Project assistance completion report : project no. 519-0334-A-00-7253-00 -- Centro de Investigaciones Technologicas y Cientificas (CENITEC)

The project met its targets. It included a seminar program and weekly "charlas," or informal meetings; organization of a research unit, which with very limited professional resources conducted studies of contemporary issues; and publication of Presencia, a quarterly journal, which disseminated results of the studies and seminars. Policy TA provided to senior government officials was less successful and was suspended by mutual agreement in January 1989. CENITEC"s success in this project shows that it is possible in El Salvador for a politically affiliated institution to develop a reputation for objective, impartial outreach activities. A key lesson is that institutions that are to be evaluated by external evaluators should first carry out an internal evaluation following the format to be used by the external evaluators. This would force the institution to perform a self-assessment, and would provide useful data for the external evaluation. A follow-on grant to CENITEC (project 5190375) was signed in 3/90.