Enabling poor rural people
to overcome poverty
Summary areas for policy dialogue
In summary, the CPE recommends the following specific areas for policy dialogue with the Government for inclusion in the forthcoming COSOP:
- Sharper poverty focus. There is a need for a comprehensive and wide-ranging poverty study to define the causes, characteristics, consequences and locations of the rural poor and to identify ways in which they can best be reached. This study should also have a geographic dimension, relevant to the various ASZs, in order to ensure that interventions can be well directed to poverty pockets and poorer households. The COSOP should prepare draft terms of reference for such a study as a joint IFAD/Government undertaking.
- Policy adjustment. Minimizing undesirable distributional effects of interventions is an important area for policy dialogue. This includes emphasis on cost-recovery designed on a sliding scale to benefit the most those with the least resources. Those with more assets should be required to make greater contributions. This would cover de-rocking, access to other resources and the provision of services.
- Support for land reclamation. The new IFAD strategy should primarily support efforts to remove constraints on production, processing and marketing for the poor. Land development activities will continue to be supported by the Government, with equipment recently procured. IFAD's involvement in this subsector should be less prominent. If undertaken, the strategy should necessarily be associated with appropriate environmental assessments, soil and other conservation measures and cost-recovery mechanisms. It is crucial that IFAD undertake a dialogue with the Government to assign appropriate weight to environmental issues in the new strategy. The COSOP needs to provide a clear statement to this effect. In addition, IFAD should find ways of assisting MAAR in addressing environmental issues in the present portfolio (see Operational Recommendations, section IX).
- Policy framework to enhance sustainability. The strategy needs to highlight the importance of policy dialogue with and support to MAAR to focus on the question of the sustainability of farming systems in de-rocked areas and elsewhere. This requires the development of policies and measure for addressing the issues of animal feed, crop diversification, processing and marketing and the efficiency of water use.
- Water resources. As a crucial consideration of sustainability, the future strategy needs to give higher priority to the efficiency and sustainability of water resource utilization. The COSOP needs to investigate the present circumstances and define with the Government an approach for the new pipeline, giving this subsector a more prominent place in IFAD-supported interventions.
- Rural financial services. IFAD should continue to support CAB, which has shown itself to be responsive to providing credit to the poor. However, there is a need to devise a mechanism for broadening the outreach of credit for the poorest groups. This mechanism will probably require additional support to CAB; this support needs to be specified. In addition, group formation (for credit and other activities) should be promoted as a means of receiving the credit resources, but the exact mechanisms to do this need to be developed on the basis of current donors' initiatives and agreed upon with the Government so that a common approach can be adopted for all new projects.
- Participation. Building on the present project experience, the policy dialogue should seek to define ways of extending the long-term benefits of self-reliant and participatory development to both government and people. This will probably require the definition of a role for intermediaries (e.g., NGOs) skilled in social mobilization and participation (for training and support to beneficiary groups and project staff). The process needs to be linked to the provision of services from government and semi-government agencies (such as GUP and GUW). Realistic objectives for this mechanism will need to be defined with the Government. Processes involved will need to be specified, and possibly linked with NGOs known to IFAD and the Government and already working successfully in the region.
- Gender. As part of the dialogue for a new strategy and pipeline of projects, IFAD should consider supporting the new strategy for gender developed by MAAR, and balancing this with specific funding in each project that relates directly to the mainstreaming of gender issues.
- Decentralization. The findings for the present portfolio are that the implementation of projects could be improved if additional decentralization of government services were provided. Support for decentralization of government services should be included as a strategic element for policy dialogue. Practical and acceptable ways to do this need to be explored. The identification of the institutional strengthening necessary for this is of crucial importance. Practical methods of ensuring beneficiary participation can play a significant part in the implementation of the new projects.
In addition, the CPE suggests that IFAD and the Government consider the impact of extending the policy dialogue to include other donors in order that they might investigate the possibilities of collaborating, cofinancing and ensuring that participatory and community-based approaches are complementary and consistent. Adaptation and expansion of replicable development models piloted under other donor financing, which use community-based,
11/ Examples are the UNICEF/WHO/Ministry of Health Healthy Villages Programme, and the ESCWA Community Development and Participation Project (more details are in the main report).