SUPPORT TO REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS - ECONOMIC COMMUNITY OF THE GREAT LAKES COUNTRIES

Evaluation covers the period 7/1/79-11/30/80 and is based on a review of project files and interviews with project personnel. Satisfactory progress has been made on the project"s first, third, and fourth outputs (outputs unspecified in the evaluation) by Ann S. McCook"s 7/80 report on population and nutrition in Burundi, Rwanda, and Zaire. For the sixth output, George Kwata submitted a 7/80 report, "Medium Term Plan for Agro-Industrial Development 1981-85", which identified four possible investments in that development area. The short-term experts" three reports have been distributed by CEPGL to three member nations for comment. CEPGL itself was not wholly satisfied with the reports" caliber, but also provided no regular guidance to the experts and no counterpart to work with the agro-industrial expert. U.S. training in demography for one participant has begun, and other training is planned to achieve this second output of staff training. A request for statistician training was also made. Although it is too early to determine project shortfalls, the provision of short-term experts was delayed and the recruitment of long-term experts has taken longer than expected. CEPGL"s delayed finalization of the terms of reference and communication problems due to the Gisyeni"s isolation contributed to the delay in providing short-term experts. Regarding the long-term positions, an advertisment has been sent to the "Commerce Business Daily" and proposals are expected in December; attempts will be made to employ experts under a host country contract. USAID also is waiting for CEPGL"s clarification of the long-term demographer/population expert"s position. Action decisions listed on the facesheet are that USAID will revise the PIO/T upon receiving CEPGL"s new terms of reference and that AID/W and AFR/RA will continue recruiting for long-term experts.