Provincial area development program I, provincial area development program II

The synthesis was based largely on two 1986 evaluations - a study of PDP"s beneficiary impact (XD-AAY-045-A), and a multidisicplinary study of PDP"s institutional impact. PDP impacts have been notable and have extended far beyond the target area and targeted institutions. Some 333,000 families have benefited directly, 56-88% of them in the lower half of their province"s income group and 77% reported an real net gain in annual family income (averaging 11-18%) - although the sectors and provinces which reported the best results tended to do less well at targeting the poor. Despite soft data, the sustainability rate for the increases is estimated at 58%, and rising. Cost-effectiveness and economic rate of return are very favorable compared with projects of other donors or the Government of Indonesia (GOI). There are also many reported cases of non-beneficiaries adopting PDP techniques. PDP also improved local institutions" management capacities. Indices of this are the increasing beneficiary gains, the amount of funds disbursed at or below the district level, case studies showing institutional learning, and the initiation of numerous innovative subproject"s (SP"s) and structural innovations. A beneficiary survey suggests that institutional performance was more important than the behavior or perseverance of individual beneficiaries in sustaining PDP activities. However, there seems to be less cause for optimism about the sustainability of institutional gains than other PDP achievements. For one thing, many provincial and district governments may not have the financial resources to continue PDP activities. The lack of a clear overall training strategy also probably weakened PDP"s institutional impact, and PDP may have spread into new areas too quickly in some provinces. Overall, PDP was too optimistic about the prospects for rapid institutional change. Too much money was disbursed - especially in credit SP"s - during PDP"s early years. More careful attention to project goals and assumptions during the design stage might have resulted in an earlier focus on institution building - e.g., via intensive TA to the Directorate General of Regional Development (BANGDA) BANDGA - rather than on disbursing funds to local agencies which could not effectively absorb them. Key recommendations are to (1) make the beneficiary and SP selection process more rigorous and explicit; (2) determine activities and management approaches have been most successful; and (3) conduct a small longitudinal study of a cross-section of beneficiaries. Finally, the skills, techniques, and approaches promoted by PDP should be disseminated as widely as possible throughout the GOI.