Evaluation of Project Performance and Impact
Component-by-Component Evaluation
The assessment that follows provides insights
into the design and performance of the project’s components
and sub-components. More detailed analyses are contained in
the individual working papers.
Capacity Building – Community Development.
A major effort was made under this component to develop a
participatory planning process in the districts, to train
the decentralized structures including the Community Development
Committees at district, sector and cell levels (some over
500 in total), and to create a body of facilitators (about
100) that enabled the project to carry out the participatory
planning referred to above. In addition, the staff responsible
for the implementation of the sub-component worked together
with the other project components to develop the community
support and ownership structures to help ensure the operation
and maintenance of rural infrastructure, particularly water
points, and the formation of enterprise groups and primary
savings groups (GRFs). They have also provided PRA training
to government staff in the districts and province and in organizations
such as ISAR.
One of the important outputs of this process
was the preparation of district development plans that represent
the expressed needs and priorities of the communities and
provide the base for implementation of the other project components.
While the different groups have been formed and trained, the
project has been less successful in delivering the specified
funding to them. The picture is similar with other elements.
For example, for the construction of district and sector offices.
Only one of the six district offices planned under the component
was constructed and none of the 73 sector offices (40 in the
first project and 33 in the twin) has been constructed. The
change in the requirement for district offices explains the
first and while there have been no sector offices constructed
by UCRIDP, the 20 offices are to be built by the Common Development
Fund (CDF) and tenders have been prepared for construction
of some 60 offices by the programme. There are also questions
about the functionality of the water user groups formed around
the boreholes constructed by the project during the first
phase (35 borehole water committees and 7 dam water user associations).
This indicates that there could have been better linkages
between the service providers constructing the water facilities
and those responsible for training the committees/associations.
Capacity Building – Women in Development.
This sub-component has also been one of the more successful
ones in achieving its objectives. Most of the targets were
either achieved or in some cases exceeded. Implementation
focused on: gender training and recruitment of gender staff
in the districts (target 4, trained and in place 8 gender
officers); formation and training of women’s groups at cell
level (target 60; 352 formed); gender training of members
of representative organizational structures at district, sector
and cell levels (target and achieved 2 600); an NGO-implemented
functional literacy programme (target 2 500 women; 3 455
trained); and while not formally part of this sub-component,
the same team successfully formed women’s community savings
groups (an initiative linked to the Group Revolving Funds).
Similar to the previous experience, the one physical asset
planned in this sub-component – district women’s centres –
have not as yet been constructed.
Rural Infrastructure – Water Supply.
Construction of domestic and cattle water infrastructure was
the most important project activity – as per the projected
investment – during the first phase, with a USD 12 million
budgeted. However, less then USD 1 million was spent.
Among the reasons for the minimal level of disbursement were
the delays in finalizing the water master plan, sometimes
weak support from the responsible I-NGOs and delays in preparation
of studies – for example, 60 studies of new piped water schemes
were planned during the first phase but none were completed.
But, now that a water master plan for the Province has been
finished (mid-2003), there is a sound basis to do the detailed
planning for future implementation of water infrastructure.
The assessment of the sub-component indicates that management
and organization have been major constraining factors in the
poor performance. As noted in Working Paper 2, Water
Investment Programme, there has been: inadequate planning
of the water activities; poor communication between the various
partners (project, district staff, contracted NGO, etc.);
insufficient involvement of the local authorities to support
the work of the NGOs in the process of mobilisation of the
communities; insufficient decentralization of the water management;
and insufficient capacity of PCU to handle all the tasks related
to management of the water programme. For the limited number
of facilities established during this phase (the 35 emergency
boreholes sunk in 2001), there have been additional constraints,
including: lack of capacity to repair the pumps at village
level and availability of spare parts for the installed pumps,
neither in Umutara nor in Kigali. But, it should be noted
that during the past quarter, the PCU has commissioned studies
that will facilitate the installation of facilities in early
2004.
Rural Infrastructure – Feeder Road Programme.
With the aim of providing road access within 5 km of all communities
(a somewhat strange basis for such a dispersed rural population),
project design provided for construction/rehabilitation of
477 km (300 km in the first project districts and 177 km
in the twin project districts) over the project life, with
85% or over 400 km planned to be constructed/rehabilitated
during the first phase. At the time of the evaluation mission,
only one road of 14 km had been constructed but studies
had been completed for the construction/rehabilitation of
another 40 km of roads. It should be noted that the quality
of the work on the completed road has not been adequate and
the road is already eroding. In addition to the problem of
construction, there is a question of the arrangements for
maintenance of the road. Road maintenance teams (cell) and
brigades (sector) have not been formed and trained nor has
the necessary equipment and tools been made available. A detailed
analysis of the roads programme and the performance of the
team in implementing it are contained in Working Paper 3,
Feeder Road Programme. The Paper highlights five key constraints
that have negatively impacted on the implementation of the
programme: (i) the preparation of a roads master plan
for 300 km was very delayed; (ii) for most of the
period, there had been an absence of qualified staff to handle
the programme (e.g. there is no roads or civil engineer in
the PCU); (iii) the involvement and mobilization of the
communities in the rehabilitation and subsequently the maintenance
of the roads had not been clearly defined; (iv) the tendering
process and approvals from the National Tender Board have
been very long; and (v) the estimated cost per km of the roads
FRw 4.5 million) was unrealistically low and was not
revised.
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