People's participation project in Rushinga District, Mashonaland Central: A mid-term evaluation report.

Abstract

Following the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (WCARRD) held in Rome in 1979 and the successes of the Rural Organizations Action Programme (ROAP) and the Small Farmer Development Programme (SEDPO) in Nepal in Asia, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in conjunction with the Ministry of Community and Cooperative Development and Women's Affairs, initiated the People's Participation in Community Development through the Promotion of Self-Help Organizations (PPP) project in Zimbabwe. This is an FAO-sponsored pilot project. A major objective of the project is to focus on groups of the rural poor by organizing them to participate in rural development to improve their lives and achieve self-reliance. Rushinga District in Mashonaland Central Province was chosen as the project area. The district provides a balance between a poor area, which has hitherto been neglected and an area with good road connections with Harare that permit the access necessary for a pilot project to fulfil its demonstration function.1 In January 1986 the Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies was selected as the national consultants to carry out a series of studies pertaining to the project. These are a Baseline Study of the district which appeared in July 1986, and a mid-term evaluation of the self-help scheme. The objective of the mid-term evaluation is to assess the self-help group project's progress towards becoming a durable, self-sufficient grassroots organization among the rural poor of Rushinga.