Project completion report : Mae Chaem watershed development project, AID project no. 493-0294

The project met or exceeded all targets in terms of self-sufficiency in rice production, issuance of land use certificates, road construction/rehabilitation, bench terrace construction, development of water resources, and developing a model for watershed development. The project's success is largely due to several innovative approaches. Administrative decentralization resulted in much more timely and appropriate responses to field requirements. Interface teams of community development workers were invaluable in facilitating communication among villagers, project staff, and government officials. Land use certificates guaranteed villagers' rights to live and work in the watershed, thereby increasing their willingness to participate in and assume responsibility for development activities. Subsistence in rice production (as opposed to increased cash crops) conformed exactly to the immediate needs of the highland farmers and provided the foundation for long-term sustainability. Local detoxification of opium addicts (which was not originally planned) proved quite successful in reducing a significant barrier to project progress. On the negative side, the project encountered a number of traditional constraints, including slow and restrictive financial procedures; a slow, ill-defined, and inflexible decisionmaking process; incomplete interagency coordination; and difficulty in conceptualizing and implementing public participation. While the project had some success in giving the residents of Mae Chaem, especially hill tribe minorities, greater ability to identify and resolve their programs, local communities do not yet possess sufficient understanding and self-development skills to ensure long-term sustainability and consolidation of project gains. The project teaches several valuable lessons. (1) Preparation of the beneficiaries should be the first priority. (2) Individuals (not agencies, not systems) are the key. If this project had not had the particular Project Director or Deputy Director for Administration that it did, progress would have been far slower and several objectives would not have been achieved. (3) Unless you're involved in a welfare program, development monies should be allocated and spent very economically. Expensive projects are difficult to replicate, and large amounts of money will draw people's attention and participation in a project for reasons other than the project's own goals.