Agricultural planning and institutional development

Evaluation covered the period 1983-4/86 and was based on interviews with MOA and USAID/P officials and on document review. Significant progress has been made, despite an extremely uncertain political environment and various economic constraints. Perhaps the most important output has been the formation of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Group (GAPA), which has been conducting a number of studies of the agricultural sector and whose directors have served as senior advisors to three successive Ministers of Agriculture. In addition, good progress is being made in establishing the data bases needed for policymaking: a highly professional National Rural Household Survey is nearly complete; area sampling frames have been constructed for 2 and partially constructed for 3 of Peru"s 24 departments; and agroclimatic data are being collected, analyzed, and published. Training has been successful: in 1985, 580 MOA employees participated in 17 short courses (the courses will be repeated in 1986); 20 MOA professionals are studying overseas on fellowships; another 60 candidates have been identified for training either at the National Agrarian University (UNA) or abroad; the project is helping to restore UNA"s former pre-eminence as a graduate institution; and an MOA training division is being established to select future M.S. candidates. The project has also helped to alleviate management problems within the MOA and other agricultural agencies, but a planned salary support program - considered vital to management improvements - has been discontinued. A.I.D. has therefore been supplementing the salaries of some critical personnel. In only two areas has the project not made progress: (1) policy support for the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) is only just beginning; (2) no action has been taken on establishing a policy analysis unit within the private sector National Agrarian Organization (ONA). Key recommendations are to officially attach senior GAPA advisors to the Office of the Minister of Agriculture and to expand GAPA membership to include analysts from academia and the private sector. Other recommendations concern (inter alia): improving MOA management support (in part through the creation of a joint Director General of Administration and Director General of Rationalization program aimed at improving accounting, personnel, procurement, and inventory control); expanding the area sampling frame; further upgrading UNA"s graduate school; and reviewing options for TA to MEF.