Energy planning assistance

External evaluation covered the period 8/84-12/87. The project has not achieved its central purpose of building institutional capacity within the MEM. Although the energy planning model was operational with staff trained to use it and proved valuable in the preparation of the MEM Five-Year Plan, the MEM"s Energy Planning and Information Service (SPD) lacks the professional skills and the necessary data base to use the model effectively. It is recommended that the effort to establish the SPD as a distinct energy planning unit within the MEM be abandoned. Instead, the SPD should serve only as an umbrella for analysis and data (e.g., development of information, management of the MEM data base, and collection and cataloguing of periodicals). The documentation effort should organize data from the MEM services and the parastatals to assure that the data collected are useful and available to users. The SPD computer and data base systems should be made compatible with the MEM system now being installed. The MEM should also relocate the planning function and the TA team to the main MEM building to ensure easy access to decisionmakers. The rate of spending for the TA contract was well in excess of the planned expenditures, and some reallocation of funds from outside the TA contract will be needed to complete planned actions. Finally, the project should be extended to 11/90 to offset the initial delay in project start-up, to allow time to implement the evaluation recommendations, and to recruit a new Chief of Party.