Effectiveness and impact of the CARE/Sierra Leone rural penetration roads projects

The feeder roads projects reviewed in this report were intended to complement that shift. Overall, the Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere (CARE), which is implementing these projects, has performed well, successfully coping with funding delays and other difficulties. CARE has also displayed considerable innovation in several instances -- using Peace Corps and other volunteer engineers, involving local chiefs and villagers in construction and maintenance, and helping the GOSL to improve its road selection process. Whether the Ministry of Works will provide continued maintenance is a major question. Project benefits have included more frequent visits by extension agents, increased stops by light vans providing local transportation, increased ownership of motorcycles and bicycles, and greater access to health care. Fertilizer use and marketing of greater varieties and quantities of crops are also more prevalent. According to some reports, commerical activity (new rural markets, bank lending, new rice mills) has been stimulated. On the negative side, indications are that CARE roads may have precipitated shorter fallow periods for upland rice cultivation, greater rice scarcity, and increased swamp rice cultivation. These factors suggest that food crops are being replaced with cash crops such as cocoa, coffee, and oil palm -- and are thus associated with reduced soil fertility, erosion, deforestation, and increased exposure to waterborne diseases. During project implementation, there was a shift from labor-based to equipment-based road construction. Unfortunately, A.I.D. and CARE did little to document this shift. The author recommends that in future projects A.I.D.: (1) determine whether the agricultural development strategy supported by the road project will benefit the poor; (2) obtain a commitment from the host government regarding road maintenance; (3) carry out baseline and impact surveys of new and old roads; and (4) provide incentives to A.I.D. personnel to carry out impact evaluations. A more detailed version of this report is appended.