I.   Basic Project Data

Type of Evaluation:	Mid-term
Project Number:	BEN/93/C01
Program Title:	Support to Local Development in Borgou-East and Atacora East
Govt. Executing Agency:	Ministry for Coordination of Government Planning, Development and Employment Promotion/Directorate for Regional Planning and Grass-roots Initiatives (DPRPIB)
Executing Agent:	N/A
UN Cooperating Organization:	UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS)
Sector:	N/A
Sub-sector:	N/A
Project cost and financing : ($US)
UNCDF:	3,320,100
UNDP:	1,721,332
Government:	18,750
Beneficiaries:	575,000
Total Project Budget:	5,635,182
Actual Expenditures at Evaluation:	1,426,236
Project approval date:	11 October 1995
Project start date:	June 1996
Project end date:	June 2001
Evaluation date:	April 2000

II.   Background

The "Support for Local Development in Atacora-Ouest and Borgou-Est" (LDP) project was identified in 1993. At that time, Benin had all the features of a poor country with a per capita gross national product (GNP) estimated at US$ 360 and indicators of social service provision clearly on the decline. To turn this sombre situation around, the Government defined a strategy of the type known as "the social dimension of development", with the reduction of poverty as its major objective. This strategy is based on the principle of participation by the target groups in all the phases of implementation of development projects, from the identification of the needs to the evaluation of the results. It takes into account the resources available and the most urgent needs of the target groups and promotes a multi-stakeholder approach, to permit involvement of governmental and non-governmental institutions, beneficiaries and donors. At the same time, Benin decided to implement a meaningful process of decentralization. The LDP is thus part of this dual intent, reduction of poverty and support to decentralized local development. Beyond the creation of capital in localities which are impoverished but have a useful productive potential, the project also aimed at training future focus persons in the village communities and local authorities.

III.   The Project

The LDP covers two zones of Benin, Atacora-Ouest and Borgou-Est. These areas are pockets of severe poverty characterized by precarious productive sectors, a generalized lack of infrastructure accentuated by minimal provision of basic social services, and serious pressure on the natural resources.

Development Objectives

The LDP forms part of a strategy of support to grass-roots development and promotion of the essential functions of local communities. This strategy, in turn, fits into a dynamic process of support for the process of decentralization. The two development objectives of the project are as follows:

• An increase in productivity of the pastoral farmers and intensified development of local products; and

• Promotion of the private micro-sized enterprises to support local and regional development.

Immediate objectives

The project has three immediate objectives:

1. To improve the living conditions of the populations and to boost the growth of grassroots economic activities by setting up an adequate funding tool;

2. To increase the local communities' capacities for initiative and management in local social and economic life; and

3. To promote micro-sized enterprises by facilitating access to appropriate financial services.

Expected Results

Immediate Objective 1

• Participatory formulation of local enhancement plans;
• Creation of socio-economic infrastructure;
• Functioning community, social and vocational groupings; and
• Implementation of actions for conservation of the natural environment in several villages, defined in the context of the terms of action of the development committees.

Immediate Objective 2

• Support to the local communities (definition of communal development plans and establishment of Three-Year Community Investment Programmes (Programmes d'Investissements Triennaux Communaux [PITC])); promotion of the capacities for administration and project management of the communes issuing contracts, etc.; and
• Definition of action plan for setting up municipal teams qualified in planning and management of public infrastructure, and ensuring their sustainability through the mechanism of contractual partnership with the area or village committees.

Immediate Objective 3

• Support to micro-enterprises (creation of enterprises; training of the promoters; creation of activities for development of local products; links between micro-enterprises and banking organizations, etc.).

Three different funds contributed to the implementation of the different activities of the project.

Village Development Fund (Fonds de développement villageois [FDV])

The beneficiaries of the FDV are the community groupings at the village level. Along with the formation of the community groupings upstream and downstream from certain micro-projects, this fund was intended to support the community actions previously identified by the beneficiaries themselves and classified according to the following three categories:

1. Infrastructures of a social nature
2. Productive infrastructures, and
3. Infrastructures aiding in the improvement of conditions of trade and marketing.

Local Investment Fund (Fonds d'investissement local [FIL])

The FIL was intended to finance: (a) the renovation and construction of communal socio-economic infrastructures; and (b) the reinforcement of the communal institution's capacity for management and development.

Private Initiative Promotion Fund (Fonds de promotion des initiatives privées [FPIP])

Complementing the two other funds, the FPIP was primarily intended to support initiatives of individuals or groups to create or develop their micro-sized enterprises, by facilitating their access to appropriate funding and developing their capacity for managing the micro-sized and small enterprises as well as their technical capacities.

IV.   Purpose of the Evaluation

Evaluation of the Results

The objective of the present mid-term evaluation was to analyse the progress achieved and the difficulties that might potentially hinder the execution of the different components of the project, and to make practical recommendations, implementable immediately, intended to allow the project to attain the objectives assigned to it and to secure the sustainability of what had been achieved so far.

V.   Conclusions

Evaluation of results achieved

Village Development Fund component

The participatory approach comprises the fundamental element of the implementation of the LDP. It played a decisive role in ensuring that the intent of the project was understood by all the local participants involved, including the village populations. The latter did in fact mobilize themselves to set up Village Development Committees (Comités Villageois de Développement [CVD]) or Community Development Committees (Comités Communaux de Développement [CCD]), and to undertake participatory processes identifying their needs. According to the villagers, the actions defined in the context of the Multi-Year Village Development Programmes (Programmes Pluriannuels de Développement Villageois [PPDV]) and the Three-Year Village Investment Programmes (Programmes Triennaux d'Investissement Villageois [PTIV]) perfectly matched their needs. The various tools appear to have been thoroughly grasped by the beneficiaries, and certain CVDs have now begun to use them in their negotiations with other donors. In general, the rate of participation by the population in the implementation of the infrastructure items was high, whether in terms of their financial participation or sweat equity or in terms of the monitoring of the work and the maintenance and administration of the infrastructure. Nevertheless, the amount of the financial contribution expected (20% of the total cost) seems to have been over-estimated. All the activities listed below are an integral part of the PPDVs and the PTIVs. Most of them correspond to the action areas that were identified in the project document.

Implementation of micro-level infrastructure projects
Achievements in this sector include: 13.5 ha of bottomland developed (out of 35.5 ha planned); 1 reservoir (out of 10 planned); 4 schools built (out of 4 planned); 2 health centres (out of 3 planned); 22.7 km of tracks developed; 6 market sheds (out of 8 planned). The low execution rates of the infrastructure components (about 36%), in both areas, are all the more worrying in that only a few months remain before the target date for completion of the project, in June 2001. According to an estimate by the evaluation mission, the last works would only be completed in March 2002 and the last final approval would only occur in April 2003. If the duration of the project is not extended, it will be impossible for the project to complete the infrastructure work, and it will not be able to carry out the various awareness-raising and training activities directed towards the populations, intended to ensure the sustainability of the infrastructure items.

Establishment of functioning community, social and vocational groupings
The project made possible the establishment of 15 committees to monitor the work, 15 committees for administration and maintenance of the infrastructure and one health training committee. The capacity-building activities covered the training of 22 CVDs or Departmental Development Committees (Comités Départementaux de Développement [CDD]) in the planning and administration of development; literacy training for 195 villagers, members of development committees and associations; and training in carrying out participatory diagnostics and planning, for the personnel of three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Atacora-Ouest and three NGOs in Borgou. Nevertheless, in light of the low level of execution of the actions managed by the various committees, the evaluation mission considers that stopping the project in June 2001 would gravely jeopardize not only the sustainability of what has been achieved so far but also the possibility of being able to observe a significant and durable impact in the longer term.

Activities aimed towards women
In the framework of the PPDVs and the PTIVs, the project carried out a major task of grouping and organization of women, not only in the light of the number of groups set up (some thirty), but also in the light of the results of the capacity-building activities. The women members of these groupings, after receiving literacy training, have thus acquired new abilities related to new income-generating activities and, for some of them, there are already concrete results in terms of increased income.

Literacy
Activities of basic literacy training were carried out in nearly all of the villages within the two zones of the project. In consequence 389 villagers, members of the CVDs, of the women's groups and of various associations, are now capable of reading, writing and counting in their languages.

Management and conservation of natural resources
The evaluation team was able to observe the relevance of the activities supported. Introducing improved hearths to the women of the villages supported seems to have been a clear success. Training of nurserymen, growing of plants and reafforrestation had been desired by the populations, owing to their growing awareness of degradation of their environment. All these actions are now managed by the populations themselves. Lastly, the training of certain villagers in modern bee-keeping, replacing traditional bee-keeping, is a useful measure for combating this major source of destruction of natural resources.

Training and capacity-building: With a view to increasing the productivity of the cultivated areas, as well as improving the working conditions and increasing the income of the farmers, 80 villagers of Atacora-Ouest were trained in the techniques of crop-growing using draft animals. Eight craftsmen from this region were also trained in the maintenance and repair of the material and equipment serving this type of agriculture. Additionally, several NGOs who acted as operators on behalf of the LDP benefited from informal support provided by the two Project Steering Groups (Cellules de Pilotage du Projet [CPP]), in the areas of methodology of participatory diagnostics, and administrative and financial management.

Local Investment Fund component

The establishment of the Urban Land Registers (Registres Fonciers Urbains [RFU]) - a management tool for communal financial resources - in the communes of Tanguièta and Nikki seems to have clearly been a success. The RFUs have already made it possible to increase to a major degree the sources of income of the two communes. At the time of the evaluation, nearly all of the Multi-Year Communal Development and Investment Programmes (Programmes Pluriannuels de Développement et d'Investissements Communaux) had been drawn up, but several Three-Year Community Investment Programmes (Programmes Triennaux d'Investissements Communaux) were yet to be finished.

Private Initiative Promotion Fund component

In the context of the FPIP, very few activities have been undertaken up to the present, for two principal reasons. On the one hand, the fund was not placed at the disposal of the FECECAM network in the two zones of the project until the end of 1999, this delay having been essentially due to the institutional change which had taken place in the status of the Regional Credit Project of UNCDF which was technically responsible for signing the contract with the FECECAM. On the other hand, the very precarious financial situation of most of the banks in the FECECAM network caused this operator severely to restrict the lending capacities of all the banks having levels of unpaid debts considered to be too high, and also to increase its interest rates to 24%.

Assessment of project design

The LDP was totally relevant, at the time it was planned and started up, and remains so today. Even if the delay in the process of decentralization has hindered UNCDF from firmly incorporating the project within it, the results obtained in opening up to and learning about democracy, in participating in the communal decisions and in taking responsibility for their own development, will have prepared the populations for the roles that they will have to play, especially in the communal elections planned for next November. While the project did not suffer any real problems of design and planning, the establishment of consensus around the objectives actually aimed for, around the strategy to follow and around the methodology to adopt were largely lacking. As for the method selected to support the project (a UNOPS Project Coordinator based in New York and an international consultant responsible for the technical monitoring, rather than a permanent Technical Adviser), the evaluation mission feels that that appreciably diminished the project's level of efficiency. Lastly, it appears that the FPIP component was poorly planned and that the activities of training and learning should have included ancillary measures to allow the trained populations to put into practice what they had learned.

Immediate objectives

On the whole, the implementation of the project seems to have suffered a great deal from the absence of a single vision, on the part of the different agencies involved (UNCDF, UNDP and UNOPS) with regard to the action strategy to select, and the problems of coordination among them caused major and frequent delays in reaching decisions. It seems however that the project is on the right track for reaching its first two immediate objectives: improving the living conditions of the populations and boosting the growth of grassroots economic activities on the one hand, and increasing the local communities' capacities for initiative and management in local social and economic life on the other. By contrast, if credit facilities are not rapidly released, the third objective, promotion of the micro-sized enterprises, will not be achieved.

VI.   Recommendations

In view of the forthcoming holding of communal elections, it is recommended to the Directorate for Regional Planning and Promotion of Grassroots Initiatives (Direction de la Planification Régionale et de la Promotion des Initiatives de Base [DPRPIB]):

• To undertake the necessary activities in order to assure the sustainability of everything achieved by the LPD, more particularly the RFUs of Tanguièta and Nikki which could prove advantageous for the new communal authorities about to be elected.
• To capitalize on the experience acquired by the project.
• To base future ideas on the model of the RFUs, in the wider frame of the decentralization of the territorial administration of Benin.

To UNDP, UNCDF and UNOPS, the mission recommends:

• To extend the duration of the LDP for a period of two years, until June 2003, taking account on the one hand of the major delays in implementation, and on the other of the forthcoming communal elections.
• To recruit a Senior Technical Advisor who will be responsible for the coordination of the activities of the two CPPs. If a Senior Technical Advisor cannot be recruited, to define in collaboration with the two coordinators of the CPPs the procedures for coordination between the two CPPs.
• To clarify the roles and responsibilities among UNCDF, UNDP and UNOPS, seeking a uniform perspective and a certain level of programme consistency.
• To define clearly and realistically the expectations in terms of monitoring and measurement of the performance of the project.

To the two CPPs

• To study in greater depth the various possibilities to ensure that the expertise developed in the context of implementation of the RFUs in the urban communes of Nikki and Tanguièta does not disappear, and better to capitalize on the experience acquired in this area.
• To make certain that the training of the committees for management of the socio-economic infrastructure and the awareness-raising of the populations with regard to maintenance and repair are carried out well.

VII.   Policy Implications and Lessons Learned

• The participatory approach proves once again to be relevant and adequate significantly to increase the level of "buy-in" by the populations of what has been achieved and to ensure the sustainability of the actions undertaken.
• For each type of infrastructure placed at the disposal of the populations (productive; income-generating; social and community; schools; tracks; etc.), a specific set of problems has to be studied (level of financial contribution required, capacities to handle the management, maintenance, etc.).
• The implementation or utilization of local coordination structures of the CCD type unquestionably allowed a better mobilization of the principal local actors, a greater relevance for the actions envisaged and more efficiency in the planning process.
• Making use exclusively of the local capacities (NGOs; decentralized Government services) for the provision of services, even if inevitably a source of reduced efficiency in the project, proves to be worth it in the long term and increases the impact and durability of the actions.

VIII.   Evaluation Team

The evaluation was carried out by:

Francine Marier, International Consultant , Head of Mission, Agronomist
Victoire Élègbè, Sociologist, National Consultant
Moussa Dotché, Civil Engineer, National Consultant