Mid-term evaluation
The geographic area covered by the Project consists of nine rural communes
in Figuig and Oujda provinces, accounting for a total area of some 3.1 million
hectares. The population in these communes in 1990 totalled an estimated
76 800, representing about 9 000 herder families. The climate
is arid, rainfall being largely of the storm type and totalling an average
of about 200 mm/year, though with major fluctuations occurring both
within and between years.
The extensive grazing practised in the project area relies on rough
rangeland and seasonal transhumance; the size of the movements depending
on the commune and on the year and as governed by the complementarity
of the different ecological sectors, use rights on common land, rainfall,
the state of the rangeland and the availability of water for the animals.
The range based on alfa and, especially in those parts of it where Artemisia
(armoise blanche) is the basic species, is mostly degraded through overgrazing,
while other parts at a distance from cropped areas or lacking in water
points are undergrazed. Livestock are frequently in an underfed condition,
especially in drought years. Their state of health is generally poor,
so that their performance is for the most part mediocre and markedly below
the biological potential both of the range and of the herds. Livestock
raising is the principal source of income for these country people. There
is some crop growing but this is of little economic importance. The smaller
herders have extremely limited cash resources and they are obliged to
remain nearer the watering points, where the surroundings are often overgrazed.
A sizeable proportion of the herders have a base in one or other of the
towns.
Project objectives and design
Target group
The project accords priority to helping the resource-poorest herders,
who account for 59% of the herder total, their animals representing 15%
of the herd. The target group's resource base consists of grazing land
held in common by the entire herder population. No improvement of this
resource base would be possible without involving the other categories
of herders, namely, the medium and the large operators (representing respectively,
34% and 7% of herders, holding 45% and 40% of the herd).
Objectives and components
The project took as its objective that of increasing both range yield
and livestock production in the hope of raising the incomes of the herders,
with special concern for improving the living conditions of the poorest
among them. Activities planned under the project include an attempt to
halt range degradation and, over the long term, the adoption of sustainable
systems of production capable of remaining in equilibrium with the newly
achieved levels of the potential reconstituted in this manner. A further
aim of the project is that of organizing the herders in cooperatives to
be responsible for range management. Since use rights on these resources
are commonly-held rights, the cooperatives are expected to be organized
along lines keeping with the existing social and ethnic/family structures.
The project components comprise:
- Pasture Improvement - rangeland management consisting in the planting
of bush fodder over 3 200 ha; re-seeding - 20 000 ha;
scarifying - 60 000 ha; and land resting - 750 000 ha.
Water supply management activities under this component are aimed at improving
the network of water points (boreholes; tanks and mobile tanker supplies);
- Livestock development with, as the two principal approaches, animal
health and a genetic improvement programme;
- Extension, research and development, and vocational training;
- Credit, chiefly for the benefit of the small herders;
- Promotion of women's activities;
- Institution strengthening, to include the setting up of a project management
unit (PMU) and a monitoring and evaluation unit (MEU).
The project was to come under the responsibility of the Livestock
Services (SE) and executed by the Provincial Directorates of Agriculture
(DPAs of Oujda and Figuig), in accordance with programmes defined and
coordinated by an independent PMU.
Expected results
As a result of project activities, fodder production should increase
from 112 to 181 million fodder units (FU) - a 62% increment. Of this
amount, 64% would derive from improved range management and 36% from investment
in pasture improvement. Meat production would rise by 35%. The basic economic
rate of return (ERR) was estimated at 19%. Project activities were also
expected to bring about a better equilibrium in the ecosystem.
About 9 000 herder families should benefit from the project,
priority being accorded to the small herders, who should at least double
their incomes. The cooperative organization set up by the project should
be able to manage, on its own, a system of pasture rotation designed to
secure a sustainable use of the range resources.
One important expected result would derive from testing a novel approach
in the setting up of range users' associations. Success here, following
many failures or successes limited to technical demonstrations, would
imply that an enduring solution had been found for the problems of Morocco's
animal husbandry sector.
Evaluation
The Mission had available to it the information contained in the
yearly Reports, in the sociological studies conducted under the project
and in the self-evaluation documents prepared for the Mission's benefit.
Information from these sources was supplemented by talks with the project
Officers and those of the Government, by meetings held with groups consisting
of all the Boards of Directors of the cooperatives, by field trips to
the major project activities and by talks with the herders, the Mission
members in many cases spending the night with the people. Field work enabled
the Mission to try out a methodology for sociological mapping, which had
hitherto been lacking. The information acquired through the monitoring
system, however, proved to be highly inadequate, especially where economic
analysis was concerned. The Mission was able to visit the entire project
area in the course of 17 days.
Project execution context
Generally speaking, the project has been carried forward as required
by the Loan Agreement. The only major modification to the latter was introduced,
at the time of project start-up, by a Ministry circular whereby the project
was assigned to the Figuig DPA instead of to a management unit distinct
from both this DPA and that of Oujda, as had been the original intention.
It should further be noted that several appointments were left unfilled
as regards the M&E officers and the sociologist for the women's activities
component.
Project achievement
At 31 December 1994, i.e. roughly at mid-term, US$ 45 million
(some 61% of the project funds) had been committed. At the same date only
11% of the IFAD loan had been disbursed. This low figure can be explained
by accounting delays in the payment to Morocco of the expenses it had
financed out of Treasury advances and by the hold-up with the credit component,
which represented a 20% share of the loan.
In terms of their share of the total financing allocated to the respective
components, these amounts committed as at 31 December 1994 account for
94% of the allocations to civil engineering works, 103% for material and
vehicles, 72% for technical assistance, 0% for agricultural credit, 41%
for inputs and rangeland improvement services and 45% for operating expenses.
Disregarding the credit that was not disbursed (because of the carryover
indebtedness of the herders to the National Agricultural Credit Bank (CNCA)),
one notes that the last two items will have available to them in the second
half of the project an amount of funding comparable to what they had during
the first half. Civil engineering works and purchases of supplies have
used up all the funds allocated to them.
The first group of project achievements consisting of activities
directly concerning the improvement of the production context (pasture
and water resources) and concerning herd productivity, and land resting
involving 296 500 ha (i.e. 72% of the target for mid-term) has
proved to be the most spectacular and the most decisive achievement in
the matter of persuading the herdsmen to participate in the project. The
most successful interventions here are to be seen in the communes in Figuig
province, where there was excellent cohesion among the cooperatives. In
the North (Jerada province) several project interventions have been held
up by land ownership disputes. The other range improvement activities
yielded good results in the case of the plantings, while technical refinements
are still needed in the other cases. Work done in the domain of pastoral
water supply very quickly reached their funding ceilings (as early as
1992 for the tanks). Equipment for the water points did much to improve
the situation but is still insufficient to provide a good "coverage"
of the rangeland. The most important activities in the animal production
sphere have been the preventive measures and animal health care. The project
has strengthened the facilities available to the veterinary services and
has ensured the logistic support needed for the sheep vaccination campaigns.
The extent to which the herders have welcomed these campaigns can be measured
by the number of animals treated since 1992 (511 000 heads treated
against internal parasites) and the regular increase in the number (778 000
in 1994 out of a 929 000 total herd). The Beni Guil sheep breed selection
programme has been carried forward, with relative success, with the National
Sheep Breeders Association. In this way it has been possible to lay the
foundations for a larger-scale adoption of upgraded sires and rams.
A second group of interventions concerns the components associated
with the so-called "programmes d'accompagnement". Here the project
called for the mounting of a R&D programme in order to define the
extension packages. The project itself was carried through under an arrangement
with the Hassan II Agronomy and Veterinary Institute but tended to
concern itself unduly with conventional subject matters and failed to
make sufficient allowance for the priorities identified by the extension
workers and the herders themselves. The Extension component has been one
of intense activity (over 1 000 sessions have been organized), with
the result that it has been possible to encourage the wider use of several
technical innovations and to facilitate the acceptance of cooperative
rules and the discipline of land resting. And yet, only a limited number
of the beneficiaries seemed to have been reached here - and these being
mostly the herders of a certain size. Vocational training activities were
conducted as planned except that, the health assistants were replaced
by cooperative managers. Women's development activities have been carried
out on schedule but have been few in number and are difficult to assess
in terms of their impact. The limitations described above emphasize the
need for a different approach to the problem of integrating women in development.
As for credit, due to the institutional difficulties this has failed in
its support role for the resource-poorest.
It has been the purpose to organize the herders in ethnic group-lineage
cooperatives, a novel formula which it was hoped would bring together
the benefits of a modern type of structure and those of a traditional
system with its commonly-held use rights over rangeland. The formula found
ready acceptance by the herders. With this starting point it was possible
for the project to regroup some 9 600 members into 38 cooperatives
constituted on the basis of sub-units of tribes. A process designed to
exclude non-herdsmen has brought this figure down to about 8 000
members by 1995. The cooperatives have been vigorously supported by the
project, with extension services and training programmes, and were very
soon able to play an effective role, notably in the management of land
resting arrangements. Even though they had only limited resources, their
financial situation is generally sound, the exceptions being certain "blocked"
cooperatives due for winding-up. Even so, the cooperatives are still too
dependent on project activities and are far from being able to stand on
their own feet. What is more, they are largely dominated by their economically
and politically more important members.
Project organization, as already noted, differs from that envisaged
at pre-appraisal. The formula decided upon offers less flexibility but
has the advantage of being better geared to Government procedures. The
decision has made it possible to prepare and execute the annual programmes
for the respective components strictly according to plan and to coordinate
budgeting with the procedures of the African Development Bank (AfDB).
This system is ponderous and time-consuming and offers no leeway for adjustment
as the programme proceeds. Government departments' ways of doing things,
moreover, preclude bringing cooperatives into the process, so that the
latter are not fully consulted. The project management system seems to
have functioned better in the South (where there is an identity with the
bulk of the Bouarfa DPA's activities) than in the North, where the project
constitutes only a fraction of the Oujda DPA's activities. Despite the
efforts of the project management unit and the cooperation afforded by
the directors of these DPAs, there persists a certain dualism within the
project. The latter, in any case, is organized on sectoral lines corresponding
to the individual components, and this has made interaction between the
latter more difficult.
Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) should have an essential role
so that it will be possible to observe, guide and evaluate the action
of a relatively innovative project. The self-evaluation activities and
sociological studies have indeed made for a better understanding of the
context in which the project is operating but the monitoring activities
in the strict sense have fallen short of expectations, having remained
for the most part sectoral. The formula decided upon for project organization
and execution has largely rendered pointless a system of project "piloting"
that relies on following up activities among the target group. Again,
M&E was introduced without any benchmark experience to refer to, and
has therefore failed to provide an overall view of the interaction of
project activities with one another or of their impact on production systems.
Readjustments are under way but, given the organizational context already
described, they continue to be based unduly on sectoral approaches.
Project effects
- immediate and lasting
Effect on target group. It is probably in its impact on the target
group that the effects of the project are most questionable. The fact
is that pasture improvements have, in quantitative terms, benefitted in
particular the herders who had the most animals. Cooperative services,
likewise, have benefitted first and foremost the more powerful members.
Yet could things really have been otherwise? Could one have improved pastures
productivity without having common range resources utilised pro-rata with
the number of animals held? Could one have ensured that the cooperatives
were not dominated by the "elite" from the traditionally important
families? All this does not mean that the small herders benefitted only
marginally: they have more use of the improved rangeland and the veterinary
services; and they have participated in cooperative activities even if
their powers of decision there continued to count for little. A matter
for regret is that the credit component, which was particularly intended
for them, has been held up so far.
Effect on integrating women in the development process. Despite the
efforts made here, women's production activities have had only a limited
impact. If anything, experience shows that these activities are insufficient
by themselves to attain an objective that in any case needs to be better
defined. This component, therefore, needs redefining.
Project's environmental impact. The project has unquestionably had
a positive effect on the way rangeland is managed and on the environment,
chiefly thanks to the land resting requirement; and this has brought about
a thoroughgoing revolution in attitudes. The herders have accepted the
idea of using the range only at certain times, of limiting the carrying
rate, and of paying dues for grazing. It has not been possible to implement
the initial programme under the project calling for generalized pasture
rotation (the key to an enduring range management) but it can be said
that the project has furnished a solid basis for this practice and one
that can be improved as time goes on.
Effects on animal production. Land resting, with the reserves that
can be constituted in this way, has unquestionably helped to mitigate
the dangers that droughts bring in their train. Veterinary campaigns have,
in their turn, improved flock safety by reducing the risks due to disease
and parasites. These are noteworthy results but are not enough by themselves.
This is because, by concentrating on selective activities, the project
has failed to pay sufficient attention to understanding, and to the possibilities
for improving, the different systems of animal production.
Effects in terms of durability of the cooperative formula. The cooperatives
formed with members of the same ethnic and family groups have been characterized
by the very contradiction that presided at their conception. As to the
viability of the formula, one must find out if cooperative rules will,
with the passage of time, be able to impose novel rules of operation on
social structures that have been made largely unbending by traditional
practice. Several possibilities are open here but their realization can
only come about via approaches that the project has yet to consider, namely
ensuring a better representativeness, decision-making more fully in the
hands of cooperative members via the creation of "cooperative sections",
the emergence of additional spheres of competence, the development of
countervailing powers, and financial self-government for these cooperatives.
Approaches of the kind presuppose that the Government itself will promote
greater participation, and by that token agree to its own effective disengagement.
None of these things have yet come to pass; any efficiency shown by the
project being largely a matter of the efficiency of the Government, it
being the principal operator of the project.
Other effects. Data and, perhaps, the possibility of standing back
to view them, are lacking at mid-term, if one is to analyse the effects
of the project on incomes, nutrition, food security or job opportunities
- areas where information is seriously inadequate. Further effort is needed
in order to evaluate these between now and the end of the project.
Trends. The situation at mid-term is one of successes and inadequacies.
When all is said and done, however, two important conclusions have to
be drawn: (a) that an undeniable dynamism has been set in motion; and
(b) that there is the risk of final failure if certain strategic rethinking
is not done and acted upon. The dynamism created by the project is there
for all to see: the project itself is present over an immense area of
country; all the herders have joined cooperatives; technical innovations
have been tried out with success; and considerable capital in terms of
know-how has been built up. Yet this very dynamism generates a demand
for change and for a greater open-mindedness where the strategic options
are concerned.
The second of these conclusions is alarming. The benefits accruing
from the dynamism referred to have gone to the better-off categories of
herders. Again, the project has operated for the most part through the
Government and along sectoral lines. This modus operandi - inevitable
in the early stages - has made for success in those things that fitted
into the logic of the government services. On the other hand, it has precluded
any alternative stand being taken such as would enable preparations to
be made for when the project comes to an end. The project should be placed
in a position where it could begin reflecting - at its own level - on
what it is there for, on Government disengagement and on the need to transfer
responsibilities and resources to the most direct beneficiaries.
Recommendations
The project's dynamics and the successes that it has achieved; despite
the many constraints, have created a demand for novel approaches in order
to gear activities to the longer term - an inescapable conclusion even
at mid-term. The question then arises as to whether the project can change
direction within the four years left for it to run and gear its activities
accordingly. The answer is obviously: No, since the time is too short,
and the rigidities in organization and procedures, including financing
procedures, leave little room for manoeuvre in the direction of flexibility,
however gradually the attempt is made.
The principal recommendation of the Mission is that decisions need
to be taken, even now, regarding what is to be done in a possible second-phase
project, the chief purpose here being to bring about the changes that
the first project has made possible. This implies that the promoters state
their views here and now as to the worthwhileness of such a second phase.
The task before one during the next four years would then be clear, namely
to bring to termination the programme called for under the project as
it stands at present but, even at this stage, with an eye to what follows
- i.e. by examining the alternatives for action and testing these
as far as possible. The starting point for so doing would be a period
of reflection on the strategic options, and this would begin, if agreed,
immediately following the meeting called upon to examine this Report.
The Mission has taken its stance advisedly in terms of these proposals,
which are abundantly justified by the dynamism engendered by the project
so far. In doing so it has sought to make a contribution in the recommendations
it is making here by suggesting, in the second part of this Report, certain
avenues of approach, whose feasibility emerges from a rethinking of the
present situation, namely from an attempt to understand the dynamics of
the Eastern Region context.
As distinct from this conclusion, the Mission, in concert with the
project team, has formulated a series of recommendations for immediate
implementation designed to improve project intervention procedures and
project performance over the next four years whatever decision is made
regarding any follow-on to the project. These recommendations are detailed
in the body of the Report and are outlined below:
Recommendations regarding the Pasture Improvement and Livestock Development
components
- Understanding of the surveillance of the environment and the herding
system to be improved;
- Experience built up regarding rangeland improvement to be turned to
profit, inter alia, in order to manage the land resting system more efficiently;
- Intervention procedures in the animal husbandry context to be refined,
in particular through a better targeting of production systems here.
Recommendations regarding the Water Supply component
- Funds allocated to this component to be increased since budget provisions
here are practically exhausted;
- Pending contracts to be revised;
- Alternative arrangements for managing the mobile workshops;
- Caretaker arrangements for water points to be defined;
- Buried water tanks to be cleaned;
- Water rates to be introduced.
Recommendations regarding cooperatives
- Various measures to be executed in order to improve cooperative operation
and management;
- Design and testing of procedures to introduce contractual relationships
with the cooperatives to be put in hand. The "programme contract"
formula is proposed.
- Authorities concerned to be made aware of the need for legislation
on pastoralist cooperatives/range users' associations.
Recommendations regarding the Extension, R&D and Farmer Training,
and Women's Economic Development components
- R&D to be restored to its rightful place in long-term outlook.
Extension workers and the herders to be associated in the process;
- The Extension function to have its facilities strengthened and adapted,
and be geared more fully into project activities;
- The Farmer Training Programme to be reactivated (for the children of
herders, cooperative managers and administrators, and project officers)
under ongoing training and impact assessment arrangements;
- The Women's Economic Development component to be redesigned by gearing
it into the extension component and assigning to it more specific objectives,
beginning with a support function for micro-projects.
Recommendations regarding project operation
- An analysis to be made of the possibilities for a reorganization of
project administration. Allowance will need to be made for the fact that,
even with the disadvantages attached to the various options, the present
formula, once improvements have been introduced as regards technical organization,
might nevertheless offer the best compromise solution;
- The distribution of technical functions to be revised especially in
order to offset the constraints of the present sectoral organization and
to facilitate interaction among components;
- Greater reliance to be placed on the Extension centres (centres de
travaux - CT), and the latter strengthened accordingly;
- Project responsibilities to be downsized through fuller collaboration
with the cooperatives, which must be looked on as "partners in development".
- Project officers and other workers to be motivated;
- Budgetary constraints to be relieved. For this purpose funds should
be reallocated and registrations opened with donors with a view to the
possibility of obtaining additional financing.
Recommendations regarding Monitoring and Evaluation
- Methodologies proposed by the Agronomy and Veterinary Institute (IAV)
to be reviewed in order to ensure that evaluation shall be less sectoral
and based more firmly on indicators enabling one to monitor the interaction
between project activities;
- Approaches proposed as a result of the evaluation to be revised in
order to better understand the dynamics accompanying the project and to
identify appropriate indicators;
- Self-evaluation sequences - i.e. evaluation by the herders, the cooperatives,
project officers and other partners themselves - to be introduced.
Lessons from experience
From its findings, the Mission has drawn a first lesson that it considers
essential, namely that a Mid-Term Evaluation process needs to be integrated
into the very life of a project. From the start, the idea of securing
the synergism that this offers was agreed upon but in practice, the Mission
seems to have arrived on the scene at the appropriate moment for helping
project officers to make a more thorough analysis of the problems arising
out of the very success of their action. It seems, therefore, that the
Mission has proved a catalyst in a learning process.
Whenever projects have generated a dynamism such as that emerging
from the present project, it immediately - i.e. before a project comes
to an end - becomes necessary to start thinking about what comes
after. That being so, it is difficult to avoid the need for a "collective
brainstorming" effort to consider the strategic options capable of
giving direction to the project in the long term. A reexamination of the
present dynamics of the context where a given project is operating represents
a decisive stage for formulating these strategic options.
Such a re-examination moreover brings out the linkage that there
exists between certain projects and the policy environment within which
they are going forward. The implementation of projects may often lead
to further questioning of certain aspects of national development policies;
and it may facilitate the adoption of novel positions and so make for
progress.
In any case, experience tends to show that it is necessary to bring
order into the legislative context within which project-promoted activities
take place. And this is one of the conditions governing the sustainability
of any project's effects.
Beneficiary targeting, if this implies trying to exclude the rural
"elites", is neither realistic nor desirable, when such people
can be the driving force in local development. However, projects that
confine themselves to supporting the most dynamic participants are unlikely
to attain their objective of equitable development. The lesson here is
that spontaneous dynamism needs to be piloted and channelled by, among
other things, bringing out countervailing powers. And this is where the
special responsibility of the Government comes in, as being guarantor
of the collective interest; and this, too, is the primary justification
for Government engagement. Otherwise the Government will have only words
to say about equitable development but no policy and no effective plan
for achieving it.
Finally, the experience of the Evaluation Mission points to the need
for enquiring into the replicability of the project in Morocco or in the
geographic area facing similar problems in the pastoralist sector, for
example sub-Saharan Africa or western Asia.
