Evaluation of support to regional organizations - ACOSCA

Special mid-term evaluation covers the period 3/80-3/83 and is based on document review, site visis to four countries, and interviews with project and donor personnel and with ACOSCA clients and trainees. The project purpose will not be fully achieved, for ACOSCA is undergoing severe retrenchment and today barely exists as an organization. In a drastic (but necessary) move, staffing is being reduced from 31 to 16, and 3 regional offices and 2 central departments are being abolished. While ACOSCA itself is responsible for its problems, the situation has been worsened by a serious lack of donor coordination. A.I.D., as the major donor - the World Council of Credit Unions is the other - should have required prompt remedial action. ACOSCA is completely dependent on donor assistance and will likely continue to be for 20 years or more. Nonetheless, ACOSCA will reap significant gains in training, in organizational development, and in risk management (the latter is relatively independent of the A.I.D. project per se). ACOSCA"s training program - its most successful activity - gives trainees the practical experience needed to provide training programs for credit union officers in their own countries. Each trainee, for example, prepares an accounting manual, many of which have been formally adopted in their countries. Moreover, training is being successfully institutionalized within ACOSCA and by mid-1984 will require only financial support and minimal TA. Regarding organizational development, a job task analysis has been completed, job descriptions prepared, procedural manuals developed and utilized, a salary and benefit committee and a performance appraisal system established, and a modern accounting system installed. The project should continue to completion, essentially as planned, with training given absolute priority; donor coordination should be ensured; and any follow-on project should focus on institution building, require ACOSCA to function as an entity, and recognize that ACOSCA will not be self-sufficient within 5 or 10 years.