Final evaluation : Catholic Relief Services/Ethiopia -- Title II programs : MYOP [multi-year operational plan] 1994-1996

CRS now programs approximately 21,000 MT annually of Title II food for development programs, more than half of which goes to over 20 maternal/child health (MCH) centers (each serving 3,000 children, pregnant women, and mothers), and for more than a million person-days of Food-for-Work jobs. CRS continues to reflect its past profile of relief feeding, with nearly half of assistance going to the Missionaries of Charity, General Relief, and Other Child Feeding programs in central and eastern Ethiopia, in Eastern and Western Shewa, Oromia, Gurage, and Hararghe. Principal counterparts are the Nazareth Children's and Integrated Community Development (NACID), Hararghe Catholic Secretariat (HCS), Archdiocesan Catholic Secretariat (ACS), Missionaries of Charity, Cheshire Foundation, Meki Vicariate, Wonji and Metehara Catholic Missions, and Integrated Holistic Approach (IHA). The category Other Child Feeding (OCF) includes integrated efforts to improve the nutritional status of children, efforts to prepare young people for jobs through schooling and/or vocational training, and food-for-work activities; these activities should be programmed separately from the welfare categories. The remaining programs in OCF and General Welfare either need to be restructured as institution-building efforts (some are relatively new and constitute a fragile social safety net for the poorest in Ethiopia, but need to be strengthened and to broaden their donor base); if this does not happen they risk being phased out under USAID's food security guidelines. CRS should develop a strategy, in collaboration with local church and institution leaders, that continues to provide welfare support while building the donor base, so that the welfare support can survive when USG assistance is phased out. CRS has plotted new directions for the MCH/Women's Credit and FFW/CFW programs: they will be linked by integrated mini-catchment geographical units with community health services and programs to improve water supply, and food production and access. The MCH programs have already moved impressively to include preventive health for the most vulnerable (children under age 2 and pregnant women). The programs have met the benchmarks for preventing growth faltering; overall rates of malnutrition in the 10 centers visited have declined since the 1992 evaluation -- from 845 among under 4-year-olds to 46% among under 3-year-olds. Severe malnutrition dropped from 16% to 2.3%. However, lack of control groups makes it impossible to attribute these changes to the program. CRS has strengthened linkages between medical clinics to ensure that children and pregnant mothers have up-to-date immunizations and checkups, and are referred for medical attention when needed. Pregnant women are being enrolled in the program, a rare achievement in worldwide MCH programs. Baseline surveys on mothers' knowledge and practices have been completed in two centers and will be extended to other centers; results will be used to revise education content. So far, it seems that more knowledge of current traditional practices would make for more effective mother education. Also, CRS should consider and monitoring nutritional status, growth faltering, immunization rates, and mother knowledge and practices; existing data can be used to set targets for age groups. The Women's Credit Program, an adjunct to the MCH program, has been launched successfully and is showing nearly 100% repayment rates, with increasing profits on larger second and third loans, and potential benefits on household food security, especially qualitatively. Women should explore new trade areas -- those that would complement MCH programs include producing weaning mixes (this has been piloted as an income-generating activity by Caritas). Also, an M&E indicator should be identified that will measure the extent to which profits are used for food expenditures. Under the Food-for-Work/Cash-for-Work programs, the projects that correct soil degradation have longer term impacts on agricultural productivity but also important early effects on ecosystems and farmer awareness. Also, there have been short-term benefits from improved water supply whether for livestock, human consumption, or small-scale irrigation. Grasses that hold the soil are harvested for forage. Future activities will include: integration of effort within well-defined catchment areas; inputs that ensure short-term increases in crop yield; and consideration of project assets as a priority over simply helping poor families. Overall, technical performance of the projects was adequate, although demonstration models may be very complex and research-oriented; more practical models might be those that promote proven crop varieties that farmers could rapidly adopt. CRS has taken many steps to move away from what has been a strong humanitarian, egalitarian stance to a new role that will continue to meet the needs of the poorest, but will include more carefully designed, integrated, and concentrated development-oriented projects whose benefits can be measured thanks to baseline and follow-up surveys and a monitoring and evaluation strategy, so that CRS can move on to new areas before counterparts and beneficiaries grow dependent. (Author abstract, modified)