The project performance assessment of the Rural Finance Sector Programme in China contributed to increased access to finance by the poor, women and small producers. It also contributed to enhancing the livelihoods of rural households in the project counties by an increase in household assets and production, improvement in food security, and in the strengthening of human and social capital and socio-economic status of women. However, the project originally designed as a sector project to participate in systemic policy reforms could not do so due to a lack of proper institutional arrangements, rapid changing nature of the ongoing reform process and inadequate grasp of the reform issues and institutional complexity of the rural finance sector in China.