The Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) has conducted a project performance evaluation of the Promotion of Rural Incomes through Market Enhancement (PRIME) Project in the Arab Republic of Egypt.

The PRIME project was implemented between 2012 and 2022. It aimed to increase the incomes of rural households, including smallholder farmers, landless people, women, unemployed youth, and small and medium entrepreneurs, through an integrated approach of ensuring access to finance, providing market support and value chain integration.

The evaluation found that PRIME not only enhanced women's access to microcredit, but also fostered the adoption of improved production techniques and facilitated market contracting for horticulture producers. While it successfully supported market-oriented horticulture and livestock value chains on the production side, it faced challenges in generating significant pull-effects from expanded market opportunities. Furthermore, significant design and early-delivery problems, inadequate project management, weak monitoring and evaluation of ongoing interventions, among other issues, led to results that were lower than expected.

For the future, the report’s recommendations include ensuring the right sequencing of capacity development, marketing support and finance components; and adaptively managing design weaknesses as early on as possible, and consistently with project design objectives.