Project assistance completion report (PACR) for cooperative neighborhood improvement and job program for Central America

The Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF), the implementing agency, successfully increased the effectiveness of the informal shelter delivery system by providing TA to grassroots institutions and injecting badly needed credit to accelerate shelter delivery. CHF collaborated with 28 national federations, national technical services organizations, or regional institutions. The project far surpassed planned outputs in the number of loans provided to these groups for home improvement, self-help house construction, and building material production; the number of nongovernmental organizations assisted to become technical services organizations; and employment generated. Fewer community improvement loans were made than expected due to a lack of demand. Nearly 9,000 families are directly benefiting from the project through improved housing and communities. In addition, more than 100 small businesses are producing building materials and creating jobs in low-income communities. After the project's completion, A.I.D. had to repeatedly ask CHF for information on how long the program would continue to operate and what specific purposes loan reflows would be used for. A satisfactory response was finally received from CHF in 3/91. Key lessons include the following. (1) Program management should not have been located in Washington, since the program heavily emphasized field implementation of shelter construction, community developments, and TA for small private sector organizations. (2) Even though the project agreement calls for Mission approval of activities, Missions had little direct involvement since management was in A.I.D./W. (3) A five-year project such as this should have incorporated checkpoints or milestones that could be easily verified to facilitate monitoring. (4) The project's piecemeal approach to infrastructure development may not be as effective as an overall community strategy.