Coordination is the biggest buzzword within the donor community in Banda Aceh. Everybody’s heard of it, everybody’s talking about it, everybody thinks it’s a great thing, everybody wants to be a part of it; so is everybody doing it? No, not really.
Almost everyone we met with felt coordination was key to getting results. Many efforts were being made to bring people together to share experiences, discuss issues, and figure out ways to collaborate, but the jury is out on whether these have been effective. One skeptic told me, "Well, we make sure to send a face to represent us at such meetings, but as far as what comes out of it – while it would be nice to sit around and talk and find out who’s doing what, you eventually have to just get out there and get some work done." In other words, each organization had its priorities, deadlines, and responsibilities to meet, and while coordination would be a wonderful thing, seeing it through was proving very difficult in practice.
After all the hearsay, we newcomers from IFC could hardly pass up our first invitation to a coordination meeting. So, on our first Friday morning in Banda Aceh we sat in on a weekly Livelihoods Coordination Meeting organized by the UNDP, which was also attended by several major local and international organizations and NGOs. As fresh observers we found the exercise rather helpful, gleaning some good contacts and information on what’s going on in terms of training efforts (which was the theme of this meeting, featuring guest speakers from the government training institute and ILO, among others).
The agencies represented were definitely talking to each other, but whether serious commitment would be given to coordinating on similar activities, or if this was just a lot of posturing, well, I would likely have to be an older hand in the Aceh reconstruction community to be able to tell you that.
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