Food security management

The project started more than a year late, due to GOP administrative delays, and progress has been mixed. The Economic Policy Analysis (EPA) component has made the most progress: a number of seminars and studies have been conducted, which have influenced GOP trade deregulations and liberalizations, especially for wheat and oilseeds. Significant gains have been made in strengthening the policy analysis capability of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Cooperatives (MINFA); these gains will be consolidated with the expected formal institutionalization of the project"s Economic Analysis Network/Directorate of Agricultural Policy (EAN/DAP) organization within MINFA. There is, however, an urgent need for a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Policy Analysis in Agriculture (ACPAA) to review the work of EAN/DAP and provide guidance for the future. The Agricultural Data Collection (ADC) component has been less successful, having been delayed by GOP security concerns (CP"s were not specific enough as to the use of aerial photos and mapping materials for area sampling frame (ASF) construction and surveys). The ASF program is thus substantially behind schedule; ASF construction procedures need to be streamlined and more staff added to ensure that the program is completed on time. Surveys have been conducted in Punjab and Sind, and results so far have been of good quality. The component"s training activities have been unusually successful, and the component has done much to transfer computer skills to GOP counterparts. The Postharvest Management (PHM) component has made the least progress, due primarily to the inability of the GOP to meet conditions precedent in a timely fashion. However, information provided by PHM component has played a key role in changing GOP fiscal policy in regard to financing repair and maintenance of the public storage sector, and the component appears ready to make substantial progress and achieve objectives. Recommendations, in addition to those noted above, include: (1) developing a revised workplan for an overall storage training program with greater emphasis on management training and assisting the GOP in developing an overall policy strategy for the storage sector; and (2) considering incorporation of elements of EPA, ADC, and PHM into the follow-on Agriculture Sector Support Program. The Mission comments that the evaluation was of high quality, although the discussion of storage engineering was not as fully developed as it might have been.