NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, June 14, 2013

SANTIAGO, Jun 13 2013 (IPS) – The Latin American Centre for Rural Development (RIMISP) is promoting a method for assessing strategies, results, reach and impact of IFAD-funded agricultural projects targeting vulnerable groups in the region.

RIMISP’s project on assessing poverty and inequality in rural Latin America is studying the situation in the countryside as well as the evaluation methods used by programmes in the region supported by IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development).

This last component, led by senior RIMISP researcher Eduardo Ramírez, is aimed at adjusting and expanding IFAD’s Results and Impact Management System (RIMS).

The objective is to assess the roughly two dozen IFAD-supported projects in the region and shed light on rural development policy strategies in Latin America.

In an interview with IPS in the Chilean capital, where RIMISP is based, Ramírez explained that one of IFAD’s aims is to be help produce intervention models, “because the point is for countries to use these methodologies to generate projects and have a greater reach.”

Q: What countries has the RIMISP project covered?

A: We carried out a review of the systems in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Later we held the Project Monitoring and Evaluation Method workshop May 14-15 in Lima, where we brought together international and regional IFAD people and government delegates.

We discussed this proposal and realised that there is room for bringing RIMS together with the projects, which is what we are doing now.