Agriculture sector studies

PES covers the period 11/77-8/85 and summarizes an attached special evaluation (XD-BAX-848-A) based on document review and interviews with project, USAID/Z, GOZ, and other concerned personnel. Substantial progress has been made. SEP has improved its administrative and accounting capability, and its U.S.-trained agricultural economists, working with American advisors, have produced an impressive number of commodity studies, regional planning reports, agricultural analyses, project evaluations and designs, and the agricultural component of the national five-year plan. Progress has also been made in collecting and cataloging secondary agricultural data, a computer system has been installed and is operational, and a computerized Agriculture Statistics Data Bank is in the early stages of development. Participants supported under a predecessor project have completed their M.S. theses and an additional 13 SEP personnel have been sent to the U.S. for graduate training. However, the project has failed to make progress in the important area of collecting and analyzing primary agricultural data. Use of the area frame sample, a project objective established in 1981, has been abandoned and the alternative data collection planned by the FAO has not yet been implemented. Thus, Zaire still lacks a reliable institutionalized data collection mechanism in the agricultural sector. Another problem jeopardizing SEP is its failure to retain a trained cadre of technicians, due to its inferior salary and premium schedule. In spite of these problems, SEP has made enormous progress and is playing an increasingly more important role in agricultural policy development. It is now a directorate within DADRE, its technicians are regularly consulted by high-level GOZ officials, and its reports represent the best published information available on Zairian agriculture. A total of 28 action decisions are made. Abstract includes information from XD-BAX-848-A.