EMERGENCY AGRICULTURE PROGRAM - FOOD FOR WORK

Evaluation covers the period 12/1/79-3/31/80 and is based on a review of project documents, interviews with project personnel, and site visits. With its winds of up to 150 mph, Hurricane David severely damaged CARE"s six warehouses and, to a lesser extent, those of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Two of CARE"s warehouses were rendered useless, while the other four suffered extensive damage. The transportation of food commodities to food-for-work sites was complicated by disaster-related interruptions in transport service and delayed financial support on the part of the Government of the Dominican Republic (GODR). As a result, some commodity deliveries to several work sites were late. These complications, particularly the lack of GODR support, caused great problems for the CRS, which had a greater volume of food-for-work projects. Carpenters and laborers were able to quickly set about repairing the warehouses, however, as building materials were readily available. Under this project, a total of four warehouses, two for each of the private voluntary organizations, were repaired, and a total of 4,442,763 pounds of food were transported to project sites. Direct beneficiaries included the estimated 367,000 rural poor who participated in the food for work programs. While USAID would not normally sponsor such a project, funds were provided for these activities on a one-time basis only because of the situation"s extreme urgency and the need to quickly alleviate human suffering. CARE eventually used less than half of its requested grant. Due to GODR"s inability to provide CRS with timely financial support, CRS used most of its grant.