Pilot village-level natural resources management activities

universities. The evaluation covered the period 9/89-1/92. The project"s prospects for improving the capacity of individuals and local groups to deal with natural resource management issues are good. The use of existing approaches and simple, well-tested technologies is appropriate, as is the reliance on local decisionmaking. The system of using a coordinating PVO which provides subgrants to local NGO"s is a workable mechanism. Subgrants have been well-conceived in terms of strategy, scope, and target group. Demand for assistance from U.S. universities is considerably less than anticipated. Local technical capacity appears sufficient to deal with the range of technical issues faced at the village level. There is also some degree of cultural resistance to reliance on outsiders for technical solutions to local problems. When TA is necessary, the local NGO"s and community groups have the capacity to obtain appropriate assistance from national-level institutions. On the negative side, the overall project structure is too cumbersome and complex for a pilot activity. Project management is too centralized in North Carolina, and inadequately reflects local needs, problems, and solutions; the PVO Center"s role should be recast into that of an administrative and support entity. The Burkina Faso Coordinating Committee should be disbanded or restructured, and the Liaison Office should be reconstituted as a fully staffed Project Management Office. Considerable efforts are needed to improve communication among project managers at all levels. The Office of the A.I.D. Representative (OAR)/Burkina found the evaluation report lacking in depth and understanding of the project and amiss in many of its judgements. For example, the evaluators were unaware of the significant difference between an OPG and a Cooperative Agreement and careless in their analysis of the Ouagadougou Liaison Office. The Mission also found the evaluators somewhat biased in favor of the PVO Center.