Final evaluation of Save the Children's partnership grant

The evaluation focuses on activities in Costa Rica, Burkina Faso, and Tunisia, and covers the period 1986-7/90. SCF made numerous accomplishments, and its skills transfer strategy is appropriate and having an impact on beneficiaries. In the three focus countries, the project provided technical training to 6,500 participants and field office staff and conducted 58 workshops on training of trainers, field management, and community development. The community centers established by SCF carried out 230 projects in economic development, food production, and community improvements. SCF also significantly upgraded its field office systems for program planning, monitoring, and evaluation and expanded its home office TA capabilities and grant management procedures. Overall, more than 120 TA visits were carried out. SCF exercised adequate budget control and made a real effort to comply with the terms of the cooperative agreement. The project's most serious problems were encountered in Costa Rica, where the field office went for 3 years without firm direction, including a 10-month period without a director; this proved particularly troublesome when the food production activity did not proceed as planned and had to be redesigned. In addition, the housing program found itself in direct competition with a government-sponsored program which offered more attractive borrowing terms, and the field office was forced to redesign its agricultural strategy in response to government policy changes resulting from the Caribbean Basin Initiative. The project shows that SCF's program philosophy is concordant with that of A.I.D., which in this project invested its money in the best interests of the U.S. Government. At the same time, the evaluation notes several lessons in regard to management, primary country selection, program sustainability, program design and implementation, and skills transfer strategies which SCF should incorporate into its overall program as well as into future proposals to A.I.D.