Caribbean regional development training project : CARICOM component

PES covers the period 7/79-5/84 and summarizes an attached final evaluation (XD-AAP-956-A) based on document review, site visits, and interviews with USAID, Caribbean Community Secretariat (CARICOM), and project personnel (although the presence of CARICOM"s Training Officer tempered the freedom of interviewee responses). The project was very successful in meeting its quantitative targets. The project trained 1,458 persons in 76 special focus seminars - 13 regional public sector seminars for 293, 11 regional private sector seminars for 204, and 52 island-specific seminars for 931 (vs. respective targets of 12 and 240; 8 and 160; and 48 and 960). All seminars were hosted in the Caribbean using regional resource personnel, with the exception of 2 island-specific seminars which relied on U.S. and Puerto Rican experts. Individual training grants (ITG"s) were equally satisfactory: 254 public sector participants (vs. a target of 240) - 132 in the United States and 122 in Caribbean - received grants in such areas as agriculture, health, finance, and education, although no private sector individual received an ITG. Another project shortfall was the failure of Barbados to participate to the degree planned. Major problems were CARICOM"s use of ITG discretionary funds to develop its own resources to the neglect of other regional institutions and the failure of a mid-project evaluation by SYSTEMS to address critical project questions. However, despite diverging CARICOM-RDO/C interpretations of the Project Paper, CARICOM management proved effective and the project enjoyed strong political support. The benefits of project training are evident in improved public and private productivity in CARICOM countries. Project experience showed, inter alia, that: projects such as this require implementation periods of 8-16 years; regional seminars are more beneficial than those conducted on a national basis; and the project benefited from being regional rather than bilateral in nature.