The Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) carried out a performance evaluation of the Village Development Programme (VDP) in Indonesia. VDP was a redesigned version of the National Programme for Community Empowerment - Agriculture (known by its Indonesian acronym PNPM). Thus, the evaluation covered the period of 2009 to 2019, the period over which VDP and PNPM-Agriculture together were operational in Papua and West Papua provinces.

VDP engaged with the Indonesian Government’s flagship community-driven development programme. The VDP thus worked closely with policymakers and development partners and dovetailed public structures, enabling IFAD to help scale up interventions.

However, the disruptions brought about by policy changes, meant that IFAD had little control over the quality of programme implementation. In addition, the lack of robust facilitation led to certain target groups not being included in the VDP’s community-based activities.

For the future, the evaluation’s recommendations include investing in bolstering facilitation skills and services to enhance intervention sustainability. In addition, IFAD should adopt a longer-term orientation for its community-driven initiatives in the region, beyond individual project cycles, and promote improved participation of target groups.