End of Project Evaluation for Building Rural Income Through Associations Project

Background

The BRITA III project dates back to 2007, when Norges Vel and RUDI first started collaborating and has since been supporting smallholder rice farmers in Kilombero, Mbeya and Iringa region in Tanzania. Focusing on productivity, post-harvest handling, collective marketing, warehouse receipt system, entrepreneurship and income generation as well as organisation of farmers, the project has built a history of progress towards a commercialised approach for smallholder farming. With the evaluation we wanted to shed light on the relevance of the models used for providing continued support to smallholders in Tanzania, to gather lessons learned and to know the degree of achieved objectives.

Purpose/objective

The objective of the study was to:
a) Assess the extent to which the objectives of the project had been achieved
b) Extract the main lessons learned and
c) Assess the relevance of the project model as a basis for providing continued support to smallholders in Tanzania

Methodology

Rapid Assessment Methodology along with quantitative methods and various models of data collection

Key findings

While facing challenges around collective marketing, that calls for continued efforts towards a more commercialised, collective approach, the interventions were recognised for achieving significant results in productivity, climate friendly production methods, gender awareness and equality and mobilisation for saving and lending through VICOBA groups. This has led to a significant improvement in overall livelihood for involved stakeholders.

There is still a need to strengthen communication and coordination in order to reach a larger number of farmers and to ensure the entire communities benefit from increased gender awareness. Collective marketing needs continued interventions to overcome constraints and ensure smallholders get part in well-paying markets.

Recommendations

There were 8 main recommendations, centred around the following:

1. There is a need to strengthen the communication component in the project in order to provide appropriate information to reach a larger number of farmers, especially with regards to positive results on productivity
2. Seeking increased coordination with other donors/farmer support programs as an alternative means to reach a larger number of farmers’ associations
3. Due to very positive results on the use of system of rice intensification (SRI), it was recommended to put even more focus on this aspect of the project, together with addressing the constraints of collective marketing
4. To continue to address gender aspects in order to reach the entire community with the achieved results, and to leverage on community development officers to spread the gender equality agenda initiated by the project
5. To continue to link apexes and associations to institutions like SACCOs and VICOBAs and to address bank linkages as a way of bridging the gap of saving and lending within SACCOs as opposed to bank loans directly to associations
6. To ensure annual updates of Association business plans in order to have the best possible basis for planning and informing of business operations
7. To ensure field staff capacity is continuously built for the benefit of farmers
8. To continue to strengthen apexes to deliver services to all their members