Niger range and livestock development project; 1981 project evaluation

Joint USAID/N-Government of Niger (GON) special evaluation, attached to a PES facesheet (PD-AAL-688), covers the period 9/77-9/81 and is based on site visits and interviews with project staff. Despite the difficulty of securing well-trained and experienced project staff (a difficulty overcome in part by using dedicated and often experienced and linguistically capable young people as Technical Staff Assistants) and the consequent 2-year delay in project start-up, the project is progressing well. Project strategy has shifted from livestock control to livestock development to address herders' crucial need to produce milk and obtain sufficient cash to purchase grain. Most of the mapping and subsidiary studies have been completed; range, livestock, and socioeconomic studies are well underway; and in-country and long-term U.S. training is on schedule. Four targets remain unachieved: testing of improved inputs packages and the formation of "herder aides" networks, pilot herder associations, and pilot range management experiments. Highest priority program recommendations are to: achieve the missed outputs; conduct the collaborative field study of livestock production; organize data processing routines; conduct agrostological/vegetation mapping; define cartographic requirements; and implement "pastoral relays". The second tier of priority recommendations are to: complete the epidemiological study of herds; extend range research to actual rangelands; reconsider the decisions to omit waterpoint construction and reseeding experiments; and conduct the study of recurrent costs of government livestock interventions. At the project management level, deemed crucial to the project's effectiveness are intensified collaboration among the senior consultants and between the Project Manager and Project Director; consolidation of the voluminous studies and interviews completed or underway; and increased communications between the project and its two sponsors, USAID/N and the GON. Specific technical recommendations are included.