Pamela White

Junior Professional Officers (JPOs) in Finnish International Development Cooperation

My background• Started development work in Nicaragua in 1987 – first as volunteer (brigadista) then Australian Volunteer Abroad (low paid staff of Ministry of Agriculture) as vet ->end 1991

• Worked with Australian NGO in Australia 1992-99 – program officer for Latin America, recruitment & training of volunteers (AVA, UNV), field trips visiting placements & projects

• Also solidarity work & work with NGOs 1987->99

• Moved to Finland in 1999. Worked since 2000 for consulting company – lots of travel & consultancy work, including recruitment of technical assistance (TA) & Junior Professional Officers (JPOs)

• Worked with volunteers, NGOs, govt, consultants, bilateral projects, sector programs & budget support – left with many questions

• Philosophical dilemmas – What, if any, is the usefulness of TA? What is the ‘best’ way to support international development?

From Nicaraguan ’volunteer’

to consultant…

& PhD researcher

Overall researchPhD by articles, focusing on the added value of technical assistance

1. What are the explicit & implicit expectations of Finnish Junior Professionals (JPO) in international development? What does the MFA hope to gain? What happens to the JPOs themselves during & aftertheir postings?

2. Does technical assistance have advantages over other modalities as a means to ensure consideration of gender in development cooperation?

3. Capacity building is usually considered to be a major activity of good technical assistance provision – what are the elements to ensure that this really happens in practice, in different modalities? What are the keys to combining TA with capacity building?

4. How does technical assistance provided by commercial companies to bilateral or multilateral programs effectively support development?

What are JPOs?

Variety of ways to start in ’the business’

• research, unpaid volunteer with NGO, or international development volunteer program (eg. AVA, VSO, KePa), United Nations Volunteers, (missionary)

• Junior Professional Officer – on Finnish bilateral projects or Finnish sponsorship to multilateral organisations – UN bodies, World Bank, research bodies (eg. CGIAR), EU

My research has focused on bilateral JPOs

• are recruited by consulting companies with MFA funds to bilateral projects

• in theory are a learning position – though the means are rather unclear

• ‘support the development of future Finnish development professionals’

JPOs’ experiences

• What are the explicit & implicit expectations of the MFA?

• Has there been any discussion about what the aims are for the MFA, partner countries, multilateral bodies, or for other donor countries? Is there any guideline for why or in what situations JPOs should be used?

• Is the purpose experiential learning and sharing, capacity building for the JPO, or technical assistance for the local partner & the project (in the form of a cheaper ‘expert’)?

• What happens to the JPOs when they finish their posting - is there any debriefing? Do they have a career path within the MFA Finland, the development banks or other bilateral or multilateral donor organisations?

• How do JPOs stack up? Cost? Impact? Skills? eg. compared with UNVs, local experts or volunteers?

Research methodology• Questionnaire – initially to bilateral JPOs, but increasingly to multilaterals, allowing some comparison. Some reports.

• Questionnaire & interviews with some Finnish Embassy/MFA staff, & local partners who have worked with JPOs

• Struggled to find relevant literature – usually consists only of JPO evaluation reports of donors or UN, or limited studies on volunteers

• Coding for quantitative results. Otherwise, used quotes. More of an ethnographic research style preferred. Example of research on literacy training.

• Problematic to write up within a page limit if using quotes! But many quotes are very interesting – seems silly to just paraphrase them

• Focusing on JPO’s perceptions of their own experience – not impact locally. Sometimes perceptions changed with time & experience, eg. those JPOs who had two different postings

Quantitative results

10 / 2 24 / 10Gender balance female / male

4Number continuing to work with NGOs

4Number doing PhDs subsequently

NA9Number continuing to multilateral JPO posts

5 doing small no. ST consultancies, 1 as expert, 2 with consulting company

Number working as consultants subsequently

13 as staff or on contractNumber working for MFA subsequently

3320,9 monthsAverage posting length

30,327,7Average age at departure for first JPO post

12 multilateral34 bilateralRespondents

17 multilateral50 bilateral Number approached

MultilateralBilateral

Qualitative findings

“I think the real highlight was to notice, that “I can make it”. That I can live there alone, and that I can manage the project and all its responsibilities, that I’ll survive. Also the feeling, that I was useful, needed, and that the locals really appreciated my work and me as a person, was really worth all the loneliness, home sickness and feelings of being misplaced in a hostile environment”

TOR – quite general, but probably that’s a good thing – can develop

“The list of duties is largely general in nature, and it leaves a lot of space for the responsibilities to be formed in practice. On the other hand it also offers little to refer to or to define what exactly is the role of the JE and how she/he is expected to contribute to the programme objectives.”

Briefing – more briefing would be wanted, esp. discussion with ex-JPOs. Multilateral JPOs had more briefing. Similar programs (eg. Germans & Swiss) have long training/briefing.

“I participated in the preparatory training organized by MFA. It was not very useful. What was much more useful were the several discussions that I had with people who had worked for the programme before.”

Very positive experiences – usually contacts with local community, & personal development

“Thinking back, it is the fact that I learned a lot during my assignment – not the kind of technical things that you can directly put in your CV, but a deeper understanding of the realities in a very troubled developing country and thus of the challenges and limitations of development cooperation.”

“The post provided me another viewpoint to the bilateral programmes. Events and timetables do look different from the MFA desk in Helsinki than from here in the province. I believe that if ever I will be working as a programme officer in any donor agencies again, I will be more realistic with my expectations, e.g. in relation to the speed of the development interventions”

Negative experiences – job frustrations, culture shock, clashes with other TA, disease, etc – also coming home

“Time heals all wounds and I can’t remember any other serious problems other than culture stress, which pounded on us regularly. Life in x was a constant rollercoaster ride; one day you’re on top of the world, taking in all the interesting aspects of a foreign culture, the next day something, no matter how small, happens and you’re ready to pack your bags and head home. Add work related stress and let simmer in 40°for two years.”

“I might have answered differently immediately after my return, but now I like to say that the most difficult experience came when returning to Finland and noticing that your past experience as a junior in a development cooperation project did not mean much in terms of securing another job within the consulting business.”

Capacity building/learning experiences – not usually organised, but on-the-job. Multilaterals had more formal training. Bilaterals wanted language training & more.

“Language training [was needed]! It would have been good if MFA would have supported a 6 weeks intensive course before I left, and then I could have kept on learning. But there was no language training, nor any money in the budget for that. In the town practically no-one spoke English.”

“Most important was to learn how to handle each person and forget the Finnish straightforward style. I did not get any mentoring. I had to just learn by doing, which was hard in the beginning”

Inadequate contact with MFA . No interest shown at start, during or at end. Wasted opportunity for MFA.

“the Finnish government invests considerable funds to give me this unique experience but they give me no guidelines on how I could give feedback and benefit Finland and Finland's cooperation ”

“MFA has more or less “outsourced” the whole JPO program to the home offices of the consultancy companies. … I felt that MFA was actually the only party that wanted to have a Junior in the project; the locals would have liked local experts for the same price, and the consultancy company would have liked short-term seniors for the same price, because they live on the overheads of the consultancy missions.”

Future – almost all complained of lack of a next step. 2 years is insufficient to move to ‘expert’ post. Frustration, esp. for bilaterals.

“Selection of younger people to projects on the “2nd post” should be promoted as well as for short-term consultancies, as it is often more difficult to get the next job in development after JPO posting”

“If the justification for junior 'programme' was to bring forward a new generation of development workers, it has failed. No bridging to future projects was ever provided. Improve briefings, reporting and de-briefings. Designate a desk officer for the junior programme, dealing perhaps with both the UN and MFA juniors.”

“There is a very important distinction: in my current as a MFA-funded JPO in an international organization, I feel myself fortunate to have been selected for this job. I do the kind of work I have always wanted to do, I am entitled to ample professional training, I have the guidelines of MFA concerning UN JPOs to refer to, as well as my own budget. Whereas when I was a junior expert in a Finnish bilateral programme, I didn’t have any of this. … The Junior Expert system should be standardized and developed in the same way as the UN JPO programme. Everybody, JPOs, MFA and locals, would benefit”

View from others

• MFA/Embassy – question of length of placement – do you stick to 2 years so more have opportunity, or increase length for the lucky few to increase their chances to progress?

• Local partners – questions regarding expenditure of money on JPOs. What is their value to local development?

• Perhaps greatest value is what JPOs do afterwards…

• Given the opportunity cost of the JPO investment (ie. money that could be used locally with perhaps more impact) it is important that the MFA thinks through the ethos of the postings & maximises the result for Finland – ie. Develop and use the postings more effectively, & ensure the JPOs have a way forward.

Expectations / assumptions

• Explicit –

• Capacity building

• New generation of Finnish development professionals supported

• Implicit –

• Multilateral JPOs will support Finland in their organisations

• Multilateral JPOs will go on to be retained in UN orgs (or WB, etc) & support Finnish interests

• JPOs will move on to careers in MFA and embassies

• JPOs will provide “Finnish added-value” in projects

• Experiences of JPOs are considered more valuable than volunteers ??

In summary

• Most JPOs surveyed found the experience positive and learned a lot

• They also expressed frustration at missed opportunities, lack of apparent interest by the MFA and their inability to get further assignments due to having insufficient experience

• JPO posts are an important investment in Finnish cooperation and strengthened policy

• Policy guidance, training and support would be needed improve the effectiveness of development cooperation and avoid a wasted opportunity

Link to my general research

• Role of TA in consideration of gender (& other cross-cutting issues)

• Role of TA in capacity building

• TA effectiveness, Finnish added value, value for money