Abstract
Evaluates project to develop and apply an improved small farmer credit and inputs system in three Egyptian governorates. Special evaluation covers the period 8/79-3/83 and is based on interviews with farmers and project personnel, and on available statistical data. From a strictly developmental point of view, the project is already, at only the halfway point of implementation, enormously successful. It has already exceeded the targeted number of farmers and it is clear that the expected income and production increases have been met as well. However, the project has not fulfilled its avowed experimental nature - its intent to develop and apply an optimal combination of agricultural extension and credit. Instead, implementation has gone directly to the application stage without fully testing all the options first. For this reason, the effects of credit with or without extension and the income and production changes in project vs. nonproject areas remain unknown. Nonetheless, the project has had a significant impact on the availability and productive use of short- and medium-term credit, which in turn has, in combination with an active extension program, resulted in increased farm production. Of the outputs, the improved credit system is the most successful to date. Other outputs are progressing at varying rates of speed and success. The planned development of an improved storage and handling system, however, has been hampered by policies regarding the respective roles of the public and private sectors. A key recommendation is to determine if the project is indeed experimental in nature, and if so, to commit the additional resources needed to fulfill this objective, i.e., to expand the project so that activities can be conducted in entire districts (rather than in single villages as at present) and testing and demonstration of project interventions can become a reality. Lesson learned: The more convoluted the project design, the more likely that the project will achieve some, rather than all, of its objectives. (Near East Evaluation Abstract, modified)