First meeting with the new Boss: Published on 22 Jan 2007

Today we had our first meeting with our new Boss!! He looks interesting, and tried to get to know all the departments and activities. As usual, the major emphasis is on the budgeting and monitoring the budget.

The Disaster Risk Reduction and Community Development combined together which is being called as ISDRR- Institutional Strengthening and Disaster Risk Reduction. They have various plans and capacity building initiatives lined up: Village Planning, Site Planning, Disaster Management plan and Community Plan. They are trying to differentiate between spatial and non spatial plans which I didn't understand.

Next comes the Livelihood team who have already distributed 40% of the cash grants which is 4.8 billion Rupiah, equals to around USD 539,000. The second grant is supposed to be distributed in another one month. There are 206 groups which covers 5000 households who are receiving this 'Cash Grant'. Its yummy.... ya

The WATSAN team is still struggling to recruit staff and making sure that the contractors deliver good quality of work. The targets are increasing and we have started including Rain Water Harvesting Systems also in the budget

Infrastructure team have finalised the contract for the Schools and looking for DED of Drainage and Roads in several villages. They also have GIS team, who are understaffed at present. They are asking for more staff

Finally, the major division- Shelter do not have anybody to report. All the positions are vacant as of now. They dont have much budget but more problems. All the houses are under construction and many are in the process of completion.

These meetings go on and on and on, and we have to rush out because we had another NGO coordination meeting at UN Compound.

Ya. I am tired