It is easy to overestimate the capacity needed to implement a project that is largely undertaking pilot activities and which also involves significant reforms. At all levels of involvement - executing agency, service providers, contractors, farmers' water user community members - capacity constraints affected project performance. In these circumstances, the project design was both overambitious (e.g., by not focusing on fewer subprojects from the outset) and not rigorous enough (in its analysis of the risks and assumptions inherent in many operations). While appropriate and necessary interventions to support capacity development and training were included in the project scope, the dependence of farmers' water user community gaining experience with improved physical works and for farmers undertaking improved and diversified agriculture upon the completion of civil works was not brought out fully as a project design characteristic - again, partly because the risks and assumptions were not fully thought through. Had the project implementation schedule been largely as intended, sustainability based on effective farmers' water user community functioning would have been likely. _x005F_x000D__x005F_x000D_A realistic understanding of local procurement practices and an ability to engage with executing agency staff on a daily, face-to-face basis can greatly facilitate implementation.
Northwest Irrigation Sector Project