Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/63445 
Year of Publication: 
2006
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Research Paper No. 2006/33
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
This article aims to contribute to the discussion about how to make development interventions more effective by analyzing the factors contributing to the success or failure of rural development projects. We made an aggregate level analysis of 46 projects in the field of agricultural research (AR), water management (WM), natural resource management (NRM), and integrated rural development (IRD), financed by the Netherlands’ Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS) and carried out between 1975-2005 in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Making a distinction between the successful projects and failures, we showed the possibilities and limitations of evaluating projects on the basis of the official criteria (relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability and impact and/or using criteria such as poverty, gender, institutional development, governance and environment). We learned that project performance very much depends on whether interventions ‘keep track’ with local priorities and trends. This is much more important than ‘measuring output’ (are results in line with the project goal?) which is wrongly presented as a priority in monitoring and evaluation practices.
Subjects: 
rural development
donor policy
project evaluation
JEL: 
O1
Q0
Q1
Q2
R0
ISBN: 
9291908010
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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