Min Ag

1. Purpose and aim

The restocking pilot project has only been running for a few months and thus we can not expect to see dramatic achievements in alleviating poverty of beneficiaries or major impacts on the standard of living in households at this stage. The review will therefore focus more on the process of project implementation rather than the impact, and in particular the participation of the community in planning, identification of project beneficiaries, decision-making, implementation and monitoring.

2. Who is the review for?

The review is primarily for the Restocking Project, to provide lessons and experiences for replication of the project on a large scale; FAO; and the community.

3. Project review/evaluation objectives are:

analyse the process of implementation, focusing on participation of the community
analyse the impact or changes that have occurred within beneficiary households and the community
1. identify problems and constraints that have been encountered
2. identify important lessons to be learnt and make recommendations about how the project could be improved

Key Questions addressing these objectives:

Impact on beneficiaries
What have been the main impacts of the project, both positive and negative, on households and household members, in particular on women and children, e.g., division of labour, workload, school attendance, consumption, income, movement patterns?
Have households started any new income generating activities as a result of the project?
Have any changes occurred in the role of the hot ail?
Project management
Level of support given to beneficiaries by bag and sum government regarding project activities and problems experienced by households.
Selection and processing of animals
Did the procurement process select appropriate animals? Were there any problems?
Were animals processed according to requirements? Were there any problems?
Does the beneficiary have a viable herd size (25 bod) with sufficient reproductive animals?
Community participation
Did the community identification of beneficiaries through wealth ranking and interviewing identify differences with the official (bag governors’) poverty lists and beneficiary lists?
Were any new beneficiaries suggested and agreed in the bag hural? What were the reasons?
1. Were appropriate people identified to be beneficiaries? Was anyone included who should not have been? Why?
In the opinion of the community were the beneficiary selection criteria appropriate?
2. How else have the community participated in the project, e.g., monitoring?
3. Was the bag hural the appropriate forum for selection?
Overall implementation process
What problems and constraints were faced during the implementation of the project?
What important experiences and lessons have been learnt with regard to i) local government ii) project management iii) beneficiaries and the community. What are the implications of these for future projects?
What do beneficiaries feel are the key factors which will determine the success of the project?
1. What are the local perceptions regarding repayment - are the project’s system and rates feasible? Do they prefer to pay in animals or cash?
Estimation of the overall cost of implementation (training and research, activities, etc.) in money and/or time, labour. How can this be reduced at each implementation stage i) aimag staff preparation, ii) household selection and workshop, iii) household discussions about animals, iv) purchase and distribution of animals?
Has the monitoring system been implemented as planned? What changes have been made? How could it be improved?

4. Information Collection and Analysis

The evaluation will use

monitoring information and monitoring indicators
review project documents
collect new information through participatory fieldwork: interviewing and a bag meeting

5. Results

Results of the review/evaluation will be presented in a written report and through a feedback discussion with the project staff. The report will be part of a final seminar to share findings, held in September.

6. Organisation of the Review/Evaluation

time - 5 days 8-12th August
resources - 2 vehicles
Who - Team: CSD 5, FAO 1, Min Ag 1, Project staff 1, Sum Project Team Member 2, community/beneficiaries