A.I.D.'s experience with integrated rural development projects

enthusiastically embraced integrated rural development (IRD) projects in the 1970's as a way of reaching remote and disadvantaged populations, this retrospective study, a synthesis of impact evaluations of 11 IRD projects implemented in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, reveals them to have been plagued with a number of management and implementation problems. Although most of the projects examined increased agricultural productivity and incomes, they also tended to benefit wealthier farmers. The projects' social service components did reach the needy, but their impact was undermined by a general tendency to reduce services when faced with financial or administrative problems. In fact, the projects' sustainability in general is dubious, mainly because the host governments have neither the will nor the resources to maintain inputs and services at project levels. The IRD projects were only modestly successful in achieving national level objectives, such as food self-sufficiency. The problems experienced in IRD frequently stem from the choice of implementing agency. Four types of agencies have been used for IRD projects (project management units, national line ministries, subnational government bodies, and private voluntary organizations) - each type having its own advantages and shortcomings. As a general rule, however, IRD management has been hampered by poor coordination among participating agencies, overreliance on public bureaucracies, poor timing of outputs, and inflexible project design. Other problems have been inappropriate national economic policies, inability to establish effective beneficiary organizations to promote sustainability, inadequate attention to socioeconomic factors, and inadequate (or nonexistent) technical packages. In sum, IRD is a valuable strategy for certain special circumstances (e.g., narcotics control development, multisectoral assistance to remote or famine-affected areas), but IRD projects should be designed so as to minimize coordination requirements, while maximizing the use of private sector firms to provide services.