Evaluation report : poultry improvement project

Special evaluation covers the period 9/78-9/83 and is based on document review, site visits, and interviews with poultry producers and USAID/E and GOE personnel. The project did not unfold as planned. During Phase I, 264 person-months of TA and short-term training for 70 Egyptian participants were provided. Yet, training was oriented only toward management-level personnel and consisted primarily of observation tours of U.S. universities and commercial poultry production facilities; no technical training was offered. Planned improvements at 3 GOE breeding/hatching farm were not completed due to a host of implementation delays; the first delivery of imported chicks and equipment did not arrive until late 1981 and installation of new buildings remains incomplete. Phase II accomplishments were also limited. Plans to expand 3 additional breeding/hatching farms were abandoned due to the delays at the 3 original sites. Disease control activities which had been programed for GOE farms, intermediate growers, and village producers were implemented only at the GOE farms, and there only partially and after long delays; all that resulted was a study which recommended that a disease control program be initiated at the farms and necessary drugs supplied to carry it out. Only one Phase II output - a 1-month vaccine/pharmaceutical demand study to determine whether local demand was sufficient to support domestic drug production - was completed. In short, although improvements at the 3 GOE farms will increase their capacity to provide breeding stock, the project"s emphasis on imported breeds (which are more prone to disease) - while neglecting village-level disease control - suggest that it will do little to assist small producers. Consumers will likely benefit from the project, if the imported birds are successfully distributed to large producers, as will the large-scale producers themselves and the scientists at the GOE farms who will be able to experiment with improved breeds. Small-scale production, however, remains a promising area for future A.I.D. assistance. Annexes include exceptions taken by A.I.D."s Office of Agriculture to the evaluation conclusions.