Targeting Poor Farmers: Contributions to Rural Development in Thailand - Case Study Example

Targeting Poor Farmers: Contributions to Rural Development in Thailand Customer Inserts His/Her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name September 05, 2008 Executive Summary and Aim of Evaluation Evaluation is carried on with an objective to analyze the social scientific research techniques carried out and envisaged by the policy makers. It is a comparative study of an actual progress carried out by the companies as against previous plans with an aim to make improvements upon the plans and policies for future actions. Here purpose of my evaluation is the analysis and carry on assessment of the report on projects undertaken for the upliftment of rural farmers. Evaluation was conducted on HASD II Thai Australia Agricultural and Social Development Project, initiated by the Hill Tribe Welfare Division, Department of Public Welfare, Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, between the years 1988-1993. Evaluation can be internal, external evaluation, preliminary, formative and summative evaluation. HASD II project was the final stage for a long term integrated area development project aiming to bring improvement in the lives of hill tribe people of Northern Thailand and with a aim to decrease environment degradation in the catchments areas of the main irrigation dams. Summary of Evaluation The performance of HASD II project has been moderate and at reasonable level. They achieved their objectives at the moderate level, its impact, sustainability and replicability is at moderate level. This performance is considered to be good if we consider at the large scale at which the project is carried out, its social and environment situation of the area, complex design situation. Recommendation The project envisaged the encouragement to change the agricultural growth from upland rice to paddy, vegetables and fruit production and were supplied with the constant and regular water increasing fertility of land, planting materials and other fertilizers and input supplies. Village Revolving Funds expanded post projects and many micro credit operations. It was found that HASD did not attain much success in the development and in the spread for the improvement of the rainfed cropping system, but its objectives to make improvements on the environment was achieved in an effective way by the land use system of planning and regulations and the use of erosion control strips in the cropping systems. The farming increased by dividing the farms into small plots thereby reducing erosions but this system of farming cannot be carried out in large areas where there is scarcity of water. Though, some pest management control systems were not followed but they did make use of some chemicals, which was not a wise decision. Moreover, the project also followed improvement in health and education systems, construction of roads and involving tribal people of hill areas and farmers into planning process and group activities but not much effort was given to social development to bring different cultural groups and groups of different ethnic origin together. If this had done then gender issues would have solved. Their project training and system development made contribution to sustain increase in the capabilities of the Hill Tribe Welfare Division (HTWD) to give better services. The project had enabled the income of the tribal farming community to increase; decreased to a considerable degree degradation of environment; and brought them into the main stream of nation towards their economic and social independence. But more improvements should have been made in the area of rainfed cropping system, which could have made greater impact. All in the organization is technically equipped to carry on with the more project works in the future. Introduction Introduction process is a step to introduce the purpose of this report on the analysis of the current project. I took one of the three rural development project that was initiated in Thailand in the 1990's. The project was known as HASD II, Thai-Australia Agricultural and Social Development Project, initiated by the Hill Tribe Welfare Division, Department of Public Welfare, Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, 1988-1993. The team consisted of Mr. John Wrigley who was a Consultant Economist and Team Leader, Dr Jim Taylor who was Rural Sociologist, Ms Walaitat Worakul, who was Thai Community Development /Gender Consultant, Mr. Rick Nicholls was the AusAID Task Manager who was incharge of the first half of the evaluation and for the second half; there was Mr. Deo Mwesigye. The team got the assistance of Dr Patricia Ludowyk, Rural Development Group, AusAID, and, in Thailand by Khun Duanghathai Chenchaivitha and Khun Pensri Chaichalermwong of the Department of Technical and Economic Cooperation (DTEC) whereas AusAID staff at the Bangkok post gave logistical support. The main aim of this evaluation is the assessment to enable the AusAID and the Royal Thai Government (RTG) to make general as well as qualitative assessment on the impact and effectiveness of this project. The team evaluation also needed to make judgments on the impact the project had on the families of the farmers and their life in the community. AusAID and RTG to make improvements on the rural development projects would use results. The work of the evaluation was completed within three weeks from November 1998 comprised of three consultants, three AusAID staff and two DTEC representatives. In the team was also involved Thai woman consultant. The Auspicing bodies for the project was Hill Tribe Welfare Division, Department of Agricultural Extension and Agricultural Land Reform Office who had helped the project by contributions in the form of staff time and giving valuable insight for taking the projects towards fruitful utilization. Auspicing body is an organization arranging grants for an undertaking project. It is also responsible for providing financial statement at the completion of a project but cannot be held responsible for proper functioning of the project. The organizations make sure that the project is completed on time and money sent is being better utilized. Methodology The evaluations are conducted by the use of certain methodologies. There are several methods that can apply to give concrete and successful and appropriate evaluation. Certain methods generally used are: quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative methods is mainly concerned with the questions like the quantity of products or people or any material or non-material things. It is concerned with the basic question of ‘How much’ and ‘What kind’? The quantitative method involves number of techniques requiring understanding of statistic methods. Accordingly, qualitative research includes every aspect of the life of the people and the concern of the project. For e.g. what kind of things, what kind of topics, what are the processes etc? In every evaluation, both types of quantity and qualitative methods are involved. In this project, the team gave adequate attention in the process of monitoring and reporting and accordingly data was collected and then report was made on the basis of this data. This evaluation required quantitative method to come up with the results for the analysis and the impact it would create. When the project was completed after three years, the team found it very difficult to make an assessment of most relevant and data that was reported. To check the viability, impact and reliability of the report, the team took as basis Project Completion Reports to describe all the achievements attained during the course of the project and cross it checked by their conversations with the villagers, agencies and the staff of NGO. The assessment of the project was undertaken by the use of a four level rating system starting from very high to low. These scores matched with the AusAID scores of maximum 5 and minimum 2. To assess the impact of the project team, judgments were recorded based on the discussions with the participants. But here by we need to point out the fact that staff which was responsible for the maintenance of the HASD II Development Information System (DIS) was not able to analyze and come out with the social data. In the same way the problem with the data arises with the other areas of the project too. Discussion The major issue involved in the report was the practicability of the project. The usefulness of the project, how much value the project has created and the impact the project has created on the lives of the people of tribal farmers in general and on the economical development of the area in particular. This evaluation conducted brought before different aspects of the project and highlighted and analyzed both positive and negative outcomes of the project as well as several ethical considerations involved. It also focused on how the project developed in the due course of time and the achievements of its various projects like project design. The project report highlighted on the project design was modified time and again like how and when the project began and developed and came into shape. The discussion of the project report was started in 1987, its feasibility was completed and the agreement regarding the proposal project was done during late 1990. The project design was submitted in 1992. The mid term review was focused on the proposed outputs in 1993, but this evaluation was conducted at the time the project was formally started in the year 1993 and highlighted on the achievement against MTR design objectives during shorter period of time. The evaluation report also assessed on the changes the project undertook in their systems and methods. The project looked at the institutional aspects and looked and analysed the cooperation between the different auspicing bodies towards the completion of the project like the report found out there is an improvement between the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives agencies but there is no such evidence to show that it came out with the project initiative. They also interviewed provincial and district extension offices on the way they coordinated with the other government agencies in the fruitful completion of the project. The report does not involve any ethical fallacies in any sense clientism, managerialism, contractualism, methodologicism and pluralism or elitism. The research report considered the ethical issues in both the conduct of the research and the subject matter of the research. Any criticism and drawback of the project was based on fact and after thorough investigations like coordinating with the provincial and district officers for evaluation of the work. The evaluation team also visited villages to prove their validity and bring out concrete and valid evaluation report to avoid any risk of objections or criticisms in the report. “As Smith said an ethical question relate both to the conduct of the research and the subject matter of the research.”(Kimmel 1998: 32). The report followed the point of Smith. Conclusion The report has taken every aspect that characterizes the evaluation report. It had analyzed and covered every aspect of the project including suggestions and recommendations for the future development and improvement in the projects and had taken notice of all the ethical issues involved. Appendix My analysis of the report on the project conducted for the development of the farming areas. I evaluated on HASD II Thai Australia Agricultural and Social Development Project, initiated by the Hill Tribe Welfare Division, Department of Public Welfare, Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, initiated between the years 1988-1993. 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