China - Shandong Agricultural Development Project

 Shandong agricultural development project Report No: ; Type: Report/Evaluation Memorandum ; Country: China; Region: East Asia And Pacific; Sector: Agriculture Adjustment; Major Sector: Agriculture; ProjectID: P003552 China: Shandong Agricultural Development Project (Credit 2017-CHA) The China Shandong Agricultural Development project, supported by Credit 2017-CHA for US$109.0 million equivalent, was approved in FY89. The Credit was fully disbursed and closed on schedule in FY95. The Implementation Completion Report (ICR) was prepared by the East Asia Regional Office. The borrower prepared a separate completion report which is included in the ICR as Annex B. The project's objective was to accelerate rural development in three areas of Shandong Province where agricultural productivity was low: the coastal lowlands, the Tuhai River Basin, and the Yi Meng mountains. The four components designed to meet this objective aimed to develop culture fisheries on unproductive coastal lands; intensify crop and livestock production and processing in the Tuhai River Basin; create employment, primarily for women, by intensifying livestock production and processing in the Yi Meng mountains; and improve capacity for project management through technical assistance, training, and applied research. The project was generally well designed and met most of its objectives, despite some initial delays in the provision of counterpart funds from local levels of government. New horticultural crops and foodgrains were established on 56,540 hectares, exceeding the target by more than 13 percent, and a total of 284,200 hectares of irrigated land were rehabilitated, exceeding the SAR target by 5 percent. Development of livestock farms and fast-growing tree plantations achieved their targets fully. Thirty-eight agroprocessing plants were established, against an initial target of 42. The construction of shrimp ponds was below expectations by 20 percent, however, and a viral disease that affected the entire Chinese coastal zone in 1993 halted shrimp production. The project created additional employment for more than 220,000 people in the Yi Meng mountains, and 56 percent of these jobs went to women. Women accounted for half of the 12,000 person-months of training the project provided in the Yi Meng mountains, and 29,000 women received credit for livestock development. The benefits from expanded irrigation were realized more slowly than planned because installation of on-farm irrigation works by bebeficiaries did not keep pace with off-farm project works. Not all the wastewater treatment plants associated with agricultural processing were operational when the project closed, but IDA will continue to monitor this issue during supervision of ongoing projects in the province. The ICR estimates the project's Economic Rate of Return at 31 percent, 2 percentage points higher than at appraisal. The Operations Evaluation Department (OED) agrees with the ICR in rating project outcome as satisfactory, sustainability as likely, and institutional development as modest. Sustainability will be highly dependent on the completion of on-farm irrigation works, the continued high collection rate of irrigation water charges, and the successful marketing of new agricultural and food products. Both the ICR and OED rate Bank performance as satisfactory. The main lessons that can be drawn for this project suggest that: (i) a well-prepared rural development project, with effective coordination during implementation, can begin to produce substantial benefits for rural communities within a short space of time; but (ii) the effective participation of all levels of government is needed in project design and implementation if decentralized projects are to achieve their full potential by helping to ensure that local counterpart funds are made available as needed and local project works are implemented on schedule. Overall, the ICR is satisfactory. The tables are extensive and the brief text is sufficient, although it interprets project outputs prematurely as development impacts. The Aide-Memoire of the ICR mission is minimal and the ICR contains no map. No audit is planned.