Evaluation Report 3/2002: Evaluation of ACOPAM

An ILO program for "Cooperative and Organizational Support to Grassroots Initiatives" in Western Africa 1978 – 1999

Pages: 83

ISBN: 82-7177-698-3

Conducted by:

Scanteam, Oslo

Evaluation of:

The acronym ACOPAM refers to the French name for this programme. Most of the funding came from Norway and was channelled through the International Labour Organization (ILO). The programme, which lasted from 1978 to 1999, was started in response to the severe drought and subsequent famine that devastated the Sahel region in 1976, and was designed to improve the impact and effectiveness of food aid. ACOPAM provided technical experts who advised local farmers, of both sexes, on how to form co-operatives that would strengthen local rural self-help groups mainly in Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.

Evaluation Summary:

The aims of the programme were to promote self-sufficiency among Sahelian farmers of both sexes, to boost food security by enhancing local communities’ organisational capacity, for example by forming co-operatives, and to develop and expand the economic activities of local organisations. ACOPAM’s strategy was to assist grassroots organisations and stimulate a multiplier effect by developing and disseminating training programmes and manuals and preparing new projects with relevant partners. ACOPAM supported a total of 32 sub-projects of this kind. Support for individual sub-projects evolved over time in five main areas: cereal banks, small-scale irrigation systems, microfinance to women, land management and cotton marketing. ACOPAM gradually built up a four-tier strategy: at the micro-level it provided mainly technical advisory services on training and organisational matters to local rural self-help groups, at the meso-level it developed close contacts with other support structures in order to ensure project sustainability, at the sub-regionallevel it developed and distributed training programmes and manuals, established co-financing arrangements with partners and collaborated with other ILO programmes and development actors, and at the national level it supported the development of national strategies for cereal banks and national co-operative reforms.

Conclusions:

The programme has ended, and the point of the evaluation is to provide conclusions and point to lessons learned. The evaluation team found ACOPAM to be an innovative and functional response to the prevailing food crisis in the Sahel at that time. Its most successful result was empowering and strengthening local organisations and promoting participation at grassroots level through its production and distribution of training programmes and manuals. However, it was less successful in promoting food security and job creation. The team also found that the move from direct, local-level support to indirect, higher-level support came too late, thus hindering sustainability.