Central Tunisia rural development project : lessons and experience

Evaluation working paper covers the period 5/79 through mid-1981 and focuses on lessons to be learned regarding the design and management of integrated rural development (IRD) projects; methodology is not specified. Although the project envisaged that a new regional development authority, the Office de Development de la Tunisia Centrale (ODTC), would be responsible for managing all project functions under jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, this plan was resisted by various MOA units and eventually a "second-best" strategy was negotiated wherein ODTC retained responsibility for only certain functions - even then ODTC management involved a large element of coordination. Thus, a key project lesson is the potential for conflict between a newly created autonomous regional development agency and existing agencies. Other findings/lessons are: (1) Although TA was provided to help ODTC develop a capacity for regional planning and evaluation and later for rural extension, ODTC"s overall institutional development needs were never addressed. A.I.D."s response to uncertainty concerning ODTC"s absorptive capacity was to load the project agreement with conditions precedent, one of which may have had the negative effect of forcing ODTC to recruit planners without adequately considering their suitability for the job. (2) By focusing TA on certain "innovative" activities such as regional planning, A.I.D. actually diverted scarce resources from ODTC"s management assistance needs. (3) Long-range capacity building goals tended to be displaced by short-term imperatives to begin capital projects (irrigation and potable water systems) so as to reduce the "pipeline" of unexpended funds. (4) As a new organization, ODTC was not capable of coordinating the project"s applied research approach to testing development concepts and methodologies. CTRD experience clearly suggests that IRD projects should focus first on the institutional development of a management structure, rather than on the technical aspects of project interventions, and should take a more unified approach to management and technical skills training. Choice of a management structure should be tailored to a country"s political, administrative and institutional environment.