Evaluation of reforestation and watershed management (project no. 838-0055)

Interim outside evaluation covers the period 7/80-12/84 and is based on document review, interviews with officials of USAID/SL and the Ministry of Lands and Land Development"s Forest Department (FD), and a visit to the Upper Mahaweli Catchment area. In terms of institutional development, the project has been a success, and has enabled the FD to acquire the technical and managerial ability to undertake a large-scale planting project. Key staff have been trained and have returned to positions to authority; a national forestry extension plan has been developed and presented to the Ministry; forest research capability has been strengthened; and the National Forest College has expanded its curricula to train Forest Officers for the first time. However, the project will fail to meet its overly ambitious acreage planting, short-term staff training, and construction targets. A full-time Chief of Party with managerial and technical experience and who divides his/her time between Colombo and field offices is needed to supplant the inadequate TA provided by short-term consultants. USAID must document changes, e.g., alterations in FD"s spacing system for fuelwood plantations, which have been agreed to verbally. The main lesson learned is that a full analysis at the design stage of the actual number of host government staff needed for the project and of host government budget restrictions would have permitted the establishment of more realistic targets and cost components when the project was amended in 1983. The project should be continued, but project documentation should be revised to state that institutional development is its primary purpose and that targets - in forest plantings, staff training, and building construction - are being reduced. Given these reductions, it will not be necessary to obligate the $2 million planned for FY85.