Portfolio review: 1999
Overview
1. As at end-1999, IFAD’s current portfolio consisted of 252 projects, including 214 ongoing projects, 20 projects not signed and 18 projects not effective, for a total value of USD 3 233.7 million. Accelerated lending to the West and Central Africa (Africa I) and East and Southern Africa (Africa II) regions commenced in 1998, with 35% of the total lending. This trend was continued in 1999 (reaching 46%) to compensate for the 1997 shortfall in the lending allocation to the region. >
2. Total disbursements during 1999 amounted to SDR 207.8 million, approximately 94% of the total for 1998. Except for 1998, the total disbursed compares favourably with the past three years. The overall upward trend in disbursement performance is due to a concerted effort by IFAD staff to facilitate the flow of funds and to remove impediments during project implementation. Project start-up workshops have become an integral part of project-launch activities. These workshops serve as platforms to, inter alia, familiarize key implementing personnel with the procedures of IFAD and its cooperating institutions (CI), including procurement guidelines. Coaching of project staff at start-up workshops is supplemented by project implementation manuals prepared in consultation with project implementors.>
3. In meeting the requirements of the corporate scorecard, the establishment of strategic partnerships and cofinancing took a new turn in IFAD. The total volume of cofinancing mobilized reached USD 122 million in 1999, amounting to 93% of the scorecard target of USD 131 million. The shortfall is due to the withdrawal of one scheduled cofinanced project from the Executive Board in December 1999 because of unresolved arrears problems. New challenges facing IFAD in the area of cofinancing are the shifting emphasis to the non-agricultural sector by a number of donors in some regions and the decentralization of decision-making on the part of bilateral donors to the country level, where IFAD does not have the necessary country representative counterparts for sustained interaction. The latter problem is being tackled to some degree by ensuring that meetings are arranged with donor representatives during country visits as well as arranging for reciprocal meetings at the level of headquarters with bilateral donors. The same practice applies to IFAD’s multilateral partners.>
4. In 1999, each regional division ensured that almost all underperforming projects and those suspected of having potential problems were visited by IFAD staff and/or specialized consultants. Such visits took place as part of regular supervision by the Cooperating Institution (CI) or independently as a follow-up mission by IFAD. In all regional divisions, implementation and thematic workshops (e.g. gender mainstreaming, reality checks) were conducted as orientation and refresher courses. In some regions, extensive use was made of directing grant funds to support the ongoing regional portfolio. The Programme Management Department (PD) will make more systematic use of technical assistance (TA) grants in support of its lending programme and with more rigour across all regional divisions.
5. The most common issues confronting the portfolio, particularly the underperforming projects, are the performance of project management, delay in or associated with the flow of funds, counterpart funding, need for design adjustment and, in certain cases, factors beyond the control of project management (security situation, arrears, etc.). Other generic issues continue to include the need to improve participatory approaches and transform the traditional credit components into more sustainable models of rural microfinance systems.
6. Ongoing projects in the current portfolio suffer from insufficient built-in mechanisms to measure field-level results and the envisaged impact on the policy arena and institutional set-up for poverty reduction. This deficiency is further compounded by generally weak and, at times, misguided monitoring and evaluation (M&E) units within the project set-up. These shortcomings are being addressed by encouraging the application of logical framework (logframe)-based results-oriented instruments throughout the project cycle.
7. Another new approach has been the design of a common format for systematic preparation of project completion reports (PCRs). The whole process involved in this exercise is also to be anchored to the principles of the logframe technique to measure achievements of development objectives. Measurement of project development objectives will include both quantitative (physical and financial) and non-quantitative objectives such as capacity-building, promotion of participatory structures, decentralization, gender mainstreaming, etc.
8. The ongoing portfolio of 214 projects is being administered by ten CIs and IFAD. As global partners of IFAD, the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and the World Bank are respectively responsible for the supervision of 53% and 14% of projects in the ongoing portfolio. The balance is being supervised by regional institutions and IFAD. Annual and periodic meetings take place with all CIs, both at headquarters and in the field. The general challenge confronting this aspect of IFAD collaboration is the diversity of reporting formats and mode of operation. Moreover, because of varying strategies of intervention in the case of financial CIs (that also act as cofinanciers in the majority of cases) and budgetary squeezes by UNOPS (which is mainly a service provider), follow up on IFAD-specific issues by CIs is becoming increasingly difficult during and between supervision missions. IFAD has started recently to supervise 15 projects on a pilot basis.
