CRS income generation project for rural women : final project evaluation

External evaluation covers the period 1984-3/89. Implementation suffered from a substandard feasibility study which made erroneous assumptions regarding the capabilities of the participating organizations. The entity charged with operating the sewing center, the Arab Women"s Society (AWS), required assistance in marketing and in establishing a cooperative, but such assistance was never provided because the Government of Jordan, CRS, and USAID/J were inexperienced in enterprise development. The project had persistent difficulty in recruiting and retaining appropriate marketing specialists and production technicians because of a shortage of these skills in the remote Mafraq area and in Jordan generally. (USAID/J recognized the need for additional training, but lacked appropriate mechanisms for training rural women.) The performance of AWS was further constrained by CRS" failure to involve AWS in the project design process. When it seemed highly unlikely that AWS could take over the project as planned, the project was transferred in 3/89 to a private enterprise, the Noor al-Hussein Foundation. Nevertheless, the project produced several important benefits: steady, non-seasonal incomes; increased savings and investment in labor-saving devices; professional work habits; improved attitudes towards women"s paid work; and increased awareness of the difficulty of implementing WID and income-generating projects. Financially, the project"s benefit-cost ratio of 5.77 indicates a good opportunity for further effective investment, and garment sales covered all production and direct plant management costs by 1986. However, the project was never able to cover indirect management costs, and it is not clear that it will be able to cover these costs even with the support of the Noor al-Hussein Foundation. It is recommended that USAID/J consider continued involvement with the project either by providing TA to the Foundation or by financing replication of the project by the Foundation or other organizations. Several lessons were learned. (1) Before committing project funding, USAID should determine that accurate feasibility analyses have been undertaken and obtain commitments from all participating organizations. (2) Project approval should be made conditional on the capabilities of participating organizations and not rely on certain individuals within the organizations. (3) The timeframe of income-generation projects should be expanded to 5 years. (4) USAID should consider funding nontraditional income-generation activities for women, particularly in light of restrictions on the development of enterprises potentially competitive with the U.S. textile industry.