Project assistance completion report : agricultural production support project

The project made very little progress due to basic flaws in design (particularly in assumptions regarding credit) and delays in the delivery of TA and training and was eventually terminated by the Mission in 9/90. No credit was disbursed to traders, since commercial banks were reluctant to take on the risks of lending to the cereals sector. Although significant progress was made in privatizing retail fertilizer trade, the project played no role in this. A component to collect agricultural statistics suffered a major setback with the medical evacuation of the technical advisor, who had only begun drafting a preliminary workplan. Some accomplishments were made in the project's media campaign. Through a local media development firm, the project broadcast promotional messages in French and five local languages via national and regional radio stations. The campaign also helped organize meetings at the village and district levels with crop producers, inputs traders, credit agents, and extension agents. Technical bulletins and manuals in French and Wolof on agricultural input use were distributed, and a film was produced to demonstrate correct input use. Several lessons were learned. (1) The many conflicting responsibilities of the directors of the various components and the head office could have been resolved by making each component financially autonomous, with the head office playing a coordinating role. (2) The absence of a socioeconomic study was probably a major impediment to good project design. (3) Rather than providing credit for cereals only, an integrated program providing credit for livestock, cereals, vegetables, and, especially, cash crops should have been initiated. Without a linkage to cash crops, there is little chance to increase production of cereal crops, which are rarely marketed for cash and hence cannot generate the income required to make loan payments. (4) The project design was based on Senegalese policies that were totally out of date. (5) Host-country contracting in Senegal is too cumbersome to be workable.