This Agreement at Completion Point (ACP) records the understanding among the key partners of the evaluation for the Kagera Agricultural and Environmental Management Project (KAEMP) on the main insights and recommendations from the Interim Evaluation of the Project. The ACP is intended to contribute: to enhancing the implementation performance of KAEMP; to the future poverty alleviation and rural development planning of government and partners; and to the formulation by IFAD's Eastern and Southern Africa Division of a new Country Strategy and Opportunities Paper (COSOP) for Tanzania that will set out the medium term strategic framework and investment priorities for Fund assistance.

The Interim Evaluation field work took place in November/December 2002 and employed the new IFAD Impact Evaluation Methodology. The preliminary findings, issues arising and tentative recommendations were examined and revised at a Regional Wrap-up Meeting and Stakeholder Workshop with some sixty district, farmer and community representatives and Project staff in Bukoba on 2 December; and, suitably amended, at a National Wrap-up Meeting with various senior ministry and partner agency officials in Dar es Salaam on 6 December 2002.

Following submission of the Draft Report in mid February 2003 and the receipt of comments from KAEMP project management, the Belgian Survival Fund, UNOPS, government, and other partners, the conclusions and recommendations of the evaluation were presented and discussed at a stakeholders' workshop in Tanzania on 6 March 2003.

In discussion of the findings set out in the Draft Report, there was a wide measure of agreement among participants with the evaluation's assessment of the project's progress and impact. A few instances were noted where it was considered that the language of the report had conveyed a misleading impression of achievements, which has been accordingly amended as deemed appropriate by the evaluation team.

This ACP now summarises the key points of the consensus reached on the insights and recommendations of the evaluation, taking into account the observations made during the final stakeholders' workshop on 6 March 2003. The ACP is arranged according to the two principal themes that emerged from discussions and the subsidiary recommendations related to the components and activities relevant to those themes.

Issues and recommendations

Theme 1: consolidation, further support and sustainability

Perspective. Implementation of KAEMP coincided with decentralization of administration, service provision and development responsibilities to regions, districts and villages. The practical realisation of these devolution aims will depend on the availability and capability of local groups, both formal and informal, with common interests and a serious purpose for existence and continuity. The Project has established and/or supported 24 seed growers associations (SGAs); over 190 farmer IPM/IPN and 400 tree growing and planting groups; and numerous health management, water user and roads committees that can fulfil this role. However, although many are performing well, these groups are in the early stage of development; the sustainability of Project activities and benefits and the propensity of these groups to contribute to wider district development demands consolidation of their structures and improvement of their administrative and operational capacities. If this is done, KAEMP will have set up a practical resource for successful and sustainable decentralized rural development.

Recommendations. The principal recommendations are that:

• the viability and capability of IPM/IPN, environmental, farmers and womens groups; SGAs; village, ward and district health, water and roads committees; and relevant district service departments, be further enhanced by a practical programme of knowledge endowment, capacity building and management support provided through the Project; and
• this consolidation phase consist of one further year of limited and targeted assistance, focussed, inter-alia, on the administration, accounting and financial management of organizations.

The supporting recommendations on specific content of group learning by sector are that it include:

• in agriculture: investment planning and use of credit; farm record keeping and business management; practical marketing; and promotion of the services of groups, group members and Farmer Cadres as consultants or resource persons;
• in environment: broader conservation and community based natural resource management principles; and nursery and forestry enterprise management;
• in health: for selected Village Health Committees, training and coaching for the pilot application of cost sharing/cost recovery systems and mechanisms; additional training in disease prevention, child nutrition and community mobilisation for Village Health Workers and Traditional Birth Attendants;
• in water supply and roads: intensive technical orientation for user groups and committees on operation and maintenance tasks; and drafting of by-laws for financing and upkeep of facilities; and
• in Project facilitation: for district staff and village government and ward officials, coaching and support in participatory planning, including use of the logical framework; in M&E; in gender mainstreaming approaches and mechanisms; and in working with the CBO/NGO and private sectors.

Theme 2: improved project design and policy implications

Perspective. KAEMP has introduced and proven innovative approaches, technologies and systems in demand-driven, farmer and environment-friendly and risk-sensitive ways that afford lessons for better Project design and pointers for policy formulation. Examples include: in farming, use of low cost, organic techniques - such as composting, botanical pesticides and farmer grown improved seeds and crop planting materials; in extension, by reliance on information dissemination through common interest groups and village-based Farmer Cadres; and encouragement of farm record keeping; in environment, using schools as community focus points and promoting commercial practices in tree growing and planting; and in implementation, incorporating Project activities in district development plans using participation and logical framework planning.

Conversely, the participatory approach that was adopted by KAEMP took up an inordinate amount of time, effort and expenditure, particularly in the early years of the Project. Despite its successes, the need for a further input in group consolidation indicates that the process of sensitization, mobilisation and social organization is not yet fully complete; and there are a number of shortcomings in design, as expounded in the following recommendations, that can be rectified up to completion of KAEMP - and avoided in future projects.

Recommendations. The overarching recommendation in this context is that:

• the simple and cost-effective techniques, measures and systems of operation of interventions that have been developed or refined by KAEMP be properly documented, given wider publicity and exposure to development planning and policy drafting agencies; and be applied as appropriate, regionally and nationally, in other projects, programmes and development strategies.

The specific recommendations related to the various Project components are that:

• in agricultural development: local availability of improved seeds and planting materials be arranged by the Project and/or district departments through SGAs, commercial growers, NGOs or research institutions; application of the Farmer Cadre/group extension approach be widened and formalised; and direct, practical farmer/group/trader action for improved marketing be facilitated;
• in environmental management: supply of seeds at reasonable prices for popular tree species be assured as above; and community-based natural resource management schemes, including agro-forestry, soil conservation and land management with district, village and NGO and private sector co-operation, be promoted;
• in health: the mosquito net revolving fund be decentralized to all districts; and a full inventory and classification of Project supplied equipment be carried out - and repair, modification and re-distribution arranged, including, as appropriate, to Bukoba and hospitals;
• in water supply: as the highest priority for water quality and safety for existing Project schemes, comprehensive protection/disinfection measures be implemented without delay; new schemes be constructed only when full technical, organizational and financial feasibility has been approved by a competent professional adviser; the replacement of pumps for the deepest bore wells be planned for; spare parts availability for other pumps be facilitated; and a detailed comparative costing be made of Project-assisted schemes to determine accurate unit costs and compare the efficiency of different modes of implementation;
• for roads: combined labour-based/mechanised methods for construction be employed, as for the UNCDF Mwanza project; subdivision of sub-projects into minor and small contracts be avoided except where there is evidence of adequate existing or strong prospective local capability for execution; and, where practical, credit facilities and arrangements for contractors be put in place as part of the contract to strengthen local private sector capacity building; and
• in Project facilitation and management:
  • the whole M&E approach, systems, data formats and procedures be simplified and streamlined in line with practicability of execution within local capabilities and resources, with greatly increased beneficiary participation, gender sensitivity, qualitative assessment of impact, and precise attribution of responsibilities and resources at district and Project activity levels;
  • gender mainstreaming in district departments and at ward and village level be achieved by formalising gender focal points within District Administrations, specific strengthening of womens groups and women-only training, further gender awareness learning and use of gender sensitive indicators and analysis of gender disaggregated data in regional, district and community plans; and
  • for project supervision for ambitious and complex interventions such as KAEMP, adequate allocation of funds be made and proper specification of the technical inputs required be defined, to validate the designs and elucidate the problems of implementation of specialist components such as health and water supply.

A set of wider, cross-cutting recommendations also emerges from evaluation, namely:

• the coverage and complexity of design of projects should be tailored to a realistic assessment of the capacity for implementation and of the scope for linkage and potential synergies between components so that impact is optimised and co-ordination, supervision, monitoring and management simplified and rendered more effective and efficient; multiple objective, geographically extensive and administratively complicated projects like KAEMP entail great difficulties in these respects; a rational analysis of these factors and a better balance between thematic/sectoral focus and area coverage should be key aims of future project design;
• for community development: a discrete component focusing on community mobilisation, organization and support should be incorporated in future projects to assure best practice in: the use of existing local organizations and capabilities; careful and more measured selection and establishment of groups and committees; gender equity and empowerment of groups; facilitation of preparation of realistic village/community plans; provision of a genuine and wider, community-backed basis for natural resource utilisation and management; thus enabling some of the constraints on participation that have emerged in KAEMP to be overcome;
• in connection with community development and project launching, the zero year concept should be adopted, whereby a period would be allowed before the formal commencement of the project that would give sufficient start-up time for: sensitization, mobilisation and organization so as to strengthen the capabilities of district departments, committees and groups; training in PRA, the logical framework approach and demand-driven concepts; mitigation of the dependency syndrome among prospective beneficiaries; preliminary baseline and diagnostic studies that would enable clear identification and proper selection and reaching of target groups; and advancement of the onerous early tasks of staff recruitment, office and systems establishment and procurement; and
• a corollary of the early years planning is the need for an exit strategy that would enhance sustainability to be built in to project design and to be specified in financing and implementation schedules; the need for the further input in consolidation of the gains of KAEMP points up the necessity for earlier and more specific, purposeful measures to prepare district and downstream agencies, groups and organizations for take-over of project activities - and to give them at least one year of experience in handling the associated responsibilities and tasks before project completion.

Responsibility and Process. For documentation and transmission of the insights and lessons from KAEMP to a wider audience, IFAD-BSF/JP, UNOPS, and the RAS/DASs, through PO-RALG; for modification of current Project operations, the PFMU and relevant District Department Officers; for the design and implementation of future projects and policies, RAS/DASs, Central Government Departments, IFAD, donor partners and the Cooperating Institution.

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The partners include IFAD (represented by the East and Southern Africa Division, Office of Evaluation and Belgian Survival Fund); UNOPS; the Government of Tanzania (represented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Ministry of Finance and the Prime Minister's Office), the KAEMP Project Facilitator; the Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS) of Kagera, and the District Executive Directors (DEDs) in the five project districts.