Midterm evaluation of the cereals marketing reform subproject no. 608-0191

Evaluation covers the period 7/91-3/93. The CMRP has made excellent progress toward supplying inputs, producing desired outputs, and achieving the project's goal and purpose-level objectives. This progress is most evident in the commitment to policy reform made by Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform (MARA) policymakers and in the ongoing lively debates that concern the timing of the reforms and the procedures that must be implemented to achieve the reforms. In less than 20 months, the project has succeeded in moving the policy debate from the level of confidential negotiations between the World Bank and high-level GOM policymakers to a semipublic debate involving a much larger group of actors involved in the cereals market, including millers, domestic cereals traders and importers, representatives of farmers' associations, and other governmental and quasi-governmental groups such as MARA, Office National Interprofessionnel des Cereales et Legumes (ONICL), and Societes Cooperatives Agricoles Marocaines/Cooperatives Marocaines Agricoles (SCAM/CMA). The project has succeeded in furthering cereals policy reform in spite of the absence of strong sponsorship of such reform. The World Bank concluded the Second Agriculture Sector Adjustment Loan program (ASAL-II) without making substantial progress in the various sectoral loans, and the interest of USAID/Rabat in policy reform has declined in recent years. It is to the extreme credit of CMRP that the policy reform dialogue has been heightened despite the reduction in pressure from donors. In this regard, CMRP can perhaps be regarded as a model for the postconditionality structural adjustment project. The project has also done an excellent job of institution building, in improving the capability of both the Division of Economic Affairs and Planning (DPAE) and ONICL to undertake analyses of cereals policy reform, and in using the subsector approach to cereals policy reform analysis. The long- and short-term TA provided have been excellent. The long-term advisor has done a superb job in coordinating the complex policy studies undertaken in the project and in opening and maintaining the policy dialogue between the many actors involved in cereals market reform, many of whom form opposing constituencies. While the project has achieved a great deal, it was overly ambitious in its scope, given the multitude of issues involved in the complex and strategic cereals subsector. Cereals production represents approximately 20% of the agricultural gross domestic product; more than 90% of all farms participate in cereals production; and cereals are the primary food in the Moroccan diet, especially in urban areas. Given the complexity of the subsector, it is to the project's credit to have achieved so much in such a short time. The third year of the project, which begins in August 1993, will prove crucial as the remaining cereals reforms are expected to be enacted during that time. Many issues concerning policy implementation in which the project can provide much-needed assistance will arise. It is essential that this level of participation in the final year be increased to cover at least six months. Increased funding and level of effort for the long-term project advisor is strongly recommended for the third year. Also, to the extent possible, CMRP should increase the use of Moroccan consultants from the university community and consulting firms to enhance institutional development and the sustainability and domestic proprietorship of the policy reform process. (Author abstract, modified)