The Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD conducted a performance evaluation of the Support to Agricultural Development and Rural Entrepreneurship Programme (PADAER) in Senegal, covering the period from 2013 to 2019.

Although PADAER was originally conceived as a flagship programme to consolidate and scale up the achievements of other IFAD projects in the Republic of Senegal, adjustments to the project design shifted the project’s focus more towards rice production rather than rural entrepreneurship development.

The evaluation concluded that PADAER has contributed to the Senegalese Government’s goal of achieving self-sufficiency in rice production, although the rice yields obtained remain below expectations and the support to rice cultivation concerned only a limited number of beneficiaries. Promising achievements were observed for infrastructure developments, and these have enabled an increase in production and farmers' incomes. The sustainability of these investments, however, is threatened by the weakness of the infrastructure management committees and their lack of operating budget.

Moving forward, the evaluation recommends that further support be provided to the groups strengthened by PADAER, while future interventions should be based on in-depth commodity-specific value chain studies, which clearly identify the opportunities for inclusion of women and youth. The evaluation also highlights the need for more comprehensive monitoring and evaluation systems, so that weaknesses can be identified and corrected early on during project implementation.