Mid-Term Evaluation Report on the Longchuan Development Project (2007-2011)

Background:
Longchuan Development Project is a rural integrative development project and was started in 2007. The overall project goal is to facilitate sustainable development in Longchuan County through developing the target group’s own resources in order to give them the opportunity and motivation to take responsibility for their own and family’s lives, and in this way build their own future and their communities future.

Purpose/objective:
The evaluation is a mid-term evaluation in order to review the project so far and give recommendations for the rest of the project period.

Methodology:
In the four-day evaluation, the evaluation team has adopted a variety of methods including literature review, focus group interviews with project main stakeholders in Longchuan County and local communities, and Shincon and NMA staff, making individual household visits and observations, and thereby got a holistic impression of the whole project.

Key findings:
1. The main achievements have been made by the project
Generally speaking, the project has properly met the needs of the local villagers in Longchuan and there are positive changes in health that have taken place in the villages. It is in the right direction of achieving the project goal.

 The health awareness and level of primary care have been much improved with 1) the construction and operation of the public latrines, rubbish pits, more drinking water facilities and the village clinic; 2) the health training which has enabled the village doctor to provide better and more primary health care to villagers and increase the villagers’ awareness of HIV/AIDs; and 3) health of women which has improved their health awareness and status.
 The condition and level of education has also been improved with the construction of the new school, the food subsidies to students from poorer families and the financial sponsorship to minority girls;
 The production of farming has been improved with the introduction of composting and the construction of the grain-sunning ground which have reduced the utilization of fertilizers, cost of grain production and quality of grain.
 The traditional leadership has been transformed significantly with the capacity building workshop. Participatory decision making knowledge and skills has not only opened their eyes to new way of leadership, but also enabled them to use it in both daily village affairs management and project planning and management. Most important, it initiated a democratic participation in the PLG (Project Leading Group) decision making.
 The above achievements mainly are come about due to the following element: 1) FAO (Foreign Aid Office), the responsible local partner: FAO which leads the role of coordination and management of the project; 2) The FAO tries hard to mobilize the local resources through effective collaboration with different parties to make the project successful; 3) Longchuan Government has rendered strong support; 4) Shincon and NMA team has established very good relation with local government and communities;
 The last but not the least, the FAO has made strict control of fund utilization and monitoring.

Recommendations:
2. Recommendations

 Project budget: To make the project sustainable and maintain high level of quality, some necessary cost should be included as the monitoring and evaluation allowance for the project staff.
 Capacity building: FAO and PLG core members should be given more opportunities of training and exchange visits to understand and grasp skills in participatory development approaches, rights protection, and environmental issues which will help enhance their capacity to facilitate training sessions themselves. Writing skills is also needed for good project documentation. The principles and operational procedures of NMA should be stressed in training for the smooth handover of the project to the local partners.
 Project management: 1) More exchange visits and interactions including village to village visits and exchange, seminars, meetings, or study visits to good community development sites in and out of Longchuan County shall be organized between the two model villages and townships to enhance sharing and inspirations amongst different communities. (This was proposed strongly by the local PLG members to be a valuable means of capacity building for them to widen their visions and broaden their scope of work.) 2)  Careful consideration and actions need to be taken to enable a smooth transition of project coordination and management from Shincon to the New Consulting Company in 2010. 3) The funds transfer mechanism including the correspondence, the funds transfer procedures, and frequency of transfer shall be reviewed and improved for more effective project management at county level.
 New project initiatives: 1) Children’s participation in the project activities shall be explored and strengthened; 2) Education of English for the village schools should be enhanced to reduce the educational gap between rural and urban areas. Some additional resources should be identified to meet the urgent needs of local villages in primary English education.
 Project duplication: Bio-gas project and project documentation are strongly recommended to be enhanced for future implementation. 
 
Comments from the organisation, if any:
Mission Alliance has taken the recommendations from this evaluation report into account. The report has provided some useful insights and recommendations. However we do not agree with all of the recommendations.