Richard,

Thanks for your comprehensive description of the issues in the design and implementation of rural development activities. Based on my own 30 years’ experience in the design, implementation and evaluation of large scale rural development projects for bi-lateral and multi-lateral agencies, I would add:

1. I have not experienced any situations where I believed stakeholders we were interviewing had been prepared/briefed to give pre-determined answers. Yes, sometimes, our local counterparts may have taken the easy way out of arranging interviewees from their own networks but, a structured interview/cross-reference process usually shows up the problems. 
   
   I am aware of one major supervision mission in a large development country that found evidence of pre-prepared interviewees. Ironically, the mission leader was not prepared to impose a sanction for this behaviour.
   
   A small point on this, in all my work interviewing farmers in developing countries and Australia, I have very rarely had any situations where the interviewees tried to mislead me.  Rural people in their own environment give honest answers.

2. It is very unusual to find a project concept that has passed the identification process not to proceed to implementation. The strategy / design may be reworked but political and (local and donor) agency pressures usually leads to implementation. This reluctance to kill a poorly conceived project early is one of the main reasons I have found for poorly performing projects.

Regards,

Ian Teese  Development Economist Australia