The overall goal of the Oasis Sustainable Development Programme was to promote oasis development by enabling the empowerment of oasis communities to participate effectively in the pursuit of the national objectives for poverty reduction and the fight against environmental degradation.

The programme's stronger points are related to its relevance and alignment with the priorities of the Government and IFAD and with the needs of the target group living in a rural environment, subject to high levels of climate risk, erosion, natural resource degradation, water shortages, poverty and emigration.

Its successes have laid the basis to generate the desired socio-economic transformations in the oasis environment. Notwithstanding these globally positive achievements in terms of relevance, effectiveness and rural poverty impact, major challenges remain:

• the low likelihood of sustainability of infrastructures that may jeopardize the long-term durability of the project's achievements;
• a modest level of policy dialogue which has not enabled the base institutions to integrate their work into communal institutional planning;
• and the capacities of water user associations in place, which remains fragile.