Background¹

Since joining the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in 1981 and up to the end of 2004, the Government of Rwanda has borrowed USD 120 million from IFAD (which represented USD 189 million of project finance including co-financing and counterpart contributions) for ten loans. This amount represents 4% of IFAD's loan portfolio for the Eastern and Southern Africa region, and 1% of all IFAD lending over this period. A first Country Strategic Opportunities Paper (COSOP) covering cooperation between IFAD and Rwanda was approved in 1999, and a second revised COSOP was prepared in 2002. Rwanda and IFAD have agreed that the country strategy should again be revised in 2005.

Evaluation rationale and methodology

It was agreed to undertake a country programme evaluation (CPE) as an input to the preparation of the forthcoming COSOP. The aim of this evaluation was, on the one hand, to provide information for revision of the COSOP and, on the other, to determine the results and impact of operations under the programme over the last ten years. The evaluation comprises three levels of analysis: (i) a strategic analysis of the programme; (ii) an operational analysis of the portfolio; and (iii) a thematic analysis. The evaluation process is essentially built around three methods of information gathering to allow for triangulation at the time of analysis: (i) a documentation review, including self-assessments by the projects; (ii) interviews and discussions with key stakeholders involved in IFAD-financed projects or rural development in Rwanda; and (iii) direct observation in the field. The CPE does not provide an in-depth evaluation of each project, but rather an evaluation of the programme based, among other things on an analysis of activities in the field, and designed to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive analysis of the programme's performance.

The evaluation covers IFAD's programme in Rwanda for the period 1994-2005. This period was chosen based on several criteria, in particular the limited scope of activities under the IFAD programme prior to 1996; the need to take into account the genocide and post-genocide period to draw lessons learned from that experience; and, finally, to cover a manageable timeframe with the resources available for the evaluation. The period of conflict and post-conflict up to 1998 posed challenges to development that also affected IFAD operations. This obviously has implications for the analysis of performance and outcomes, which have been taken into account by the evaluation team.

National context

With a per capita GDP of USD 210 in 1993, Rwanda was categorized among the poorest countries in the world. The 1994 genocide and ensuing violence led to significant loss of human life and the destruction of considerable production capacity, causing the GDP to fall by more than half and pushing three out of four Rwandans below the poverty line. The loss of life and mass population displacements marking this period affected the composition and very structure of the country's households. At the end of the genocide, the female population in Rwanda accounted for more than two-thirds (approximately 70%) of the total population, and most households were headed by women. Although the demographic situation is on its way to becoming more balanced, the consequences of these changes are still evident today in the high percentage of households headed by widows (nearly one-third).

A traumatized and highly impoverished population, a complex legal process for those responsible for the genocide, and the demands of the transition to democracy are some of the challenges facing Rwanda. In addition to these problems are decades-old fundamental challenges such as insecure land tenure, considerable demographic pressure on land (with a density of 325 inhabitants per km2 it is the highest in Africa), recurring famine and drought, discrimination against women as producers and citizens, and the country's landlocked situation.

Faced with these challenges and with very little resources, the government has begun working towards longer-term growth by adopting policies that foster an environment more conducive to development, particularly with respect to decentralization, land tenure and economic liberalization.

Poverty in Rwanda is first and foremost a rural phenomenon. Those living in rural areas are three times more likely to be poor than city dwellers. Managing the agricultural sector is therefore crucial for development, at least in the short and medium term, confirming the strategy of poverty reduction as the primary engine for growth. The strategy rests on modernization of the agricultural sector, moving towards more intensive agriculture driven by diversified exports. To this end, the authorities recently drew up a policy paper on agriculture. The policy supports, among others issues, gender mainstreaming in all agricultural and processing activities to improve living conditions for rural populations. The successful implementation of this policy will require capacity building at all levels and coordination between interventions to meet and overcome challenges such as food and nutritional insecurity among Rwandans.

Strategic analysis

The first COSOP in 1999 focused mainly on agriculture. IFAD-funded interventions under this programme took a broader approach and aimed to support the overall strategies of the rural poor and, in particular, to encourage the production activities of small-scale farmers. The approach entailed improving their commercial capacity, to develop from subsistence farming to income- and savings-generating agricultural production. The 2002 COSOP assimilated the lessons from the previous COSOP (1999) ², had an improved analytical foundation, and also aligned IFAD's country strategy with the 2002-2006 United Nations Development Assistance Framework for Rwanda, the 2002-2006 IFAD Strategic Framework, and IFAD's Regional Strategy Paper for Eastern and Southern Africa of 2002. The 2002 COSOP aimed at reducing rural poverty in geographic areas specified in IFAD projects through the effective participation of poor rural households in sustainable institutional, economic and human development activities. It focused on three strategic thrusts: institutional development, improving incomes and better synergy between IFAD-funded projects. The programme for the period under review covers, in practice, the entire country and, in the last few years, focuses more on regions considered poorest (Gikongoro, Kibuye, Butare, and lastly Umutara, considered underprivileged due to the inadequacy of infrastructure and social services). The main national partners under the programme included in particular MINAGRI, MINALOC, MINICOM, MINECOFIN, MIGEPROFE and MINISANTÉ. Key strategic partners for the period covered included BADEA, BAfD, BSF, OPEC, and Swiss Cooperation, as well as international NGOs. The programme took the form of loans, in some cases, with cofinancing in the form of loans or grants by the strategic partners, with the notable exception of the Rwandan Returnee Rehabilitation Programme (PRRR), which was financed entirely by an IFAD grant.

Overall the objectives of the COSOPs and of the portfolio are internally consistent, but synergies within the portfolio (i.e., between individual projects) is, for the most part, limited to the planning process. Projects are essentially designed as stand-alone operations rather than part of a sector programme, and, at the field level, during implementation, synergies between projects are almost nonexistent. However, a programme approach is slowly taking shape with the support project for the Strategic Plan for the Transformation of Agriculture (PSTA), which includes a dialogue with other donors that touches on policy, both at the grass-roots and national level The preparation of the next COSOP should involve in-depth analyses to identify a specific and clear role for IFAD within the context of agricultural and rural development.

The agenda for policy dialogue in the 2002 COSOP included the following issues: (i) implementation of the decentralization policy, particularly with respect to the role that rural communities and poor categories of the population can play at the various levels of local government; (ii) the development of agricultural services throughout the country; (iii) the institutions or "rules of the game" for the development of the rural financial market, including policy dialogue with the Government and the Central Bank; (iv) policies concerning balance of payments and exports (through the Smallholder Cash and Export Crops Development Project); (v) improving gender equality drawing on lessons learned from the project in Umutara; and (vi) fiscal decentralization aiming to increase revenues for district-level governments. Considering policy work that was carried out through IFAD projects at the micro-level, the evaluation found that policy work was undertaken in line with the envisaged areas of engagement. However, there is only limited evidence that policy dialogue took place at a higher level, in the form of a broader and ongoing dialogue between IFAD and the Government aiming at influencing Rwandan policies and priorities. In that sense, apart from recent efforts made under the PSTA, policy dialogue has not been IFAD's strength in Rwanda.

The 1999 COSOP explicitly foresaw partnerships with: (i) the World Bank and the OPEC Development Fund for the coordination and possibly the sharing of costs under the Umutara project; (ii) the Belgian Survival Fund in the area of community activities; and (iii) several United Nations agencies already working in Rwanda with respect to income-generating activities for rural populations, conservation activities, water management and social issues related to the latter. The involvement of NGOs and other civil society organizations in projects was also mentioned. The 2002 COSOP added to this list the possibility of partnerships with: (i) the World Bank in agricultural research; (ii) the UNDP in the area of good governance and decentralization; (iii) OPEC for basic infrastructure; and (iv) possibly BADEA for the rehabilitation and/or development of export agriculture, with a particular focus on coffee and tea. A number of these partnerships did take place. However, the partnerships envisaged with the United Nations agencies and the World Bank did not materialize as planned, due in part to the World Bank's late arrival in the rural sector. The evaluation found that IFAD would gain from becoming more proactive in pursuing a strategic dialogue on partnerships, and in improving communication and coordination with its strategic partners.

Organizational learning. The evaluation found that IFAD could do better in terms of disseminating and integrating lessons learned from its programme in Rwanda by overcoming the following shortcomings: (i) the absence of a follow-up system, which limits feedback; (ii) the absence of a programme approach, limiting synergies as well as exchanges between IFAD projects and those carried out by other donors in similar areas and/or regions; and (iii) the physical distance separating IFAD from project execution, limiting the exchange of information in both directions (from IFAD to the projects and vice versa). These constraints explain, in part, why only a limited number of innovations have been replicated and why lessons from the PRRR on post-conflict operations were not effectively fed back into IFAD programming in Rwanda. For instance, lessons could have been used to adjust targeting strategies to post-conflict changes in the rural population and social dynamics in rural areas. The factors limiting organizational learning may also explain in part why IFAD has not distinguished itself in terms of innovations for production technologies adapted to women, as it does not have mechanisms allowing it to easily exchange its experiences in this area with other actors in Rwanda or elsewhere. That being said, it is important to mention that IFAD, building on its experience in Rwanda and elsewhere, is currently developing a policy to guide its future interventions in countries experiencing conflict situations or affected by natural disasters³ .

Overall, IFAD's programme is relevant with respect to national priorities and IFAD's mandate and corporate strategy. While the IFAD programme contributed to reducing rural poverty in Rwanda, the evaluation of the operational programme has brought to light a number of constraints that have limited the programme's impact and the sustainability of this impact on the rural poor.

Operational analysis

Cooperation between IFAD and Rwanda took the form of ten loans: Byumba Rural Development Project (DRB-I, 1981), Birunga Maize Project (PMB, 1984), Gikongoro Agricultural Development Project (PDAG, 1988), Byumba Rural Development Project – Phase II (DRB-II, 1990), Intensified Land Use Management Project in the Buberuka Highlands (PGERB, 1992), Rural Small and Microenterprise Project (PPPMER-I, 1996 and PPPMER-II, 2003), Umutara Community Resource and Infrastructure Development Project (PDRCIU, 2000 and Twin Project, 2001), and Smallholder Cash and Export Crops Development Project (PDCRE, 2002). In addition to these projects, the Socio-Health Programme (PSS) was implemented with financing from the Belgian Survival Fund, and the Rwandan Returnees Rehabilitation Programme (PRRR) was carried out through a grant with co-financing from Switzerland and the OPEC Fund, as part of post-war humanitarian actions. Projects underway in 1994 were suspended and subsequently reformulated in 1996.

The mission noted the relevance of all the projects during the period covered by the evaluation with respect to the needs and capacity of the environment, and observed that the programme sought to adapt to the evolution of constraints and opportunities in the external environment, and to a certain extent succeeded in doing so. It also noted that with time, project design documents granted increasingly more importance to direct participation of beneficiaries and the strengthening of their organizations, elements considered to be positive contributions to the recovery of the fabric of society in post-conflict situations.

The projects faced implementation challenges that affected their effectiveness and efficiency. In terms of impact, they have performed fairly well with respect to criteria associated with technical aspects and technical training for households. They have not performed as well in capacity building for human resources or developing collective and institutional structures. Performance has been rather poor on cross-cutting issues, particularly regarding gender and sustainability.

Finally, the evaluation team noted that the projects, in their design, implicitly considered that women's needs as agricultural producers or economic operators were no different from those of men. This failure to take gender issues into account was not offset during project implementation. Consequently, projects have had little specific impact on improving the skills of participating women and therefore have not contributed to eliminating constraints on their productive activities or associative structures.

Based on the information obtained from project documents, exchanges with members of the management units, meetings with national, provincial and local authorities, discussions with implementing partners, interviews with groups of beneficiaries and personal observations during site visits, the members of the mission team prepared an overall evaluation of the projects' performance based on various criteria. The following table presents this evaluation synthesis.

Project Performance Evaluation

Criteria	PRRR	DRB-II	PGERB	PPPMER	PDRCIU	PDCRE
I. Project performance
Relevance	1	3	3	1	2	2
Effectiveness	2	4	3	2	5	3
Efficiency	2	4	3	2	5	3
II. Impact
Physical and financial assets	2	3	3	2	4	N/A
Human household assets	3	3	2	3	3	N/A
Social capital and capacities	4	4	4	3	4	N/A
Food security of households	2	2	2	3	4	N/A
Environment	N/A	2	2	4	2	N/A
Institutions and policies	3	4	4	4	3	N/A
III. Cross-cutting issues
Innovation	N/A	3	3	2	3	N/A
Replicability	N/A	3	3	3	4	N/A
Sustainability	3	5	4	3	5	4
Gender	2	4	4	3	5	2

 

Note: The rating scale is as follows: 1 – very satisfactory, 2 – satisfactory, 3 – somewhat satisfactory, 4 – somewhat unsatisfactory, 5 – unsatisfactory and, 6 – very unsatisfactory. "N/A" indicates that the criterion does not apply.

 

Post-conflict analysis

IFAD's strategy in Rwanda following the genocide of April 1994 is comparable to that of the World Bank and the African Development Bank, two other multilateral agencies present in the country before 1994. During the emergency and reconstruction period, i.e., 1995 to 1999, IFAD ranked 10th among multilaterals, with disbursements totalling USD 24 million. Nine bilateral donors disbursed more funds than IFAD during the same period.

Immediately after the genocide in April 1994, IFAD suspended its activities in Rwanda and restarted operations in the middle of 1996. The PRRR project, starting at the end of 1997, was designed in direct response to the situation that prevailed following the genocide. However, IFAD's approach to planning and implementation of subsequent projects, paid little attention to the legacy of war and genocide and its consequences for society (particularly in terms of land tenure issues and changes in gender roles in the agricultural and livestock sectors resulting from changes in the structure and composition of households following the genocide). Furthermore, IFAD-funded projects (both redesigned and new) have essentially taken a management approach that is focused on activities or outputs rather than on their impact. Consequently, with respect to project implementation, managers have focused mainly on physical objectives rather than results and the impact of their interventions on populations. With this approach to management, projects are not naturally particularly attentive to the importance of measuring the consequences of their actions in terms of inclusion of all social categories of the poor and vulnerable, many of which are a direct result of the conflict.

A conflict management approach is not only relevant in the period directly following the conflict but in the long term as well. An approach centred on a holistic understanding of the social and economic realities of societies affected by the consequences of a conflict, as well as strategies focused on establishing an environment conducive to the development of the social fabric, are key elements in development interventions intended to advance the cause of sustainable peace.

Thematic analysis

Beneficiary participation and rural facilitation. The situation that emerges from IFAD-funded projects is that participation by the population was mostly limited to being informed, without any real involvement on their part in management decisions. This means that IFAD's next programme in Rwanda must place particular emphasis on fostering participation by beneficiaries with a view to obtaining quantitatively and qualitatively observable results. This will require a joint and balanced effort from the population, project officers and the various levels of local authorities. To this end, the development of individual and collective skills to enhance the population's ability to understand specific needs is not only appropriate, but a prerequisite in various rural facilitation methods.

Beneficiary targeting methods. IFAD-supported projects definitely show a clear concern to reach the rural poor. While no systematic technique to target the poor was applied, the management of projects and methods used to target and identify beneficiary groups allowed poor households to take part in and benefit from IFAD interventions. However, data heretofore produced from the projects do not make it possible to quantify their relative importance to all of the beneficiaries. To ensure the relevance and effectiveness of these interventions with their poor clientele, IFAD should require that its projects rigorously apply mechanisms for follow-up/evaluation, which include a number of poverty indicators (such as physical assets of households, financial assets of households, households' access to various basic services, and children's nutritional status). Use of these indicators would provide information to the projects during execution as to whether target groups identified in the design stage have effectively been reached, and also allow for measurement of the beneficiaries' progress throughout the project.

Decentralization. The PDRCIU and its twin project are the only IFAD-funded projects that have carried out activities in direct support of the decentralization process of the government. The urgent need to develop basic infrastructure needed to provide services to communities settling in newly opened territories to receive returnees, in large part explains this particular concern shared by the two projects. In IFAD's other projects, decentralization becomes mainly a question of redefining partnerships, with decentralized authorities becoming an additional contact for them. This means that IFAD must determine, jointly with the Government of Rwanda, the place that these new authorities will have in its project development and management processes. Given that all IFAD-supported projects simultaneously cover several districts, this could lead to a district-by-district approach to the annual project programming and follow-up/evaluation. Such an approach would help project activities fit in better with local development plans (sectors, cells and districts) and could facilitate more direct, effective and efficient participation by beneficiaries in their management.

Findings and recommendations

The analysis presented in the evaluation report identified a number of observations and opportunities for future measures to improve IFAD's overall programme performance in Rwanda. The observations and recommendations are addressed to various key partners in the cooperation programme, and are presented in chapter IX of this report, with a view to add to the thought process being initiated on development of the upcoming IFAD COSOP with Rwanda.

A first group of findings and recommendations identify constraints to and opportunities for improvement of the Rwanda programme's performance. In particular, the report notes the following: the need for IFAD to implement programme management rather than project management, along with everything that this involves in terms of planning approaches, implementation and follow-up; the necessity for IFAD to clearly define its role in Rwanda and put more emphasis, beyond planning, on implementation of its programme on selected priority targets; the need for IFAD to increase its participation in policy dialogue; the imperative to better integrate two key cross-cutting themes, namely gender and conflict management in its programme and projects; and the need for more emphasis on capacity building in management and sustainability strategies in the planning of projects.

A second group of findings and recommendations concern improving the management of projects, and is addressed to various groups of partners under the programme. Of particular note is the need for a clarification of roles and a greater involvement on IFAD's part in supervision and implementation support for its projects and programme; the need to improve the participative nature of the projects and increase the sense of ownership of the latter and their results in IFAD partners, including the end beneficiaries in the field and, finally; the need to review, simplify and coordinate administrative and financial project management procedures.

---