| CHAPTER 5 THE LAST WORD |
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 CEPA’s Executive Director looks to the Future...
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Sunil Bastian in his Chairman’s message has set out the context within which CEPA and other civil society organisations have been operating in 2008, and much of this report is about how we engaged with the challenges that this context dealt out to us in 2008. If you read between the lines, especially the section on CEPA People, you will see what drives CEPA as an organisation – the interest in learning, the feeling of ownership (this is ‘our’ organisation), the need to contribute to change, especially change that leads to overcoming the injustice of poverty. In Azra’s words on the CEPA LUNCH TABLE (the CEPA Blog) “the CEPA culture for me is about having an amazing space (physically and intellectually) to do what I feel can to change poverty. It is about having an organisation that is ‘ours’ and shaping it to make the change we want to see happen”
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How do we make the change we want to see happen? What is it that needs changing? And how do we set about it? We would like to see decision makers at the national, regional and organisational levels base their decisions on evidence. We would like to see the women, men and children whose lives are affected by these decisions have their voices heard in the decision making process. We approach the analysis of poverty from the perspective of those who are poor, and try to feed this perspective into our interactions with government and with other development agencies. We also recognise the value of informed discourse in the process of effecting change and are committed to sharing information in the public domain.
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In 2008, CEPA had a very varied portfolio of assignments that deepened as well as broadened our knowledge on the causes and consequences of being poor, and the institutions that constrain as well as support poor people’s movement out of poverty. This year has given us a better understanding of the role and impact of aid agencies on poor peoples’ lives, expanded our understanding of the provision of infrastructure services to poor families, allowed us to build on our knowledge of the rural sector by exploring issues relating to agriculture, natural resources and climate change, and given us an opportunity to analyse the situation of children and older people in poverty. We also improved on our understanding of how institutions and policy making processes happen. In 2009 we need to take this understanding and develop coherent, long term programmes of work that will help us consolidate the evidence, and influence decision makers. The challenge is to make the space to think strategically, while continuing to deliver on ongoing assignments.
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It is also time for CEPA to resurrect an area of our service portfolio that has been dormant for some time and resume our work on providing inputs to strengthening the capacity of people and organisations working in development. CEPA will begin by focusing on implementing training programmes on impact monitoring and on implementing mixed methodologies, i.e.
quantitative and qualitative research. A stronger involvement with organisations such as the Sri Lanka Evaluation Association (SLEVA) or 3ie (International Initiative for Impact Evaluation) will help provide local and international back up for this work. Our experience in training on conflict sensitivity should also prove to be an important area of work in the near future, especially as government, private sector, civil society and international agencies are mobilised to support development efforts in the areas affected by conflict. | |||||
In 2008, CEPA focussed on some key assignments and on influencing individual clients. I believe that CEPA has a greater responsibility to think bigger and take this knowledge and learning to a much wider forum. We need to work more strategically to see how we can share the knowledge we have gained with others, so that they can make informed decisions, either in the process of exercising their rights as citizens of a democratic society, or in shaping national policy decisions that impact on other Sri Lankans, especially the poor. In a society that has been too long constrained by the separation of research from policy and practice, and where the voice of dissent has been muted, we need to create spaces to share evidence, to discuss, criticise and suggest alternatives. As such, I look forward to the development of the Poverty Portal as an information sharing tool and a platform for virtual debate on poverty issues, complementing CEPA’s regular open forums and annual poverty research symposium. CEPA’s work in 2008 involved some creative tension between ideas generated in the global ‘north’ and our own experiences on the ground. Participation in the Forum on the Future for Aid, and the South Asia Evidence Based Policy Development Network, among others creates opportunities for CEPA to raise these issues in an international context. I look forward to more active engagement on influencing the global development and research agendas as well as increased interactions with the local media, more networking and more collaborative activities.
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| CEPA’s vision of poverty as an injustice that needs to be overcome continues to be an important goal in post-war Sri Lanka. It will be important to ensure that the urgency of delivering infrastructure and services and revitalising agriculture and livelihoods in areas affected by conflict, is balanced by a wider understanding of the multi-dimensional nature of poverty, the issues of vulnerability and livelihoods, the impact of infrastructure provision on inequality, the need for social protection for children and the elderly, and the capacity to deal with climate change. CEPA’s learning points to these issues as critical for Sri Lanka. If the time and effort we have invested in our work is to have an impact, then it is imperative that while we continue to generate understanding of these issues through research and client services, we step up our training and dialogue and exchange activities so that there are increased opportunities for these issues to be debated and for the learning to be absorbed by policy makers and implementers. | |||||
Priyanthi Fernando
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