Ghana: Country Programme Evaluation - Extract of Agreement at Completion Point - IOE
Ghana: Country Programme Evaluation - Extract of Agreement at Completion Point
The Independent Office of Evaluation (IOE) of IFAD conducted a country programme evaluation (CPE) in Ghana in 2010/2011. The CPE had two basic objectives: (i) to evaluate the performance and impact of IFAD's operations in the country; and (ii) to generate lessons and recommendations to inform the next country strategic opportunities programme (COSOP) for Ghana.
The agreement at completion point (ACP) reflects the agreement between the Government of Ghana (represented by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture) and IFAD Management (represented by the Programme Management Department) on the main evaluation findings (see section B below), as well as the commitment to adopt and implement within specific timeframes the recommendations included in part C of this document. The ACP contains inputs gathered at the national round-table discussion held on 2 November 2011 in Accra, Ghana. It is noted that IOE does not sign the ACP, although it facilitated the process leading up to its conclusion. The recommendations agreed upon will be tracked through the President's Report on the Implementation Status of Evaluation Recommendations and Management Actions. In addition, this ACP will be submitted to the Executive Board of IFAD as an annex, along with the new COSOP for Ghana.
Main evaluation findings
This country programme evaluation (CPE) relates to IFAD's strategy and operations in Ghana since the COSOP of 1998. The CPE is based on a review of two COSOPs (1998 and 2006), six IFAD-funded projects/programmes and nine grants. Following the IFAD Evaluation Manual, the CPE has considered three levels of analysis: (i) the performance of the portfolio; (ii) the assessment of the non-lending activities (policy dialogue, partnership building and knowledge management) and (iii) the performance of the COSOP.
In terms of portfolio performance, the CPE found that the projects' objectives were relevant but identified shortcomings in the concrete design approaches.
In rural finance, attempts to replicate successful experiences from India in linking informal and formal financial organisations were not properly tested and adapted to the local context. Support to decentralisation and local development did not sufficiently take into account the weak decentralisation framework at the time of the formulation. Effectiveness of the portfolio has varied within and between projects. Solid results were achieved in rural enterprise support, not only contributing to increasing enterprise numbers, output and profitability, but also promoting public-private initiatives to foster microenterprise development. In rural finance, the most significant results consisted of strengthening the regulatory and oversight framework for the sector and the apex bodies of rural banks and credit unions, but, at the micro level, access to lending products has not increased according to expectations. Results in developing value chains were mixed, more encouraging for existing value chains (e.g. roots and tubers) but more challenging for new ones (e.g. vegetables): constraints were the low familiarity of project staff with the private business environment and the limited support provided to them.
Efficiency was identified as a weaker area of the portfolio, due to higher-than-expected unit costs and longer start-up and implementation delays in IFAD projects/programmes compared with those of other international financial institutions. This was due to design lacunae, such as over-optimistic assumptions, funding gaps and weak traditional supervision arrangements before the advent of direct supervision by IFAD (2008).
The most successful impacts of the portfolio have been on social capital, institutions and policies. In rural finance, the portfolio has contributed to upgrading the competencies and standards of regulatory bodies, developing a national policy for microfinance, and to professionalizing the subsector. In the area of decentralization, the portfolio helped develop models of collaboration between communities, local governments and NGOs in planning basic infrastructure geared to very poor and marginalized groups. The available evidence suggests mixed results on income and assets and both positive and potentially detrimental effects on environment. The work done on strengthening institutions (notably in rural finance and enterprises) is expected to bolster sustainability prospects. On the other hand, public-private partnerships on value chains are only now emerging and suffer from weak business plan preparation and poor coordination among value chain actors, and will require a major infusion of private-sector experience and business skills before they can become sustainable.
The portfolio has been active in introducing innovative products, technology, and processes. Yet pilot testing and foresight analysis has not been done to a sufficient extent before upscaling and there has been a tendency of IFAD to upscale innovations country-wide on its own rather than involving other donors, generating a risk of scattering limited resources over a large territory. Projects have attempted to mainstream gender equality and introduce gender action plans. The most significant achievements pertain to expanding women's access to and control over productive assets and improving women's well-being and easing their workload by facilitating their access to basic services and infrastructure. Progress in strengthening women's organizations, decision-making in the community and representation in local institutions was more limited.
Regarding non-lending activities, there have been significant results in policy dialogue and partnership-building while knowledge management has been found as a weaker area. Policy dialogue has received increased attention as the portfolio has shifted towards sector-specific national programmes with policy dialogue components. The most significant activities and results have been found in the area of rural enterprise development, helping shape new legislative instruments for public support to private rural enterprises at the district level. Although policy dialogue in rural finance has sensitized the Government to the distortionary effects of subsidized interest rate programmes, the latter continue to exist. Matching grants, if properly implemented, could provide lessons to inform policy dialogue on subsidies in rural finance. In particular, matching grant could provide an example of "smart subsidies" that facilitate access of poor borrowers to financial services but do not distort financial markets.
IFAD has forged solid partnerships with government agencies at the national and sub-national levels. Financial partnerships with the African Development Bank and World Bank have generally been to mutual benefit. Both organizations were expected to co-finance the recent Rural and Agricultural Finance Programme (RAFIP) but this did not materialize, potentially reducing policy dialogue "weight". Partnerships with the private sector are emerging initiatives. Early implementation experience suggests that working with the private sector calls for a small "cultural revolution" and the need to scout for and involve more proactively experienced private-sector partners has been underestimated. Knowledge management was hampered by the lack of an IFAD field presence until 2010, poor M&E systems at the project/programme level and the absence of any portfolio-wide review. In the absence of focused data collection, and analysis at the household, community and sector levels, projects have pursued innovative and previously unexplored activities based more on good intuition than on well-grounded analysis. New knowledge management can be supported through IFAD's country presence, established in early 2011.
Finally, in terms of COSOP Performance, the objectives of the 1998 COSOP fully corresponded to the overarching mission of IFAD as it targeted the regions of Northern Ghana where extreme poverty continued to be pervasive. At that time, however, the Government's strategy was to accelerate economic growth by modernizing the agriculture sector but without targeting specific geographic pockets of poverty. Instead, the 2006 COSOP was fully aligned with the Government's broad based growth strategy at that time, while also reducing the emphasis on geographical targeting, particularly in the Upper West, the region with the highest prevalence of poverty, practically unchanged in 20 years. The 2006 COSOP emphasized value chain development, an important and well-deserved choice. It did not sufficiently elaborate on the implications and constraints such as the limited experience of project staff with private sector business practices (and to some extent the limited skills of emerging local entrepreneurs). While the 1998 COSOP strategy to target the extremely poor in the North has posted varying results—quite satisfactory in Upper East but only modest in Upper West—there are signs that focusing on these areas, notably the Upper West, is not only desirable but also feasible. The 2006 COSOP strategy was far more effective in institutional development and policy dialogue through sectoral and larger programmes, although at the cost of reducing emphasis on the Upper West Region.
Agreement at completion point - Recommendation 1
Bolster the next COSOP and the programme with more analytical work
As part of COSOP preparation, in addition to IFAD's normal procedure of developing strategic and operational choices based on sound analysis of the country poverty, macro and sector policies, IFAD should commission specific studies, action-research or "intelligence-gathering" work to support major strategic decisions and changes. A priority for the forthcoming COSOP should be to analyse value chain gaps and scout for successful private-public partnership experience, in the region or elsewhere, in subsectors relevant to IFAD. At the project design level, similar work should help fill knowledge gaps and investigate areas of risk. Finally, systematic data collection and analysis is needed to assess the impact of projects and programmes, including quantitative data on income and food security. All this calls for partnerships with international subject matter specialists and Ghana-based (national and international) social science research institutes, and to a far greater extent than observed to date.
Proposed follow-up
The Country Team agrees with the relevance of enhancing data availability for improved management, learning, policy development and scaling up, and several activities have already been initiated: In 2011, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) together with GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) and IFAD have undertaken a review of Value Chain approaches and models in Ghana. The review outcomes fed into the Joint Sector Review and led to the creation of a Thematic Working Group on Value Chains as part of the Agriculture Sector Working Group. Further, the Joint Country Programme Supervision and Implementation Support mission in November-December 2011 recommended that an in-depth analysis of selected relevant value chains be carried out in 2012 under the Rural and Agricultural Finance Programme (RAFIP) which is expected to provide vital information to the various operators involved in the implementation of the Northern Rural Growth Programme (NRGP) and the Root and Tuber Improvement and Marketing Programme (RTIMP).
The Country Programme Management Team (CPMT) will emphasise the need for action research, market and value chain analyses in the new COSOP to ensure that decisions in design and implementation are sufficiently backed by knowledge and relevant intelligence. The CPMT will ascertain that this be anchored in the emerging institutional framework for learning and policy making under CAADP to foster country ownership and effectiveness. The Implementing Agencies will continue to strengthen the project and programme M&E systems to generate quantitative data on income and food security.
Deadline date for implementation: December 2012
Entities responsible for implementation: CPMT: MOFA, Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI), Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP), IFAD
Recommendation 2
Balance between sectoral and geographic focus and build a model for Upper West
In view of their proven benefits to institutional development and policy dialogue, IFAD should continue to support subsectoral programmes with countrywide scope. However, it should combine countrywide programmes with specific interventions focusing on the north of the country, particularly the Upper West region, and further cooperate with relevant Government initiatives (e.g. Savannah Accelerated Development Initiative). Synergies between geographically-targeted interventions and countrywide programmes will need to be clearly specified.
Specifically, IFAD should concentrate on devising an intervention model suitable for the Upper West region. Drawing on the findings of past evaluations, the model should concentrate on: (i) transportation infrastructure; (ii) water management and irrigation (river gardens, water pumping, small dams where feasible); and (iii) strengthening existing value chains more suitable for the poor (e.g. tuber cultivation, higher humidity crops, tree crops, small livestock such as guinea fowl, small ruminants).
Proposed follow-up
The Upper West Region is currently covered by several projects cofinanced by IFAD, and most Development Partners are reorienting their activities to focus more strongly on the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) region.(i) As an immediate step, all ongoing IFAD-funded projects revisit their annual work programme and budget to include specific activities to target the rural poor populations in the Upper West Region, Upper East region, and poverty pockets in other regions, seeking complementarities and synergy. (ii) Supervision and implementation support will focus on the specific needs of the region and strengthen IFAD's leverage as a broker and facilitator for potential public-private partnerships to enhance market access and private investment in the Region. (iii) MOTI will give priority to the Upper West Region, Upper East Region and poverty pockets in other regions in the initial planning and implementation phase and scaling up the district-based micro and small enterprise support system. (iv) During the COSOP work, including development of the concept notes for the new projects, the Government and IFAD will discuss further the specific needs and opportunities for the Upper West Region, focusing on complementary support to the interventions already operating in the region.
Deadline date for implementation: December 2012
Entities responsible for implementation: CPMT: MOFA, MOTI, MOFEP, IFAD
Recommendation 3
Engage more in partnerships with the Government and donors for scaling up innovations
IFAD should seek greater support from other donors, the private sector and the Government as well as from other similar initiatives in the region for the scaling up of its most successful innovations. In developing or introducing new initiatives, IFAD and its partners should adopt a more cautious approach based on pilot testing, particularly for approaches new to Ghana. The CPE recommends the following priority areas in this regard. Matching grants in rural finance which have important potential for policy dialogue on support to micro and small businesses without distorting the market. In this sense, IFAD and its partners should consider a joint review of the experience with matching grant across IFAD's portfolio as well as of RAFIP implementation experience in order to better devise non-distortionary tools to foster agricultural financing; special savings and credit financial products that appeal to the poor, such as "susu" collection and group lending, may help improve the coverage of very poor categories. The promotion of the concept of farmers' field fora to support pro-poor technology transfer in agriculture is another promising innovation which, however, requires further refining.
Proposed follow-up
IFAD has already started to work more closely with development partners in 2011, which was strongly facilitated by the establishment of a country office with an outposted CPM. The CPMT will consider key successful innovations that could form the agenda of policy dialogue and joint learning initiatives with in-country partners under the new COSOP.
With regard to the proposed emphasis on matching grants and special savings and credit financial products, MOFA plans a review of current practices in the agricultural financing sector, as a priority theme for the analytical work jointly conducted by the Government, IFAD and potentially other development partners such as KFW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau) and other members of the Agriculture Sector Working Group. RAFIP should play a key role in view of its mandate. RAFIP should also introduce these topics in the agenda of the Ghana Rural and Micro Finance Forum, to foster sharing of information and knowledge as well as harmonization. Regarding the concept of the farmers' field fora, MOFA will conduct a review of the experience under RTIMP to assess the potential and possible pathways for scaling up.
Deadline date for implementation: December 2012
Entities responsible for implementation: CPMT: MOFA, MOFEP, IFAD
Recommendation 4
Engage in more fruitful partnerships with the private sector
IFAD and its partners should first review successful experiences in the Africa region with a view to developing pro-poor value chains and engaging with private-sector operators. Successful approaches could then be piloted in Ghana, using grants if necessary, so as to garner real-world knowledge and resources from successful private entrepreneurs. IFAD should also explore opportunities for collaborating with Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which, although not a private operator, is implementing an integrated programme of seed distribution, soil conservation, education and extension, and market access (encompassing value-chain activities) in Ghana, with a substantial private-sector cooperation element.
Proposed follow-up
The value chain approach adopted by NRGP is based on a detailed design which has involved private operators. It has also benefited from a small grant programme, in which different models were tested. However, since value chain programmes are driven by private operators, the transfer of approaches to new regions requires close attention to ensure adaptation to the specific context. Also it is important to note that different value chains have different characteristics, based on the type of commodities (staples vs. traditional cash crops, number and level of organizations of producers, suppliers, markets, etc.). IFAD will review experiences elsewhere in Africa through its knowledge management system for possible introduction in Ghana.
Partnership opportunities with AGRA have been explored in October 2010 through a joint field visit with IFAD, AGRA and NRGP. As a follow-up, NRGP has started to develop joint activities with AGRA's implementing agencies, i.e. the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI). The 2012 AWPB includes the collaboration with the "Farmer-To Market Project", the "E-Platform" and joint siting of warehouses with IFDC. Also, NRGP is linking the beneficiaries of SARI's "Integrated Soil Fertility Management Programme" to Extension Services and participating financial institutions to allow them access important complementary services and support.
Deadline date for implementation: December 2012
Entities responsible for implementation: MOFA
Recommendation 5
Mainstream environmental protection in IFAD's strategy
The problem of environmental degradation in Ghana is a serious one. Increasing focus and presence in the Northern and Upper West regions implies that interventions will have to cope with a very fragile environment. This CPE recommends that an environmental assessment should form part of the COSOP, even before the subject is dealt with at the project design stage. Building on its findings in this regard, the CPE recommends that such an assessment should also deal with areas of potential negative impact, such as polluting effluents from cassava processing and chemical processing of small enterprises, soil erosion, and water-borne disease in the case of irrigation.
Proposed follow-up
The CPMT will include an Environmental Assessment for the coverage of the COSOP, including the particularities of the Northern Regions, in the preparatory analyses for the new COSOP, which will be deepened in project design.
Deadline date for implementation: December 2012
Entities responsible for implementation: CPMT, IFAD
Recommendation 6
Bring to bear IFAD's country presence and outposted CPM
For all the foregoing recommendations to be possible, IFAD-supported modalities will need to change. The Fund has recently approved a new business model, which, inter alia, hinges upon direct supervision, country presence and non-lending activities (policy dialogue, partnership building and knowledge management)1 . IFAD has a very good opportunity to spearhead the new business model in Ghana. It established a country office in 2010, outposted the CPM, which will also facilitate exchanges within the sub-region and engagement in South-South cooperation. IFAD should take the country office and CPM outposting opportunity to further support its country programme, including non-lending activities. In terms of knowledge management, it should further mobilize expertise and analytical resources from within Ghana and the region as a whole, both for COSOP preparation and project design. Country presence should also contribute to policy dialogue and partnerships building, areas to which IFAD will need to devote more attention in future. And finally, IFAD will need to take advantage of its country presence to support the assessment of results, notably impact, at the project level and make a systematic review of the programme as a whole.
This would facilitate better assessment of performance progress, generate evidence of achievements and raise more attention among potential partners.
Proposed follow-up
Given the CPE's general endorsement regarding the strategic focus of IFAD's Country Programme for Ghana, the design of the new COSOP will focus on enhancing the effectiveness of IFAD lending in Ghana through increased focus on non-lending activities, including a more proactive engagement in policy dialogue, partnership building and the mobilization of national and regional expertise to back up design and implementation with qualified technical assistance. This has already started with the out-posting of the CPM, and will be further articulated in the new COSOP. Furthermore, the new COSOP will be based on a result framework, which provides a framework for annual programme reviews with focus on results and impact.
Deadline date for implementation: December 2012
Entities responsible for implementation: CPMT, IFAD
1/ IFAD's business model – New directions for IFAD9