FINANCING. RESOURCE MANAGEMENT. Organizational and financial strengths
There is no doubt that the support of international cooperation organizations to the countries was evidenced with greater influence by their roots, which cemented until they came to adopt a national identity with important benefits for the country, however, over time and the Presumably inertia and deviation from the initial objectives, the national institutionality politically questioned the cooperation of the moment, for allowing the cooperating organizations the intrusion of polarizing and personal ingredients, high costs for administering resources (overhead) and a project management with little credible results.
In exchange for these disagreements, the country hoped that the cooperation would provide training and technical assistance to promote and manage knowledge for the benefit of rural communities and other sectors. The change of purposes and situations of inconvenience generated, induced to question and condition the cooperating organizations, subjecting them to dubious suitability and legality because they unnecessarily kept for a long time in their bank accounts, amounts of non-negligible resources not used, when they should have been applied to projects or returned in a timely manner to national, especially state, funders.
Said mistakes and in the face of finding inactive resources, he tried to national entities because when scrutinizing international institutions, a "slippage" of contributed resources was found, more towards the administration of funds and usufruct of profits than to comply with the true purposes of international cooperation, such as promoting human development exclusively.
The following Graph, Administration of resources, shows on a steep slope the way in which the purposes of technical cooperation occurred towards the exclusive design of operating financial resources and budgets for profit, for this reason, national entities imposed restrictions and peremptory time to apply the resources and execute the projects, however, censoring does not mean that everything is wrong because these setbacks are correctable, causing international cooperation to return its channel to avoid being classified as “broken veins” for having accumulated sums of resources public intended for development and in some cases, without results in favor of it.
The situation found worsened when the administrators of the state entities intervened in the cooperation processes by becoming direct computers of spending and immediate executors of projects by giving continuous orders, exceeding the autonomy gained by the international organization, but lost by the mistrust that generated by the inconveniences and errors noted above. This situation aroused in public officials, a desire not very sincere but rather political, to rescue the state responsibility to regulate and monitor the good management of national resources, to be able to manage them directly and dispose of them without intermediaries.
Despite the discrepancies caused by some and the assumptions of others, the result was the irresponsible handling of the cooperator of the State's monies and irresponsibility of the latter by not verifying in a timely manner the safe application of resources to development projects, the object of agreements. between said parties.
In response to the divergences and scarce state intervention to monitor the good management of citizens' resources, international entities must renew themselves to objectively manage public resources and assume responsibilities consistent with development, adopting technologies and appropriately systematizing technical and administrative experiences. accounting, budgeting, treasury and submit rigorous technical and financial reports that facilitate the evaluation of the project by state entities, communities, private companies, unions and organizations that apply within the cooperation space.
This desired international disposition for the modern management of state resources requires permanent investments from the cooperator, investments that the State would avoid collaborating with and giving diplomatic facilities to return to the national concert, renew their purposes and settle again in the country.. It is worth insinuating the need to renew diplomatic agreements periodically due to changes in society and new trends in development and concepts of cooperation.
The pre-elaborated concerns and assumptions and the appearance of risks as a result of the “slide” towards the sole capture of resources are alerts for the currently resident cooperating agencies to review not only their objective, but also what to do to return the cooperation service based on the importance of training and proposing plans for training in technical assistance for professionals and producers, so they will be prepared to manage agricultural products (cereals, vegetables, potatoes… etc…) and apply the available knowledge inherent in agricultural and forestry disciplines (Entomology, Phytopathology, Soils… etc.).
On the other hand, and without demonizing the payment of cooperation services, the financier and the recipient of the benefits thereof, must recognize that to have good services, the economic sustainability of the cooperating organizations is equitable to ensure institutional perpetuity and the promising future. of cooperation in the country.
As it is urgent and development cannot be postponed, for the cooperation organizations, still precariously present in Colombia, it is imminent that their managers, strongly supported by the headquarters, establish new relationships with the leaders of the national organizations so that together they reach agreements that meet national development needs. These agreements include diplomatic aspects, areas of work, ways of collaborating, quality and opportunity in the management and application of resources with concrete results, harmonious compliance in the management and use of resources, and execution of projects on the established date and achieving the objectives in a timely manner so that the community, the main viewer, can see immediate results.
If these minimum and definitive agreements are not reached, there is a risk of affecting the commitment of agreed objectives and goals, because if it is not understood that there are factors such as the climate and unsustainability of the social state in the place where the projects are carried out, they will be generated problems during the evaluation planned by the funder and the beneficiary of the results of the development initiative. Therefore, it is worth bearing in mind that sometimes the fulfillment of projects fails not only due to administrative unpredictability but due to factors such as changes in the climate and social insecurity, but to avoid unnecessary discrepancies, the setting of a date, even if it is final explicitly, the opportunity should be agreed to expand and have some flexibility consistent with biological, climatic, and, even more,with the social affectation that may occur at a time and place
Process for negotiating cooperation services
Undoubtedly, when it comes to service organizations, they have specific purposes to link it in some way with their clients, but this can only be achieved by having sufficient resources, order, processes, activities and dialogue between human actors capable of negotiating under the context, "I win, you win".
After the coupling of processes, the decision of the next international organization is to strengthen them by seeking quality certification, because it may be the case that the funder has the option of requiring certification of the processes that are incumbent on it to have reliability and ensure investment and scope of the objectives proposed in the cooperation agreements or instruments.
The processes to provide cooperation services must come from the mission, vision, strategy and policies that implement it, previously formulated by the cooperation entity. As the policies are rules of the game for the organized and clients, they must be objective as the processes, they will only change when the organization detects the demands of its environment, so, to give meaning to this, some explanations will be made that admit its interpretation to act knowingly.
The following illustration, Process for the provision of cooperation services, shows the order of institutional activities, suggested to establish agreements between the cooperator and the financing State and other national and international organizations. This scheme is useful to understand the sequence ordered to be followed with exigency and agility so as not to fall into bureaucratic pachydermism on both sides, thus seeking to have a pre-established procedural organization that gives security and respect so that when managing cooperation instruments, it is avoided the processes are not subject to unexpected, circumstantial personal changes or decisions are made about the momentum or momentum of a character, also unexpected and circumstantial.
Partner - Client
Considering this biunivocal correspondence, intuits a similarity of management between Cooperant, State and Private Company, the latter, implies a strong economic conception as a result of developed commercial relations between private companies, which are created to generate profits for few "shareholders" whose profits come of the commercial activity with the Clients.
This Partner-Client relationship is brought to light to apply in the same way to the relations between the State and the Cooperating, trying to bring them closer to the business world so that greater commitments, responsibilities are legally caused and the interests of the State and of the State are respected. Cooperating, taking advantage of each other with seriousness and coercive and judicial responsibility, when the agreements are breached, as well as in the business and business environment, where one assumes the role of Capitalist Partner (the State) and the other as the Industrial Partner (the Cooperating), which sometimes also provides resources in kind and especially knowledge, but in the event of non-compliance by one of the parties there are previously agreed contractual obligations.
The foregoing states that the State and cooperation organizations must be administered with a business vision beyond the public connotation, since they are companies to produce economic and social benefits, not for a few, but for a large number of "shareholders". called producers and communities. It must be understood that it is valid to administer the State and cooperation organizations with a business and business vision, because thus, among them relations are no longer casual, diplomatic or protocol, and negotiated business commitments are generated, which, when not complied with, are appropriate legal actions, legal and social responsibility.
In short, both the State and the cooperation agency are the same as private companies, they have a structure that is appropriate to their objective and those who run them have a management role because they manage time, knowledge of people, economic and social resources. If we apply this to life with the simile of business, we might think that each one is responsible for the way he manages his own life.
Bank of projects
It is a tool that consolidates the possibilities of pre-investment and social investment in different groups and categorizes intentions and initiatives that will promote the development of productive and social projects. This Bank can be constituted and classified in the following groups of projects (GS) and that must be promoted by the cooperating, doing the necessary business management to give satisfaction to the "clients", according to supply and demand of social projects.
Project offer (Portfolio)
The projects must be in accordance with the selected productive areas of the country, object of development, in accordance with the requirements of rural development. Then, the following classification of projects in folders based on their status and conception is useful.
- G1. Project title. Just the idea, a probable title of an intention. G2. Project profile. The idea is more developed and elaborated according to a scheme (format) that provokes and is attractive to invest. G3. Preinvestment projects. Idea developed and complete with technical execution structure supported by the budget and financial, work plans, logical framework, schedules, activities. G4. Negotiating projects. This group of projects (one or more) are in the stage of analyzing the desirability of one, two or more external managers interested in developing a specific community. G5. Ongoing projects. They are ongoing development initiatives. These projects are usable to show stakeholders how projects are actually executed to build credibility. G6. Completed projects. They are the ones who finished their financing stage and ended happily. They are useful because they will be the subject of internal studies to prepare the Institutional Report and collect the experiences of successes and failures, the first, to improve and, the second, not to repeat. G7. Monitoring projects. These are completed projects, hopefully with success, whose execution and financing stage has ended, but which continue to be monitored for a period or several short periods to certify, by the cooperator, the effects of cooperation, economic, social and environmental sustainability of the draft. This post-project monitoring must remain in the content of each cooperation instrument as an agreement. This stage is a good opportunity for the donor to assume the costs by offering a service that in turn attracts new stakeholders. G8. Failed projects. They are the ones that did not manage to finish happily for many reasons, but like the successful projects, they are also part of the Institutional Memory because they obtain important experiences, very few successes and failure, perhaps not to repeat.
Projects on demand
The cooperation agency must not only have the Project Bank described, it must be prepared before the possible demand for projects or initiatives for rural development, as long as they are framed in the areas of knowledge established and agreed with national organizations and society In general, but once again, never again deviate the objectives of the cooperator and start developing projects just to meet the needs of emerging characters.
This new group of projects to come from society would also form part of the Main Project Bank and would be the object of forming the Institutional Memory of the national or international cooperation organization.
Bank of Partners and Clients
Parallel to the Project Bank, it is useful to create the Bank of Partners and Clients, current and potential; public, private, national and international. Each Partner and Client will have a File with the most relevant information such as the name of the organization, addresses, contacts, type and line of projects of interest to finance or carry out, being judicious to offer the initiatives contained in the Project Bank. This Bank of Partners and Clients, allows guiding the sources of resources, capturing them and applying them to business, social and general development projects.
Consultants Bank
Parallel to the Project, Partner and Client Banks, it is advantageous to have the Technical Personnel Bank (Consultants: Professionals-Technologists-Auxiliary and others that are consistent with the technical and administrative areas). The personnel registered in this Bank must be available and meet the requirements determined by the areas of cooperation and be qualified to formulate, design, execute (manage) and follow up on the initiatives set forth in the Project Bank. The Consultant's relationship is contractual with the cooperating entity and occurs when he is called to design and formulate a project by demand or offer or when the project enters the execution stage.
Other actions to strengthen the offer of cooperation services
- Fees. This critical issue must be tackled with the “win-win” in mind, and for this it is necessary to establish fair financial rates in consideration and compensation as payment for the provision of cooperation services. They are negotiable rates taking into account the project prototype, the amount of resources, execution time, demand for services, among others. Percentage distribution of the rate. The cooperating central management must formulate, with the national headquarters, policies for the percentage distribution of compensation, giving a higher percentage to the national headquarters executing the projects. Pre-investment and post-investment. Preinvestment consists of having resources to “negotiate at home” and offering cooperative services with quality to those interested and knowing the qualities of the cooperator. This means making the physical infrastructure and human teams available to consolidate and strengthen cooperation instruments. Post-investment are the applicable resources, especially to monitor the project when its financing cycle has closed. Processes. Certifying does not ensure the quality of the processes because they are in the hands of people, sometimes inefficient, once this is overcome, it is important to keep them certified to demonstrate and settle negotiations and implement financing policies applicable to the development of projects with own resources. The processes must be supported with demonstrations and manuals to deliver to the interested party in the cooperation services. Autonomy. It refers to the reduction and elimination of bureaucratic procedures at a distance to define technical and economic aspects between the headquarters and the national cooperator, related to preinvestment costs, personnel, fees, services and others. Committee chains, inflexible formats, long response times, and last-minute changes need to be avoided after major actions have been taken nationwide. It is also necessary to prevent other obstacles, which are created circumstantially and which, by causing delays, go beyond the patience of the funder or beneficiary of the cooperation. Consequently, national directives in charge of local cooperation must be autonomous without undermining the central authority. Advertising. It is inexplicable that the leaders of international cooperation organizations overlook the benefits offered by the strategic action of publicizing the services they provide and hence, promoting the corporate image. Identification of partners. It is necessary to maintain a monitoring system that identifies the entities that would potentially associate with the cooperator, to know their needs, developing outreach activities with the representatives and who should be informed about the existence of an organization that can make business purposes a reality.
Offer and demand
Precisely, to establish a Bank of Projects and another of Consultants, the first, to immediately offer initiatives for development, the second, once the proposed or demanded project has been chosen, admits ensuring the development of projects by having the ideal staff for each initiative, previously selected from the Bank of Consultants.
Negotiation initiative
The concepts of Partner-Client, Project Banks and Consultants Bank, Supply and Demand of projects have been developed, as main elements for the international organization to prepare and respond immediately when there is the opportunity to attend a Negotiation Initiative with one or more applicants for projects, whose negotiation would take place following protocol guidelines to reach agreements and a quick negotiation, to reach this, it is advisable to undertake, among others, the following actions:
- Content verification. Categorization and systematization of the project, activities, objectives, project structure, investments, schedules, plans, results, products, reports, financial structure, form and periodicity of payments, schedules, operational plans and technical advances. Analysis. The why of the project, what is its economic and social justification; Benefits; what are the technical risks involved that would affect the corporate image of the offeror and the applicant for the cooperation; administrative and financial for the parties; social relevance and relationships with other similar projects, and above all and perhaps most importantly, what is the impact on the community and the environment that surrounds it and the related extra locally or area of influence.Obligations and commitments. They are legal and are the responsibility of the representatives of the companies that sign the cooperation instruments (agreements and contracts). It is appropriate to make clear the steps to be followed legally in the event of non-compliance, the effects of which range from suspending the project temporarily or finally, to the termination of cooperation activities and agreements. Hence some questions arise: Is it legitimate for cooperation to establish sanctions for non-compliance by the parties? With the state? With private non-state entities? It is worth reflecting! Project cost. It implies recognizing that the resources available for development when applied should not be considered as an expense, this is only countable, but in the mind of who uses the resources it is an investment. Under this concept, the financial rates, administrative and technical management costs, clauses of legal protection of the offering cooperator and beneficiary entity of the cooperation (claimant), obligations and types of contributions (in money or in kind), amount of initial payments are reviewed. and newspapers according to the agreements and requirements to receive periodic payments. Approval. Consent to what was agreed and definition of cooperation instruments. It is important to establish a permanent relationship between the body for cooperation and the public or private entity, this can occur with the signing of a framework agreement, of a general nature and where work areas of interest to the parties are defined. This has the advantage because it would avoid lengthy processes every time there is a new negotiation initiative. From the framework agreement, specific contracts for the execution of projects would derive, this contract is a legal instrument where the parties specify activities, responsibilities and the form, mode and place where a certain project would be developed. Here are some moments that set guidelines for starting the project:
- Signature of the cooperation instrument. It should not be trivialized, it is an important act where the signatories and the beneficiary participate. It is a moment that proposes a rapprochement among all and invites to commit almost personally to fulfill the agreement. Disbursements. It is the resource delivered by the funder to the executor responsible for the project. Each disbursement is scheduled and tied to the presentation of a product or vital condition for the project. Start. Once the protocols and agreements have been fulfilled, the project starts and the execution activities begin, meticulous monitoring of the actions, progress reports, internal and external moment and final reports. Intermediate stages. They are carried out from start to finish and as scheduled generally comprise:
- Execution of activities. It involves arranging the human, physical and financial resources to ensure execution and reduce the risks of non-compliance. Monitoring and control. The S&C checks, through an S&C matrix, how the people responsible carry out the programmed activities and identifies the status and progress of the project. This activity allows the real progress of the project to be detected in a timely manner, however, sometimes it is necessary to immediately apply corrective measures and make adjustments during the project's progress. It is important to constantly check the facilities available for the executors to do a good job, and it is also favorable to analyze the level of satisfaction of the beneficiaries and of the people executing the project and the relationships between them.Monitoring. It allows to verify the efficiency (minor use of resources to achieve the product or objective with quality) and effectiveness (to reach the objective) of the development of the project, identifying achievements, successes, failures and urgency to make decisions and apply corrective measures that optimize the results of the project.. Evaluation. This action is purposeful and is to compare what was executed at the moment and what was planned, it must be scheduled and known by all the project managers. In order to avoid discrepancies between the executor and the evaluator, it is wise to establish objective evaluation parameters that allow evaluating the status and progress of the project, understanding that it is not to audit and pretend to destroy everything that has been done, this implies that the evaluator makes recommendations and positive contributions as well as identifying findings contrary to the purposes of the project.
- Signature of the cooperation instrument. It should not be trivialized, it is an important act where the signatories and the beneficiary participate. It is a moment that proposes a rapprochement among all and invites to commit almost personally to fulfill the agreement. Disbursements. It is the resource delivered by the funder to the executor responsible for the project. Each disbursement is scheduled and tied to the presentation of a product or vital condition for the project. Start. Once the protocols and agreements have been fulfilled, the project starts and the execution activities begin, meticulous monitoring of the actions, progress reports, internal and external moment and final reports. Intermediate stages. They are carried out from start to finish and as scheduled generally comprise:
Institutional infrastructure
For cooperation to take hold, a high investment is necessary to create and keep the infrastructure up to date, which will be basically represented in:
- Modern, comfortable facilities that attract consultation and solidarity work, you must feel the aroma of the prototype sanctuaries of science and knowledge. Economic, modern, fast information and communication systems in real time by both internal customers (employees, consultants… etc.) as the external ones (clients, partners, allies, suppliers, organizations… etc.) Advanced networked documentation centers, networked libraries, specialized in agricultural issues and in their own experiences, which together constitute the Memory Institutional Auditorium, conference and work rooms Multimedia Rooms Logistical facilities for academic events, promotion of ideas and dissemination of results of institutional cooperation, product of the projects carried out, especially Elements,facilities, equipment and training, education and learning programs to ensure the use of agricultural technologies delivered, the improvement and development of appropriate skills, create and promote internship programs that allow the training of future specialists and generation of new professional values and advance for the generational replacement, taking advantage of the experiences and professional capacities of the most experienced. Web page. Today indisputable.taking advantage of professional experiences and capacities of the most experienced. Web page. Today indisputable.taking advantage of professional experiences and capacities of the most experienced. Web page. Today indisputable.
Other institutional actions
Beyond the modernization of processes and the provision of modern infrastructure, it is notable that consumers of any nature, in general, are requesting services, initiatives and institutional operations that exceed the characteristics and objectives of modern companies, and those of cooperation Therefore, not only is technical assistance specialized in knowledge required, but also other parallel initiatives to the technical services of the cooperation, but referred to and focused on satisfying needs that are outside of the hiring and that go beyond institutional objectives.
The degree of intensity or emphasis of each action depends on the needs and weaknesses of the situation that is the object of cooperation. These institutional actions would be aimed at:
- Promote operations that consolidate grassroots organizations and groups. Have preinvestment resources to formulate, design projects and carry out social studies, productively profitable. Advise organizations in strengthening their managerial, administrative, financial, accounting and self-management processes. so that own or cooperation resources are used efficiently and decisions can be made with greater certainty on one or more productive areas. Offer supervision services to social development projects. Promote agribusiness and research innovative and productive technologies. Promote the development of observatories and production chains that allow to know the state of technological art. Promote and facilitate sustainable processes,for producers to self-manage the commercialization of products in their own market niches Provide advice on credit and financial management and own capital Advise and promote the conservation of natural resources through training and monitoring of good forestry, agricultural practices, livestock, manufacturing, soil conservation, natural regeneration and thus maintain a sustainable and productive environment. Advise organizations in the agricultural and forestry sector, in negotiations with international funding sources. Collaborate in the preparation of events that allow the integration of the links of the productive chains. Collaborate in obtaining economic and technical resources to execute development plans, programs and projects.Support the national science and technology system. Promote inter-agency cooperation between national and international cooperation agencies. Promote and create alliances between national research agencies for agricultural transfer. Promote the development of the capacities of local and regional organizations and foster alliances between them. advance and promote extracurricular agricultural training for producers. organize microentrepreneurs, according to different associative forms. support the rehabilitation of marginal regions with low standards of quality of life, implementing social projects, training in granting credits to agricultural and microenterprise producers.Support the generation of employment to ensure family income and the commercialization of agricultural products and services by creating credit funds that allow self-financing. Promote and support cultural events to maintain a relationship beyond the technical and the economic.
Through this and three previous articles, a series of sequential elements have been developed, which allow us to visualize the importance of rescuing the true purpose of cooperation and the reestablishment of the required international and national organization.
To add, in a next and last article, the Cooperation System is proposed, based on the strategy that the cooperator has as the north to provide such a service, this System becomes the orderly executing instrument of the strategies and policies implemented with rules, procedures and processes in which all the people organized through work teams arranged to ensure the success of the management are involved.
