different way but that is the
challenge for the PRF, to try to promote that as its major objective instead
of simply to provide persons with some sort of short-term employment. That's a side effect - a welcomed one - but it is not our main focus and we need to re-emphasise that.

HOW WILL YOU ATTEMPT TO CHANGE THE PUBLIC PERCEPTION OF THE PRF?
We recognise that we need to strengthen the public relations component and we're looking at a number of different ways that can be done. The other thing too is that while most of what we have done thus far has been physical infrastructure type activities, e.g. footpaths, drains, roads, public
facilities, that is not the only area of focus of PRF. We intend over the
next year or so to move into other areas.

We intend to provide support in areas such as income generating projects,
projects that provide capacity building skills to individuals and
communities. Skills training will be an area that we will want to look at.
General training; general orientation of communities to different things -
environmental issues, reproductive health issues; making communities more
sensitive to a lot of issues that impact on them. Again using the actual
project as a means by which you capture them. So we intend to broaden the scope of the activities that we do.

WHAT IS THE PROCESS FOR APPROVAL OF A PROJECT?
So far all projects are subject to approval by the board. We recognise that
once the fund is really operational and we start to get a whole volume of
project proposals coming in, that arrangement is probably going to have to
be looked at, because it is going to be physically impossible to sit and
look at thousands and thousands of project proposals.

WHAT VOLUME OF PROJECTS DOES THE PRF HANDLE?
PRF has been in operation since August 98. It took a while to get things
running but the last financial year we implemented about 40 projects and I
would imagine that number will increase over the course of this financial
year.

HOW DOES THE PRF SOURCE FUNDS FOR ITS PROJECTS AND OPERATIONS?
The PRF was first conceptualised by the Prime Minister, looking at the
models of social funds in Latin America and the Caribbean and based on that, a request was made for support to the World Bank. The World Bank, in recognising the length of time it would take to establish the institution
given the kinds of procedures that the World Bank had established for the
operation of these funds in Latin America and Africa, felt it would be
better if it were set up through what they call a learning and innovation
loan, which allows you to develop the structure from scratch, do some
piloting, review what you've done, make changes and adjustments to your
operational structure and procedures, and then do further implementation of projects. So they agreed to support us within that framework, which is a three-year project and we are now in the phase where we are still designing a structure that will allow us to receive further monies from the World Bank to implement projects. So by September /October we should be in a position to start piloting the World Bank.

Parallel with that we had also received monies from the European Union (EU) through the STABEX allocations and while that money was made available to us, we had to use it or lose it, so we started implementing projects.

So while on the one hand we're trying to develop a structure through World Bank support and the World Bank has not yet provided funds to us to implement projects, we have monies available through the European Union to implement projects which we are doing now and the number (of projects) I have given to you we have used EU monies to do that.

In terms of the amount (of money) it is basically a partnership. The same
level of resources the World Bank is providing - about US$3 million over the course of the loan period - the EU is providing pretty much the same and it works out at close to EC$8 million.

From October the scale of project implementation will increase. We will have close to $10 to $12 million available to implement projects for that period. The idea is that once that period is over it is likely that the World Bank will consider further support to the project or alternatively we will be in a position to get other donors to come onboard, including the EU to continue its funding but we may be looking at other sources based on how we operate.

HAS THE RECENT CHARGES OF MISAPPROPRIATION OF FUNDS AFFECTED YOUR OPERATIONS? THE OFFICIAL WORD WAS THAT THE AUDIT REVEALED SEVERAL ADMINISTRATIVE LAPSES AND THE PRIME MINISTER AND MINISTER OF FINANCE DR. KENNY ANTHONY SAYS GOVERNMENT HAD NOTHING TO HIDE ABOUT THE PRF.
I don't think it has affected the operations of the fund per ser. I think it
has given the fund an opportunity to look more closely at its approach, it
activities, its procedures and to put in place a mechanism that will allow
it to function more effectively. With the new board coming, it that has been
essentially its focus to ensure that we have an appropriate structure, an
appropriate set of policies and procedures, which will allow the PRF to
effectively fulfil its mandate.

DOES THE PRF SEEK ASSISTANCE FROM OHER LOCAL INSTITUTIONS OR ORGANISATIONS?
We of necessity have to liase with other agencies. As you can see it's a
small staff structure and while I am sure there will be additions to it as
the volume of work increases; the idea is not to have a big bureaucratic
structure. So it's important that we forge linkages with a lot of agencies
that work on the ground. We have to start forging those links (and we have been doing that) so that they are clear on the objectives of the PRF and they can pass that on to the communities.

For example the Ministry of Community Development is one of those critical agencies that we must foster very clear links with so that a lot of our objectives are fed into their overall programmes - we have started that. Similarly with the Ministries of Works and Health, and basic extension officers in a number of agencies - not just public sector but the NGO community as well.

The real thing is the PRF is not designed to be an implementing agency. We cannot implement, in fact we should not be the one implementing projects. If we do, then we will find ourselves in trouble because we have just too many proposals coming at us for us to be able to implement every single one. What we want to be is a facilitator of that through the communities, through the different agencies and organisations, use them to implement and we simply facilitate and deliver as and when it will be required. That is what we want to try to end up being and we recognise that in the initial stages we will have some teething problems and some problems with how people perceive the PRF but in the long term we will be successful in acting as the facilitator in that kind of process.

IS THE BELFUND ONE OF THE AGENCIES THE PRF WORKS WITH AND HOW TRUE ARE THE SUGGESTIONS THAT THE TWO AGENCIES ARE ESSENTIALLY MIRRORS OF EACH OTHER?
So far the relationship has been a little loose and that is primarily
because both have been attempting to try to put their own structures in
place but I think we recognise there is a link between the two and what we
intend to do is explore that link a little more closely. While BELFund is
very much focussed on the individual we are much more focussed on
communities and community groupings and so we need to find a way to bridge the two. PRF is not mandated to help individuals but we need to look at how the two agencies operate to arrive at some mutually beneficial arrangement.

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