IFAD in Ethio[pia

IFAD in Ethiopia   

 Projects: 16
Total cost:
US$1013.2 million
Approved IFAD loan:
US$392.9 million
Directly benefiting:
10,410,000 households

Since 1980, IFAD has invested a total of US$408.9 million in 16 programs and projects for an overall cost of US$1029.2 million. IFAD has also provided debt relief amounting to US$28 million under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Debt Initiative (HIPC).

IFAD’s strategy in Ethiopia is well aligned with the government’s Growth and Transformation Plan - GTP implementation strategies. Accordingly, IFAD focuses on supporting investment programs with the greatest potential impact on sustainable household food security and the incomes of poor people. Our strategy is to improve poor rural people’s access to natural resources such as land and water, improve agriculture and livestock production technologies and support services, and develop reliable financial services. Our projects particularly target women, small-scale farmers and herders.

IFAD has taken the lead role, together with our partners, in the development and expansion of rural finance, small-scale irrigation and support systems for pastoral communities. To provide increased support to these interventions efficiently and effectively, IFAD and the Government of Ethiopia signed a host country agreement in July 2010. An IFAD country office is now in place in Addis Ababa and more staff are scheduled to join the office in 2011. This has enabled us to strengthen our engagement with government, programs, projects and development partners

Performance of IFAD

The overall performance of the project portfolio. The portfolio’s performance (measured in terms of relevance, effectiveness and efficiency4) is assessed as being satisfactory5 for the post-COSOP portfolio (rural finance and pastoral community development) and moderately satisfactory for the pre-COSOP portfolio, with the exception of small-scale irrigation, which has been supported since the 1990s through three different operations.

 Relevance. The objectives of the loan-supported projects have been found to be highly relevant in the case of rural finance, pastoral community development and small-scale irrigation. These projects responded to the needs of the rural poor and were aligned with the main Government and IFAD policies and strategies related to rural poverty reduction. Moreover, the lessons from the OE interim evaluation of the second phase of the Special Country Programme were duly incorporated into the Participatory Small-scale Irrigation Development Programme (PASIDP).

 On a related issue, the CPE recognizes the importance for the Government of investing in the development of the National Agricultural Research System, which is seen as a key feature in promoting food security in the country. However, it also calls attention to the type of contribution IFAD can make to the process, especially in view of the fact that research results have often not become available until long after a project’s completion. This has limited the opportunities for transferring new technologies to the rural poor and for promoting their adoption. Furthermore, while the CPE supports the introduction of research into drought-prone under-served areas, some uncertainty remains about the selected approach, which would focus on the construction of large research centres with costly infrastructure based on the assumption that highly qualified researchers could be convinced to come to remote and marginal areas and to live and work there on a permanent basis. Similar comments were made during the internal formulation process in 1998 by IFAD’s Technical Advisory Division. In fact, according to the CPE, IFAD’s experience with the implementation of ARTP indicates that these comments are pertinent even today.

 The design of the recent agricultural marketing project is broadly consistent with IFAD’s Private-Sector Development and Partnership Strategy. However, while recognizing that the marketing project has been in place for just over two years, the CPE notes that the project needs to explore opportunities for greater public-private partnerships.

 Generally speaking, IFAD Ethiopia has been supported projects are expected to contributing for poverty reduction strategy of the country; particularly to Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP). Nevertheless, every project was implementing its planned interventions relatively overlapped target areas, but without effective integration and synergy to bring effective and efficient result that lead toward the vision of IFAD in Ethiopia. Recognizing these problems the IFAD country office has planned to create synergy among all projects. Moreover, IFAD Ethiopia Program took firm stand in mainstreaming KML in order to achieve meaningful impacts on rural poverty as well as tangible contribution for the success of the five years GTP of the government.

 Effectiveness. The effectiveness of the interventions undertaken in the areas of rural finance, pastoral community development and participatory small-scale irrigation is assessed as satisfactory. Coverage of beneficiaries or intervention areas has been expanded beyond the levels initially planned, and the overall quality of services has matched the needs of the beneficiaries. Effectiveness has been appraised as being moderately satisfactory in the case of agricultural research (benefits to the broader research system in Ethiopia, while still limited, are potentially transferable to extension efforts and to farmers) and as moderately unsatisfactory in the case of cooperative development (there has been only limited progress in terms of the quality of services, and problems of insolvency have arisen).

In the area of pastoral community development, effective and innovative models of local governance have been introduced for planning and implementing investments in community infrastructure, as well as in income-generating activities for the poorest, and this has provided stakeholders and beneficiaries with a sense of ownership. Communities are actively engaged in the planning and implementation of microprojects to which they contribute in kind or with cash. Substantial improvements in living standards are noted. (IFAD uses a six-point rating scale in which 1 represents the lowest score and 6 the highest. A 5-point rating is considered to be satisfactory).

Efficiency is assessed as satisfactory for rural finance, due to the favourable operating cost ratios when compared to regional standards in the industry. Efficiency is assessed as moderately satisfactory for pastoral development and small scale irrigation. While unit costs for construction are within the parameters of comparable interventions, because of the incomplete status of much of the infrastructure (pastoral development) and delays in implementation (irrigation), the benefits will accrue to the project much later than expected. Efficiency is assessed as being moderately unsatisfactory in the cases of both cooperative development and agricultural research. This is due to the fact that the level of project outputs is significantly lower than expected and to delays and high unit costs in construction and delivery. This situation is, however, attributable to many factors that are beyond the control of the project management teams, such as the focus on quantitative targets and the wide geographic coverage of activities which is called for in the project design.

 A. Rural Poverty Impact

The CPE assesses the overall impact on rural poverty as being satisfactory, with the exception of the early support for cooperatives provided through SOCODEP, for which the impact is assessed as moderately unsatisfactory. Given the nature of the project, in which emphasis is placed on the construction of large research centres, the impact of the support provided for agricultural research is not rated because it could not be gauged at the time of evaluation. Because implementation of AMIP and PASIDP has begun so recently, the CPE did not assess or rate the impact of these two new projects.

Impact on household income and assets. In terms of the number of households in which income levels and asset ownership have improved, the most significant contribution has been made by the support provided for rural finance, followed by the support furnished for pastoral communities and irrigation. Rural financial services and the MFI industry are making a significant contribution to poverty reduction in Ethiopia by reaching the poor, although they do not always reach the poorest. Impact studies consistently identify widespread and significant improvements in household income, consumption and asset-building among the vast majority of MFI clients, who are mainly the “economically active poor”. As is common in microfinance, the available information suggests that although some changes begin to occur when the very first loan is disbursed, it is not until after the fifth loan (usually by the fifth year) that significant improvements in income and living standards can be seen.

 There is evidence that pastoral community activities are having a broader impact in terms of poverty reduction. Through an income-generating scheme, interventions have directly contributed to improving the income levels and asset accumulation of some 10,000 of the poorest community members, of whom 78 per cent are women (including female heads of household). According to the evidence gathered through focus group discussions, it appears that activities are simple and affordable for very poor households (e.g. petty trading, breeding of poultry, fattening of goats and sometimes oxen). These results can also be attributed to the effective and participatory rural appraisal which was conducted when intervention plans were being prepared. In addition, many more households may have obtained indirect income benefits from the community micro-projects, in particular the water supply schemes.

Some 31,000 households in densely populated drought-prone areas have been reached through the support provided for small-scale irrigation projects, and many of these households are gradually seeing an improvement in their incomes. Findings suggest that increases in crop yields over the traditional yields are in the range of from 25 to 40 per cent, and in cases where irrigation facilities have been built around springs, the increases have been between 75 and 100 per cent. Thanks to these irrigation projects, the targeted irrigation farmers’ physical and financial assets have started to increase, although experience suggests that it may take six or more years for irrigation farmers to experience the full benefits.

Food security. The most direct and significant contribution to an improvement in food security for rural households has been made by the support furnished for small-scale irrigation projects. Information collected by the OE interim evaluation team on Phase II of the Special Country Programme shows that some farmers were experiencing a reduction in the number of “hungry months” from about six to two (July and August) thanks to larger and more reliable yields and higher income. It has also been reported that the range of dietary intake is widening due to crop diversification.

 The support provided for rural finance and pastoral community development has also made important direct and indirect contributions. In the case of rural finance, the various impact studies show that the first impact for new clients is consumption smoothening, as these interventions enable households to meet their food requirements throughout the year. Generally speaking, for most rural clients, the first few loans are used to purchase oxen (usually for use in ploughing, but also for sale after the oxen are fattened). Multi-access loans have permitted the diversification of the income base, and this, combined with growing savings deposits, has improved clients’ capacity for coping with drought and other external shocks. In pastoral communities, many micro-projects have been undertaken to improve the water supply, which enables these communities to deal more successfully with recurrent droughts. The support furnished for cooperative development made much less of a contribution than expected to an improvement in food security. Reasonable disaster risk management have been created through long term DPISP and decentralized EWI and Response package

Significant progress has been made in these areas towards the main objective of increasing yields and cropping rates by expanding irrigated agriculture, and the targets for beneficiaries and for the land area to be brought under irrigation have been surpassed. However, advances have been relatively modest in the case of objectives relating to water management and the settlement of water-rights issues, user organizations, soil conservation, crop husbandry and vegetable seed production, and the development of economic activities for women

Market access. Providing greater access to markets has not been among the key objectives of these interventions, with the notable exceptions of AMIP and SOCODEP. Therefore, not surprisingly, the programme’s contribution in this sphere has been modest when compared to the contributions made in other areas. For example, some rural finance clients who have bought oxen or other transport animals have improved their access to markets. Similar effects may be seen for some beneficiaries of the income-generating scheme supported in pastoral communities. The support for cooperative development included the construction and rehabilitation of roads, which did improve market access for some households, though fewer than targeted. Limited achievements were made in promoting viable service cooperatives that provide efficient access for their members to markets and services.

 Human capital. The main contributions to development have come from the support provided to pastoral communities and the BSF-financed water supply, health and basic sanitation component of SOCODEP, while the support furnished for rural finance has made more indirect contributions. More than 10,000 staff and community members in pastoral areas have been trained, and households are starting to benefit from the services provided by health posts and new schools (although no data are available on the quality of the teaching or of the learning process). The results of the BSF health component were - according to a BSF-financed impact study and the OE project completion evaluation of SOCODEP - positive and substantial.

 In rural finance, the impact has been more indirect. Some impact studies have reported that some clients have improved their income levels and are therefore in a position to send their children to school. However, progress in supporting skills development by MFI staff and RUSACCO members has been modest due to the lengthy procurement procedures employed by the co-financing partner (AfDB).

 The impact of irrigation interventions on human assets, in the form of the development of skills and knowledge, has been limited by the generally poor quality of extension work, an unimaginative use of trials and demonstrations, and the limited institutional support that has been provided. While a large training programme was made available in order to provide support for cooperatives, any lasting impact on the institutions involved was undermined by frequent government restructuring and redeployment of personnel. Furthermore, capacity-building efforts largely ignored the importance of changing people’s attitudes towards the cooperative model.

Social capital. The most significant contribution made in this domain has come from the support furnished for pastoral community development. Communities have been empowered through the effective use of participatory methods and the formation of the woreda (district) development committees and community development committees, which include members from government, the private sector and civil society. These committees may serve as a model for woreda and community planning throughout the country. Significant impacts have also been observed in the area of rural finance, where credit groups, local networks and RUSACCOs are helping to develop social capital at the grassroots level. While the support for cooperatives was expected to make a major contribution to social capital development, at the project completion point most of the cooperatives were still weak, both financially and with respect to management capacity and business skills.

 In the sphere of irrigation, the impact on social capital, through the establishment and strengthening of local organizations for water management, has been more limited. The situation has been complicated by the presence of three different organizations within the same scheme: the traditional water user group, the “modern” water user association (WUA) and an irrigation cooperative. Traditional water-user groups have not been utilized effectively in the move to “modern”’ organizational forms (WUAs and cooperatives). The cooperative promotion departments, which are mandated to strengthen WUAs, have focused on the promotion of irrigation cooperatives, even though the cooperative concept is unattractive to some (perhaps many) farmers because of the coercive application of cooperative schemes during the Derg administration. This has been taken into consideration in the design of the latest small-scale irrigation intervention (PASIDP).

Institutional impact. The support provided for pastoral areas has effectively contributed to new approaches and systems for planning and implementing public investments at the community level. The woreda development committees and community development committees are in operation and are contributing to a sense of local ownership. Governmental Institutionalizations of CDD approach through cohesive partnership  between communities and local government, as well as decentralized risk management established with firm foundation of early warning and response coupled long term preparedness , above all contributed for the deepening of the decentralization process and popular participatory deevelopment. The support for rural finance has made a significant contribution towards building an inclusive financial system that can sustainably address the financial needs of the poor. Mechanisms for linking the MFI sector and the banking industry have been introduced, and a diversification process has been initiated in terms of the products offered and the range of institutions servicing the poor, including RUSACCOs. Finally, the capacity of the regulatory framework in respect of both MFIs and RUSACCOS has been strengthened, in particular by helping the National Bank of Ethiopia to upgrade its Microfinance Supervision Division and give it the status of a full department. Also, some steps have been taken to reinforce self-regulatory mechanisms in the microfinance industry by supporting the Association of Ethiopian Microfinance Institutions (AEMFI).

The overall National Agricultural Research System (NARS) of Ethiopia has been significantly strengthened through ARTP for human resource development and facilities. Through its involvement

in this support effort, IFAD has helped to introduce competitive research grants and to establish the basis for improving linkages with the extension system. The chances that IFAD’s support for six agricultural research centres in remote drought-prone areas will have a positive institutional impact will depend on how the current problems of these centres are solved. These problems include a failure to complete construction work, a lack of potable water, inadequate accommodation facilities, and difficulties in attracting and retaining high-quality staff. At the project’s close, major efforts were reportedly being made to solve the water-supply problem.

 
Sustainability. It is likely that most of the benefits promoted through IFAD-supported activities will be sustained after the relevant projects come to an end. In fact, in Ethiopia, sustainability prospects are significantly better than they are, on average, for IFAD-funded projects across all regions (see table 3). In recent years, more than 10 per cent of the Ethiopian Government’s budget has been allocated for agriculture and food security. Therefore, within the public domain, budgetary resources are usually available to support the continuation of activities in this field. Another positive element is that project management units are well embedded within the decentralized government structure (Phase II of the Special Country Programme, PCDP) or in permanent national organizations (RUFIP, ARTP).

Innovation, replication and scaling up. The IFAD portfolio has contributed to the introduction of a number of systems and approaches that are innovative in the Ethiopian context. For example, in agricultural research, innovations have included: (i) a system of competitive research grants; (ii) Farmer/ pastoral Research Groups, through which farmers are involved in research activities on an ongoing basis (this approach will be continued and scaled up with the help of funding from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)); and (iii) a system of research extension advisory councils which is supported by public policy and the government budget.

 
In the area of pastoral community development, a community-driven development approach has been introduced, and the planning and management of community investments are now being conducted by the woreda (district) development committees and the community development committees. The potential exists for scaling up this approach and system, not only in pastoral areas (further funding will soon be coming from the World Bank), but nationally as well. In the sphere of rural finance, RUFIP has helped to link MFIs with the banking industry, and large MFIs are now accessing funds from commercial banks.

 In general, while the Ethiopia CPE notes that projects and programmes have introduced innovations in technology or in social areas, the replication and scaling up of tried and proven innovations have not been systematic. Although recently greater efforts are being deployed in this area, in the past insufficient attention and resources have been devoted to policy dialogue, knowledge management and partnership-building, all of which are essential ingredients for replication and scaling up (see the following section). Direct supervision and the provision of implementation support, together with the maintenance of an IFAD country presence in Ethiopia since 2005, are steps in the right direction which can contribute to more effective innovation scouting and promotion.

 For this purpose the issue of Knowledge Management and Learning (KML) came to into picture as an approach to address the multi-faceted problems and improve performance through better managing knowledge thereby help meet the vision. Moreover, IFAD Ethiopia Program took firm stand in mainstreaming KML in order to achieve meaningful impacts on rural poverty as well as tangible contribution for the success of the five years GTP of the government.

 As IFAD becomes knowledge intensive, KML was found crucial in alleviating the prevailing situations affecting the performance of each of IFAD supported programs and leading to low synergy between them which in turn have been resulted in slow impacts.  Generally speaking, the major issues which led to the necessity of mainstreaming KML both at programs, Country Program Management - CPM and government partners level.

 B. Non-project Activities

The implementation of non-lending activities (knowledge management, policy dialogue and partnership-building) has been limited, mainly because of a lack of resources and the fact that in the past a high priority has not been placed on such activities. The situation in this respect is improving, however. First, the country programme manager now has more resources available than s/he did a decade ago, which allows the manager to engage more effectively in non-lending activities. Second, the CPE found that the country presence has contributed to improvements in donor coordination, an exchange of experiences and policy dialogue.

 Policy dialogue. IFAD’s main contribution to policy dialogue has been made during the project design phase. Furthermore, in some cases, a policy dialogue component has been included in the project design (e.g. in the pastoral community development and rural finance projects). However, supervision reports note that policy dialogue components are lagging behind “operational” components and that engagement by government agencies has not always been as expected.  Despite this, a participatory policy and strategy review was undertaken by private consultant and “pastoral policy statement” was developed as one of key performance triggers of phase I of PCDP. Same process was continued to be cascaded to regional level strategy development in PCDP II as operational component named “policy implementation fund”. The policy recommedndations resulted in reforms of strategies such as “pastoral risk management”; appropriate extension and social servives (education, agriculture, animal and public health)

Knowledge management. This area of activity was identified as a high priority in the COSOP, but limited progress has been made in this respect. As mentioned earlier, project-level M&E systems, which are at the foundation of a vibrant knowledge management system, have generally performed unsatisfactorily. Under the civil service reform programme, public institutions are improving their management information systems and are conducting planning, budgeting and reporting functions based on output targets and deliverables. However, relatively little attention continues to be paid to impact issues, and baseline and repeat surveys focusing on changes in household livelihoods are therefore generally not done. As a means of stimulating knowledge management, in 2007 IFAD launched the Country Programme Forum to facilitate contacts and meetings among IFAD project stakeholders (the Government, IFAD, other donors) with a view to exploring synergies between projects and different actors and exchanging experiences and lessons.

Moreover, every project was implementing its planned interventions relatively overlapped target areas, but without effective integration and synergy to bring effective and efficient result that lead toward the vision of IFAD in Ethiopia. Recognizing these problems the IFAD country office has planned to create synergy among all projects. For this purpose the issue of Knowledge Management and Learning (KML) came to into picture as an approach to address the multi-faceted problems and improve performance through better managing knowledge thereby help meet the vision. Moreover, IFAD Ethiopia Program took firm stand in mainstreaming KML in order to achieve meaningful impacts on rural poverty as well as tangible contribution for the success of the five years GTP of the government.

 Partnerships: At the federal level, there is a solid partnership with the Government, especially the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research and others. These agencies regard IFAD as a flexible and

valuable organization that is working to reduce rural poverty by promoting innovations in remote areas, and they realize that this area of endeavour is not usually considered to be a priority by other development organizations.

 In recent years, co-financing partnerships have declined in importance as several major development partners adopted the budget-support modality. Furthermore, some of IFAD’s traditional partners, such as AfDB and the World Bank, did not place priority on small grassroots-type agricultural and rural development interventions in Ethiopia in the period assessed by the CPE. Non-governmental and civil society organizations (NGOs and CSOs) have traditionally played a less important role in development cooperation in Ethiopia than in some other African countries and have therefore not been as widely involved in IFAD-supported projects and programmes in the past. However, the capacity of NGOs and CSOs is improving and, as suggested by the experience gained in support activities for pastoral communities, NGOs and CSOs can play an important role in supporting communities and grassroots organizations. The capacity of private-sector service providers is also expanding, albeit from a low base level, and this remains an area in which further inroads can be promoted within the context of IFAD operations.

The performance of IFAD. In the majority of cases, IFAD has contributed to good project design. This is especially the case in IFAD-initiated projects and programmes in such areas as rural finance and small-scale irrigation. As a consequence of the operating model used in the past, under which supervision was delegated to cooperating institutions, IFAD was perceived as a flexible but distant partner in project execution. With the adoption of the direct supervision and implementation support policy and the establishment of a country presence in Ethiopia, this perception is rapidly changing. The CPE found that IFAD’s country presence is an importance feature of the operating model which can help to further strengthen its development effectiveness, even though the present country presence arrangements (e.g. limited resources and delegation of authority) may act as a constraint on its opportunities in the future.

 Cooperating institutions and cofinanciers. The World Bank has served as the cooperating institution (CI) in three of the projects reviewed in the CPE. The best performance has been observed in PCDP, where the Bank’s Ethiopia country office is in charge of the provision of support and where all items have truly been cofinanced by IFAD (40 per cent) and the World Bank (60 per cent). The least satisfactory performance was seen in ARTP, where support was provided through brief missions from Washington and where IFAD was fully financing three separate components of the project. The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) served as CI on two of the reviewed projects and provided a moderately satisfactory level of service, but did not focus enough on correcting problems faced by these projects. The CI and co-financing partnerships with the World Bank and AfDB have been hampered by the cumbersome procurement procedures and regulations of these organizations. This has resulted in delays in implementation, particularly in the case of research (ARTP, World Bank) but also in the area of rural finance (RUFIP), where AfDB regulations have hindered progress on the capacity building components; this, in turn, has had a negative impact on the IFAD-financed credit component.

 The performance of the Government and its agencies. The Government’s overall performance is assessed as satisfactory. IFAD has been engaging in an increasingly constructive and useful dialogue with key government ministries and agencies. A useful dialogue has been maintained with the Development Bank of Ethiopia in connection with the credit component for which it is fully responsible. In the instances in which performance has not been fully satisfactory, the major problem has been a lack of clarity regarding the assignment of responsibilities. For example, in the support for cooperatives provided under the SOCODEP project, too many agencies were involved and major institutional changes took place which hurt performance.

CONCLUSIONS

Clear portfolio development directions, but limited analysis of resource needs. The 1999 COSOP was prepared at very little cost but provided concise and clear directions for portfolio development and non-lending activities. Given the limited resources available for its preparation, the COSOP’s analytical underpinnings were, understandably, inadequate. Among other shortcomings in this regard, different typologies of rural poverty in the country were not well captured. The COSOP also implicitly assumed that policy dialogue and knowledge management would be taken care of through IFAD-financed projects, without any accompanying activity or a specific budget allocation. Finally, the COSOP did not clarify how the different subsector programmes would reinforce each other (for example, how to provide financial services, irrigation and marketing services to the same clients and communities).

 Satisfactory portfolio performance. In terms of many of the key evaluation criteria used by the Office of Evaluation, the performance of IFAD-supported projects in Ethiopia has been better than the average for IFAD operations globally (see table 3). This is an achievement that warrants acknowledgement. In particular, performance has been good in areas such as small-scale irrigation, rural finance and pastoral community development, where IFAD operations have had an impact in terms of reducing rural poverty. Progress has also been made in the critical area of local governance. Performance and results have so far been more limited in the area of cooperative development and in the sphere of agricultural research, where any large-scale impact on farmers’ livelihoods may not become apparent until after the relevant interventions have come to an end. This has also been true  with regard to the engagement of the private sector. Overall, sustainability prospects are good, partly thanks to the fact that the Government has allocated a sizeable share of its budget to agriculture and rural development.

 Valuable innovations. Innovations have been introduced in a number of IFAD operations. Community-driven approaches have fostered local partnerships among the public sector, private enterprises and civil society. In the area of agricultural research, ARTP introduced competitive funding facilities which can also be accessed by private entities and non-governmental organizations. Participatory research activities with farmers and a system for linking up research, extension and farmers have been established. The Government of Ethiopia and some donors (the World Bank, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency) are extending further financial support for these innovations. In the area of rural finance, linkages between MFIs and banks have been facilitated, and rural savings and credit cooperatives (RUSACCOs) have been introduced. The replication and scaling up of tried and proven innovations have not received systematic or sufficient attention, however.

 

Opportunities for further improvements. Opportunities exist, for example, for bringing in computerized management information systems for use by MFIs and for introducing business development services for rural finance clients. In addition, IFAD has not taken full advantage of its grant programme in Ethiopia. The majority of the grant funds have gone to research projects that are not closely enough linked to the lending portfolio, while small grants that are tied into a given project have proved their validity for generating useful knowledge and piloting innovations.

 Project design. Project design has generally been of good quality. However, in the case of agricultural research (ARTP), concerns expressed by the Technical Advisory Division about the project design were not fully responded to. The CPE finds that these concerns are still pertinent.

 Supervision and implementation support. Under IFAD’s traditional operating model, these functions have generally been outsourced to cooperating institutions. This is now changing, however, with the implementation of IFAD’s new supervision policy. The evaluation considers this to be a good policy that is likely to enhance IFAD’s development effectiveness in the country. Cases of complex and “heavily procedural” approaches to procurement have been observed in the context of ARTP and RUFIP which have caused delays and hurt performance.