Ethiopia SOCODEP CE - main report - IFAD

were never fully harmonized and integrated. The logical framework used in this evaluation, and a
corresponding version used in the external PCR, had to be reconstructed from the narrative
descriptions in the Appraisal documents and MTR Report. The lack of integration 17 of project
components was in large part (but not only) due to the constant restructuring of Government organs
and the consequent redeployment of personnel, a feature of Ethiopia’s Government over at least the
last two to three decades.
32. Implementation mechanisms set out at design were bound to weaken effectiveness and impact.
The design was unrealistic about the mechanisms of implementation. Even without the numerous reorganisations
of Government offices and the constant reshuffling of staff which have characterized the
Derg and post-Derg period, the assumption that the Government staff at Regional, Zonal and Woreda
level would effectively implement a new project according to a set of externally introduced ideas and
expectations – including western free-market ideas of business and of cooperative development - was
over-optimistic. The Appraisal Report foresaw this: “Cooperatives Promotion Department (CPD) staff
lack practical business promotion, management and marketing know-how. Their training has been for
cooperatives under a socialistic system, which is no longer relevant in Ethiopia, and major
reorientation is required in the context of operations under a market economy”. In reality this major
reorientation never took place.
33. In relation to specific project components, the selection of the CBE as the vehicle for
transferring credit to service cooperatives was a mistake in hindsight. The Development Bank of
Ethiopia (DBE) then known as the Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank (AIDB) was an
alternative at the time, having greater experience of providing rural credit services than CBE. The
design of the Veterinary Revolving Drug Fund (VRDF) was extremely cumbersome, as evidenced by
its very delayed commencement (the first drugs being acquired in 2001, 7 years after the Project
began). The inclusion of a rural roads component was a strong design feature, although the assumption
that service cooperative members would maintain the new roads was flawed. The later decision to
upgrade the road design standard (from RR 30 to RR 50), with corresponding implications for
construction costs (a 5-fold increase per km) and maintenance (non-suitability for labour-based
maintenance) produced good quality roads; however, it limited the reach of this project component.
Water supply was deliberately omitted at the design stage, then a few years later introduced through
the BSF component. The BSF intervention, while much more focused (in only 8 woredas rather than
the original 33 of SOCODEP as a whole), in effect represented a separate project, having little relation
to the rest of SOCODEP. Overall, SOCODEP was a multi-component, multi-stakeholder, project,
which began with a focus on Cooperatives and Credit and the corresponding institutional Capacity-
Building, but which, by adding Veterinary Drugs, Roads, and later Water, Health and Sanitation, still
failed to become an integrated project. A notable omission from the project design was that of markets
– for agricultural inputs and outputs, and the products of small-scale enterprises.
B. Implementation and Outputs
34. Project achievements. Table 3 summarizes the main project numerical targets and
achievements, which are discussed in the following paragraphs.
35. Institutional structure during implementation. Reference has already been made to the
changes in institutional structure, which took place during the project. The main changes are
highlighted here, in order to place the project achievements in context:
• The project as described at Appraisal was to be managed by the Head of the Cooperatives
Promotion Department of SRAB (as Project Coordinator), and guided by a Project Steering
Committee (PSC);
• Over the course of the project, the post of Project Coordinator was held by four different
individuals, each serving for 2-3 years, so interrupting continuity. Successive Supervision
17 Noted also in the 2002 Supervision Report.
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