Rural Women"s Production Center (overseas education fund OPG)

Final PES covers the period 8/79-2/85 and summarizes an attached final evaluation based on document review and interviews with project personnel and beneficiaries. Although no follow-on agreement has been signed, Technoserve is continuing to provide TA to the project-established horticultural cooperative in the areas of horticulture, financial controls, and food processing plant construction and operation. The project provided electricity to 172 households and potable water to 119 households. Establishment of the horticultural cooperative directly benefited 570 persons (i.e., co-op members, most of whom were women, and their families). Completion of a food processing plant (now under construction) should indirectly benefit another 6,000 persons. Five recommendations are made to encourage the completion of the food processing center with Interamerican Development Bank financing: (1) complete construction and equipping of the processing plant; (2) review and revise, if needed, cooperative norms regarding members" rights and obligations; (3) better define how long processing currently conducted at the National Agricultural School continue and formalize agreement to that effect; (4) obtain the support of the Ministries of Planning and Agriculture for enterprise management and development which will include direct involvement of the cooperative in processing operations and horticultural production in the area; and (5) obtain additional TA in areas such as industrial and chemical engineering, cooperative and enterprise management, marketing analysis, and financial controls.