Interim evaluation of DS/RAD project 936-5300, organization and administration of integrated rural development

Special mid-term evaluation is based on document review, interviews, and a site visit. Because RAD lacks sufficient control over the project agenda, research and TA have been well below target and are likely to remain so. Missions" veto power over who visits their projects has forced RAD and the contractor to act like a trouble shooting, indefinite quantity contractor rather than as A.I.D."s agent for learning. RAD cannot even choose A.I.D."s most interesting or needy IRD projects and plan for a cumulative effort. Further, all RAD project personnel are temporary, non-AID employees. This situation needs to be reversed. Most of the project"s weaknesses came together in Jamaica, the site visited by the evaluation team. TA there failed to follow up a relevant A.I.D. evaluation, missed the key issues, and proved irrelevant to management. Nonetheless, RAD and DAI performed well in several areas. RAD took the initiative on work important to A.I.D. and created an excellent and useful training framework. Both RAD and the contractor effectively marketed the project and consolidated the project agenda. In-country performance by the contractor was professional and resulted in the targeted 10 country reports and in insightful reports and research notes. The state-of-the-art paper, however, was uneven; the planned IRD design manual should shift focus from identifying to solving problems. Future field work should focus on follow-up visits to 4-5 countries. This project shows that while certain kinds of research, e.g., in chemistry, can be conducted by a consultant, research on a "soft" subject such as IRD requires creative interaction between A.I.D. Bureau and Mission field personnel. While RAD and the contractor need to radically improve dissemination within A.I.D., the real problem is the structural separation between learning and doing within A.I.D. itself - resulting in a juxtaposition of out-of-date and overburdened field personnel and a continual flurry of policy and procedural changes and ending in Mission antagonism to AID/W, cynicism, and lowered performance.