Cross - sectoral evaluation of sustainability for USAID/Ecuador

The evaluation focuses on three nongovernmental organization (NGO) projects involved with environmental education, drug awareness, and agricultural research, education, and extension; and three public sector projects, including forestry, child survival, and water and sanitation. The NGO projects did not adequately plan for sustainability, but these oversights have been addressed by USAID/E during the implementation phases. The Mission has clarified sustainability expectations, encouraged the development of alternative income sources, and strengthened financial management, particularly in budgeting. However, USAID/E has been negligent in developing systems for tracking and monitoring sustainability. Moreover, income generation strategies have yielded relatively little, and sometimes at a high cost. It appears that, although the projects are seen as important by outside donors, demand for their services is lacking. Public sector planning for sustainability is weak. Most projects lack commitment to sustainability strategies, contain no phase- out arrangements, and include only perfunctory analyses of recurrent costs. The issue of sustainability is usually not raised until the mid-term evaluation. The slowest progress has been in projects with central coordination and management mechanisms, while some sustainable service delivery is evident at the local level. All public sector projects suffer from unfavorable bureaucratic and economic environments. Ecuadorean bureaucracies are characterized by low morale, high turnover, low commitment, nonacceptance of decentralized management, and frequent leadership and policy changes. Economic problems result in inability or unwillingness of beneficiaries to pay for services and government inability to pay employees and cover recurrent costs. Two overall lessons were learned. (1) The failure of most development projects to attain sustainability is due to a lack of incentives. While needy organizations (and countries) receive free resources and TA, sustainable ones do not. (2) Criteria need to be established for public sector sustainability. The following are recommended: the value of outputs is proved through a monitoring and evaluation system and funding is provided reliably, on a performance basis, and to increasingly ambitious objectives.