Midterm evaluation of the Niger rural organizations development project

Midterm evaluation covers the period 8/89-2/93. Key findings and conclusions are as follows. (1) Existing cooperative law, which still favors government-organized and geographically defined cooperatives, limits the development of flexible and autonomous cooperatives. However, a new law is now under consideration. Project staff have found cooperative subdivisions an appropriate size to work with. (2) Project decisionmaking is not clear and there is no way to evaluate field staff. (3) While the project has had some success in ensuring active member participation, the training being performed in the field often has limited relevance to economic activity development; the project also lacks a good system for monitoring this training. On the other hand, training in co-op development, group dynamics, and practical field work has been very successful. (4) The credit program is effectively providing access to credit to co-op farmers. However, monitoring and collection of loans are still problematical, and it is doubtful that existing banks will provide loans to co-ops in the absence of the project's guarantee fund and administrative support. (5) Most co-ops served by the project seem to be engaging in only a few types of economic activities with limited potential for growth. Those run by local traders seem to be in better financial shape. (6) The number of women participating in co-op activities is very limited; it appears that cultural biases were underestimated by project planners. (7) Some effort has been made to develop an indigenous institution to continue the project after PACD, but substantial progress is needed soon for this to materialize. The following lessons have been learned. (1) The development of profitable co-op activities is a difficult task within the current Nigerien economy. It is recommended that the project focus on identifying alternative economic activities that offer better comparative advantages and substantially reduce the number of co-ops assisted. The groupes mutualistes and/or specialized groups should be the key entities for promoting economic activity. (2) Credit programs require more disciplined design than do training programs, which can often correct problems without major consequences. It is recommended that the project's training and credit functions be separated both programmatically and physically and that a radical revision of the project such as recently recommended by the credit consultant be implemented on a pilot scale. (3) The project's potential for addressing the problems of women in development remains limited because most activities occur in rural areas, where resistance to change is high. Programs that have employed local women at all levels usually produce better results because the women tend to understand Niger's gender-related problems better than men. (4) It is difficult to measure the impact of training activities; consequently, the project has been measuring inputs and outputs in lieu of impacts. A well designed monitoring system that looks for proxy indicators of project success can help solve this common problem.