Regional Coordination Unit, Latin America
Responsible Institution: CET

Final report
General Overview of the project
Lessons and conclusions

Progress Reports

General overview of the project

There are two different periods in the performance of the RCU. The first one up to early 1997, and a second one after that. In the first period, the RCU worked satisfactorily, and most of its outputs are related to it. More specifically:
  1. Regional partners were regularly informed about Programme activities. Over 25 circular letters to Latin American partners were sent between June 1994 and March 1997. Most of these letters demanded a significant effort in translations.
  2. The work on indicators did not progress, but a common methodological framework was developed. A publishable document with this framework is one of the regional outputs.
  3. All projects were monitored through correspondence and at least two visits to each.
  4. Regional reports were submitted on time
  5. All regional activities that requested support were supported. Namely:
  • Seminars in Colombia in1994, 1995 and 1996
  • Seminar in Brazil in 1996
  • Seminars in Chile in 1995 and 1996.
  • Regional meetings in 1993, 1996 and 1997
  • The Mid-term review in the whole region.
  • Also, an active correspondence was kept with Latin American Organizations, especially regarding policy analysis.
     6.  No regional conflicts occurred during this period.

Lessons and conclusions:

Based on its experiences, CET considered an absolute necessity to separate the GCU and Regional coordinations, as well as the administrative and technical roles within the GCU. CET also concluded that the separation of coordinations should not only lead to working with different persons, but with different organizations. Therefore, after consulting with other CBDC partners in the region and with PCC members, it was agreed that the Regional Coordination Unit for Latin America would be the responsibility of a different partner within the region. The Latin American Coordinator during the second phase will be Alfredo Parra from IMCA. 

A second important lesson for CET is that, given the complexity of coordination tasks, a more decentralized approach would give better guarantees of efficiency than the arrangements used in the first phase. CET was therefore an active agent for a more decentralized approach in a second phase. Regarding the regional coordination, it will be a shared responsibility between the RCU and the partners in the regions. Each project will have secondary but specific coordination role, to be determined during the planning process. CET also believes that an important part of the decentralization process should be a more active role by the PCC. 

Third, CET believes that the organizational arrangements of the first phase led to a highly bureaucratic style of work. The fact that all communications in and out a region had to be channeled through the Regional Coordination Units created a workload that was unproductive and unnecessary. The workload was bigger for the regional coordination in Latin America, as it required translation of every document coming to or going out of the region. Under these circumstances, the resources allocated to the RCU were seriously insufficient. In general terms, CET's appraisal is that resources spent in coordination should be much more clearly linked to activities and outputs. Hence, regional coordinations should not grow in the second phase, but coordination tasks should be less bureaucratic, so that the available resources concentrate in contents and requirements, and not in internal procedures. CET expects that the Latin American RCU will be able to concentrate much more efficiently in providing technical and administrative support during the second phase thanks to a more open communication system and a new administrative set-up.