CHINHOYI FOOD SECURITY AND LIVELIHOODS PROJECT LOW INPUT GARDENING FUNDED BY IOM

Background   
The intervention in Alaska and Shackleton wards started in October 2009 with ECHO funding and was implemented until end of November 2010. The project was initially designed to respond to the urgent needs of the poorest urban and peri-urban populations of the targeted areas. The Low Input Gardening (LIG) component provided gardening skills and inputs as a basis for the investment of household assets in a longer-term Income-Generating Activities (IGA), towards a year-round food security at household level.   In order to ensure the long-term impact of the programme on food security at household level, Save the Children and its implementing partner DAPP embarked on the second stage of programming. The objective of Phase 2 was to formally graduate beneficiaries that are able to maintain their own household food security status, through food diversity and income generated from garden production. While phase 1 emphasized on reaching the survival threshold, part of phase 2 objectives was to ensure that the targeted households graduated from just the survival threshold to the livelihood protection threshold. 

After the end of ECHO phase 2 in November 2011, another funding (December 2011 to July 2012) was granted by IOM to continue with the beneficiaries in Shackleton and Alaska who were mostly internally displaced populations (IDPs).

Purpose/objective (including evaluation questions)   
The objective of the evaluation was to assess the project achievement of outcomes and impact as well as to document lessons learnt.

Methodology   
The evaluation used a  mix of qualitative (Focus Group Discussions and Key informants) and quantitative methods (structured HH interviews). This was done in Alaska and Shackleton and from each location a sample of beneficiary households was randomly sampled for HH interviews. The design of the assessment was such that household interviews were done to gather data on achievement of impact indicators whilst FGDs were conducted to gather qualitative data to explain the trends and variations. The Group Maturity Index (GMI)  tool was also done with representative groups of beneficiaries and their leaders (committees).

Key findings   
Refer to recommendations below, it is merged.

Recommendations   
This evaluation show that the food security of the targeted households did not significantly change during the implementation of the project (27% achievement of the targeted 100%). In terms of nutrition, dietary diversity was used to measure the project effects on this result. With regards to this, it is a subject of discussion to understand whether it was the project which failed to deliver adequately or whether the designed intervention itself does not fit well with the problem at hand. It is the view of the evaluator to recommend that future designs should explore whether or not LIGs are best suitable to achieve food security in such settings, otherwise other options or linkages should be considered to effectively address the problem at hand.

With regards to ISAL, it should be noted that the ISAL groups were formed in March after ToT in March and only contributed for 4 months before the project ended, a point to which (according to the guidelines) the groups must have been under monitoring. In any case, even though the groups were to be formed in January, 7 months was not enough as it falls below the standard minimum duration for monitoring the groups. Therefore the evaluated results only reflects groups that are 4 months old, thus not many changes could be expected at this point of time. Though the groups were expected to continue running on their own, it was difficult to guarantee sustainability due to the fact that the groups were still young. To this regards, future designs must consider the principles or guidelines that applies (for ISAL methodology) to certain interventions so as to ensure that the project impacts positively on the targeted individuals.

Degree to which project objectives were met: The findings of this evaluation show that the project was partially successful in achieving its stated objectives. The delivery of activities was done and completed, but the achievement of expected impact targets remained partial in most cases. Much as the evaluator acknowledges the fact that the project did not meet some of its impact targets, there were still significant improvements from the baseline and there are other factors that need to be considered that might have contributed to the partial achievement of results.

The initial factor concerns the target set, where the evaluator was of the opinion that some of the target set might have been too high to achieve within the set timeframe. For instance, achieving food security and livelihoods protection is a process that happens slowly thus targets for such indicators did not need to be too high as it was difficult to achieve.

Secondly, the duration of the intervention in relation to some of the set targets could have affected the achievement of target results. For instance, the project duration was 7 months, it was within these 7 months that the farmers were expected to get trainings on agricultural skills, marketing as well as collaborated production and be expected to practically apply the concepts and make sells that are significant enough to improve their livelihoods. At the same time the process of installing water system was expected to happen within the same period, which means that during the period when implementation of the water system was in progress, production was compromised by water shortages but still the achievement of impact was evaluated for the 7 months. It is therefore a recommendation that the nature of the interventions, type of activities involved as well as the expected impact should be evaluated to inform the correct duration for an intervention, otherwise projects might fail to be effective not because of in-effectiveness but because of limited duration.

Effectiveness in the delivery of water for gardening: The project was highly commended for installing a sophisticated solar driven water system. The project was effective in achieving the installation of the infrastructure, but it was not adequate to meet the full demands of beneficiaries in terms of water delivery. Even though the system was successfully installed, the farmers are still facing water challenges which mean that the system is partially delivering the required amount of water for gardening. Since the core of the project was centered on gardening, and considering the fact that water is the pillar for any farming activities, it should therefore be noted that the issue of water remains a major drawback to most farmers. The evaluation revealed that the limitations of the new system were on the size of the pump, few solar panels and tanks, absence of boosters to increase pressure. In a nutshell, a bigger system was required to meet the demand of the garden. In future, it is recommended that enough resources should be allocated to meet the demands of beneficiaries on the ground.

Follow up (with reference to Action Plan) 
Lessons learnt will be used in similar future project designs.