The Rural Development Project in the Mountain Zones of Al-Haouz aimed to pilot various approaches that could then be scaled up and replicated in other mountain areas in the country, to encourage beneficiary participation through decentralization, and to support the creation of productive socio-economic infrastructure accessible to beneficiaries. In addition to evidence being found of increased  local economic emancipation through the establishment and strengthening of numerous grass-roots associations, important results were also achieved in terms of socio-economic infrastructure, rehabilitation of small-scale irrigation schemes and soil and water conservation.

On the less positive side, the Project Performance Assessment noted that insufficient budgets needed to cover long term plans led to a focus on separate individual activities, in turn resulting in weaker sustainability of projects. Likewise the project faced challenges with respect to the gender activities and a large and disperse set of activities. On the whole, however, the project achievement is rated as satisfactory, with high relevancy of and several positive contributions to core objectives. The evaluation recommends continued support to communal planning processes, establishing more partnerships between involved institutional players and special attention paid to agricultural extension.