RAPPORT D’EVALUATION A MI-PARCOURS DU PROGRAMME DE DEVELOPPEMENT DE LA REGION DE MOPTI

Background/Purpose:
The Developmental Program of the Mopti Region (PDRM) was established by the faith-based organization called the Evangelical Lutheran Mission in Mali (MELM). The PDRM has developed several humanitarian actions amongst those populations, in collaboration with them and accordingly to their needs. The main provider of funds (or donor) of the program is the NORAD (The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation) through Digni which acts as an umbrella organization for Norwegian missionary organizations. The NMS is the institution approved by Digni (BN) / NORAD and acts as the main operator of the PDRM to Digni (BN).  It is thus Digni who requested the mid-term evaluation through the NMS. The report of this evaluation should lead to suggestions and recommendations in order to improve not only the implementation of the 2009/2013 program, and identify (open) clues for possible future action, but also can serve as a resource document for MELM, PDRM, NMS and Digni.

PDRM is composed of an administration team based in Douentza and three field teams. The administration of the program is placed under the responsibility of a Board of Administration (CA) which is an instance of guidance, monitoring and support of the program.

Methodology:
The assessment in question was conducted by a team of three people: two women, a sociologist and a physician, and a man, an agricultural engineer. The composition of the team has largely respected the gender aspect.
After the documentary phase, the team did a week of fieldwork. This phase has enabled them to visit 14 out of the 45 sites that the project targeted (Almost 30% of the sites). The work was in all participatory. The team has most of the time respected the instructions found in the Terms of Reference. But it has also taken initiatives when it found them necessary for the proper conduct of the study.
So to gather information, the evaluation team had an interview guide based on the activities realized on the field and also on the basis of the indicators used by the project. This has enabled to interview the informants either individually or collectively, constituted on focus group.
The method was participatory; it has involved all the partners involved in the implementation of the program, the beneficiaries of the activities and the technical and financial partners, selected activities that have been under evaluation were assessed based on the following aspects: Relevance, Flexibility, Efficiency, Effectiveness, Sustainability, Management Directorate, positive impacts, negative impacts, and unintended effects (unforeseen effects).

Key findings:
In general, the evaluation team arrived in the findings that there is:
- A consistency between scheduling and planning of activities;
- A Concordance between the actions of the program and the need of the target group;
- An effective involvement of partners: Populations, communes and administration;
- An Impact of the project on the populations, the program has created a strong mobilization of actors (women, youth, traditional leaders, leaders of community social structures) for the support of development activities
- A starting of the written culture through the literacy sessions and through the school;
- A formalization of the program “relations with the villages / settlements and the communes” through the engagement plans of development activities;
 An involvement and promotion of women in structures management
- An incipient changes in behavior, attitudes and mentality of pastoral groups, those groups of shepherds are committed to citizenship access (participation in project activities through financial contribution for the acquisition of water points, in the reduction of land and social conflicts with the mediation initiated by the project)
- A sustainable management of cereal banks with autonomous capacity of restocking by the management committees, following internal rules of cereal banks;
- Conflicts prevention and management (animations on the Pastoral Charter and the Agricultural Orientation Law) that enable farmers to know their rights and to better manage conflicts.

Moreover, the main weaknesses of the program are situated at the level of:
- The Low participation and low involvement of women in the intervention sites PDRM especially in the Seeno
- The Fulani people who are the targets of the program remain nomads. Despite all the efforts made by the PDRM, one still has the impression that the program affects the sedentary Fulani who are not as numerous as the Fulani nomads
- The foulfouldé language being the one use by the program, some villages especially in the rural commune of Konna could not benefit from certain activities (literacy) because they demanded to be taught their language (Bambara) instead the foulfouldé.

Recommendations:
Given the above stated lines; we can say that the PDRM has a rich experience in the field of integrated local development, especially in the communes of Dallah, Kerena, Haire and Konna. This experience should be better known and well documented for its extension and its dissemination to the local and national level.
The prospective vision of the program must take into consideration previous learning (those achievements that the populations have appropriated on the technical and organizational ground) and the real potential which is also a challenge for the development of the area. Thus, reflection must focus on:
- Knowledge and issues of pastoral systems (spatial planning in villages for the benefit of the communities that make their living from the pastoral economy);
- The establishment of an appropriate educational system suitable to the mobility of nomadic Fulani (construction of a mobile school to monitor and reach the Fulani nomads;
- Increasing the representation of shepherds and the organizations of pastors (shepherds) in local institution;
- The strengthening of adult education and the improvement of quality and access to basic education for poor children.
- Continue to support projects in favor of the construction of classrooms in the pastoral areas in order to improve the learning conditions
- The consolidation of the fight against female circumcision in the locality of Konna and others localities of Dalah, Kerena and Haire by raising awareness, through information, training and activities that will allow women and people to open up.

Comments from the organisation, if any: