An Phu integrated community development project: final evaluation phase 1: 2000 - 2004

This report presents the main findings of the final evaluation of the first phase of the An Phu integrated community development project. The project aim is to promote poverty alleviation by building sustainable livelihoods and by raising the general standard of living in the poorest communities, whilst maintaining a gender-balanced approach.In order to achieve its ambitious aims, the project hopes to improve the capacities of people to adopt adequate livelihood strategies and to reduce their vulnerability. It thus carries out two sets of activities: providing rural infrastructure and stimulating community development. The rural infrastructure consists of two crop cultivation schemes, one primary school, and two village electricity networks. The community development consists of eight programmes that deal with capacity building for the Commune Women's Union, raising gender awareness, cow/buffalo bank for poor households, agricultural promotion, short-term savings/credit for women, raising public health awareness, micro-initiatives for community development, and a medium-term credit programme.The first evaluation of the project finds that:the project has positively contributed to improved livelihoods, albeit in an unequal manner - improvements have been recorded in the areas of household food security, employment, physical capital such as health centres, reduced vulnerability but the very poor seem to have benefited far less than other social groupsmarginalized people have been empowered by the project, in particular women - women have clearly improved their position in the community, through increased community participation and household decision-making powers; whilst the poor in general have enhanced their position, the very poor have been restricted in doing soachieving sustainability has still a long way to go - infrastructure works are widely appreciated, but their capacity to serve people's needs without substantial further external support is at stakebuilding up of local capacity for community development has taken off - support and training provided by the project improved its capacities for project management, in particular planning, implementation and financial management; other aspects such as monitoring and evalutaion remain weak.The report ends with a number of recommendations to strengthen the project's capacity to fulfill its aims and objectives.