Assessing risks and learning lessons

ince its inception, the RIDEF programme and the related LPP have been revised several times in response to a changing environment, feedback and lessons learned. As it does with nearly all of its projects, UNCDF commissioned an independent evaluation of the RIDEF project to evaluate progress mid-way through project implementation and to ascertain any possible lessons that could be used to refine the model. The 1998 evaluation, which has been published and widely distributed both in book form and on the Internet, found that overall, the project has succeeded in introducing and initiating a participatory planning process which could result in improved local governance with an anticipated result of reduced poverty. After meeting with government authorities at all levels of administration, the evaluation found that most partners and participants see the ideas as producing better impacts at lower costs.

However, the evaluation also found weak links in the methodology and implementation of the programme-lessons that UNCDF is now incorporating into programme refinement, both in Viet Nam and in its programmes elsewhere in Asia, Africa and Latin America. For example, the evaluation found several critical issues which need to be addressed for the project to attain its objectives: more effective empowerment of women, better targeting of the poor, and long term programme sustainability, which includes integrating the central concepts of the programme into local systems of government.

While there is a system to monitor sub-project implementation and fund disbursement, the evaluation found that the project design unfortunately did not include a system to measure project impact in terms of poverty alleviation and capacity building.

The evaluation of the RIDEF programme also found that its two goals, poverty alleviation and the establishment of a decentralized system of planning and financing appear at times to conflict with one another. In other words, reads the report, the project is both a "policy experiment" and a deliverer of "goods" in the form of rural infrastructure. Both are given equal priority, thereby sometimes creating tension.

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