Introduction

A.       Introduction

1.         This is the first country programme evaluation (CPE) undertaken by the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) of the IFAD-Turkey partnership. The CPE covers IFAD operations in the country in the period 2003-2015. It includes an assessment of the 2000 and 2006 IFAD country strategies for Turkey, four IFAD-financed projects and programmes, grant-funded activities, non-lending activities (knowledge management, policy dialogue and partnership-building), and South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC).

2.         The three main objectives of the CPE were to: (i) assess the performance and impact of IFAD-supported operations in Turkey; (ii) generate a series of findings and recommendations to enhance the country programme’s overall development effectiveness; and (iii) provide insights to inform the next country strategic opportunities programme (COSOP) for Turkey, to be prepared by IFAD and the Government for presentation to the IFAD Executive Board in September 2016.

3.         The Agreement at Completion Point (ACP) reflects the understanding between the Government of Turkey and IFAD Management of the main Turkey CPE findings and recommendations. In particular, it comprises a summary of the main evaluation findings in section B, whereas the ACP is contained in section C. The ACP is a reflection of the Government’s and IFAD’s commitment to adopt and implement the CPE recommendations within specific timeframes.

4.         The implementation of the recommendations agreed upon will be tracked through the President’s Report on the Implementation Status of Evaluation Recommendations and Management Actions, which is presented to the IFAD Executive Board on an annual basis by the Fund’s Management.

5.         The ACP will be signed by the Government of Turkey (represented by the Acting General Manager, General Directorate of Agricultural Reform in the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock) and IFAD Management (represented by the Associate Vice President of the Programme Management Department). IOE’s role is to facilitate the finalization of the ACP. The final ACP will be submitted to the Executive Board of IFAD as an annex of the new COSOP for Turkey. It will also be included in the final Turkey CPE report.

B.       Main evaluation findings

6.         The long-standing IFAD-Turkey partnership is strategically important for both IFAD and the Government of Turkey. From IFAD’s perspective, Turkey is recognized as a significant player in the region and has the potential to scale up IFAD-supported development interventions, leveraging IFAD's relatively limited resources in the country. The dual role of Turkey as borrower and donor opens new opportunities for partnering. From Turkey's perspective, IFAD is recognized and appreciated for addressing regional disparities in Turkey, for its rural poverty focus, technical expertise, country experience, and its potential to bring international knowledge and experience to the country.

7.         The loan-financed portfolio has generated mixed results. The CPE found that project objectives were consistent with government priorities and COSOP objectives. Interventions supported by IFAD were also relevant to the needs of the rural poor and included the introduction of appropriate technologies. Rural infrastructure has generated broad-based benefits, and the projects have made important advances in increasing incomes and assets, in agricultural productivity and in supporting commercialization. The portfolio demonstrated more modest achievements in terms of other objectives, for example, such as increasing rural employment and building and strengthening self-sustaining institutions of poor rural people.

8.         The projects channelled resources effectively to poor villages and farm households within those villages, although with a greater focus on more capable and resourced farmers to the exclusion of the poorest farmers and without sufficiently strong mechanisms to ensure equal participation of women and men in project activities and investments. A targeting strategy ensuring adequate focus on the rural poor is essential for the IFAD-financed programme to remain relevant in Turkey, and to contribute to Turkey's commitment to reducing disparities among and within regions in the country.

9.         Moreover, ensuring appropriate support to poor smallholder farmers, key actors in the rural economy, is a vital pillar for sustainable and inclusive rural transformation in Turkey. While the projects introduced adequate sustainability mechanisms, sustainability of benefits remains an area of concern in the programme, limited by weak operation and maintenance arrangements and insufficient collaboration with the rural financial sector.

10.      Investments were generally well-managed and cost-effective, with infrastructure a highly efficient component. Project management has been generally effective, despite the challenges of understaffing and frequent rotation. Monitoring and evaluation has been consistently a low-performing area of the programme and needs to be strengthened from both the government and IFAD side in order to be able to account for results in a more substantive manner. The innovations promoted have triggered a positive response from farmers, who have adopted the new techniques and approaches. In most cases the innovations have been incremental. On the other hand, the CPE found limited evidence of scaling up by the Government of Turkey of positive features introduced by the IFAD-supported projects in national policies and domestically-financed programmes.

11.      Performance in non-lending activities is overall moderately unsatisfactory. Several knowledge management activities have been carried out to exchange and disseminate knowledge from the programme, but overall there is room to further enhance dissemination of lessons and best practices generated by IFAD-supported projects in Turkey. IFAD support to SSTC in Turkey through a regional grant is incipient and has yet to provide an adequate response to Turkey’s interest and capacity in this area.

12.      Partnership with the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock is very good. The Fund also maintains a good working relation with Ministry of Development and the Under-Secretariat of Treasury. There are opportunities for improvement in dialogue and communication between IFAD and the Government, with policy-level partners and implementing agencies, on IFAD's strategies and policies and the overall level and predictability of resources. Partnerships with international financial institutions are limited. Policy dialogue has been conducted mainly through the COSOPs and the projects, and within a narrow circle confined to the two main implementing agencies.

13.      Stronger partnerships with a wider range of actors, including other development partners, national institutions, civil society organizations, think tanks and academia, are needed to boost the level of ambition of the programme aiming at significantly scaling up the benefits of IFAD-financed interventions in Turkey. Moreover, particularly in view of limited resources, ensuring coordination and complementarity with ongoing activities by the Government (including the Regional Development Administrations) and other international partners is essential for programme efficiency. In this regard, collaboration with various partners under thematic approaches (e.g. climate-smart agriculture, smallholder access to markets) merits consideration in the future.

14.      There are positive signs in the evolution of the programme in connection with the plans to establish an IFAD country office in Turkey, openness to new partnerships, and recent progress in SSTC. The new COSOP is an opportunity for IFAD and the Government of Turkey to set new strategic directions to meet the expectations of the partners.

C.       Agreement at completion point

15.      Based on the findings in the evaluation, the CPE proposes five main recommendations to be considered for the future country strategy, in the light of Turkey’s rapidly growing economy, its regional status as an upper middle-income country and where IFAD can support Turkey’s efforts in rural development.

16.      Recommendation 1: Prepare a new IFAD country programme opportunities programme (COSOP) for Turkey. There is a need to improve the strategy formulation process so as to enable a proper analysis of IFAD’s strengths and limitations in Turkey and the opportunities and threats it faces in building a more effective partnership with the Government of Turkey and other potential partners. While a process that follows past practice - involving key government entities - is necessary, it is not sufficient for addressing the diversity and depth of challenges that confront IFAD in Turkey today. The CPE makes it clear that past approaches to issues such as SSTC, partnerships, the participation of the rural poor, women and youth in project activities and benefits, new technology for resource-poor farmers, commercialization of agriculture and knowledge management (including monitoring and evaluation [M&E] contributions, in particular) need fresh perspectives. It is imperative, therefore, to engage relevant national and international resource persons from both within and outside the public sector and the donor community in developing strategic directions that are robust and likely to work in the country context.

Proposed follow-up:

The Near East, North Africa and Europe Division of IFAD has already started preparing, in collaboration with partners in Turkey the results-based (RB)-COSOP covering the two cycles 2016-2018 and 2019-2021. The RB-COSOP will incorporate the CPE recommendations as much as possible within the Turkish context.

Responsible partners:   IFAD, MFAL, MoD, MFWA, Treasury, TIKA

Timeline:                    The RB-COSOP will be presented at IFAD Executive Board         of Sep 2016

 

17.      Recommendation 2: Improve targeting in terms of scope and accessibility to project benefits, particularly for poorer farmers and specific target groups including women and youth. Turkey is a country experiencing growing income disparity, and so poverty reduction efforts need to identify and recognize disparities, that may exist even within rural communities. Inclusiveness is placed high in the government agenda to ensure that the benefits of growth and prosperity are shared by all segments of the society. Improved targeting approaches can be achieved through various methods, which should include several key aspects. Firstly, future programming should be more precise in identification of target groups and use participatory processes to ensure inclusion of these groups in project decision-making. Secondly, there is a need to introduce specific initiatives and new partners to make sure that the more disadvantaged are not left out. These may include Ministry of Youth and Sports to help design appropriate approaches to attract and retain young farmers, Chambers of Commerce as mentors or area-based non-governmental organizations that work with culturally and linguistically diverse communities. This improved targeting will also require better definition at the design phase of who will benefit and how in M&E systems, as well as detailed indicators to track participation and benefits.

Proposed follow-up:

The IFAD experience both in Turkey and elsewhere would be tapped to strengthen the Government of Turkey’s capacity to address gender mainstreaming and improve targeting in the new RB-COSOP. IFAD’s focus on poor and vulnerable farmers in less advantaged and challenging geographies is highly relevant for addressing poverty in upland communities and would help to address inequality. In particular, similarly to the Goksu-Taseli Watershed Development Project (GTWDP), the new programme under the RB-COSOP would be based on the following targeting mechanism: (i) strict targeting of very poor mountain villages; (ii) within these villages, a special focus on small producers, gender empowerment and youth, using IFAD targeting and gender checklists at design and implementation) and (iii) adjusting grant matching system to become more pro-poor. This would enable the poor farmers, rural women and youth to invest in farming and small enterprises.

Responsible partners: IFAD, MFAL, MFWA

Timeline:                   RB- COSOP 2016-2021

18.      Recommendation 3. Strengthen IFAD's non-lending activities and ensure synergies with the portfolio. Non-lending activities (knowledge management, policy dialogue and partnerships) have been a low performing area of the country programme. Strengthening IFAD's non-lending activities in Turkey will be essential for scaling up impact and rural transformation. Ensuring adequate links between non-lending activities with the investment portfolio would contribute to synergies and improve development effectiveness. The CPE recommends in particular strengthening and diversifying partnerships and further investment in knowledge management. IFAD also needs to take advantage of opportunities to support South-South Cooperation in Turkey. The possibility of mobilizing country-specific grants and or participation in regional grants to support non-lending activities in Turkey should be explored.

19.      First, IFAD needs to strengthen and diversify partnerships in Turkey. IFAD’s relatively minor investment must be applied strategically, being viewed within the wider framework of key development partners’ ongoing operations and Government of Turkey’s commitment to the adoption of measures contributing towards reducing inequalities. In this regard, IFAD needs to strengthen and diversify its partners in Turkey to enhance its ability to leverage its programme in the country, both in policy dialogue and on the operational/financial front, including cofinancing with international donors, such as the European Union, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and partnering with technical services providers (e.g. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations).

20.      Moreover, IFAD needs to ensure strong coordination with national institutions and explore collaboration with new Turkish partners such as Regional Development Agencies. At the operational/local level, inclusion of non-governmental organizations and private sector with relevant skills such as participatory village mobilization, inclusive development, environment and niche markets merits consideration. In particular IFAD would benefit by engaging suitable selected private sector entities and also experienced donors directly at an early stage.

21.      Second, strengthen knowledge management. A key dimension of IFAD's value added in Turkey will be linked to its capacity to further strengthen the generation and sharing of lessons from the programme in order to improve performance and to support scaling up. IFAD needs to enhance knowledge management in Turkey, partaking its international and country experience, its technical expertise and its knowledge in involving the rural poor in design and implementation of rural investment projects, M&E, targeting and technical solutions in rural development. IFAD needs to make use of its capacity as knowledge broker, to be able to respond to demand on state of the art knowledge products and services, and prove global reach to mobilize required expertise. A dynamic knowledge management effort requires active interaction with national research organizations, think tanks and academia, which currently seems to be limited.

22.      Third, IFAD needs to facilitate exchange of knowledge and experience between Turkey and other IFAD countries, furthering current efforts within the framework of SSTC initiatives as an integral part of the IFAD-Turkey partnership. This transfer of successful ideas from one country to another can lead to considerable development impact. As a broker, IFAD can engage Turkish government organizations (e.g. General Directorate of Agrarian Reform, GDF) and appropriate research and private sector entities in facilitating transfer of knowledge and technical expertise to IFAD operations in other countries in the region (Central Asia, the Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East), in areas in which Turkey has particular strengths, such as e.g. food processing and food safety. IFAD and the Government of Turkey would benefit from a well-articulated approach to SSTC that includes TIKA as the main partner and the direct coordinator of Turkish solution providers from the public and also private sectors. Enhancing IFAD presence in Turkey through a country office - to capitalize Turkey’s experience and knowledge to provide support to other countries – could contribute in this direction. Opportunities to partner with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) current cooperation programmes on SSTC should be explored.

Proposed follow-up:

The RB-COSOP includes lending and non-lending activities. With regards to non-lending, IFAD would pay special attention to (i) knowledge management (M&E, communication and learning) for enhanced impact, outreach and scaling up. Knowledge products such as a thematic study on rural development of mountain zones will be prepared and shared with partners in Turkey and elsewhere ; (ii) Partnerships with donors and international financial institutions will be strengthened to develop effective policy options to improve livelihoods in the uplands; (iii) strong coordination with national institutions will be ensured and collaboration with new Turkish partnerships (e.g. Regional Development Agencies) will be explored (iv) South-South and Triangular Cooperation, building and scaling up on previous and planned work with TIKA, FAO, UNDP and with the United Office of South-South Cooperation; and (iv) possible agreement with Turkey to investigate opportunities to cofinance and provide technical assistance in countries of mutual interest, focusing on Least Developed Countries.

Responsible partners:   IFAD, TIKA MFAL MFWA      

Timeline:                    Non lending activities would be pursued during

                                implementation of the RB-COSOP 2016-2021      

23.      Recommendation 4: Emphasis on innovation and scaling up as two key strategic priorities. IFAD and the Government of Turkey are fully aware that financing for investment projects is not the major justification to borrow from IFAD and it is not an effective single vehicle to eradicate rural poverty in the country. This is particularly relevant in Turkey in view of relatively limited availability of performance-based allocation system (PBAS) resources for the programme. IFAD needs to further demonstrate value added in Turkey beyond projects. In this context promoting innovation and pursuing scaling up (two poor-performing areas in the programme) need to be regarded as strategic priorities in the future country programme.

24.      Promoting innovation. First, a closer review of mechanisms for innovation is required to reduce public dependency and build sustainable institutional support. IFAD has knowledge and experience in appropriate technology and local institutional development that could assist in scaling of pro-poor interventions that would be more consistent with the portfolio’s strategic objectives of empowerment and sustainable pathways out of poverty. Concerted efforts are required to find new mechanisms to strengthen collective farming and marketing initiatives to create economies of scale and value adding opportunities in relation to market demand. There is a need to explore, in addition to better access to new markets, alternative sources of investment capital such as Islamic financing models and to build coordinated support services and local business services within the project areas that will provide both improved local economies and establish strong platforms for future growth. There are some promising examples of small women producer groups and farmer-led initiatives such as family farm consolidation and joint marketing that could be studied and further developed. This would be of benefit in the Turkey programme and also support South-South and Triangular Cooperation initiatives.

25.      Scaling up. Second, building on additional efforts to strengthen policy dialogue and knowledge management, the IFAD-supported programme needs to shift from a project-centric approach to one aimed at influencing other partners (government, donors, private sector) including leveraging policies, knowledge and resources. This will require the adoption of a programmatic approach to scaling up in Turkey and a shifting from scaling up IFAD projects to scaling up results. Potential scaling up pathways (through projects, policy dialogue, knowledge management) need to be explored from the beginning and throughout the project cycle and will need to be supported over a longer time horizon, typically much longer than a one-time IFAD intervention. New ideas can be tested through pilot projects, as the basis of a scaling-up model.

Proposed follow-up:

The GTWDP project and the pipeline programme under the RB-COSOP include financing of activities aimed at building the capacity of Farmers Organizations and Producers Associations to strengthen collective farming and marketing initiatives through partnership with the private sector (traders, agro-processors and exporters). In addition to the pro-poor Matching Grant Program, the new programme will explore alternative sources of investment capital through partnership and synergies with Banks like Ziraat Bank. Other innovative features would include modern growing techniques (e.g. solarization in plastic tunnels); water saving irrigation techniques supported by solar energy use (e.g. on-farm drip irrigation), etc. With regards to scaling up, it is expected that the business models/innovations tested and proven to be successful through the programme would be scaled up with government budget nationally and elsewhere or by other donors.

Responsible partners: IFAD, MFAL, MoD, Treasury

Timeline:                   During RB-COSOP implementation 2016-2021

26.      Recommendation 5: Strategic focus on women and youth. A consistent, strategic focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment is required.  Moreover, in order to more closely align with the social and strategic context of rural Turkey in relation to youth unemployment and rural outmigration, a strengthened focus on youth is recommended. This should be reflected in the new COSOP, including clear and specific objectives in the country strategy and in project designs. Project designs need to better include gender mainstreaming and mechanisms to ensure gender equality of access to project resources and benefits, including allocation of resources to ensure they are not ignored in implementation. In line with IFAD’s 2012 Gender Policy, all future projects should also develop Gender Action Plans at the design stage. Inclusion of youth as a primary target group would be highly relevant. Rather than reliance on project activities targeting older, landowning farmers having trickle down impacts on rural youth, projects need to more directly target youth using mechanisms that are relevant to their needs and interests. 

27.      Additionally, the CPE recommends that IFAD support the portfolio more strongly with non-lending activities (knowledge management, policy dialogue and partnerships) with a particular focus on gender mainstreaming and on targeting of women and youth, as well as more regularly deploy gender and youth experts on supervision missions to ensure that projects are supported to achieve gender equity in implementation and respond to youth specific needs. Finally, logical frameworks for future projects should include indicators, targets and means of measurement relating to the participation of and expected outcomes relating to gender and the involvement of youth.

Proposed follow-up:

Strategic focus on women and youth would be reflected in the RB-COSOP, including clear and specific objectives in the country strategy and in program design.  The IFAD experience both in Turkey and elsewhere would be tapped to strengthen the Government of Turkey capacity to address gender mainstreaming and improve targeting. The IFAD targeting checklist and gender sensitive design and implementation approach would be applied during design and implementation of the programme, guided by mainstreaming of experiences from the GTWDP and in Turkey and elsewhere.

Supervision missions will include systematically gender specialists to enable projects achieve gender equity in implementation and respond to youth specific needs in mountain zones.

Responsible partners:      IFAD, MFAL, MFWA

Timeline:                       During RB-COSOP implementation 2016-2021