The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Lebanon Investment in Quality (LINQ) activity is a $5.9 million activity funded by USAID and implemented by Land O’Lakes Venture 37, which works on increasing the domestic and export sales and competitiveness of value-added agro-food products.
LINQ started on September 1, 2018 and will end on November 30, 2021. The project has thus far included a wide range of activities catering to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), agro processors, and cooperatives working in the agro-food industry. This mid-term performance evaluation aimed to assess the performance of LINQ in terms of relevance to a rapidly evolving economic and political context; effectiveness in terms of components and activities in achieving objectives and impact; efficiency in terms of monitoring and evaluation; sustainability going forward; and success in gender mainstreaming.
The evaluation team carried out 60 key informant interviews (KIIs), plus an independent analysis of the project’s monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) documents. KIIs were conducted with beneficiaries located throughout Lebanon, with a large proportion concentrated in major agricultural areas (Akkar, Baalbak-Hermel, Bekaa, Mount Lebanon, and North).
In summary, LINQ has demonstrated considerable flexibility in responding to the evolving needs of Lebanon’s agri-food sector due to multiple crises and at the same time remaining responsive to USAID development objectives. Overall, LINQ interventions (grant, TA, training) respond to beneficiaries’ needs amid political, economic, financial, and public health crises. However, it is not be possible to determine the effectiveness of this assistance until full production cycles are recorded. To a certain extent, LINQ interventions are considered efficient with some interventions more efficient than others; demand-driven packages of grants and technical assistance are likely to yield better results with some reservations expressed concerning standalone trainings focused on reaching large numbers of beneficiaries. Although all questions of sustainability will be heavily conditioned by the current political, economic, financial, and public health crises affecting Lebanon, the impact of LINQ’s grants and technical assistance (TA) is likely to be sustained. LINQ’s inclusion of women has been limited and subject to the bifurcation of traditional gender roles within the agriculture and agro food processing fields.
Recommendations include full and continued USAID support for LINQ, with renewed emphasis on the project’s development and economic growth goals using its current mode of intervention (demand-driven grants and TA) and the adoption of a more focused approach and a narrower range of activities that supports the grant program in light of the current economic crises.
