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.