Evaluation, IHAP project : Cook Islands integrated rural development project, AID grant no. 492-1706

Mid-term external evaluation covers the period 9/80-6/84 and is based on document review, visits to 20 of the project"s 30 activity sites, and interviews with Cook Island Government (CIG) officials and the IHAP project manager and staff. Most of the 20 pilot activities examined are worthwhile and consistent with long-term CIG goals of encouraging income and employment generating enterprises, but only two hold promise for a wider, more sophisticated future interventions. Of these, the first demonstrated a potential for oyster pearl and shell cultivation in Rakahanga and Manikiki islands by providing lantern nets for spat (oyster egg) development, thereby furnishing strong argument for a coastal fishery development program. The second supported a Peace Corps project which demonstrated solar energy panels and a locally produced fish drying oven; the latter has immediate utility as well as considerable value to a potential coastal fisheries program. The objective of undertaking pilot interventions that could be expanded in the future was probably too ambitious. Most project activities have been narrowly focused. Choice of activities is based on requests by Island Councils or by Ministry officials and, due to the wide range of requests, their small monetary value, and the limited funds available to hire experts, the activities necessarily address only a small part of what might, or might not, be a larger developmental problem. CIG"s Department of Planning (which, theoretically at least, would view each request in the larger developmental context) has removed itself from the approval process. Planned TA to Tumu Korero school and to a vocational training program for juvenile delinquents was not provided, as the CIG abolished both the school and the program. The project should not be extended unless its objectives are made more modest, similar to those of an Accelerated Impact Program. It is recommended that IHAP pursue possibilities in coastal fishing, including shellfish, and include a fisheries component in an extension to its Agricultural Diversification project. Also, based on experiences with certain of the project activities, IHAP should make sure that sufficient resources are available both to fully implement activities and to cover recurrent costs, and should not undertake a community type intervention without community input into planning. (Adapted from ANE Executive Summary, PD-AAT-322, pp. 127-128)