Resilience and Economic Growth in the Sahel — Enhanced Resilience Activity Final Performance Evaluation Report

The REGIS-ER Activity had three main strategic objectives pertaining to sustainable livelihoods, enhanced governance and improved health and nutrition practices. 

At the end of the evaluation period of REGIS-ER, it can be concluded that the project has produced satisfactory results which have achieved its three strategic objectives as initially defined at the onset of the project. These results include:

Strategic Objective 1: Beneficiaries, as well as the key informants, are unanimous in recognizing that the REGIS-ER project produced globally positive results because it contributed to significantly improving the economic growth and the well-being of the beneficiaries and built greater resilience of the population facing shocks. Among the interventions that have contributed to the increase in the social capital of households, activities such as Habbanayé, regenerative agriculture, bio-reclamation have enabled the acquisition of goods, the improvement of food security and increased income. Moreover, there were project activities that did not reach their performance targets, but nonetheless were beneficial to many people. For example, the introduction of irrigation in those limited areas where it was possible benefitted many people.

Strategic Objective 2: The achievement of results in this objective area has been made possible through support for the establishment of consultation and dialogue frameworks in order to support the implementation of actions. The training topics mainly focused on the values of tolerance, putting lessons and training into practice, integrating development plans into village and communal and regional development plans. Topics also included improving governance through the strengthening the management of natural resources, disaster risk management, conflict prevention and management and better coordination between local and regional governance structures.

Strategic Objective 3: This objective concerns improved health and nutrition, better access to drinking water and improved health and nutritional practices. Emphasis was placed on information, education and communication activities which enabled the project to record positive effects within the population, capacity building which made it possible to reach the maximum number of beneficiaries, and establishment of programming, implementation and monitoring and evaluation structures. The implementation of project activities enabled most households to have access to and use latrines. Hygiene and sanitation practices learned contributed to a reduction in open defecation and diarrheal disease. As the main source of drinking water supply is boreholes and pump wells, the project contributed greatly to improving drinking water sources. The project did have difficulties in achieving certain aspects of some of its activities under this objective and others because of the high level of insecurity caused by violent extremism.

Given the results of the performance evaluation, the following recommendations are made to USAID: 

In terms of diversification of economic opportunities, intensification of agriculture and breeding:

• Place special emphasis on establishment of microcredits to take into account the religious practices of the populations
• Increase the number of animals given to beneficiaries to breed
• Improve the veterinary services provided by the VVVs to beneficiaries and work to reduce mortality rates while improving birth rates.

In terms of governance and strengthening of local institutions:

• Maintain the capacities of local institutions so that they continue to be involved in the monitoring and evaluation of activities in order to guarantee the sustainability of the achievements of the project
• Maintain training to build the capacities of resource persons at the head of village development councils, local development committees, opinion leaders such as committees of elders and heads of socio-professional organizations. Such training will strengthen the integration of development plans into village, communal and regional development plans, as well as strengthen governance.