Magu District Livelihood Security Project - Final Report of the Mid-Term Evaluation

Background

The Magu district is drought prone, and one of the most insecure areas in Tanzania when it comes to food security and livelihoods. CARE International in Tanzania implemented the first phase of Magu District Livelihood Security Project (MDLSP I) in the January 1996 to December 2000. In January 2001, the organization started implementing a five-year phase two of Magu District Livelihood Security (MDLSP II). The overall goal of MDLSP II is to increase the food and income security of 15,000 vulnerable households in fifteen wards of Magu District, particularly those headed by women, by December 2005 by providing information and skills that rural households may use to increase their income and food security.

Purpose/objective

The mid-term evaluation was to establish the improvements in the life of the target group, and if this could be contributed to project activities.

Methodology

Data collection aimed at capturing both qualitative and quantitative output and process indicators. Accordingly, data collection approaches involved both quantitative and qualitative techniques and included document and literature reviews, sample household surveys using a questionnaire, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and workshops. While the survey questionnaire was administered to a random samples of households, focus group interviews were directed at specific groups of individuals, including project staff, farmers groups etc. Special effort was made to have a significant number of female-headed households included in the random sample of households to whom the survey questionnaire was administered and deliberate effort was also made to include individuals not participating in Project activities in focus group interviews and among individuals sampled for responding to the survey questionnaire. Inclusion of individuals not participating in project activities provided a control group, which would be compared to those participating in project activities, thus confirming that changes are attributable to project activities.

Key findings

The number of households reached so far range from 52% for technology transfer component interventions to 67% for economic development and capacity building components against the target of 60%. These numbers seem modest and would lead one to be concerned that the remaining period may not be enough for reaching the target figure of 15000 households for some of the interventions. To accelerate mobilization and uptake of interventions, the project has now laid the foundation for speedy operation through recruitment and training Community Resource Persons (CRPs) and Innovative Farmers (IFs), whose multiplier effect will most likely see the target number of households surpassed by the end of the project on December 31, 2005. The project's training philosophy of 1:1:5:5 assures that within the project period, the trained IFs and CRPs shall have reached many households.
The success of the Household Income and Savings Association (HISA) scheme has been overwhelming as shown by statistics from project documents. There are currently 401 HISA schemes in both project villages and outside project villages with a total of 10,005 members of whom 1,581 are female headed households, 5,017 are females, and 3,407 are males. The total amount of shares is Tshs 90,648,515, which is equivalent to USD 90, 648. The impact of this scheme in promoting community development enterprises is increasing significantly.
The Capacity Development Component seems to be working well so far as shown by project reports that point to an increase in the number of operational community based institutions (CBIs) from 22 that were formed during Phase I to the current 69. These CBIs offer their services to some 392 community based organisations (CBOs).

Recommendations

The review recommends that the project should continue to build on and refine the approaches adopted so far in the three components noting the shortcomings indicated in this report. Interventions that would promote access to markets, market information delivery and linkages with traders and buyers would promote agricultural production, which would lead to income security. Particular attention should be paid to issues of good governance and other cross cutting issues such as HIV/AIDS. CARE is already well placed to handle training on HIV/AIDS and can collaborate with TANESA. CARE should build on community members of perception on their village governments and should use project members for strengthening good governance.

Comments from the organisation

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