Evaluates project to develop at Southern University (SU) a capacity to undertake international development work, especially in the rural social sciences. PES, a terminal evaluation of the project, covers the 3/78-12/79 extension of the project (which began in 1972) and is based on document review and interviews with SU personnel. SU solidified its international program during the extension period, but specific targets were only partially achieved. The planned case study – of the impacts of a small farmer cooperative on local income and employment in Kenya – helped expand the University”s knowledge base, but delays in approving the study and in selecting study sites limited planning and resulted in an inadequately conceptualized study. Two research monographs from the study have been published. Grant funds were also used, properly, to purchase publications relevant to the Kenya study; no records, however, were maintained of their titles or disposition. SU”s educational and training capacity was enhanced by formal participation by three faculty members in the Kenyan study, and two on-campus conferences on SU”s experience in Kenya contributed to project objectives. The project did not, however, fund a conference and five seminars, as planned. SU did not hire consultants from other universities, as envisioned in the grant; if they had, some of the deficiencies in the Kenya project caused by SU”s lack of substantial prior foreign experience could have been avoided. Nontheless, SU did establish linkages with the University of Kentucky and Louisiana State University (LSU) as an outgrowth of the Kenya study, and the SU-LSU consortium was consequently awarded a project in Sierra Leone. Despite repeated efforts on SU”s part, the planned provision of advisory and consultative services to A.I.D. did not occur due to A.I.D.”s reluctance to use SU services. Contrary to a project assumption, the project showed that merely informing A.I.D. personnel of the existence of 211(d) resources is not sufficient to motivate use of these resources, indicating the need for greater high-level A.I.D. support for such use. Overall, as a result of the project, SU is in a much better position to contribute to LDC development.
