Second annual review of the rural sector grant

Special evaluation covers the period 3/82-3/82 and is based on site visits by a consultant team. Regarding the land use planning and management component, eight Subordinate Land Board offices have been constructed and Land Board offices equipped under the Development of Land Institutions SP, and a Cornell University team completed a detailed, policy-oriented water points/use study in Eastern Botswana. There was less progress under the Implementation of Integrated Land Use Plans SP. Except in Ngamiland, grant funds have not contributed to district programs to generate land use plans for communal areas. Also, there is no host government concensus on how local-level land use planning is to be carried out. It is therefore recommended that information collection and applied research focus more on land use planning; national and district-level seminars on communal land use be funded; and the successful Ngamiland experience be examined. Regarding the agricultural production and incomes component, there has been significant growth in demand for funds to support small SP's but very little monitoring of individual SP's, representing a valuable lost opportunity for the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) to examine the feasibility of decentralized systems for agricultural project identification, design, and implementation. Drift fencing and vegetable gardening activities have dominated; decentralization activities have chiefly been in the areas of forestry and horticulture. An SP to reduce agricultural information constraints is pending. The evaluators strongly recommend greater MOA monitoring of SP's under this component. Lastly, substantial progress has been made under the non-farm income and employment component, mainly through the successful establishment by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of a cadre of rural industrial officers; there is, however, a shortage of candidates for the program. Efforts to develop a wildlife utilization plan have not paid off. Also, it has become clear that a more sustained effort on the part of both the public and private sectors is required.