Rome, 16 December 2024 – Small producers' associations, organizations and cooperatives feel a strong sense of committed ownership of business plans developed through IFAD-supported projects in the Dominican Republic and are motivated to move forward with the related economic strategies. Going forward, IFAD will be looking to develop more successful project design and management models, as implementation and sustainability issues affect current activities in the country. Fabrizio Felloni, former Deputy Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE), presented these and other related findings during the national learning workshop of the Dominican Republic Country Strategy and Programme Evaluation (CSPE).  

Co-organized by the Government of the Dominican Republic and IOE, in collaboration with IFAD’s Latin America and the Caribbean Division, the on-line virtual workshop brought together a wealth of high-level attendants, including Luis Gregorio Madera Sued, Vice-Minister of Monitoring and Governmental Coordination of the Dominican Republic; Ms Miriam Estela Guzmán de Tejada, Vice-Minister of Rural Development, Ministry of Agriculture; Ms Sandra Lara, Director General of Multilateral Cooperation, Vice-Minister of International Cooperation, Ministry of Planning and Development; and Joaquin Antonio González, Vice-Minister of Agroindustry Promotion of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Over 50 participants joined the event, representing the government of the Dominican Republic, development partners, civil society organizations, private sector partners, and IFAD senior management and staff.

During the workshop, participants discussed the main findings, recommendations and issues emerging from the CSPE. The meeting also provided an opportunity to focus on the opportunities and challenges of the partnership between IFAD and the Government in the near future and discuss strategic priorities for IFAD's upcoming programme.

“It is necessary to improve food security so that rural families have access to food and so that there is inclusive agriculture and farming. There are big challenges in rural areas, such as limited productivity. Rural communities depend on basic farming that makes them vulnerable to climate and price fluctuations. There is great potential to be able to make communities more resilient”, said Rossana Polastri, Regional Director, Latin America and Caribbean Division, speaking on behalf of Dr Donal Brown, Associate Vice-President of IFAD's Department for Country Operations.

This was IOE’s first CSPE in the Dominican Republic. It covered the period 2011-2024, during which IFAD approved two Country Cooperation Strategies with the Government, in 2010 and 2017. The evaluation analysed five loans, and eight grants co-financed by IFAD.

During the workshop, participants recognized that the projects supported the social and organizational fabric in rural areas. They contributed to the strengthening and structuring of a productive associative base that can help boost local economies, with the emergence of local leadership at grassroots level.

“We are taking on rural development in an institutional fashion. We have specific instruments to provide support to SMEs. This has allowed us to make progress in executing IFAD-supported programmes. There are a lot of things that need to be fine-tuned, but there has been a positive change in general” explained Sandra Lara.

Also noteworthy was the contribution that the projects made to the quality of agricultural production and productivity. Evidence suggests that they helped improve coffee quality and facilitated access to organic and fair-trade markets. Furthermore, coffee producer organizations, thanks to the creation of nurseries, were more resilient to rust outbreaks and productivity recovered more quickly. In banana producer associations, new organic fertilization and irrigation management techniques were promoted.

“The concept of rural development is not very visible on a daily basis, but the participation of people has been on the increase over the past months and years. Tangible results have been achieved. We are all convinced that rural development is not just farming in nature. It is based on the power that farming has in those territories, but it diversifies and has to take into account the well-being of producers for there to be production”, highlighted Miriam Estela Guzmán de Tejada.

Unfortunately, workshop participants also highlighted significant sustainability issues that have constrained these and other gains. The discontinuing of technical and management support activities following project closure negatively impacted the capacity to manage processing plants and complex production processes, to analyse markets and develop new products. This, as technical and business management capacities were not sufficiently consolidated.

“In the closed projects, the design and execution of the investment plans were oriented towards large processing plants, often not supported by an assessment of their economic viability”, said Dr Indran A. Naidoo, IOE Director.

In a similar vein, little progress was made in supporting the rural areas of the country to diversify employment and income, especially among young people, as limited attention was paid to ecotourism and cultural tourism initiatives, green businesses, coffee and cacao routes, and initiatives with private operators.

“Decreasing food safety problems is one of our main priorities. Poverty eradication is also a key element, which requires access to food. Achieving this is extremely difficult, especially in rural areas where we need to increase formal employment rates. Ensuring the sustainability of interventions that address these issues is most important”, noted Luis Gregorio Madera Sued.

The evaluation also found few synergies between projects and grants, and between grants themselves. Moreover, the opportunities offered by the grants to update project approaches and methods in some key areas such as family farming, climate change adaptation, value chains and food security were not fully exploited. Other aspects that did not receive sufficient attention included the creation of collaborative networks with private actors, and avenues for increased household income and employment generation.

“I’d like to underline that, based on all the information at our disposal, hopefully we will be able to articulate a public policy at the national level that is comprehensive for all of the farming sector. The future of agriculture lies in its industrialization and in the transformation of the farming sector”, underscored Joaquin Antonio González

To address these challenges, the CSPE recommends a paradigm shift, moving from a conventional model based on cooperatives and large-scale associations, to a model of dynamization of capacities, knowledge, culture and local strategies, with associative groups and differentiated enterprises. The report also suggests shifting from 'atomized' interventions to territorial development and management processes and strengthening knowledge sharing within and outside the country.

The economic structure of the Dominican Republic is dominated by the services sector, mainly tourism, which in 2022 contributed 60.4% of GDP. Over the past two decades, the Dominican Republic has been one of the fastest growing economies in the region and is classified as an upper-middle income country. From 2013 to 2021, a reduction in monetary poverty from 39.6 % to 23.9 %, and in extreme poverty from 9.3 % to 3.1 % was observed.

For further information, please contact Dr Alexander Voccia, Senior Evaluation Communication & KM Specialist [here].

• To access the Executive Summary of the Dominican Republic CSPE report, please click here.

• To access the brochure ‘More than a journey | 20 years of independence, please click here.
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