Peace Corps small projects activities (SPA)

PES covers the period 5/83-12/84 and is based on site visits, document review, and interviews with PCV"s, USAID/M and local personnel. Twelve subprojects, or individual activity agreements (IAA"s), have been funded and all are effectively accomplishing their purposes with few major problems; some 200 beneficiaries have been reached directly and at least as many indirectly. Relative to analogous projects in other Near East countries, Moroccan IAA"s have been large; funding has ranged from $650-10,000 and averaged $6,666. While the early IAA"s focused mostly on vocational or special education and on women"s cooperatives, later ones have included marine and inland fisheries, rural water/pump maintenance, and community facilities construction. Most unplanned effects have been positive: substantial symbiotic interaction among various IAA-funded groups; opening of the USAID/M technical library to PCV"s; and greater PCV awareness of and receptivity to working with A.I.D. The Government of Morocco"s (GOM) placement of a large number of PCV"s in urban areas, its desire that PCV"s work closely with GOM agencies, and its recent budget cuts have not caused any serious implementation problems, but remain a source of risk, e.g., that PCV"s will be requested not for their skills but for IAA funds, or that the GOM will look to A.I.D. or the Peace Corps for continued support of IAA programs. Also, the IAA"s must be carefully handled to avoid dependency at the local level as well as problems regarding accountability for funds. Action decisions call for: (1) an informal funding ceiling of $5,000 and a one grant per community limit; (2) preference for "secondary" PCV activities (to avoid developing expectations that funding will accompany PCV"s) and for PCV"s on site 6 months or more; (3) limited funding for PCV travel costs; (4) greater inservice training for PCV"s on the use and risks of IAA funding; (5) greater advance TA and use of USAID/M or AID/W resources for technical SP"s (e.g., fisheries); (6) more administrative help for PCV"s with proposal preparation; and (7) changing the wording of the project purpose from "village-level activities" to "basic human needs" to reflect the realities of the Morocco program.