Planning for infrastructure development and improved services in rural areas requires good data at all levels of government. To plan for schools, for instance, we need not only an estimate of the number of children, but also estimates for five and ten years hence, for budgets must be planned, teachers must be trained and classrooms built well in advance.
There are various types of information to consider in relation to rural development.
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The lack of basic data in South Africa is a legacy of the past, and so is the lack of a system to monitor implementation of programmes to ensure their efficiency and effectiveness. These are now being tackled by the national RDP office through the National Information Programme, to improve, initially, national and provincial data. The methods and processes will also become quickly useful to more local planners.
The National Information Project (NIP) has three main objectives. The first is to standardise how information is collected, so that information systems will be interchangeable. This is important for the local level; not only will it be able to pass information to higher levels, it will also be able to obtain information easily from government departments. This has rarely been possible before.
Second, the project is establishing what information should be collected regularly by the Central Statistical Services, for instance in the October Household Surveys. This will allow the RDP to monitor the impact of government programmes on the economy.
Third, the NIP is identifying the business processes that should be followed by government programmes, and the information systems that will allow use of procedures to minimise costs and maximise outputs. Thus, already government programmes are required to present business plans before programmes are considered for funding. These must show what key performance indicators will demonstrate that the programme is being implemented on schedule, and what its effects are. The key performance indicators must be measurable, and they must use information that is collected in standardised ways.
These concepts are crucial for obtaining state funding for a project. After the plan has been drawn up and approved, only the first tranche of funding will be available until it is shown that the key performance indicators are being met, stage by stage. Project planning must illustrate why state funding is needed, how it will be used, and how its effectiveness will be monitored.
It appears that few provincial governments have access to useful data bases. A major exception is in primary health where systems are being created or adapted, and are being linked to the National Health Information System. Other provincial information includes the extensive data base maintained by DBSA, or from recent national data sets, such as the October Household Survey and the SALDRU data set used here, or the ESKOM data base. The latter is currently being expanded. Originally based on the data base of the National Electricity Forum, it is now being expanded with additional demographic data and other data from various departments such as housing and land. It will form a data base on infrastructure to which all government agencies will be linked.
In agriculture, the Geographic Information Systems on land potential, soils, land use, etc., are now being expanded to include all the former homelands (a major lacuna for almost all departmental systems). Since the agricultural GISs were already regionalised, the creation of comprehensive provincial data is easier than in some other fields.
Other important data sets to which local authorities can obtain access am found in the Central Statistical Services, DBSA, and the Departments of Lands (where the Surveyor General has a powerful topocadastral data base), Public Works, and Education. Local chambers of business are often useful data sources, as can be unions, churches and teachers. At provincial level it is likely to be the RDP office that becomes the main point of integration of provincial level data.
Many other national departments are available to offer advice to planners at all levels of government. One example is the population analysis section of the Department of Welfare and Population Development. It has a commitment to establishing a comprehensive national data and information system for development planning, monitoring and evaluation services. With the reorientation of this department's activities, the major component of its work now becomes the advice it will offer all planners on the implications of projects and programmes for population growth. With the engine of population growth in South Africa in the poor rural areas, many projects should be considered in terms of economic security and control over their lives by rural people (especially women) that will encourage them to have fewer children.
Now that the depth of poverty in rural areas is better known and there is a commitment to providing social services and relief, local governments should monitor the vulnerability of the local population. Such information can be used to ensure that government programmes reduce vulnerability, and to assist with planning to avoid short term crisis management.
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Monitoring Vulnerability |
Early warning systems try to monitor vulnerability. Sources of risk to the income streams of the poor and vulnerable can be categorised as follows:
By monitoring these, government can set up disaster mitigation and preparedness. All disasters have their greatest impact on the poor, who have the least resources with which to deal with them. This is complementary to programmes which work to increase income levels. All levels of government will need to consider both early warning indicators and appropriate response and relief.
Children's nutritional status as a lead indicator
Children's nutrition levels provide the lead indicator not only of immediate poverty and hunger, but also of the longer term impact of the RDP. Children's growth is a powerful indicator of general social development, for it measures not only the child's well-being, but also that of the community and nation in which the children Eve. It is easy to measure and easy to understand. All rural councillors and planners should know the concept and know the regular changes in nutrition status of the children of different groups within their area. There am many causes of malnutrition in a community, and their analysis can lead to appropriate local intervention, whether through employment, improved water or sanitation, improved primary health care, or improved communication, information and education.
In the longer term and at a wider level various other indices have been developed to measure the overall well-being of populations. These include GDP per capita and various social indicators such as the Human Development Index. All have usefulness at an aggregate level, though most of them present measurement problems. None of them provide the immediate, local usefulness of nutrition indicators in local areas and in different groups in the population. Clinic statistics should be made widely available, and analysed at local, district, provincial and national levels as a part of the planning processes.
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Programme Monitoring and Evaluation at the Local Level |
Monitoring and evaluation can be achieved with relatively straightforward and well established procedures and frameworks such as the 'logical framework' and 'objective tree' structures. Rural development involves a large number of functions and levels so there is a need to ensure some order of coherence in planning and reporting. A common strategic and reporting framework has therefore been proposed that will allow the necessary flexibility to enable local conditions to be taken into account. It will also allow standardised reporting formats for accounting to elected council members.
The wide number of state and non-state players in rural development means that data analysis will be conducted at a number of different centres. This will enrich the output of the wider information system. Each province should establish an information and analysis centre. For more local level analysis, initially local contracts could be entered into with universities or consultants, provided that this does not deter the council from developing its own capacity.
The most comprehensive monitoring and evaluation system that has been developed recently is that for land reform that has been integrated into the Department of Land Affairs' management information system. It will examine progress through milestone event monitoring, ending with the impact of the transfer of land. A wide variety of impact measures will be used, including child nutrition, environmental impact, incomes, development of local services, land use and loan repayments. Many of these measures would be useful in other rural areas.
Some cautions on data collection
While the importance of good information is crucial, the collection and the analysis of data are time consuming and expensive. Data should never be collected unless the analysis has been planned, and its purpose is clear. It should be as simple as possible. It should be collected within the department that will respond to it, not by a special agency, except for independent, evaluations of programmes and projects by outsiders. Data that is regularly collected, such as on crop yields or child nutrition, should be analysed and used at the local level as well as passed upwards for wider aggregation. This helps to ensure it is collected intelligently, and responded to first at the lowest level possible. The integration and reporting of data at local, district, provincial and national levels allows for appropriate responses to different risks, and to the appropriate level of response.
Secondly, data collection on vulnerability should never be carried out unless the response is also planned. If we are to measure water availability per capita, what do we do when we find it is inadequate? What is the response to rising levels of malnutrition: in a family? in a small area? in a district? The issues of the social safety net are different at different levels of magnitude, and will have to be debated and clarified at all levels. They also depend on national policies on social security, for if social welfare is automatic for those in trouble, fewer local responses will be necessary. So local government should be concerned to have an impact on national and provincial safety nets.
Finally, in the interests of open and transparent government, it is essential to make data public whenever possible. This also allows the private and non-government sectors to improve their planning and their contribution to local development. In times of real difficulties, these sectors can often contribute more quickly and flexibly than government. The media can also do much to lobby for improved state assistance.