Small Projects Bring Large Rewards for Communities

April, 2007—“We have to travel far to mill the wheat that feeds our children.”

“The children are not attending the old, decrepit school that has no heating.”

“Our water is making us sick.”

Over the past few years, concerns such as these were raised across Tajikistan as individuals worked together to identify priorities for what they need to improve most in their communities. Most poor communities, of course, suffer from multiple problems—lack of electricity, substandard health care, potholed roads, and more.

In order to ensure that their more urgent problems were addressed, community members worked with the National Social Investment Fund of Tajikistan (NSIFT) to name the dominant problem in the community and apply for funding to address the need. NSIFT, in turn, received funding from the World Bank as part of the First and Second Poverty Alleviation Projects.

In 1997, Tajikistan had just reached a peace agreement after five years of civil war, and was also plagued by droughts. Infrastructure for electricity, potable water, and heating was in shambles, and most people could barely afford to eat. The hardest hit were female-headed households—many whose husbands had died during the war—the disabled, and the elderly.

The First Poverty Alleviation Project aimed to target assistance to the poorest groups through community-based and demand-driven

Key aspects of NSIFT that make it different from other donor-supported programs are that it has nationwide coverage, can reach the most remote and underserved communities, and the affected community is involved in every aspect of the project, from needs assessment and project design to procurement, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. NSIFT has established district branches that work with the local authorities and communities to identify their most urgent social services needs. The communities must also put forth 10 percent of the project funds, giving them an even larger stake in the outcome.

The most vulnerable populations are often the most difficult to reach, so with its second project, the World Bank made a special effort to help them using poverty maps and district and community-level living standards assessments. The understanding of ‘community’ evolved to include not only geographically segregated areas, but also groups of marginalized people who face identical challenges.

Speaking Book

For instance, Kholmakhmad Tengniev established “Speaking Book,” a center in Dushanbe that records literature and children’s stories on cassettes and CDs for the blind. Kholmakhmad, blind himself, is a member of the Executive Committee of the Asian Blind Union and has traveled extensively, learning how blind people integrate into society elsewhere, rather than being excluded.

“ ‘Speaking Book’ is the only studio of its kind in Central Asia,” Kholmakhmad proclaims proudly. “My goal is to create an environment in which blind people have rich lives and do not have limited opportunities.”

Kholmakhmad distributes his tapes to boarding schools, and he is also using grants from the Embassy of Japan and a Finnish organization to publish Braille books with a more modern printer, as well as teaching English and other courses to increase literacy.

Literacy Rates

Obtyabr, a cotton-growing area near Dushanbe, is only one of the many places afflicted with miserable school conditions since the collapse of the USSR and the civil war. Many schools in Tajikistan have been rehabilitated or rebuilt, but the needs are enormous given that the birth rate is among the highest in Central Asia and that school infrastructure maintenance has been neglected for a long time. Once-strong literacy rates have plunged, and fewer females are attending school in order to work in cotton fields and take care of younger siblings. To help remedy the local education crisis, Obtyabr used NSIFT funds to build a second school to bolster the existing one, which was overcrowded and lacked proper equipment and heating.

“With the greatly improved new conditions, attendance and enrollment have clearly improved,” said Ms. Ortikova, director of the new school. “With the NGO Munis, we have reached out to parents through meetings and workshops to convey the importance of sending their children, and especially their daughters, to school.”

Access to Health Care

Two years ago, residents of Shahrinav district had to walk four kilometers for even the most basic health care, with no emergency vehicles available to speed the transport of the worse cases. Today, the village’s 7000 people have their basic health needs met at a new local clinic, at which a pediatrician, therapist, dentist, and gynecologist are all on staff.

“Our patients are satisfied with the care they receive, particularly because they no longer have to walk so far!” says Mr. Rukhullo Juraboev, director of the community’s development committee, the primary liaison with NSIFT. “Our next goal is to build additional rooms so that patients can spend the day here if necessary.”

Water

Water in Tajikistan is infamous for its distinctive color (brown). However, residents of Khoji Bolo have clean spring water piped into their homes. High-quality pipes are guaranteed to last for 50 years, and surplus water is collected in a pool for future use.

“Every person in the village is committed to the project through a payment of one somoni per family a month, which pays for system maintenance and a repairman,” emphasize the members of the local development committee, who are also directors of the local school. “People pay reliably, and we keep careful records of our expenses.”

In the Shohmansur district of Dushanbe, which includes 5-600 households and over 4000 people, Mr. Akhtam Kurbanov is clearly a respected elder. Shohmansur is far removed from the hustle and bustle of the city center, as farm animals plod and small children shriek on the dirt roads that run between broken-down homes. However, Mr. Kurbanov points out a center of activity—the local wheat mill.

“Flour used to be very expensive here, but now it is easily accessible and can feed our large population of children,” he says. “Our community has also come together to build gas pipelines, build a bridge, and clean canals. We are raising a new generation of leaders who can continue what we’ve started.”

This large variety of micro-projects has made a significant impact in every target community, but urgent needs still need to be addressed—primarily the issue of sustainability. NSIFT requires that communities take responsibility for the sustainability of their projects, but this is easier said than done when donor funds dry up and the government cannot meet expectations.

However, the experience of working together as a community means that everyone has a stake in the success, current and future, of their projects. “We have many more long-term plans for the community—repairing roads, adding streetlights, and receiving more funding from the municipal government,” says Mr. Kurbanov. “Afterward, we will truly feel we have accomplished something.”