Niger shelter sector planning

Final PES covers the period 8/80-7/84 and summarizes an attached special evaluation (XD-AAR-933-A) which was based on document review, attendance at a project seminar, and interviews with project personnel, GON officials, and donor representatives. Despite the initial problems noted in previous evaluations (mainly involving failures by both A.I.D. and the GON to provide agreed upon inputs), most project goals were met. The project"s key accomplishment was to help formulate a draft National Shelter Policy. This policy - which proposes structural changes to help mobilize individual savings, increase the access of low- and middle-income persons to long-term credit, and involve the private sector in housing development, allocating responsibility for infrastructure to the GON - has received wide support and is now under consideration by the GON. Moreover, designs of preliminary projects have been made and funding of these projects is being actively sought by the GON. Nigerien counterparts within the Service Central de l"Habitat are carrying out work begun under this project. Following the last evaluation, a prototype construction component comprising research on the use of indigenous materials for housing construction and completion of plans for a large scale sites and services project was added. This activity has been satisfactorily completed. The research identified an intermediate building material - stabilized banco or laterite - which the GON thinks could provide an acceptable lower cost housing construction material for target groups. Lessons learned are that: (1) planning projects can be considerably strengthened if they include, especially from the outset, a component such as the prototype subproject that allows for implementation experience; and (2) if this project had been designed so that each component was discussed upon completion, with expenditures tied to these discussions, the notion that the project was largely an academic exercise might have been dispelled.