The multiplicity of development projects is a reality in Africa. At the level of each of the government departments, there are often a multitude of projects without real internal consistency. This situation is the source of ineffective action against the main socioeconomic and environmental problems in Africa: unemployment, hunger, poverty and climate change. This is the observation made by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and which has justified the creation of inter-agency Policy Task Forces in its actions in the process of the fight against climate change in Africa.
The answers below to the questions under discussion provide some understanding of the situation.
1) Isn't the proliferation of agricultural projects and often of micro-projects a negative factor for the achievement of development results in the agricultural sector?
The multiplicity of interventions and actors with different logics, approaches, objectives, strategies and methods poses serious problems. Indeed, the multiplicity of development projects often generates conflicts; conflicts of intervention which the beneficiary populations watch helplessly as a scene. In reality, many of these projects are limited to intermediate results (outputs), so that changes that can be measured or described in the form of effects and impacts (development results) are not achieved, due to the fact that other important factors are not taken into account. It can also be the misidentification of the development problem itself on which the project is based from the beginning. When the identified problem is a false problem, the intended development result cannot be achieved, because despite the actions, the real problem and its causes remain. At the problem identification, strategies definition and the methods and actions choosing, care should be taken to ensure that there is no risk of antagonism between interventions on the ground at the implementation stage. The proliferation of agricultural projects has often suffered from the lack of a federative axis that could force their coherence.
2) What are the best practices for setting up a unifying framework for interventions in the agricultural sector?
As stated earlier, for overall effectiveness, the various programs, projects and micro-projects should converge towards a federative axis that would guarantee their consistency; either they stem from the same development plan or from the same strategic plan, etc. That’s not often the case. The development of a unifying development plan at the Commune or District level, periodically evaluated and updated, could guarantee better results. Another good practice is to require the establishment of a map of the other actors intervening in the zone and the formalization of a framework of synergy with them, in order to identify complementary actions and avoid that several projects repeat the actions in the same locality. This approach makes it possible to move the project to other localities if necessary in case the actions of other actors are similar to what is planned in the new project. In Benin for example, the national project to fight against climate change, called the “Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Project (PABE)”, that’s initiated with funding from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), is in the way of this good practice approach. The PABE, launched on September 21st, 2020, integrates into its approach the analysis of the synergy of actions between other development actors in its area of intervention.
3) Have countries or international organizations such as FAO already carried out evaluations on the coherence of interventions in the agricultural sector? If so, what are the main findings? And what are the possible solutions?
The inventory carried out this year 2020 on the projects that are already being implemented in the seven communes/districts of PABE revealed many other current projects on the ground. They are about twenty projects that already exist in the PABE communes/districts, which are only 7 out of the 77 communes in Benin. This is an initiative of UNEP and GCF. A phase of the solution proposed to the PABE is the holding of a workshop in order to establish a synergy map of actions with the actors who were already intervening on the ground as far as sustainable agriculture and forestry are concerned. This made it possible to have a database on the actors with a view to establish partnerships, and to identify complementary actions at the spatial and operational levels.
RE: Cohérence des interventions dans le secteur agricole
The multiplicity of development projects is a reality in Africa. At the level of each of the government departments, there are often a multitude of projects without real internal consistency. This situation is the source of ineffective action against the main socioeconomic and environmental problems in Africa: unemployment, hunger, poverty and climate change. This is the observation made by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and which has justified the creation of inter-agency Policy Task Forces in its actions in the process of the fight against climate change in Africa.
The answers below to the questions under discussion provide some understanding of the situation.
1) Isn't the proliferation of agricultural projects and often of micro-projects a negative factor for the achievement of development results in the agricultural sector?
The multiplicity of interventions and actors with different logics, approaches, objectives, strategies and methods poses serious problems. Indeed, the multiplicity of development projects often generates conflicts; conflicts of intervention which the beneficiary populations watch helplessly as a scene. In reality, many of these projects are limited to intermediate results (outputs), so that changes that can be measured or described in the form of effects and impacts (development results) are not achieved, due to the fact that other important factors are not taken into account. It can also be the misidentification of the development problem itself on which the project is based from the beginning. When the identified problem is a false problem, the intended development result cannot be achieved, because despite the actions, the real problem and its causes remain. At the problem identification, strategies definition and the methods and actions choosing, care should be taken to ensure that there is no risk of antagonism between interventions on the ground at the implementation stage. The proliferation of agricultural projects has often suffered from the lack of a federative axis that could force their coherence.
2) What are the best practices for setting up a unifying framework for interventions in the agricultural sector?
As stated earlier, for overall effectiveness, the various programs, projects and micro-projects should converge towards a federative axis that would guarantee their consistency; either they stem from the same development plan or from the same strategic plan, etc. That’s not often the case. The development of a unifying development plan at the Commune or District level, periodically evaluated and updated, could guarantee better results. Another good practice is to require the establishment of a map of the other actors intervening in the zone and the formalization of a framework of synergy with them, in order to identify complementary actions and avoid that several projects repeat the actions in the same locality. This approach makes it possible to move the project to other localities if necessary in case the actions of other actors are similar to what is planned in the new project. In Benin for example, the national project to fight against climate change, called the “Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Project (PABE)”, that’s initiated with funding from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), is in the way of this good practice approach. The PABE, launched on September 21st, 2020, integrates into its approach the analysis of the synergy of actions between other development actors in its area of intervention.
3) Have countries or international organizations such as FAO already carried out evaluations on the coherence of interventions in the agricultural sector? If so, what are the main findings? And what are the possible solutions?
The inventory carried out this year 2020 on the projects that are already being implemented in the seven communes/districts of PABE revealed many other current projects on the ground. They are about twenty projects that already exist in the PABE communes/districts, which are only 7 out of the 77 communes in Benin. This is an initiative of UNEP and GCF. A phase of the solution proposed to the PABE is the holding of a workshop in order to establish a synergy map of actions with the actors who were already intervening on the ground as far as sustainable agriculture and forestry are concerned. This made it possible to have a database on the actors with a view to establish partnerships, and to identify complementary actions at the spatial and operational levels.