Introduction

The Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE) carried out a Country Programme Evaluation (CPE) in 2014. This is the second CPE conducted by IOE in the United Republic of Tanzania since the Fund started its operations in the country in 1978. The first CPE was completed in 2003 and its findings served as an input to the preparation of the 2003 COSOP. The main objectives of the second CPE were to assess the overall partnership between IFAD and Tanzania in reducing rural poverty, and to generate a series of findings and recommendations that will inform the definition of future cooperation between IFAD and the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania as well as to assist in the implementation of ongoing operations and in the design of future IFAD-funded projects in the country.

Based on the analysis of the cooperation during the period 2004-2014, the CPE aims at providing an overarching assessment of: (i) the performance and impact of programmes and projects supported by IFAD operations; (ii) the performance and results of IFAD’s non-lending activities in Tanzania: policy dialogue, knowledge management and partnership building; (iii) the relevance and effectiveness of IFAD’s country strategic opportunities programmes (COSOPs) of 2003 and 2007; and overall management of the country programme. This Agreement at Completion Point (ACP) contains a summary of the main findings from the CPE (see section B below).

The ACP has been finalized between the IFAD management (represented by the Associate Vice-President, Programme Management Department) and the Government of the United Republic Tanzania (represented by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives on the mainland and the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Zanzibar), and reflects their understanding of the main findings from the CPE and discussions held at the CPE National Round-table Workshop held in Dar es Salaam on 29 January 2015, as well as their commitment to adopt and implement the recommendations contained in section C of the ACP within specified timeframes.

This ACP will be included as an annex to the new COSOP for Tanzania. In line with the decision in 2013, the Tanzania CPE will be discussed in the IFAD Executive Board at the same time when the new Tanzania COSOP will be considered by the Board. Moreover, IOE will prepare written comments on the new COSOP for consideration at the same Board session. The written comments will focus on the extent to which the main findings and recommendations from the Tanzania CPE have been internalized in the new COSOP. 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.

B.    Main evaluation findings

Relevance of the portfolio was fully satisfactory for the operations supporting agricultural infrastructure and extension (ASDP). While it took a long time for the Government and the donors to agree on the ASDP content and the financing mechanisms, eventually this resulted in a programme that addressed sectoral needs, national and donors' priorities and had realistic objectives. In line with national decentralization policies, local government authorities, particularly at the district level, were the actual "implementers" of the programme. Regarding the operations that supported value chain development (MUVI and MIVARF), their designs were relevant to national policies and needs but suffered from a number of flaws, which caused subsequent implementation delays.

Effectiveness of the portfolio was moderately satisfactory, reflecting the dualism between operations supporting agricultural infrastructure and extension (through ASDP) and those operations supporting agricultural marketing and value chain development (through two IFAD-funded projects). On the mainland, district-level extension services are now using the farmer field school (FFS) approach as a method that improves farmers' participation and practical learning. There are, however, important variations in the quantity and quality of delivery between districts. In Zanzibar, quality of extension services is more uniform and a few innovative practices (farmer facilitators and community animal health workers) have been introduced that can generate spill over effects on nearby farmers and their communities. These successful innovations also offer strong potential for scaling-up in both Zanzibar and mainland.

MUVI's achievements were heterogeneous, depending on the region of implementation. It facilitated farmers' access to extension and input distribution provided by district agricultural extension staff (which was originally not part of the design). The capacity-building support for rural entrepreneurs and enterprises has been limited and of short duration. As for MIVARF, after more than three years from official entry into service, the implementation of its IFAD-funded portion lags behind.

Portfolio efficiency was moderately satisfactory. ASDP (both on the mainland and in Zanzibar) showed cases of high returns to investment. For example, estimates of the internal rates of return were high on the mainland for irrigation; in Zanzibar, estimates of returns to FFS interventions were also high for selected crops and livestock. On the other hand, MUVI and MIVARF faced problems of implementation delays and high operational cost ratios.

Impact was overall moderately satisfactory. The most remarkable results were for impact on agricultural productivity and food security, as well as impact on strengthening key institutions. Both ASDP and MUVI played a role in increasing crop and livestock yields in the intervention areas, mainly through extension and irrigation schemes. As for impact on institutions, the main achievement was to improve the capacity of district extension services and to establish and strengthen participatory processes to prepare District Agricultural Development Plans (DADPs). The District Agricultural Development Plans and the operational guidelines for developing, implementing and tracking the plans have provided a strategic and budgetary framework for the district Department of Agriculture, Irrigation and Cooperatives and the district staff. As the CPE notes, there are still challenges and ample room for improvement.

Sustainability has been assessed as moderately satisfactory. Again, the stronger case is ASDP (both on the mainland and in Zanzibar) where the system and mechanisms for delivery of extension services and infrastructure are in place. On the mainland, the main remaining risk is financial, if central government and development partners reduce or terminate their funding. On the other hand, MUVI faces serious sustainability threats: the management of project activities has been outsourced to external service providers and these have reduced their personnel and activities in the project area as the termination day of their contract approached. To address this problem, IFAD has accorded a two-year extension to this project with more selective requirements as to the geographical areas and value chains to be supported.

The portfolio's contribution to innovation and scaling up was assessed as moderately satisfactory. The largest merit of the portfolio has been in up-scaling the FFS and disseminating improved techniques, practices and extension approaches with funding from several donors under ASDP. In the Zanzibar sub-programme, the FFS approach was accompanied by two local incremental innovations, the Farmer Facilitators and the Community Animal Health Workers, broadening smallholder farmers' access to basic services. However, the portfolio missed the opportunity to learn from the grant programme, consisting mainly of regional grants. Some of these grants have been innovative in piloting initiatives to improve smallholder farmers’ knowledge of market prices and access to markets. However, these initiatives have not been internalized well by IFAD and are largely unknown to its main partners.

Finally, the portfolio has contributed to gender equality and women's empowerment to a satisfactory level. Overall the portfolio has satisfactorily promoted women's participation both as members and leaders of groups, such as FFS groups and producer groups.

Taking into account the relatively large size of the programme, non-lending activities have received fewer resources. As for knowledge management, there has been little systematization of grassroots-level experiences. IFAD-funded interventions are rich in practical experience (e.g. on farmers’ group formation, introducing post-harvest initiatives, supporting grassroots finance organizations), but this is not sufficiently documented. IFAD has also funded several regional grants with activities in Tanzania but, unfortunately, there has been limited collaboration between grant-funded and loan-funded activities, with the risk of neglecting learning from several grant-funded experiences.

Compared to the situation at the time of the 2003 CPE,partnerships with the Government (mainland and Zanzibar) and the main donors in the agricultural sector are much stronger, which can be attributed to IFAD's country presence. Some gaps have been identified in the: (i) limited partnerships with the civil society and the private sector which would have been important for agricultural value chain development; (ii) weak partnerships with the United Nations System in Tanzania, including the Rome-based organizations; and (iii) absence of collaboration with the Ministries responsible for natural resource management and climate change, as well as with the Ministry of Lands, given that environment and land tenure issues have been underlined as areas of importance in the 2007 COSOP.

As for policy dialogue, there has been an imbalance between the numerous objectives set in the 2003 and 2007 COSOP and the limited resources available (human and financial) to achieve these goals. While resources have been a constraint, the national policy environment has also been challenging, due to the high number of existing policies and strategies for the rural and agricultural sector. Moreover, the split responsibilities between several institutions on the mainland make it difficult to coordinate policy dialogue and implementation.

Overall, progress made in non-lending activities by IFAD, the Government and their partners has been assessed as moderately unsatisfactory.

At the strategic level, COSOP relevance has been assessed as satisfactory, mainly because the 2003 and 2007 COSOPs have been instrumental in realigning the cooperation between IFAD and the Government of Tanzania towards supporting: (i) a sector-wide approach in agriculture, funded through basket funding; and (ii) the process of implementation of the decentralization policy whereby Local Government Authorities (LGAs) are in charge of the preparation, implementation and tracking of local agricultural development plans.

It was a relevant and timely decision to provide support through basket funding for agricultural infrastructure and extension in the context of ASDP. Basket funding within an agricultural sector-wide approach was and continues to be one of the Government's preferred financing modalities and entails lower management and transaction costs.

On the other hand, the project-modality was the only viable option for agricultural value chain development: at the time of the 2007 COSOP formulation and up to now there was no harmonized approach comparable to ASDP. The backside of this has been the proliferation of uncoordinated value chain development interventions which may lead, inter alia, to inconsistent interventions, high transaction costs for the Government, and possibly mixed signals to the private sector. New initiatives are now emerging, under Government leadership, to enhance cooperation between donors in this area, and therefore good potential for achieving stronger alignment and harmonization in this strategic area.

There was no geographic prioritization in the 2003 and 2007 COSOPs because the main priority at that time for IFAD was to realign to the basket funding mechanism which purported to cover the entire territory of Tanzania. However, covering the entire territory of Tanzania has implied higher project management and supervision costs.

The CPE assesses COSOP effectiveness (COSOP 2003 and COSOP 2007 combined) and the overall COSOP performance as moderately satisfactory. The COSOP objectives that related to the support to ASDP, such as the enhancement of poor people's access to improved farming technology (irrigation, seeds, mechanization, fertilizers) have been achieved to a significant degree. Good progress on the mainland has been made on crops, with less emphasis on livestock-related activities and pastoralism. Results in terms of a strengthened extension system and enhanced farming household productivity were even more “visible” in Zanzibar. Also of importance was the establishment of participatory bottom-up planning and implement processes to prepare and implement agricultural development plans at the village, ward and district levels.

However, progress has been far more limited in the areas of rural finance, in enhancing farmers' access to markets and in supporting the development of value chains which represented an important part of the COSOP objectives. Moreover, M&E at the COSOP level did not happen to the extent envisaged by the 2007 COSOP: annual reviews were organized since 2010 but were not used to generate an assessment of progress made on the objectives and to agree on priority follow-up measures.

C.    Recommendations

Recommendation 1. Prepare a new COSOP in collaboration with the Government of Tanzania and key national and international partners, to define a new strategy of intervention and investment priorities in the country. The new COSOP should reflect the main findings and recommendation of the current CPE and select priorities taking into account the estimated resources available for lending. In the short term, according to the Performance Based Allocation System (December 2013), US$55 million are available to Tanzania in the period 2013-2015.

In particular, the COSOP needs to articulate IFAD's support to basket funding within ASDP, with its support to other initiatives such as agricultural value chain development, and explore opportunities for coordination with other donors on the latter. The COSOP should also specify the geographic and sub-sector selectivity for future investments, with the aim of avoiding dispersion for better efficiency and outcomes. It should also establish clear linkages between non-lending activities, grants and the lending programme and devote stronger attention to COSOP reviews (annual, mid-term, completion).

Proposed follow-up: 
The new COSOP is already being prepared incorporating lessons learnt, findings and recommendations arising from the Tanzania CPE, as discussed during the National Round-table Workshop on 29th January 2015. Based on a detailed formulation plan, the COSOP is following a participatory approach that involves consultation with key public and private sector stakeholders, both local and international. The COSOP will be submitted to IFAD’s Executive Board by the end of 2015.

Recommendation 2. The first programmatic priority is to support the preparation and implementation of the next phase of ASDS/ASDP both on the mainland and in Zanzibar.In addition to its positive effects on crop yields, income and food security, ASDP had an important institutional impact on local government authorities which needs to be consolidated. Improvements are also needed in the programme design: (i) higher selectivity on the type of agricultural infrastructure to be financed; (ii) strengthening of the M&E capacity and reporting at the local and central government levels; (iii) transferring of successful approaches tested in Zanzibar (e.g. farmer facilitators and community animal health workers) to the mainland.

Within ASDS and ASDP, the livestock sub-sector, together with rangeland management and the dairy value chain deserve specific focus. Tanzania has an important livestock potential but this has received limited attention and investment so far. In addition to opportunities, there are also risks, notably those related to conflicts between pastoralists and farmers, as well as national policy issues. Country grants could be used for better diagnosis and for piloting initiatives.

Proposed follow-up:
IFAD is ensuring that the new COSOP is well aligned with the Government’s agricultural development strategy and priority programmes. Preparation of ASDS II and ASDP II is in the final stages of completion for Tanzania mainland. However, ASDS II and ASDP II do not include Zanzibar. As such, the Government of Zanzibar has prepared a draft sector-wide proposal, which it plans to submit for IFAD’s technical review/enhancement and financial support. In both cases, IFAD is providing strategic and timely inputs to these important sector documents. The new COSOP also focuses on coordinated support to a strengthened sectoral M&E system. Specifically, the proposed ASDP II will be guided by an enhanced Results Framework, which will also be aligned with a strong Results Framework for the Agricultural Sector Development Strategy II. Government, with support from consultants, has prepared a draft ASDS II and ASDP II for mainland Tanzania, which is currently under discussion, and expected to be finalized by the end of June, 2015. This ASDP 2 document will enable the on-going preparation of the COSOP to be strongly aligned with the final version of the ASDS II and ASDP II.
The new COSOP will also consolidate and strategically scale up successful innovations (e.g. use of farmer facilitators and community animal health workers under the FFS extension approach in Zanzibar; promotion of bottom-up participatory planning, implementation and tracking of the District Agricultural Development Plans/DADPs in mainland and pilot Shehia Agricultural Development Plans/SADPs in Zanzibar). Given that the livestock sub-sector has received limited attention, emphasis may also be placed on supporting range management and strategic livestock value chains (e.g. dairy). The new COSOP, using appropriate instruments, shall also consider supporting the pastoralists/agro-pastoralists, including ecologically sound strategies for resolving conflicts between pastoralists and farmers.

Recommendation 3. Subject to the availability of resources, in addition to supporting ASDS/ASDP, IFAD could consider funding traditional loan-funded projects, within certain priorities and conditions. In special cases, traditional projectsmay be needed to focus on themes and issues not dealt with in general extension coverage, such as targeting of specific socio-economic groups, addressing problems relating to specific geographic or resource contexts, as well as to test/develop innovations before they can be later scaled up through the ASDP-supported extension system.

For these types of projects, IFAD should consider geographical areas or commodities that are likely to have significant welfare effects on high number of poor households while controlling project management cost ratios (i.e., avoiding geographically scattered interventions). In addition, there needs to be far more focus on implementation readiness at the project design stage, with the Government playing a more active role in the design, and on learning from grant-funded pilot initiatives.

Proposed follow-up:
While the thrust of IFAD’s support aims to focus on sector-wide projects/programme, support to traditional projects may continue if enough resources are available, provided such projects have potential to introduce innovative approaches and techniques for inclusive agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction; and to be replicated and scaled up (that is, potential for wider adoption after pilot testing) by government authorities, donor organizations, the private sector and other agencies. Such projects shall pay close attention to maintaining reasonable project management cost ratios (especially avoiding interventions that are geographically scattered), including transaction costs. Possible examples include, inter-alia, the “Tanzania Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending” and the “Rural Finance Innovation Fund”. An additional example is in Zanzibar where the impressive performance of the FFS approach that was accompanied by two local incremental innovations, namely the Farmer Facilitators and the Community Animal Health Workers—that demonstrate cost-effectiveness and good sustainability prospects -- need to be consolidated, customized, and scaled up to other areas, including mainland Tanzania, through appropriate mechanisms. 
Consideration of IFAD support for priority traditional projects will be made during the formulation (2015) and early implementation process of the new COSOP (2016 – 2018).

Recommendation 4. Value chain development requires more consultation ex ante with key stakeholders, notably private entrepreneurs. In the past, private sector entrepreneurs have played a negligible role in the design of agricultural value chain development interventions. Partnerships with private sector actors need to be emphasized from the beginning. Private sector entrepreneurs and other relevant partners (e.g. the cooperative apex organizations) could be more actively involved in regular COSOP review meetings as well as through country grant-funded initiatives.

Coordination is needed to join efforts to develop private and public stakeholders' involvement and cooperation, to enhance public capabilities for enabling strategic policy formulation and implementation. This could be done either within the ASDP-2 framework (if found suitable) or, through other emerging multi-donor initiatives. New multi-agency initiatives are emerging (such as the Agricultural Marketing Development Trust supported by SIDA, DANIDA, IrishAID and other agencies). IFAD needs to follow these initiatives with attention and consider support if they are found of relevance for IFAD's end-clients.

Proposed follow-up:
The current CPE has noted that successful value chain development requires working closely with several private sector actors (such as wholesalers, processors and exporters); the new COSOP will accord stronger emphasis to working with these private sector stakeholders. As concluded in the CPE, building trust among partners, both state and non-state and improving knowledge of the fundamentals of the value chain development are essential. So is forging more coordinated approaches with relevant international organizations. The new COSOP is therefore based on inclusive consultations and on forging sound partnerships with strategic private sector actors and other relevant non-state partners -- both local and international. This would help identifying relevant partners, better understand their interest and potential, and internalize incentives for their active participation. Additionally, these consultations and partnerships could be forged within the ASDP II framework and ongoing and new multi-agency initiatives (e.g. SAGCOT and BRN; Agricultural Marketing Trust Fund Initiative (by DANIDA, IrishAID, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, SIDA). 
Timeline: during the preparation of the COSOP, especially: (1) validation stage (September, 2015); and (2) initial phase of COSOP implementation (2016 – 2018).

Recommendation 5. Support knowledge management, partnership development and policy dialogue activities that are closely connected to IFAD-funded operations. While IFAD has recognized knowledge management, partnership development and policy dialogue as an integrating part of its country programme in Tanzania, it has faced human and financial resources constraints. By concentrating its effort on ASDP, the country office could devote more time to non-lending activities. IFAD will need to elaborate more focused objectives for non-lending activities and mobilize resources. Options include: (i) embedding knowledge management and policy dialogue components in future financed operations (to document and systematize experiences, establishing practical guidelines on "what and how to do", and to contributing to policy discussions and related stock-taking events with policy makers); (ii) use more strategically the annual COSOP review workshops to engage key partners (e.g. non-governmental and private sector organizations); (iii) mobilize country-grant financing both from its regular resources and from external donors, thus also improving synergy between grants and the lending portfolio; (iv) learn from practices adopted in other IFAD-supported programmes, for example in Madagascar (see CPE 2013).

More specifically, IFAD could provide significant contributions to:

Knowledge management: (i) learn from FFS improved practices supported by ASDP in Zanzibar in order to enhance extension approaches on the mainland; (ii) conduct a dedicated review work to systematize experience through past and ongoing grants in market access, market intelligence in view of its future use for project design and implementation support. In addition, this review should cover experiences of MUVI project in value chain development during the two-year project extension; (iii) provide support (e.g. through grants as in the case of Zanzibar) to the capacity of the Government agencies to monitor and assess development interventions and build a functioning M&E system.

Policy dialogue (i) support the preparation and implementation of ASDS/ASDP-2 by helping prioritize the different areas of investment (e.g. extension/FFS, vs. irrigation, vs. farm equipment, vs. agro-processing equipment); (ii) supporting the Government in designing livestock and rangeland management programmes with emphasis on conflict prevention between pastoralists and farmers, benefiting from knowledge accumulated through previous grants.

Establish partnerships: (i) with governmental agencies in charge of land tenure, environment and climate change in order to facilitate a dialogue on policy and regulatory issues; (ii) with non-governmental organizations and private sector organizations for agricultural value chain development; and (iii) selectively, with United Nations agencies that are closest to the IFAD's mandate.

Proposed follow-up:
The new COSOP will consider more focused objectives and approaches to non-lending activities, including more effective mechanisms for mobilizing resources and collaborative partnerships. The non-lending activities, namely, knowledge management, partnership development and policy dialogue are an integral part of the IFAD’s country programme, but over time have suffered from human and financial constraints in the IFAD country office. 
These issues will be addressed through relevant on-going operations, especially to the extent the findings and results can enhance portfolio performance and strategic impacts. Analyzing and systematizing field and operational experiences are also among IFAD's priorities at the corporate level, with increasing practical guidelines and approaches that can be used for project preparation and implementation, as well as for policy dialogue. The country office will explore ways to mobilize regional and country specific grants for these purposes, and to forge closer partnerships with key agencies that share IFAD’s vision and smallholder focus. 
Timeline: by end of July, 2015: completed draft COSOP document); by end of September, 2015: final COSOP document, following the COSOP validation workshop with key stakeholders.