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Focused Impact Assessment 2003
Christine Schenk, S. Srimanobhavan
Trincomalee, August 2003
Since its inception in mid 1998 the Integrated Food Security Programme Trincomalee (IFSP) has established activity and impact monitoring. Monitoring and evaluation and impact assessment in particular give evidence and confirm the extent to which investment of public money is generating benefits. Lessons learnt and good practices need to be identified for improving interventions into development. IFSP Trincomalee has been practising knowledge management to disseminate best practices and to contribute to synergy.
This impact assessment provides a focused view on selected interventions, viz. infrastructure, small-scale business and income generation and attitudinal changes of communities. The assessment complements the findings of the ‘lessons learnt – best practices’ mission of February 2003 (IFSP Working Paper 52).
The perceptions of the three main stake holders were reviewed: i) rural communities, ii) partner organisations (government and non-government) and iii) IFSP staff through focused group discussions with village communities, a beneficiary survey (household interview), a CBO assessment (structured questionnaire) and interviews with partner institutions and organisations.
Among the large number of impacts documented, the most important areas are those that have a focus on bridging the gap between two types of interventions: i) specific short-term projects with the aim on the creation of assets and ii) longer-term interventions aiming at community mobilisation.
The analysis of the impacts of asset-specific interventions shows the following trend:
- Common benefits as well as individual benefits with high investment cost are highly appreciated by villagers.
- The lower and higher impacts of infrastructure rehabilitation, especially from the rural road network, are high and go beyond the sheer physical achievement.
- Individual projects arising from small-scale business and small-scale development, to some extend also infrastructure projects, require specific targeting, extensive mobilisation and fine-tuned planning skills.
- Interventions based on regional roots with an independent, autarkic focus (mobile trading, banana cultivation, paddy cultivation) are more sustainable than interventions, which are based on relatively high external support and advisory input (poultry keeping, goat rearing).
The assessment of the effects of the community mobilisation highlight the following key features:
- Villagers and all involved institutional structures highly appreciated the active involvement in the process of planning and implementation.
- Overall, structures on the village level such as community-based organisations show a strengthened performance, however, newly formed CBOs demand high mobilisation.
- An integrated village approach with a strong participatory focus looses importance as soon as many development organisations are involved in a single village development.
- The combination of implementation on one side and awareness creation on the other was highly valued by villagers and partner structures.
Overall, the feedback from local implementing partners and service providers was much more positive and encouraging than expected at the outset of the survey.
Download
Working Paper 54 Focused Impact Assessment 2003, Report pdf (522 KB)
Working Paper 54 Annex pdf (494 KB)
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