Document of The World...

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Document of The World Bank

Report No: ICR00003499

IMPLEMENTATION COMPLETION AND RESULTS REPORT (COFN-C1280 IDA-H3320 IDA-H6150 IDA-H8860 TF-90651 TF-90652 TF-97737)

ON A

GRANT

IN THE AMOUNT OF SDR2.2 MILLION (US$3.2 MILLION EQUIVALENT)

AND AN ADDITIONAL FINANCING GRANT

IN THE AMOUNT OF SDR2 MILLION

(US$3.0 MILLION EQUIVALENT)

AND A SECOND ADDITIONAL FINANCING GRANT

IN THE AMOUNT OF SDR2 MILLION (US$3.0 MILLION EQUIVALENT)

TO THE

SOLOMON ISLANDS

FOR A

RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

December 19, 2015

Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, and Pacific Islands Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice East Asia and Pacific Region

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CURRENCY EQUIVALENTS

Exchange Rate Effective: September 30, 2015

Currency Unit = Solomon Dollars SBD1 = US$.14 US$1 = SDR .66

FISCAL YEAR

January 1 – December 31

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS AF1/2 Additional Financing 1/2 AGO Auditor- General Office ARDS Agriculture and Rural Development Strategy AusAID Australian Agency for International Development CBSI Central Bank of the Solomon Islands CDD Community Driven Development CH Community Helper CPS Country Partnership Strategy CSI Core Sector Indicator DFAT Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (formerly AusAID) EC European Commission EDF9 The 9th European Development Fund replenishment ESMF Environment and Social Management Framework FM Financial Management GDP Gross Domestic Product HH Household ICR Implementation Completion and Results Report IDA International Development Association IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development IO Intermediate Outcome ISR Implementation Status and Results Report KPI Key Performance Indicator M&E Monitoring and Evaluation MAL Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock MAP Monthly Action Plan MDPAC Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination MIS Management Information System MOFT Ministry of Finance and Treasury

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MOU Memorandum of Understanding MTR Mid-Term Review NGO Non Governmental Organization NSA Non State Actors PAD Project Appraisal Document PCB Participating Commercial Bank PCDF Provincial Capacity Development Fund PCU Program Coordination Unit PDO Project Development Objective PGSP Provincial Governance Strengthening Program PIM Program Implementation Manual PS Permanent Secretary PSU Provincial Support Unit QAG Quality Assurance Group RAMSI Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands RDP Rural Development Program RTC Rural Training Center SDR Special Drawing Rights SEF Supplementary Equity Financing SIAS Solomon Islands Smallholder Agriculture Study SIC Subproject Implementation Committee SIG Solomon Islands Government SME Small and Medium-size Enterprise TA Technical Assistance US$ United States Dollar WDC Ward Development Committee

Regional Vice President: Axel van Trotsenburg Country Director: Franz Drees-Gross

Global Practice Senior Director: Ede Jorge Ijjasz-Vasquez Global Practice Director:

Practice Manager: Maninder Gill

Bassam Ramadan Project Team Leader: Erik Caldwell Johnson

ICR Team Leader: Erik Caldwell Johnson

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SOLOMON ISLANDS Rural Development Program

CONTENTS

Data Sheet A. Basic Information B. Key Dates C. Ratings Summary D. Sector and Theme Codes E. Bank Staff F. Results Framework Analysis G. Ratings of Project Performance in ISRs H. Restructuring I. Disbursement Graph

1. Project Context, Development Objectives and Design ............................................. 162. Key Factors Affecting Implementation and Outcomes ............................................. 193. Assessment of Outcomes .......................................................................................... 254. Assessment of Risk to Development Outcome ......................................................... 395. Assessment of Bank and Borrower Performance...................................................... 406. Lessons Learned ........................................................................................................ 427. Comments on Issues Raised by Borrower/Implementing Agencies/Partners ........... 43Annex 1. Project Costs and Financing .......................................................................... 45Annex 2. Outputs by Component .................................................................................. 46Annex 3. Economic and Financial Analysis ................................................................. 53Annex 4. Bank Lending and Implementation Support/Supervision Processes ............. 57Annex 5. Beneficiary Survey Results ........................................................................... 60Annex 6. Stakeholder Workshop Report and Results ................................................... 61Annex 7. Summary of Borrower's ICR and/or Comments on Draft ICR ..................... 62Annex 8. Comments of Cofinanciers and Other Partners/Stakeholders ....................... 71Annex 9. List of Supporting Documents ...................................................................... 72

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A. Basic Information

Country: Solomon Islands Project Name: Rural Development Program

Project ID: P089297 L/C/TF Number(s):

COFN-C1280,IDA-H3320,IDA-H6150,IDA-H8860,TF-90651,TF-90652,TF-97737

ICR Date: 12/19/2015 ICR Type: Core ICR

Lending Instrument: SIL Borrower: GOVERNMENT OF SOLOMON ISLANDS

Original Total Commitment:

USD 3.20M Disbursed Amount: USD 9.55M

Revised Amount: USD 9.20M

Environmental Category: B

Implementing Agencies: Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development Cofinanciers and Other External Partners: International Fund for Agricultural Development Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade European Union Delegation B. Key Dates

Process Date Process Original Date Revised / Actual

Date(s)

Concept Review: 09/07/2006 Effectiveness: 12/21/2007 12/21/2007

Appraisal: 06/06/2007 Restructuring(s): 09/14/2010 09/30/2013

Approval: 09/11/2007 Mid-term Review: 09/30/2009 02/28/2010

Closing: 11/30/2012 02/28/2015 C. Ratings Summary C.1 Performance Rating by ICR

Outcomes: Moderately Satisfactory

Risk to Development Outcome: Substantial

Bank Performance: Moderately Satisfactory

Borrower Performance: Moderately Satisfactory

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C.2 Detailed Ratings of Bank and Borrower Performance (by ICR) Bank Ratings Borrower Ratings

Quality at Entry: Moderately Satisfactory Government: Moderately Unsatisfactory

Quality of Supervision: Moderately SatisfactoryImplementing Agency/Agencies:

Moderately Satisfactory

Overall Bank Performance:

Moderately SatisfactoryOverall Borrower Performance:

Moderately Satisfactory

C.3 Quality at Entry and Implementation Performance Indicators

Implementation Performance

Indicators QAG Assessments

(if any) Rating

Potential Problem Project at any time (Yes/No):

Yes Quality at Entry (QEA):

None

Problem Project at any time (Yes/No):

Yes Quality of Supervision (QSA):

None

DO rating before Closing/Inactive status:

Satisfactory

D. Sector and Theme Codes

Original Actual

Sector Code (as % of total Bank financing)

Agricultural extension and research 19 30

Agro-industry, marketing, and trade 22 20

General public administration sector 34 15

General transportation sector 9

Other social services 16 35

Theme Code (as % of total Bank financing)

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise support 20 10

Rural non-farm income generation 20 40

Rural policies and institutions 20

Rural services and infrastructure 40 50 E. Bank Staff

Positions At ICR At Approval

Vice President: Axel van Trotsenburg James W. Adams

Country Director: Franz R. Drees-Gross Xian Zhu

Practice Manager/Manager:

Bassam Ramadan Mark D. Wilson

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Project Team Leader: Erik Caldwell Johnson Marianne Grosclaude

ICR Team Leader: Erik Caldwell Johnson

ICR Primary Author: Dan Tony Vadnjal F. Results Framework Analysis

Project Development Objectives (from Project Appraisal Document) To raise the living standards of rural households by establishing improved mechanisms for the delivery of priority economic and social infrastructure and services by the public and the private sector. Revised Project Development Objectives (as approved by original approving authority) To increase access to high priority, small-scale economic and social infrastructure, agriculture and financial services. (a) PDO Indicator(s)

Indicator Baseline Value

Original Target Values (from

approval documents)

Formally Revised Target Values

Actual Value Achieved at

Completion or Target Years

Indicator 1 : Number of people using the infrastructure and agriculture services provided Value quantitative or Qualitative)

0 300,000 300,000 198,340

Date achieved 09/11/2007 11/30/2012 02/28/2015 02/28/2015

Comments (incl. % achievement)

At AF1, indicator moved to IO and rephrased "Number of beneficiaries of completed community development sub-projects." No material change. At AF2, back to PDO level. 66% of target. When incomplete subprojects finish, 262,099 beneficiaries, 87% of target.

Indicator 2 : Percentage rural households satisfied with the quality of the infrastructure and agriculture services provided

Value quantitative or Qualitative)

n/a 90%

Date achieved 09/11/2007 11/30/2012 Comments (incl. % achievement)

Dropped at AF1, divided into two separate PDO indicators focused on village level.

Indicator 3 : Percentage of villages with satisfactory access to functioning infrastructure and/or services.


15 65 10 92

Date achieved 05/31/2010 11/30/2013 02/28/2015 02/28/2015 Comments Added at AF1. Target reduced to 10% at AF2 to focus on % increase in

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(incl. % achievement)

satisfaction. Satisfaction increased from 34% at baseline to 66%. Achieved 194% of target. Calculated as at least 50% of survey respondents from a village satisfied with RDP investments.

Indicator 4 : Percentage of villages with improved access to effective agricultural services.


2 72

Date achieved 05/31/2010 11/30/2013


Added at AF1. Dropped at AF2 to focus on changes in practice as better measure of impact. Impact evaluation found increase in HHs that reported always receiving satisfactory advice from 48% at baseline in 2010 to 62% at household survey in 2013.

Indicator 5 : Percentage decrease in travel time to access improved water supply sources. Value quantitative or Qualitative)

0 10 13.5

Date achieved 05/31/2010 02/28/2015 02/28/2015 Comments (incl. % achievement)

Added at AF2. Calculated as average % decrease in minutes to access water in dry and wet seasons. 135% achieved. Satisfactory access to water also increased from 34 to 72%

Indicator 6 : Percentage of households who have changed agricultural practices, including varieties, as a result of agricultural advice.


2 35 35 11.2

Date achieved 05/31/2010 11/30/2013 02/28/2015 02/28/2015


Added as IO indicator at AF1, upgraded to PDO indicator at AF2. Only 32% achieved. However, indicator calculated as % of households who both received advice and changed practices. If % households that changed practice after advice, 48%, 138% of target.

Indicator 7 : Number of beneficiaries of completed community development sub-projects (of which women)


0 n/a 150,000 73,385

Date achieved 09/11/2007 11/30/2012 02/28/2015 02/28/2015 Comments (incl. % achievement)

Gender disaggregation added at AF2. 49% achieved. This is partially due to poor quality data collection. This will increase upon completion of subprojects at should be closer to 130,000, about 87% of target.

(b) Intermediate Outcome Indicator(s)

Indicator Baseline Value

Original Target Values (from

approval documents)

Formally Revised Target Values

Actual Value Achieved at

Completion or Target Years

Indicator 1 : Number of infrastructure projects completed

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Value (quantitative or Qualitative)

0 496 370 283


PAD had no value, target set at AF1 and revised down at AF2 as targets were unrealistic. Only 76% achieved, but 77 subprojects near completion, 97% achieved when all subprojects compete.

Indicator 2 : Number of people satisfied with their level of participation in local decision making process


n/a none


Dropped at AF1. Question not asked as part of the baseline questionnaire.

Indicator 3 : Percentage of people in target planning units participating in Community Development Sub-project decision making


0 70 80 48


Added at AF1. Revised at AF2 to replace "people" with "households". Only 60% achieved. Target was unrealistically high given competing demands on the time of largely subsistence rural communities.

Indicator 4 : Participants in consultation activities during project implementation Value (quantitative or Qualitative)

0 30,000 30,388


Added at AF2. 101% achieved.

Indicator 5 : Participants in consultation activities during project implementation (of which are women)


0 12,000 9,936



Indicator 6 : Percentage of sub-projects for which arrangements for community engagement in post-project operations and maintenance are established


0 80 76

Date achieved 09/11/2007 02/28/2015 02/28/2015

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Added at AF2. 95% achieved. More expected after project has closed. Measures preparation of an O&M plan.

Indicator 7 : Community and other non-project financed contributions in total project cost (at the time of completion)


0 15 36


Added at AF2.

Indicator 8 : Percentage of households in communities receiving project funding that feels project investments reflected their needs


0 80 94



Indicator 9 : Percentage of households in communities receiving project funding that feels project investments reflected their needs (female respondents only)


0 80 93



Indicator 10 : Percentage of representatives in community based decision making structures, specifically in Subproject Implementation Committees, which are women


0 30 29



Indicator 11 : Number of people that have been visited by qualified agricultural service providers


n/a No value 36,954


Dropped at AF1

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Indicator 12 : Percentage of villages in target provinces to whom agricultural services have been provided


0 60 50 49


Added at AF1. 98% achieved. Target reduced at AF2 due to reduced projections of outreach.

Indicator 13 : Percentage of people surveyed satisfied with agricultural services provided Value (quantitative or Qualitative)

20 80 85


Added at AF1. Dropped at AF2 to reduce number of IOs. Data still collected found an increase from 76% at baseline to 85% of households that are always or sometimes satisfied with advice.

Indicator 14 : Percentage of wards in participating provinces to whom agricultural services have been provided


0 90 79


Added at AF2. 88% achieved. Availability of funds at provincial level limited outreach to some wards.

Indicator 15 : Technologies demonstrated in the project areas Value (quantitative or Qualitative)

0 50 56



Indicator 16 : Number of people attending participatory needs identification Value (quantitative or Qualitative)

0 13,000 12,763


Added at AF2. 98% achieved

Indicator 17 : Number of people attending participatory needs identification (percentage of which are women)


0 40 43

Date achieved 09/11/2007 02/28/2015 02/28/2015

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Indicator 18 : Number of people participating in provincial agriculture activities Value (quantitative or Qualitative)

0 30,000 36,954



Indicator 19 : Number of people participating in provincial agriculture activities (percentage of which are women)


0 40 47



Indicator 20 : Number of businesses established or expanding in rural areas Value (quantitative or Qualitative)

0 100 50 65


No original value. Value added at AF1 and revised downward at AF2 to reflect low uptake and budget reduction. 65% of original target, 130% of revised target achieved.

Indicator 21 : Profitability of the businesses established Value (quantitative or Qualitative)

0 No value 30 Data not available


Revised to "Percentage increase in turnover of businesses established" at AF1. Value could not be calculated as SEF recipients would not share comparable, reliable data.

Indicator 22 : Increases in income or employment arising to rural people from businesses established


0 No value 5 5.8


Dropped at AF1. Revised at AF2 to "Average number of jobs created per SEF-supported business." 116% achieved. Total of 350 jobs created.

Indicator 23 : Timely implementation of component activities, submission of timely progress, financial and procurement reports.

Value 0 No value 7 7

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(quantitative or Qualitative) Date achieved 09/11/2007 11/30/2012 02/28/2015 02/28/2015 Comments (incl. % achievement)

Revised to "Annual work plan and budget approved and delivered on time" at AF1. 100% achieved.

Indicator 24 : Percentage of Management functions mainstreamed Value (quantitative or Qualitative)

0 60


Dropped at AF1. Difficult to measure.

Indicator 25 : Audits completed & submitted on time Value (quantitative or Qualitative)

0 5 6 2


Added at AF1. Target revised at AF2. 33% achieved. Auditor General's Office always late. Only on time in last two years due to use of independent auditor.

Indicator 26 : Procurement plan implementation on target Value (quantitative or Qualitative)

0 90 95


Added at AF1. 105% achieved. Not all planned procurement was completed, but more than projected.

G. Ratings of Project Performance in ISRs

No. Date ISR Archived

DO IP Actual

Disbursements (USD millions)

1 09/13/2008 Moderately SatisfactoryModerately

Unsatisfactory 0.27

2 04/07/2009 Satisfactory Satisfactory 0.44 3 04/24/2010 Satisfactory Satisfactory 0.90 4 03/27/2011 Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 1.14 5 03/17/2012 Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 3.13

6 04/14/2013 Moderately

Unsatisfactory Moderately

Unsatisfactory 6.13

7 06/29/2013 Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 6.18 8 03/29/2014 Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 7.75 9 11/07/2014 Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 9.54

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10 05/14/2015 Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 9.55 H. Restructuring (if any)

Restructuring Date(s)

Board Approved

PDO Change

ISR Ratings at Restructuring

Amount Disbursed at

Restructuring in USD millions

Reason for Restructuring & Key Changes Made

DO IP

09/14/2010 S S 0.90

Additional financing to fill financial gap from inflation and exchange rate fluctuations and to scale up to cover a larger geographic area.

09/30/2013 Y MS MS 6.47

The PDO was revised to be more easily measured. Improved living conditions was considered too broad to measure. Additional financing was approved to address a financing gap left by partial EU funding cancellation and escalating operational costs due to implementation delays.

If PDO and/or Key Outcome Targets were formally revised (approved by the original approving body) enter ratings below: Outcome Ratings Against Original PDO/Targets Moderately Unsatisfactory Against Formally Revised PDO/Targets Moderately Satisfactory Overall (weighted) rating Moderately Satisfactory

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I. Disbursement Profile

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1. Project Context, Development Objectives and Design

1.1 Context at Appraisal Country and Sector Background Following a period of prolonged civil conflict during the “Tensions” of 1998 to 2003, the Solomon Islands moved through a period of post-conflict reconstruction to longer-term development planning. Law and order were restored with the intervention of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) 1 in 2003, progress was made in reestablishing the basic functions of government and infrastructure and basic services were restored. Combined with the infusion of major support from donors, economic activity started to recover, and the Solomon Islands emerged from a period negative GDP growth to reach over 6% in 2006. Despite the positive GDP growth, development of the rural economy remained sluggish, due mainly to the breakdown in provision of services and infrastructure necessary to support economic growth and maintain reasonable living standards. This was reflected not only in conditions on the ground, but also in the levels of public expenditures on agriculture and rural development which, in 2003/2004, had fallen to less than half the levels of the early 1990s (on a real, per head basis) following the general deterioration of the country’s fiscal position. Efforts to promote changes in technology and productivity enhancing measures tended to be thwarted by the general unavailability of technical assistance, agriculture credit and reliable transport, breach of contract, and other factors which resulted in rising costs and lowering business confidence. Under these circumstances, the private sector ability to take the lead in service and infrastructure provision and rehabilitation of service delivery and local infrastructure systems was seen as a necessary condition for reviving the rural economy. Rationale for IDA Involvement. The Ministry of Development Planning and Aid Coordination (MDPAC) led the preparation of a coordinated national strategy for long-term agricultural and rural development (the Agriculture and Rural Development Strategy – ARDS), and the World Bank was tasked to coordinate the work. The ARDS was officially launched by MDPAC in April 2007 and the World Bank was asked to take the lead in the preparation of the Rural Development Program (RDP) to support the implementation of some of the key priorities of the ARDS and donor harmonization. The RDP responded to the World Bank Pacific Regional Engagement Framework 2006-2009, which emphasized the need to address the root causes of the conflict in the Solomon Islands by focusing in particular on the need for rural communities in different provinces to benefit directly from the post-conflict stability – specifically better access to social, economic infrastructure and services and the promotion of income-generation activities

1 RAMSI is a partnership between the people and government of the Solomon Islands and fifteen countries of the Pacific. It arrived in the Solomon Islands in July 2003, at the request of the Solomon Islands Government, following a period known as “the tensions” which lasted from 1998-2003, during which there was conflict between rival militant groups representing the peoples of Guadalcanal and Malaita.

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as a basis for more inclusive growth. It sought to move from fragmented, uncoordinated donor activities, to a joint program of investments implemented by government and using a single set of procedures. RDP was co-financed by donors involved in preparation of the ARDS – AusAID, the European Commission (EC) and the World Bank and subsequently in 2010 by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

1.2 Original Project Development Objectives (PDO) and Key Indicators The original PDO was “to raise the living standards of rural households by establishing improved mechanisms for the delivery of priority economic and social infrastructure and services through: (i) increased, cost-effective and sustained provision of local services and basic infrastructure determined through participatory planning prioritized by villagers; (ii) increased capacity of agriculture institutions to provide demand-driven agriculture services at the local level; and (iii) support for rural business development.” The Key Performance Indictors (KPIs) were: (i) Number of people using the infrastructure and agriculture services provided; and (ii) Percentage of rural households satisfied with the quality of infrastructure and agriculture services provided.

1.3 Revised PDO and Key Indicators, and reasons/justification The PDO was changed on September 4, 2013 with the approval of a second Additional Financing (AF2). The revised PDO was “to increase access to high priority, small-scale economic and social infrastructure, agriculture and financial services in rural areas.” The rationale for change was two-fold: (i) that improvements in living standards were difficult to measure and attribute to project investments; and (ii) data collected via the baseline survey and ongoing monitoring could be applied to measure access to services. Also, both of the original PDO KPIs were changed. At AF1, in September 2010, one indicator was revised and one was added (Indicator #3 in the datasheet). In AF2 all three existing KPIs were changed in relatively minor ways and one (Indicator #4) was added. The rationale for the changes was to: improve clarity, enable more accurate use of the baseline data for comparison, evaluate the impact of the highest demand service areas (water supply) and permit gender disaggregation. Core indicators from the Bank’s Participation and Civic Engagement and Agriculture Extension and Research sectors were also included in AF2.

1.4 Main Beneficiaries Beneficiary targets and categories were set in the PAD. Primary beneficiaries were defined as individuals in rural communities expected to benefit from improved access to infrastructure and services (including agriculture support services and financial services), and were estimated to be 300,000 people. Secondary beneficiaries included civil servants in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAL), in particular, at the provincial level and service providers in the private and NGO sectors. In AF1, the target of 300,000 people was narrowed from beneficiaries of Components 1, 2 and 3 to only Component 1, “beneficiaries of completed subprojects.” This more narrow definition of beneficiaries was maintained in AF2 to maintain continuity with AF1 and an indicator was added to specify the proportion of beneficiaries that are women.

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1.5 Original Components Component 1: Local Infrastructure and Services Delivery (US$9.08 million; IDA US$1.30 million). This component sought to increase access to and use of infrastructure and services in rural areas through a community-driven development (CDD) approach including participatory planning, budgeting and execution mechanisms at community and provincial level. The RDP would finance investments identified by villagers as the most urgent preconditions for improved living standards, ensure that villagers themselves played a significant role in determining investment priorities and that a greater share of funds would actually reach communities. The component would provide (i) annual allocations for community development grants identified through a participatory planning process, and (ii) capacity building to support key stakeholders to plan, budget, implement, and monitor and evaluate sub-projects. Component 2: Improved Agricultural Services (US$6.42 million; IDA US$0.93 million). This component aimed to improve access of smallholder households to quality agricultural services to support rural income growth. The component would provide (i) annual agricultural service allocations at the provincial level to finance service agreements with providers to deliver agriculture and related services to smallholders; and (ii) capacity building of (a) MAL at the national level to facilitate and supervise provincial service delivery, (b) provincial service providers and (c) rural households. Component 3: Rural Business Development (US$2.37 million; IDA US$0.39 million). This component aimed to facilitate rural enterprise development through provision of an equity financing facility and associated training and technical assistance (TA). A “Supplemental Equity Facility” (SEF) aimed at alleviating a shortage of project equity for investment projects of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) involved in rural business would be established. Investments by SEF grant recipients were expected to expand business activity in rural areas through increased purchase of agricultural raw materials, job creation and associated rural expenditure such as transport. Component 4: Program Management (US$3.7 million; IDA US$0.58 million). This component would provide support to the Program Coordination Unit (PCU) within MDPAC for program management which included coordination, communication activities, planning and implementation scheduling, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), procurement, financial management, reporting and operation of the Designated Account. The PCU would be assisted by internationally recruited specialists who would transfer their skills (both technical and managerial) so that the mainstreamed project activities would become a part of public expenditure programs.

1.6 Revised Components (N/A)

1.7 Other significant changes Several changes were made as a part of the first and second rounds of Additional Financing (AF1 and AF2).

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On October 21, 2010, the Bank approved AF1 with an IDA grant of SDR2 million (US$3 million equivalent) and additional trust fund financing of US$3 million. The total project cost increased from US$21.83 million to US$31.90 million to fill a financing gap created by high inflation in the first two years of implementation and to scale up Component 1 geographically from six provinces (Choiseul, Isabel, Makira, Malaita, Temotu and Western) to eight (adding Central and Guadalcanal). Component 2 was extended to cover all nine provinces (including all of the above, as well as Renbel). To allow time for expansion and make up for time lost during slow project start-up, the closing date was extended from November 30, 2012 to November 30, 2013. The institutional arrangements were amended slightly to include a Program Support Unit (PSU) in each province. The Results Framework was amended to improve clarity, and the Pest Management safeguard policy (OP4.09) was triggered and a Pest Management Plan was subsequently adopted by MAL in 2011 and incorporated into the ESMF screening processes, satisfying the legal requirements of the amendment to the Financing Agreement. The grant became effective on November 23, 2010.

On September 30, 2013, AF2, with another IDA grant of SDR2 million, was approved, and the total project cost rose from US$31.9 million to US$37.4 million. AF2 filled financing gaps caused by a combination of exchange rate losses, cancelled EC financing of US$2.52 million because these unspent resources could not be extended beyond the funding cycle for the European Development Fund (EDF9), cost escalations and the additional incremental cost of extending the closing date by another 15 months, to February 28, 2015. Under AF2, the PDO and Results Framework were also amended as per sections 1.3 and 2.3. The grant became effective on December 2, 2013.

2. Key Factors Affecting Implementation and Outcomes

2.1 Project Preparation, Design and Quality at Entry Background analysis: The project design was informed mainly by the analysis and recommendations of the ARDS. The ARDS drew extensively on the Solomon Islands Smallholder Agriculture Study (SISAS) completed by AusAID in 2006, in particular, the potential for productivity enhancement in specific crops, as well as subject-specific analytical studies commissioned by the Bank to assist preparation. The project design also benefited from previous development projects and international experience of community driven and service delivery projects, in the social, agriculture and financial sectors, in particular, the Community Development Scheme (CDS) which also financed small-scale infrastructure. As such, RDP included community procurement and financial management in an effort to enhance sustainability. The design also reflected lessons learned from community-driven development (CDD) in other countries and regions including in post-conflict situations, local and international experience of demand-driven agricultural services and the extensive reviews of the rural financial sector that were being made at the time of the design. Project Objectives and indicators: The original PDO was, and still is, highly relevant for rural development in the Solomon Islands, but the language “to raise the living standards

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…” proved difficult to measure and was therefore was revised to, “to increase access to …”. The original PDO indicators were also revised at AF2 (see Section 2.3 below). Delays in completing the baseline study, which was only commissioned in 2009 and completed in 2010, caused delays in the completion of indicators and measurement results, many of which were not specified in the PAD due to insufficient data. Project design: Emerging from a crisis, government systems were quite weak and a CDD approach was appropriate in that it allowed for broad-based development investment with limited direct government delivery and reduced risk of fraud and corruption. It recognized the time and effort required to achieve institutional sustainability, working through and strengthening government systems so that mechanisms could be mainstreamed to avoid creating parallel structures. The Project was designed as part one of a long-term two-phase program, recognizing that five years would not be sufficient to institutionalize a new CDD mechanism. Phase one (initially five years) was designed to test and gradually scale up effective approaches to promote sustainable, rural livelihoods, and an eventual phase two (5 to 10 years) would focus on further scaling up, consolidation and institutionalization. The challenges of institutional sustainability, which provided some justification for a second phase, are reflected in the World Bank’s own study – Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities (World Bank Group Solomon Islands, 2014). The study concluded that Component 1 of RDP created an effective model for inclusive, community-driven prioritization and resource allocation for rural service improvement, even though planning systems had not yet been integrated with provincial and national processes, and sustainable government financing had not yet been established. Institutional arrangements: While MDPAC was mainly a coordination agency, it was selected as the main implementing agency to house the Project Coordination Unit (PCU) due to its relatively high capacity compared to other alternatives. Concerns regarding MAL’s capacity to manage a large donor project were addressed by channeling funds through MDPAC to MAL. While there was some healthy tension between MDPAC and MAL regarding MAL requests for payment, the arrangement was responsive and efficient. Provincial arrangements worked well, although the initial approach of covering more than one province with a single PSU was too ambitious and was subsequently addressed at AF1. Adequacy of Government commitment: MDPAC led preparation of the ARDS, which was officially launched in April 2007, paving the way for preparation of the Project. While SIG had limited analytical and design capacity to undertake analytical and detailed design work, there was a strong strategic focus on implementing the recommendations of the ARDS. Risk assessment: The project summary risk rating was assessed as “substantial” after mitigation, which was reasonable given SIG’s limited experience with CDD approaches and its limited capacity.

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At PDO level, a substantial risk identified was the weak capacity in MDPAC, MAL and the Provincial Governments, for which the following mitigation measures were put in place: (i) hiring qualified people to support implementation and work conditions improvement; (ii) training and capacity building; and (iii) clear operational manuals. In MDPAC, capacity building was initially hindered by difficulties over appointing an adequately qualified International Program Management Advisor (IPMA) – three IPMAs were appointed in as many years – leaving the burden on the National Program Manager (NPM). Although the NPM proved to be sufficiently qualified and skilled to carry out all of the required responsibilities the early challenge of changing IPMAs was eventually addressed. At the component level a moderate risk identified was the possibility of weak private sector and or NGO agriculture service provision, leaving the burden on government services. The following migration measures were put in place: (i) capacity building of private service providers and other non-state actors (NSAs); and (ii) contracting of service providers to instill confidence. These mitigating actions were insufficient to manage the risk of weak private sector or NGO service provision.

Section 2.2 Implementation Project restructuring. The project was restructured twice, once to expand geographic coverage and fill financial gaps resulting from inflation and slow project start-up, and a second time to fill a significant financial gap left from inaccurate estimation of costs at the time of the first restructuring and a substantial amount of cancelled EU funds. Establishing a CDD mechanism. As expected from experience in other countries, establishing CDD mechanisms proved to be complex and time consuming while the simple mechanisms used to deliver extension services to farmers under Component 2 and financing to rural businesses in Component 3 were more straightforward and efficient. The first round of grants took an especially long time to deliver, as processes were being established and learned. Efficiency was gained over time, but extensions of the closing date were needed to complete subproject cycles and there were additional management costs associated with these extensions.

Geographical challenges. The remote, island nature of the country makes the procurement and delivery of supplies, as well as technical support (e.g. engineers), time-consuming and expensive. Four PSUs were initially established to serve the initial six participating provinces, but another four PSUs were later established, partly to cover the two new provinces added with AF, and partly to provide more intensive coverage by having one PSU per province. Cancellation of EU Funding. The cancellation of $2.4 million in EU financing in 2010 left a shortfall which was not compensated for in AF1, and had to therefore be addressed in AF2. This cancellation of funds was due to the closure of the 9th European Development Fund (EDF9) funding window prior to full utilization of the funds, which was in turn due to the slow start-up of the project.

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Leveraging power of grants. Community development grants not only leveraged community cash and in-kind contributions, but also ward (Member of Provincial Assembly), provincial government, and national Member of Parliament co-financing. Around 14% of sub-projects received co-financing contributions of between 1% and 35% of the total value of the grants. While no SIG cash contribution was planned at appraisal or AF1, SBD30 million was contributed as part of AF2. This built the base for an annual allocation for RDP under the follow-on project, RDP 2 (Cr. 5574, Grant D0220).

Private Sector Participation. Project preparation did not sufficiently assess the availability of private service providers nor did it put in place any activities for their development during implementation, leaving the burden for service delivery during implementation on an already under-capacitated MAL. As an alternative to private sector or NGO agriculture service contracts, the provision of financing for the Monthly Action Plans (MAPs) of provincial MAL extension offices proved an efficient means of delivering demand-driven agriculture services to farmers. Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRAs) across the country established a detailed work program for agricultural extension offices to respond to over time, rebuilding the connections between MAL and farmers, which had deteriorated during the civil conflict.

Slow up-take of SEF. There was initially low uptake on Supplemental Equity Financing (SEF) largely because of a failure by MDPAC early on to plan to work with participating commercial banks to promote the availability of this facility to eligible rural businesses. While total financing was cut back, following the initiation of activities to promote SEF, the uptake increased sharply and outcome targets were met well in advance of project closure. Mid-Term-Review (MTR). The MTR was conducted before Component 1 completed a full subproject cycle, so the lessons were limited and full operational costs were not yet known. As a result, the budget produced for AF1 was ill informed and thus insufficient for the planned scale-up into additional provinces. This was one of the main reasons underpinning the justification for AF2.

2.3 Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Design, Implementation and Utilization Design: M&E arrangements included the use of a baseline, household survey and establishment of a Management Information System (MIS) comprising sub-project physical information, financial management data used to generate statements of expenditure and program management information used to generate reports. Measurements focused significantly on access to services and satisfaction with service and infrastructure quality. For Component 2 the M&E system did not attempt to measure changes in farmer productivity or production, but rather responsiveness to farmer needs and the application of improved farming methods. For Component 3, the Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) supported MDPAC to collect data from participating commercial banks on the loan performance of their SEF recipients and to conduct spot check interviews with beneficiary SMEs to assess the impacts on business operations. Also, selected core sector indicators (CSI) from the Bank’s “Participation and Civic

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Engagement and Agriculture Extension and Research” sectors were added at the time of AF2.

Implementation: Implementation of the baseline survey took a long time and did not allow for the setting of several baseline indicators until 2010. Since the baseline survey asked questions at the household and village levels, it did not align with some of the original individual-oriented indicators in the PAD, and therefore, some results indicators needed to be adjusted at the time of AF2. Effective project monitoring and reporting were hampered by delays in establishment of an effective MIS. Three different systems, designed by three different consultants were developed over the course of the Project. The utility of the system improved each time and data was nonetheless systematically collected; the system was sufficiently well structured to contribute effectively to management decision-making. The Bank engaged experienced information technology consultants to assist SIG and the basic data required for monitoring and evaluation were gathered. A new, publicly accessible, web-based MIS was functional at project closure, providing a robust system for use in RDP 2.

Impact Evaluation: An impact evaluation of Component 1 and 2 was implemented through a partnership with the University of New South Wales: Evaluation of the Solomon Islands Rural Development Program (2013). The evaluation survey was based on a sample of 80 villages, with an overlap of 63 villages from the baseline survey, using a non-randomized trial methodology. The small sample, the nature of the methodology and the fact that some baseline villages were not surveyed, did somewhat limit the evaluation’s scope for making causal inferences and before and after comparisons. The evaluation did, however, provide the data needed to report on several results indicators and a range of other topics that have helped improve project design. An impact evaluation was also conducted specifically for Component 3: Evaluation of the Supplemental Equity Facility of the Rural Development Program (2013). One of the main conclusions and recommendations of the Evaluation was to require SEF grant recipients to submit more baseline data in the future to allow for a broader assessment of impact and to monitor indicators over time such as jobs created and additional revenue. In retrospect some of this data was difficult to collect at the end of the Project.

Utilization: Most conclusions and recommendations of the evaluation of Components 1 and 2 along with the MTR and other Donor Review and Implementation Support Missions were incorporated into AF1 and AF2, and on an on-going basis, into action plans. The Component 3 evaluation was conducted after operation of this component had ceased in 2013. The findings from both evaluations significantly informed the design of RDP2, including simplifications in fiduciary systems and capacity building for Community Helpers in Component 1, a shift in approach to more effectively leveraging the private sector in Component 2, and narrowing the focus of a successful Component 3 to agriculture and livestock to deepen the impact in this sector.

2.4 Safeguard and Fiduciary Compliance Safeguards

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At appraisal, the Project was assessed as a category “B” project with the following four safeguard policies triggered: Environmental Assessment (OP/BP 4.01), Forests (OP/BP 4.36), Natural Habitats (OP/BP 4.04) and Indigenous Peoples (OP/BP 4.10). With the processing of AF1, a fifth safeguard, the Pest Management (OP 4.09) policy, was triggered due to the use of pesticides for farming under Component 2. An Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) was adopted as the main risk management instrument for covering the triggered policies at the time of appraisal and a Pest Management Plan (PMP) was adopted in 2011 following the triggering of OP 4.09. The ESMF and PMP were successfully implemented, and all policies were satisfactorily complied with. In general, the ESMF provisions for Component 1 were overly complex, (e.g. lengthy screening documentation and certification at subproject completion), relative to the risks at the time of appraisal, so minor simplifications were made during implementation. Some minor social and environmental and social safeguard issues emerged over the course of the Project. For example, disputes over the use of natural resources for community contributions such as sand, gravel, timber and land, as well as inter-ward religious differences, led to the cancellation of a small number of subprojects. The requirement that all subprojects be certified as ESMF compliant was difficult to implement due to the limited specialized staff (only 1 or 2 officers) and the wide geographical coverage of the subprojects. This became a bottleneck to the final certification of subprojects. The use of spot audits would likely have been sufficient to manage the identified risks, and has been incorporated into the RDP 2 design. Fiduciary Procurement: Six ex-post procurement reviews were conducted, and while they did not identify any significant procurement issues, some minor concerns did arise and were documented in agreed procurement action plans. Early on, procurement was hampered by difficulties in finding suitably qualified candidates for many key PCU, MAL and provincial positions, an insufficient level of technical assistance from the Procurement Specialist hired by the Project and incomplete procurement plans. While record-keeping was inadequate at times, there were no cases of mis-procurement, and the Procurement Plan was completed at project closure. Community procurement: Although procurement for sub-projects initially had serious delays and cost overruns, these were largely addressed by the development of a range of actions including: (i) PCU negotiating and drawing up price lists from a range of suppliers in Honiara; (ii) PCU sending price lists to Subproject Implementation Committees (SICs); (iii) SIC selecting suppliers and placing orders with accompanying payments made by checks through the PCU; (iv) PCU organizing transportation of materials; and (v) PCU, sometimes with the assistance of a Community Helper and or a SIC member(s), supervising delivery of materials at the dock and loading onto ships. The system reduced the time taken for procurement by several months in most cases and secured an estimated 10 percent price reduction for materials and transport. Importantly, it was reported to have no negative effects on communities’ ownership of construction

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processes, although it did place an extra time burden on the PCU. The system served also to highlight issues such as the unreliability of charter ships and unpredictable price rises due to weather conditions and prolonged journeys. Overall procurement policy was complied with. Financial management: Annual audits were completed albeit late with the exception of the 2013 and 2014 audits. The latter two audits were submitted on time, as they were completed by a private firm rather than by the Auditor General’s Office. Several financial management issues arose mainly around staffing and reporting (especially over outstanding staff advances) for which action plans were developed and implemented. Periodic reviews were conducted by the Bank to review and improve operations, and the recommendations and actions resulted in significant time savings, particularly via automated salary payments and contract renewals. Three cases of misuse of funds, all by PSU finance officers, were found and satisfactorily resolved. Financial management policy was generally complied with.

2.5 Post-completion Operation/Next Phase As at project closure, 79% of the completed subprojects had an Operations and Maintenance (O&M) plan, including identified sources of financing, roles and responsibilities. These O&M activities will continue to be implemented by communities and supported by RDP Community Helpers. Extension activities implemented under Component 2 will continue to be supported by MAL extension staff as needed. Preparation of a follow-on operation, RDP 2, began nine months prior to the closure of RDP I with the intention of ensuring continuity in the institutional arrangements across the two projects. RDP 2 became effective on February 27, 2015 – a day before the closure of RDP I. The design of RDP 2 drew heavily upon RDP I. RDP 2/Component 1 (Community Infrastructure and Services) largely replicates Component 1 of RDP I. This component also incorporates sub-projects that remained incomplete following the closure of RDP I, providing support to ensure that all of these subprojects are satisfactorily completed. RDP 2/Component 2 (Agriculture Partnerships and Support) combines elements of Component 2 and 3 of RDP I but with a much greater focus on private sector partnerships with farmers. The SEF has been carried over to RDP 2, but it is targeted at exclusively at the agriculture sector. This component also includes a dedicated disaster recovery sub-component to support replacement and or repair of community infrastructure, agriculture and livestock assets and infrastructure affected by the April 2014 flash floods in Guadalcanal.

3. Assessment of Outcomes

3.1 Relevance of Objectives, Design and Implementation Rating: Substantial Relevance of the PDO

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The original PDO of raising living standards was highly appropriate in SI which was just emerging from several years of civil strife, and the rural economy was sluggish due inadequate services and infrastructure. Upon preparation of the Interim Strategy Note for the period 2010 – 2011 (March 12, 2010, Report No. 53496-SB), the project PDO was reflected in Strategic Area 3 of the ISN, improved public administration and management. The link to public administration was reflected through the PDO focus on “establishing improved mechanisms” for the delivery of services. As mentioned in Section 1.1, RDP was a direct outcome of the Solomon Islands’ ARDS of 2007 which emphasized the need to strengthen local governance and service delivery, make growth more inclusive by strengthening the agriculture sector and managing natural resources more sustainably. The Bank’s Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for the Solomon Islands (FY 13-17), also attaches high priority to supporting rural communities. Strategic Area 2, “underpinning improvement of public service provision” includes, in particular, a key outcome on “increased access to rural services”. The CPS recognizes that most rural areas do not feel the presence of the state and that a system for the equitable delivery of basic services is needed. SIG’s National Development Strategy 2011 – 2020 also focuses on social and economic development through the equitable distribution of public resources and economic benefits across the country. Modest revision of the PDO in 2013 did not affect its relevance to the above referenced Bank and government strategies and policy. Since RDP 1 approval, successive governments have continued to place rural development as a top policy priority. SIG provides substantial and ongoing rural development financing through constituency development funds (CDFs), province-oriented funds, specifically the PCDF; and community-oriented grant funds such as RDP. RDP remains the only mechanism to respond directly to community demand on an equitable basis, nationwide and its relevance is further signaled with the follow-on project. Relevance of the Design and Implementation The overall design and implementation arrangements remain relevant for the SIG approach to rural development and the Bank strategy. Under Component 1 the CDD approach remains relevant for enabling access to and use of infrastructure and services in rural areas through participatory planning, budgeting and execution mechanisms at community and provincial level. National and provincial government capacity remains insufficient to meet the needs of rural communities, and there is still a weak connection between the needs of communities and the support that they receive from government. Communities are motivated to manage their own development and they are able to access the skills needed for implementation. MAL capacity had been drastically depleted by the crisis and RDP helped to both rebuild capacity and the connections to the needs of farmers. Going forward, MAL does not have sufficient resources to continue to offer extension support to all farmers and is

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therefore shifting its focus to leveraging the capacity of the private sector to support farmers. This focus on marketing and commercialization is reflected in MAL’s new corporate structure and strategy, which emphasizes private sector engagement and reducing the reliance on the public sector. This change in focus is reflected in the design and the implementation arrangements of Component 2 in RDP 2. The SEF remains a relevant instrument for addressing the constraints of rural businesses in accessing finance, proving that rural business is very responsive to investment opportunities if access to finance is facilitated. Commercial banks remain prepared to offer this Facility to their customers, so it has been carried forward as a component of RDP 2.

3.2 Achievement of Project Development Objectives Rating: Substantial. This assessment is based on achievements of the original PDO as well as the revised PDO (revised with project restructuring and additional financing in 2013), each measured over the full duration of the Project. The period up to 2013 did not involve any changes to the PDO, but changes were made to the grant amount and KPIs at AF1 in 2010. At AF2 in 2013, the PDO was revised, and there was a change in the grant amount and changes in the KPIs. Original PDO and KPIs (including those modified at AF1) The original PDO was “to raise the living standards of rural households by establishing improved mechanisms for the delivery of priority economic and social infrastructure and services through: (i) increased, cost-effective and sustained provision of local services and basic infrastructure determined through participatory planning prioritized by villagers; (ii) increased capacity of agriculture institutions to provide demand-driven agriculture services at the local level; and (iii) support for rural business development.” The original KPIs in the PAD were: (i) number of people using agriculture and infrastructure services provided; and (ii) percentage of rural households satisfied with the quality of agriculture and infrastructure services provided. While the PDO remained the same, the KPIs were modified at AF1 to: (i) Percentage of villages with satisfactory access to functioning infrastructure; and (ii) % of villages with improved access to effective agriculture services. Assessment of the original PDO is complicated by the adjusting of KPIs at AF1 in 2010. The revised KPIs mainly divided one of the original KPIs into two separate KPIs, one for the CDD component and one for the agriculture component. As such, this assessment will refer to the original indicator of “number of people” as PDO 1, and then satisfaction with infrastructure as PDO 2 and satisfaction with agriculture services as PDO 3. Both the original KPIs and the revised KPIs remain useful measures of the PDO, so the assessment of PDO achievement will be based on a combination of both types of KPIs. The institutional objective reflected in the PDO reference to “establishing improved mechanisms” was substantially advanced during implementation, but the longer-term challenges of achieving such an outcome were acknowledged from the outset, hence the proposal to implement RDP in two five-year phases. A whole new architecture for

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community-driven service delivery had been built and delivered within four cycles of community financing, and agriculture extension services were successfully being delivered in response to participatory needs assessments. These systems were improved beyond the ad hoc delivery of community infrastructure by previous donor funded activities as well as agriculture extension services that were mainly supply-driven and poorly financed prior to the Project. The presence of strong, inclusive community participation processes for both ward development planning and financing as well as agriculture extension services was confirmed through the household and community surveys conducted as part of the 2013 project impact evaluation. Revised PDO and KPIs The PDO was revised at AF2 to make it more easily measurable, as “improved mechanisms” are difficult to measure as are improvements in “living standards.” Therefore, the PDO was narrowed to focus on access to services, and worded as such: “to increase access to high priority, small-scale economic and social infrastructure, agriculture and financial services.” The KPIs were modified to add one impact indicator (convenience/time savings of water access), adjustments were made to align with the baseline data collected, and a total beneficiary measure which was dropped at AF1 was reintroduced. The indicators at AF2 were: (PDO 1) percentage decrease in travel time to access improved water sources; (PDO 2) % of villages with satisfactory access to infrastructure and or services; (PDO 3) % of households who have changed agricultural practices, including varieties, as a result of agricultural advice; and (PDO 4) number of beneficiaries of completed community development projects/which are women. Access to Infrastructure In the PAD, a target value of 300,000 people was set for PDO 1, “number of people using agriculture and infrastructure services provided.” This indicator was meant to be a combined total of beneficiaries from Component 1 and 2. On PDO 4, at the time of AF1, the means of calculating total beneficiaries shifted from a combination of Component 1 and Component 2 beneficiaries at the time of the PAD, to a more narrow focus on Component 1 subproject beneficiaries. As such, the target should have been reduced. The target was kept at 300,000 at the time of AF2 as the total number of subproject beneficiaries appeared to be trending towards a 300,000 outcome based on subproject design documentation. At project closure, 198,340 people were benefitting from completed subprojects, or two-thirds of the target. There were still 77 subprojects that were not yet operational at closure. All project funds had been disbursed to these subprojects and, on average, they were about 80% completed by October 2015, six months from project closure. With support provided under RDP 2, all of these subproject are expected to be completed by March 2016, at which point there will be a projected total of 262,099 beneficiaries comprising 87% of the target. This shows that PDO4 is expected to be nearly achieved, especially taking into account the fact that the number of beneficiaries for component 2 is not reflected while it was included in the target. If the 26,000 farmers benefiting directly from participation in agricultural extension activities were added to the total beneficiaries for Component 1, the project

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total would be 288,099 beneficiaries, quite close to the original KPI target (96% of the target). For PDO 1, there was a 13.5% decrease in travel time to access improved water supply sources, which was over and above the target set at 10 percent. For PDO 2, there was a 92% increase in the number of villages reporting satisfactory access to infrastructure and or services (calculated as a basket of services such as education, health, energy, water supply, and transport weighted according to the percentage of subproject types financed by RDP), which far exceeded the target of a 10% increase. In hindsight, the target should have been set higher as there is little in the way of rural community investment and RDP should have been expected to have a higher impact. With an estimated rural population of around 415,000 according to the 2009 Census, the total number of rural people benefitting from improved access to infrastructure would eventually represent around 63% of the rural population. This represents significant geographic coverage. Table 1, below provides a breakdown of the types infrastructure rural communities are, or will be, benefitting as a result of RDP. Overall the quality of the infrastructure is comparable to other similar modalities within the country and globally, with technical audits conducted at the time of subproject completion to confirm technical quality and to train in operations and maintenance. While the target for female beneficiaries was 50%, the reported number of women beneficiaries is only 33%. This is mainly due to underreporting by beneficiary communities as the national population breakdown is 51% male, 49% male and this breakdown should be reflected in the reported numbers. Table 1: Sub-projects and beneficiaries (and # female) by subproject type

Subproject Type # of Subprojects*

Total # of Beneficiaries

# of female Beneficiaries

Water supply (gravity-fed and borehole)

90 53,415 17,827

Health aid post 29 41,149 13,886 Community Hall 43 29,675 9,236 Pre-primary school 47 21,384 6,384 Water supply (tanks) 40 21,110 8,270 Solar electricity (charging stations)

36 18,897 7,627

Primary school 17 16,000 4,021 Health staff housing 8 14,307 7,346 Women’s Resource Center

5 11,032 3,552

Secondary school 8 10,781 2,830 Foot bridge 6 9,278 2,206 Market building 3 4,907 1,243 Education staff housing 8 4,401 1,972 Sanitation 10 4,225 1,250 School library 1 2,000 1,000

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Rural road 3 1,980 902 Maternity ward 1 1,327 341 HF-Radios (communications)

3 912 396

Sea wall 2 739 184 TOTAL 360 267,509 90,473

*Includes all (complete and incomplete) sub-projects There were mixed, but largely positive, results regarding intermediary indicators in terms of access to infrastructure and services, many of which are evidence of the establishment of effective, new systems for the delivery of public services. The baseline and end-line household surveys 2 conducted for the impact evaluation found that 48 percent of households in target planning units had participated in sub-project decision-making, which was only a little over half the target set at 80 percent. On reflection, the target was set unreasonably high as it is difficult to include such a high percentage of the community in community decision-making meetings as they have varying village and outside responsibilities which occupy them. In fact, 48% is a significant result with respect to the establishment of effective participatory planning systems in CDD projects globally. The total number of consultation participants was counted through sign-up sheets rather than household surveys. The target of 30,000 participants was exceeded at 30,380, but the target for women was underachieved at 9,936, with a target of 12,000. The target of 80% of sub-projects with arrangements for community engagement in post-project operations and maintenance (O&M) was essentially achieved at 79% reported from monitoring data collection. The target of 15% of total subproject financing from communities was exceeded at 36%. This is a strong indication of community commitment and ability to generate local co-financing, including from provincial government, ward members (elected officials) and national Members of Parliament (MPs). The household surveys also found that 94% of community members and 93% of women, felt project investments reflect their needs, exceeding the targets set at 80% for both total community members and women. Finally, the percent of representatives in community based decision-making structures, specifically in SICs, were women came out to 29%, just shy of the target of 30%. Access to agricultural services On PDO 3, 11.2% of households received agricultural advice and changed agricultural practices, including varieties, well below the target set at 35 percent (but five times the 2% baseline). The main reason this number is low is that the calculation is based upon the percentage of households who changed agriculture practices using both households that received advice and those who did not. In other words, the result is 11.2% of all households interviewed, not just households that received advice. If the calculation is

2 The baseline (household) survey was conducted in two rounds in June 2009 and May 2010, interviewing both men and women, and covering 1,388 households in 76 villages across the first four provinces to participate in the project.

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based only on households that received advice, the result would have been an impressive 48%, 138% of the target. An uptake rate of nearly 50% reflects a high level of relevance and responsiveness of the agricultural extension advice provided. The intermediate indicators for Component 2 were also generally positive. The household survey found that 49% of villages in participating provinces were provided with agricultural services, which was just below the target set at 50%. This also represents a significant increase in access to agricultural services as this is nearly twice as much as the 28% of villages that reported receiving agricultural advice at the time of the baseline. Also, 79% of wards in participating provinces were provided with agricultural services, which was below the target set at 90 percent. Nonetheless, these high rates reflect wide geographic coverage. Table 3 provides a breakdown of the agricultural services and beneficiaries reported by MAL. Table 2: Agricultural services and beneficiaries Services No. of activities No. of beneficiaries Quarantine 37 2,938 Farmer association 3 270 Resource management 82 2,949 Livestock 223 6,480 Cash crop 343 12,290 Food crop 396 12,077 Total 1084 37,004

More than one-half of beneficiaries received either cash crop (33%) of food crop (34%) services, 18% benefitted from livestock services, 8% benefited from quarantine services, (8%) and less than 1% received farmer association services. Targets for the total number of individuals participating in provincial agricultural activities, and the percentage of which were women, were both exceeded. The targets of 30,000 individuals/40 percent of which women was exceeded with 37,004 individuals/46% of which were women, reported, respectively. Services provided were also highly demand-driven with 12,763 people/43 percent of which were women, attending participatory needs identification. The total number of participants was slightly under the target of 13,000, while the percentage of women participating exceeding the target of 40 percent. Another indicator of the responsiveness of agricultural services to specific farmer needs was the demonstration of 60 different technologies (a core Bank core sector indicator), exceeding the target of 50. Rural enterprise development and increased access to financial services The original PDO language related to Component 3 referred to “rural enterprise development” and was subsequently changed to "increased access to financial services” at the time of AF2. The original language was broader than the revised language, but the types of activities did not change nor did the intermediate indicators change to reflect any revision in focus. There were three intermediate indicators aimed at measuring

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Component 3: (a) (Intermediate Outcome (IO) 20 (number of businesses established or expanding in rural areas; (b) IO 21, profitability of the businesses established (revised to "Percentage increase in turnover of businesses established" at AF1); and (c) IO 22, increase in income or employment arising to rural people from businesses established (revised to “average number of jobs created per SEF-supported business" at AF2). For IO 20, as there was no initial target value, a value of 100 businesses was set at AF1. This was subsequently revised downward to 50 businesses at AF2 to reflect slow initial uptake by the participating banks. A year before project close the funds allocated for Component 3 were exhausted and 65 businesses had benefitted from the SEF, 130% of the revised target, 65% of the AF1 target. Unfortunately, IO 21 proved too difficult to measure as SEF recipients did not have comparable, reliable data when interviewed for an evaluation conducted after the component activities were completed. IO 22 also had no original target value, was dropped at AF1, but then reinstated at AF2 with a target of an average of 5 new jobs created by each SEF recipient. This target was exceeded with an average of 5.8 jobs created per SEF-supported business. The original PDO reference to “rural enterprise development” was substantially advanced by rural job creation as well as strong uptake in supplemental equity financing which allowed rural enterprises to invest more significantly in their business activity. This component’s contribution towards achieving the revised PDO focus on increasing access of rural households to high priority, financial services, can be seen in terms of its leverage ratio of 1:3, i.e. every USD1 of project funds raised USD3 of recipient equity + participating bank credit. Only one business, or 1.5% of the total, defaulted on the bank loan received. This compares favorably with a similar CBSI program where default rates are at 18%, indicating the likelihood of sustainability for benefits generated to date. Table 4 provides a breakdown of the SEF-financed projects by sector. Table 4: SEF, Owner’s Equity and Loan by Sector (SBD)

Sector SEF Owner’s Equity

Loan SEF/Total 2) Loan/Total

3) Agriculture 2,350,945 4,119,855 9,013,633 15% 58% Tourism 1,292,607 2,075,614 4,314,638 17% 56% Transport & Shipping

1,547,000 2,582,000 9,714,000 11% 70%

Retail 291,651 232,726 1,047,802 19% 67% Infrastructure 1,237,757 3,521,496 6,322,700 11% 57% Energy 330,000 1,146,000 1,290,000 12% 47% Other 1) 830,333 830,333 2,487,000 20% 60% Total 7,880,293 14,508,024 34,189,773 14% 60% Note: 1) Includes training, services (unspecified) and manufacturing 2) SEF as a proportion of total investment (SEF + Owner’s Equity + Loan) 3) Loan as a proportion of total investment (debt equity ratio)

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Table 5 summarizes the overall outcome rating, broken down according to the original PDO and KPIs, and those revised in August 2013. Based on the results the overall PDO rating is Moderately Satisfactory. Table 5: Outcome Assessment: Weighted Against Original and Revised PDO Targets Until 2013 AF

(Original PDO Targets)

After 2013 AF (Revised PDO

Targets)

Overall

1 Relevance of objectives, design and implementation

S S

2 Efficiency M M 3 Achievement of outcomes M S 5 Overall rating MS MS 6 Rating value 4 4 7 Amount Disbursed $6.0 mill $3.2 mill $9.2 mill 8 % disbursed 65% 35% 100% 9 Weighted Value Rating 2.6 1.4 4 10 Final rating Moderately

Satisfactory * For relevance, efficiency and efficacy, the values are: High (H) = 4; Substantial (S) = 3; Modest (M) = 2; Negligible (N) = 1. For overall and final rating, the values are: *HS=6; S=5; MS=4; MU=3; U=2; HU=1 3.3 Efficiency Rating: Modest While there are similar assessments of CDD projects in other countries that might provide useful comparisons to assess Component 1 efficiency, cost levels are highly dependent upon the economic environment within each country. Solomon Islands has particularly high costs due to the distance from foreign supplier markets, and due to the cost of domestic transport from the very few supply centers (e.g. Honiara is the primary supply center for most provinces) to remote, infrequently visited locations around the country. With only 66% of the target subprojects being complete and requiring additional resources from RDP 2, the cost of facilitating subproject completion will continue to increase until all of the ongoing subprojects are complete. The quantification of the Project economic costs and benefits for Component 1 was conducted ex-post using the RDP I design as an input into the RDP 2 design. A summary of the Economic Internal Rate of Return (EIRR) for a selection of sub-projects is presented in Table 6. Table 6: Economic return of selected sub-projects Sub-project Category

EIRR1 (%)

Quantifiable Benefits

Education 19 Time saved for parents; forgone and or reduced transport costs; long-term educational benefits

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Health 12 Forgone and or reduced transport cost; time saved; improved access for pregnant women; long term health benefits

Solar power 39 Forgone cost of kerosene Water / Sanitation 21 Time saved; health improvements

1Economic Internal Rate of Return The EIRRs for selected sub-project categories range between 12 and 39 percent, which fall within the range of returns for comparable projects. The result of the water sub-projects, which report an EIRR of 21 percent, is particularly positive given that the percent decrease in travel time to access improved water sources is one of the PDO KPIs and hence a core measure of project achievement. A recent World Bank study reported EIRRs of 18-53 percent for CDD infrastructure projects, which in comparable terms, suggests the delivery of sub-projects is relatively efficient. The sub-projects are also, based on the sample, efficient in absolute terms. Unfortunately, there are no standard designs and bills of quantities to allow for a one-to-one cost comparison of similar facilities (i.e. aid posts, or school classrooms) across rural infrastructure projects similar to RDP, but an unpublished background paper on technical sustainability prepared as an input to the Bank-published “Towards Better Rural Investment in Solomon Islands” did include a comparison of costs and approaches between similar projects within the country. The other projects examined were: Micro-projects Program I (MPP I), Micro-projects Program II (MPP II), Rural Advancement Micro-projects Program (RAMP) and the Provincial Capacity Development Fund (PCDF). The report found the cost of RDP-financed subprojects to be comparable to other similar projects in the Solomon Islands. With respect to small-scale buildings, the paper concluded that, while the average cost per m2 for different structures varies, the average cost per m2 for typical RDP structures “is broadly consistent with international practice for low-cost permanent structures.” Table 7 below provides a cost comparison of three common building types constructed under RDP: kindergarten/kindy (single storey ground level masonry structure); nurse aid post (ground level); and staff housing (raised building structure). All are timber-framed structures. Although the variations in cost per m2 for the kindys and staff houses are rather wide (25-30%) this is not inconsistent with the geographical/local variation. Table 7: Comparison of Typical RDP Building Costs

Building type Province Year Area (m2)

Project cost SBD

Constructor’s sum SBD

Cost per m2 SBD

Kindy Choiseul 2010 92.16 242,973 15,000 2,626

Kindy Isabel 2012 83.64 161,457 Community work

1,930

Nurse aid post Temotu 2010 116.96 286,397 17,000 2,449

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Nurse aid post Isabel 2012 62.4 152,362 13,000 2,442

Staff house Malaita 2010 36.0 168,454 15,000 4,679

Staff house Choiseul 2010 37.5 249,561 25,000 6,654 The technical sustainability paper also examined RDP financed water supply schemes taking account of the cost per beneficiary, per standpipe and per gallon. These show very consistent costs when compared on a standpipe basis (See Table 8, below). While the scope and design varied considerably from system to system, average costs remained broadly consistent over time. Table 8: Cost Comparison of SIRDP Rural Water Supply Schemes, by Cycle

Cycle No. of schemes

Total costs ’000 SBD

Population served

SBD Per capita

SBD Per standpipe

SBD Per gallon

1 14 2,320 5,498 422 14,322 50

2 22 3,243 12,995 250 14,673 44

3 48 6,832 23,380 292 13,164 53

4 53 6,030 14,286 432 14,853 30

Total 137 18,425 56,195 328 14,086 41

Note: Of the 137 schemes, some 71 are gravity fed, 45 rain fed. 4 are wells. 5 pumped schemes and the balance of 12 are sanitation projects)

For Component 2, due to the lack of information or rigorous evaluation of past activities, the absence of basic agricultural data on yields and farm systems, the demand driven nature of the investments and the substantial non-quantifiable benefits, it is difficult to calculate economic returns. A cumulative project total of US$3.79 million was transferred to provincial MAL offices for conducting Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRAs) to identify farmer needs and to subsequently deliver extension activities. A total of 12,763 farmers were consulted and 36,954 farmers received extension support as a result. Total combined beneficiaries of these activities (acknowledging that most farmers would benefit more than once) comes to 49,717 activity beneficiaries. If this number is divided by the total cost of US$3.79 million, the average cost per beneficiary is US$76/per beneficiary. While it is not possible to establish exact and comparable figures, a scan of nonprofit and private providers of agricultural services in similar circumstances for similar purposes indicate costs of around USD50-100 per beneficiary. Project costs also need to be set within the relatively recent tumultuous political economy of the Solomon Islands. Following the period of prolonged civil conflict during the “Tensions” of 1999 to 2003 (and soon after the food, fuel and financial crisis of 2008 and the economic aftermath) the Solomon Islands moved through a period of post-conflict reconstruction to longer-term development planning. The Solomon Islands

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however remains a “fragile state,” among the 18 IDA member countries with a (Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) rating below 3 in FY15. The destruction of infrastructure and depletion of government services during the tensions placed a significant extra cost-burden on the Project. The Project not only provided for the construction of infrastructure, often where it has been completely degraded or was simply absent, but it also contributed to re-building of the almost entirely depleted agricultural extension and support services of the MAL. For Component 3, total financing for SEF-financed projects came to SBD34.2 million, or about US$4.3 million. Only SBD7,880,292, or about US$985,000 (at September 2015 exchange rates) was financed by SEF, slightly less than 25%. This is a significant leveraging factor for investments in rural areas. Administrative costs for RDP are also quite low, with the commercial banks bearing most of the responsibility for administering the funds, and RDP mainly just responsible for proposal screening, monitoring and evaluation. While the administrative cost of this component was not explicitly tracked, but rather bundled within overall Project Management costs, it could be estimated as perhaps a total of 4 months of the Program Managers time plus another 2 months of other staff time totalling approximately SBD300,000, or US$37,500. As a percentage of total SEF-financed project cost (US4.3 million), administrative costs come to about 0.9%. There are also processing and management costs on the part of the commercial banks which are not included here, but which should be considered leveraged private co-financing of the management costs.

3.4 Justification of Overall Outcome Rating The overall outcome rating of Moderately Satisfactory is justified based on combined measures of relevance as substantial, efficacy as substantial and efficiency as modest. Relevance: The PDO, design and implementation remained relevant and are rated Substantial. Efficacy: While the results of each indicator are mixed, the overall summary of results when factoring in a weighting across pre and post-AF2 restructuring is Substantial. The total number of individuals benefitting from “completed” subprojects is well short of the 300,000 target (198,340), but most of these subprojects have been completed since project close as they were near completion at that time. The results of agriculture and livestock activities were also better than the AF2 PDO indicator revealed. In contrast to the 11.2% of households that had both received and applied advice (short of the 35% target), 48% of households who received advice changed their farming practice. This is a high response rate for extension advice. There was a 92% increase in satisfactory access to infrastructure and services which far exceeded the 10 percent target. Efficiency: While the lack of comprehensive data and analysis makes this difficult to assess, based on a mix of surrogate measures and anecdotal information, the overall Project was Modest. Subproject costs are comparable to other similar projects in the Solomon Islands, and on par with similar rural infrastructure projects internationally. Agriculture and livestock services were also relatively efficient from a per-beneficiary

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perspective and also in leveraging MAL staff resources. The cost of administering SEF was very limited compared to the management time and investment by participating commercial banks.

3.5 Overarching Themes, Other Outcomes and Impacts (a) Poverty Impacts, Gender Aspects, and Social Development Poverty Impacts: The original PDO was to raise the living standards of rural households by establishing improved mechanisms for the delivery of priority economic and social infrastructure and services by the public and private sector. While there was no explicit reference to poverty in the PDO or any deliberate targeting of poor rural households, certain aspects of the Project had an impact on a surrogate measure of poverty – food security. The Evaluation of the Solomon Islands Rural Development Program (2013) reported a statistically significant difference between advice received and food security. On average, 90 percent of households who did receive advice, compared with 85 percent of those who did not receive advice, were able to grow, catch and or buy enough food for everybody. In other words, households that received advice were more likely to provide an adequate food supply for everybody in the household. The 92% increase in satisfaction with water supply, health, education, electricity and other basic services reflect improvements for those who are “service poor,” the majority of those living in rural areas. Gender Aspects: These aspects are reported in Section 3.2. The KPI results for selected gender disaggregated indicators show that the Project achieved or almost achieved gender equality. Gender aspects were also addressed in the Evaluation of the Solomon Islands Rural Development Program (2013). There are several key findings from the Evaluation that illustrate on the one hand the importance women played in the Sub-project Implementation Committees (SICs) and the effects of increased female participation in the Project process on the other. First, women played an important role in the SIC committees: (i) a community leader survey asked participants if they thought the Project processes enabled women to influence decision making more than other community projects – on average 85 percent responded positively; (ii) when the same participants were asked how the Project enabled female engagement, close to 45 percent listed women in the SIC as a driving factor; and (iii) on average around 85 percent of the SICs included women. Secondly, increased female participation resulted in increased effectiveness (i) when SICs included women 95 percent were reported to be effective compared with 65% when they did not include women; (ii) when SICs included women 40 percent of community leader groups reported meetings occurred often while when SICs did not include women 75 percent reported meetings rarely occurred; (iii) when women were involved in the sub-projects selection process close to 69 percent of groups reported the sub-project was complete compared with 57 percent when women were not involved; (iv) when women were involved in the subprojects selection process, 37 percent of groups reported disagreements or disputes compared with 57 percent when women were not involved. Beyond the positive impacts of the project for rural women, female membership of SICs and WDCs is still well below equal and efforts are planned to address this imbalance in RDP 2.

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Social Development: The main social development achievements are reported in Section 3.2 and reflected mainly in the KPI results under Component 1. In general, the Project has contributed to community empowerment and cultural change in rural development in the Solomon Islands. Communities, by participating in project processes, have been able to gain control over physical assets provided for by the sub-projects but as well, and potentially more significantly, to build their capacities to gain greater voice and ultimately more control in their communities. In particular, SICs have played an important role in enabling community empowerment or ownership of their assets and attributes. The Project has also contributed to cultural change in the way in which community services are provided. There is a long and pervasive legacy of handout-driven development in the Solomon Islands, through such mechanisms as the constituency funds, which have ignored the sorts of planning and investment decision-making processes that are at the core of the CDD approach. The fact that around 14% of sub-projects did receive co-funding contributions in addition to community contributions of between less than 1% and up to almost 35% of the total value of the sub-project investment, suggests that the Project’s sphere of influence may be greater. (b) Institutional Change/Strengthening One of the main strengthens of the project was the capacity that it built in the two main areas of intervention: community-driven development and agriculture and livestock services to farmers. In the case of CDD, four rounds of sub-grants allowed MDPAC to refine its practices over time and establish a mechanism that can be continued into the future as one of the government’s primary investments in rural development. Provincial governments have also developed their roles over time and integrated the CDD approach into their operations, albeit there is much greater scope for the use of participatory planning and other CDD processes. With respect to agriculture and livestock services, MAL has rebuilt following the crisis and is delivering ongoing extension services across the country once again. The Project has also financed a restructuring of MAL that is intended to modernize its services, focusing more on private sector partnership and agribusiness. (c) Other Unintended Outcomes and Impacts (positive or negative) The main unintended impact of the Project, as already noted in (a) above was the fact that around 14% of sub-projects did receive co-funding contributions from local government and constituency funds in addition to community contributions. While such co-financing was provided for in the design, there were no targets or outcomes envisaged. Given the significant amount of funding available through constituency funds, this co-financing experience will provide a base for expansion in the future.

3.6 Summary of Findings of Beneficiary Survey and/or Stakeholder Workshops Beneficiary assessments took place at regular intervals of the Project and informed the design, implementation, MTR and completion. These beneficiary assessments employed a variety of methodologies including interviews with beneficiaries, a survey of a non-random sample of beneficiaries, participatory evaluation workshops with community beneficiaries and case studies.

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The main beneficiary survey involved the Evaluation of the Solomon Islands Rural Development Program (2013) through a survey interview of 80 villages equally distributed across four provinces. The main findings, for Component 1 and 2 only, are summarized in Annex 5.

4. Assessment of Risk to Development Outcome Rating: Moderate. The overall risk rating at the time of approval was Substantial risk. Much of this risk stemmed from the low capacity, post-conflict fragile state context of the country. Over the course of the project, the political environment has become more stable, with less frequent leadership transition, and the fiscal environment has become more predictable. With the successor project already under implementation, support will be provided to some project activities that were at highest risk of sustainability such as the community subprojects. RDP 2 will continue to provide Community Helpers to assist communities to operate and maintain their infrastructure investments so that their full value is realized. This is a difficult cultural shift, so it will take time, but there is considerable evidence from completed subprojects that communities are willing to make such a commitment. Even subprojects that are being well maintained will remain at risk to natural disasters such as the tsunami that damaged three subprojects in Temotu in 2012 and the flash flooding that caused extensive damage to rural infrastructure, agriculture and livestock assets in Guadalcanal. A main long-term and structural risk remains over the lack of institutional integration, horizontally and vertically, of national and provincial plans and priorities. While this was not an intended outcome of the Project it remains relevant for the delivery of a CDD platform in the country. Funds flowing through a combination of mechanisms including constituency-oriented funds; province-oriented funds (i.e. PCDF); and community-oriented grant funds (e.g. RDP) remain uncoordinated and overlapping. Government financing is currently prioritizing Constituency Development Funds (CDFs), with approximately 90% of government funds for constituency, provincial and community (e.g. RDP) funds going to CDFs. While SIG has committed to regular annual financing of RDP 2, the amount remains insufficient to fully finance the CDD mechanism. A shift in priority from CDFs to CDD will likely be needed in order for the RDP delivery mechanism to be integrated into government systems and sustained in the long term. Farmers will continue to be supported in RDP 2, but with a shift from public sector extension to private sector partnerships. There will be less funding available to provincial MAL offices to conduct extension activities, so this does risk some modest reduction in outreach to farmers. But the shift to private sector provision should ensure that private sector services are provided for the most commercially-oriented agricultural production, while government maintains support to subsistence farmers. The Supplemental Equity Facility is being supported in RDP 2. Enterprises financed through RDP have performed well in loan repayment and this is a strong indication of the sustainability of these investments.

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5. Assessment of Bank and Borrower Performance

5.1 Bank Performance (a) Bank Performance in Ensuring Quality at Entry Rating: Moderately Satisfactory. The Bank responded rapidly to acute post-tension needs and in the interests of expediency, acted as the Project’s main promoter and lead development partner in the rural development and agriculture sector. The Project’s PDO was overly broad and difficult to measure, but highly relevant. The original PDO indicators, although later modified, remained effective measures of project outcomes. While baseline data was not available for many of the indicators at the time of Board approval and the survey instruments did not capture some important information, the baseline survey provided a solid base for later comparison and the generation of project outcome data. Project design aimed to accommodate the capacity constraints at the time while also building a base for institutionalizing new mechanisms of rural service delivery. The project design appropriately recognized the time and effort that would be required to achieve institutional sustainability, working through and strengthening government systems so that mechanisms could be mainstreamed, to avoid creating parallel structures. However, it underestimated the amount of time needed to establish new CDD mechanisms and considerable time was lost at the beginning of the project which required two extensions of the closing date. While it has required more time to establish, the community implementation model was the most appropriate approach to rural infrastructure investment as there are few capable NGOs, provincial governments still lack outreach to the community level and community engagement is required to counter the prevailing tendency for rural assistance to be delivered as hand-outs. The multi-donor financing approach proved resilient over the course of the project, with four donors providing financing in stand-alone funds, with the Bank providing overall coordination and fiduciary management. One area where the Project was overly optimistic concerned the strategy to employ private sector and or NGO service providers to deliver agricultural services. The project design could have put in place measures to enhance the capacity of NGOs and the private sector in agricultural service delivery, which would have lightened the heavy service delivery burden placed on what was an already under-capacitated MAL. (b) Quality of Supervision Rating: Moderately Satisfactory. Slow project start-up and insufficient implementation progress made it difficult to appropriately calibrate financing needs, design improvements and results targets at the time of AF1. As a result, the additional financing proved to be insufficient and a second round of additional financing and restructuring was needed. The Bank’s ability to understand and effectively respond to changing circumstances on the ground in a fragile, small island state, was substantially strengthened with the placement of an international recruited staff (IRS) TTL in Honiara in 2011. Between AF1 and AF2, extensive procedural simplifications were incorporated into Component 1, in particular, clearing many obstacles to the achievement of results targets. AF2 was supported by the Bank and DFAT, and SIG even agreed to provide

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substantial co-financing for the first time since the project was approved. Without AF2 financing, only three cycles of subprojects would have been financed, and the ambitious outcomes that were set at AF1 (five cycles of subprojects) would have been unattainable, even at a scaled-back level. While there were no significant procurement issues, some minor concerns did arise, which were documented and dealt with under the mission action plans. Financial management supervision was complicated by the delays in completion of annual project audits, but the Bank addressed this issue towards the end of the Project by agreeing with the Ministry of Finance and Treasury that Project audits could be undertaken by independent audit firms. After this was agreed, audits were submitted on time. Safeguard policies applicable to the Project were supervised periodically through ad hoc field visits and, as with procurements, some minor issues did arise, which were documented and successfully dealt with under the mission action plans. The Bank provided extensive support to SIG to address the slow development of an MIS and reporting system. The results of this effort were slow to emerge, but intermediate systems were developed and used and the end of the Project had launched a web-based platform. Overall, the Bank provided extensive support to SIG, particularly over the last three years of the project, to address a range of implementation challenges, and position SIG for increased effectiveness in the implementation of the follow-on project, RDP 2. In addition to SIG’s desire to proceed with a second phase of RDP and provide ongoing co-financing, all of the original RDP donors, the EU, DFAT, IFAD and the Bank agreed to provide financing, reflecting confidence in both government implementation capacity and Bank supervision. (c) Justification of Rating for Overall Bank Performance Rating: Moderately Satisfactory. As the MTR was conducted in year three of the project (as planned), before a full subproject cycle had been complete, the Bank’s ability to assess the full extent and cost of scaling up requirements at the time of AF1 was limited. The placement of a country-based IRS TTL in 2011 allowed the Bank to provide the kind of intensive support needed to respond to the shortcomings of AF1, other ongoing challenges and effectively implement a national CDD and agriculture project in a fragile, small island state. The Bank has maintained this intensive in-country support through the preparation and implementation of RDP 2, incorporating the many lessons of RDP I and significantly enhancing the likelihood that the institutional mechanisms built through RDP 1 and 2 will be sustained thereafter.

5.2 Borrower Performance (a) Government Performance Rating: Moderately Unsatisfactory. The performance of the Auditor General’s Office was poor, but this was acknowledged and MoFT allowed for audits to be conducted by independent auditors so that annual audits would no longer be submitted after the legally

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required deadline. SIG provided additional financing at AF2, an indication of their increasing desire to support RDP with government financing. However, while these funds were approved in late 2012 and expected to be disbursed in early 2013, these funds were not transferred until the very end of the 2013 (on December 31, 2013), thereby significantly delaying the implementation of most Cycle 4 subprojects and contributing to the significant incompletion rate at the time of project closure. Nearly all incomplete subprojects were from Cycle 4. The Financial and Economic Development Unit (FEDU) in MoFT is the Bank’s primary government counterpart in Solomon Islands. FEDU was generally supportive, but not particularly active during preparation, nor were they engaged during implementation (e.g. they did not participate in any supervision missions) or at completion (no participation in draft ICR feedback sessions). (b) Implementing Agency or Agencies Performance Rating: Moderately Satisfactory. MDPAC was the lead implementing agency responsible for overall project management, including fiduciary and safeguard management, intergovernmental coordination, etc. MDPAC, in particular the Project Coordination Unit it hosted, performed well throughout the project, beginning with foreign consultants as significant supports, and then tapering off to nearly full national consultant delivery. With the exception of a six-month gap in financial management leadership (which took time to recover from), finances were well-managed and procurement procedures were followed according to Bank requirements. While MAL received funds through MDPAC, they had significant responsibility for the flow of funds and implementation of activities in all provinces. This was a complex coordination task, but it was well-managed with strong accounting for finances and activities, if only a bit of high expectations as to what could be accomplished by provincial staff. While the initial hiring and contracting process took a long time, both ministries managed their consultants and contractors well. The project proved to be a strong incentive for performance as the Ministry had been previously starved for resources, so once resources were made available, staff were eager to implement extension activities. Perhaps the most significant weakness of implementation was the time taken to set up a monitoring and evaluation system, and to use the system to guide management decisions. (c) Justification of Rating for Overall Borrower Performance Rating: Moderately Satisfactory. Government commitment and effort as a whole were strong throughout design and implementation, despite the limited engagement of FEDU/MoFT. Establishing new community-based systems in nearly every rural ward of a geographically disparate country was a difficult task, but MDPAC was proactive in problem solving and adaptation, and was well-positioned to continue to strengthen the model in RDP 2.

6. Lessons Learned As there is already a follow-on project that has been designed and become effective, several lessons have already been identified through workshops and consultations and

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incorporated into the RDP 2 design. The Evaluation of the Rural Development Program (October 2013) evaluation found that RDP has significantly contributed to women’s empowerment. Community leader groups that were surveyed for the evaluation stated that the Project enabled women to influence decision-making more than other community projects. Over 50 percent of those surveyed reported that the project processes encouraged women to be more active in their communities. The project SIC membership was often the first major community responsibility of the women involved. In 81 percent of villages surveyed, the community leader groups reported that women on the Sub-project Implementation Committees participated more in village activities than before joining the SIC. Close to all community leader groups reported that being in the SIC increased the status of the female members. Thus womens involvement in decision-making bodies such as the SICs and Ward Development Committees can empower women and provide a platform for broader community engagement and leadership. While most of the Component 1 design elements operated effectively during the Project, there were some areas for improvement. These include: community procurement is preferred by communities, but is costly and time consuming; centralized technical/engineering support is costly and inefficient; community projects cannot usually be completed within one year, as originally planned; and community projects do not receive adequate Community Helper support due to lack of performance incentives and inadequate training. Thus operational effectiveness can be improved by providing more flexible community procurement arrangements, decentralizing technical support by training Community Helpers to provide a wider array of technical support, and lengthening the community project delivery time. In Component 2, the capacity of the MAL has been substantially improved, but several lessons have been learned: overreliance on public sector service delivery has deprived the private sector of opportunities to deliver similar services; public sector financing cannot sustain the levels of operational funding for extension services provided under RDP I; participatory community consultation approach leads to services which are too diffuse to have a significant impact on commercial production of any one crop; there has been a lack of attention to commercial development of the agriculture sector, focusing mainly on farming techniques rather than marketing. Some of these lessons are reflected in MAL’s new corporate structure and strategy, which emphasizes private sector engagement and reducing the reliance on public sector service delivery, which incurs high recurrent expenditure levels. Thus service delivery especially for commercial agriculture should be guided by the public sector but led by the private sector. Component 3 has confirmed that rural business and commercial banks are responsive to investment opportunities if access to finance is enabled through facilities such as the SEF. Thus financial facilities can be used effectively to promote rural business development.

7. Comments on Issues Raised by Borrower/Implementing Agencies/Partners*

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(a) Borrower/implementing agencies The draft ICR was provided to the Borrower for comment and subsequently discussed directly with SIG counterparts during a Bank mission. Adjustments suggested by the Borrower were incorporated in the text. (b) Cofinanciers IFAD fully supported the findings and conclusions of the ICR. In particular IFAD found that the performance of the World Bank in project supervision and loan administration including the management of resources from several financiers, was highly effective. This was increasingly so in the final three years of implementation. DFAT considered the overall report balanced and fair on both the successes and areas for improvement. The only specific concern was in relation to gender, on which it considered the Project to have underperformed by not undertaking enough analysis and specific actions to address inequalities in the project design. European Commission (EC) did not provide comments. (c) Other partners and stakeholders N/A

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Annex 1: Project Costs and Financing

(a) Project Cost by Component (in USD Million equivalent)

Components Appraisal

Estimate (USD millions)

Actual/Latest Estimate

(USD millions)

Percentage of Appraisal

Component 1: Local infrastructure and service delivery

9.08

19.67 216%

Component 2: Improved agricultural services

6.42 9.09 142%

Component 3: Rural business development

2.37 1.15 49%

Component 4: Program management

3.70 7.49 202%

Total Baseline Cost 21.57 37.40 173% Physical Contingencies - Price Contingencies - 0.00 Total Project Costs 21.83 37.40 173% Front-end fee PPF Front-end fee IBRD Total Financing Required 21.83 37.40 173%

(b) Financing

Source of Funds Type of Co-

financing

Appraisal Estimate

(USD millions)

Actual/Latest Estimate

(USD millions)

Percentage of Appraisal

AUSTRALIA: Australian Agency for International Development

TF 6.61 8.60 130%

Borrower Parallel 0.89 5.00 562% Local Communities In-kind 1.07 2.50 237% EC: European Commission TF 10.06 7.65 76% Global Food Crisis Response Program

TF 0.00 3.00 n/a

IDA Grant Grant 3.20 9.40 294% International Fund for Agriculture Development

COFN 0.00 3.90 n/a

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Annex 2: Outputs by Component Component 1 – Local Infrastructure and Service Delivery Component 1 financed the following sub-projects by beneficiaries (and # female) by subproject type: Subproject Type # of Subprojects* Total # of

Beneficiaries # of female Beneficiaries

Water supply (gravity-fed and borehole)

90 53,415 17,827

Health aid post 29 41,149 13,886 Community Hall 43 29,675 9,236 Pre-primary school 47 21,384 6,384 Water supply (tanks)

40 21,110 8,270

Solar electricity (charging stations)

36 18,897 7,627

Primary school 17 16,000 4,021 Health staff housing

8 14,307 7,346

Women’s Resource Center

5 11,032 3,552

Secondary school 8 10,781 2,830 Foot bridge 6 9,278 2,206 Market building 3 4,907 1,243 Education staff housing

8 4,401 1,972

Sanitation 10 4,225 1,250 School library 1 2,000 1,000 Rural road 3 1,980 902 Maternity ward 1 1,327 341 HF-Radios (communications)

3 912 396

Sea wall 2 739 184 TOTAL 360 267,509 90,473

*Includes all (complete and incomplete) sub-projects Component 2 – Improved Agricultural Services To strengthen MAL capacity to provide effective advice and support services to farmers and agriculture enterprises, the following trainings were conducted for MAL staff and affiliated service providers such as paravets: Activities Number of

Participants

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Formal Study

Bachelor’s Degree Study Scholarship Application 10*

Diploma Study (Research Unit) 19

Degree program 7

Management

Management Mentoring 77

Management Processes and Efficiency 42

Leadership Management 11

Performance Management 11

Management Trainer Training 22

English for Academic Purposes 10

Trainer Training 23

Communication Skills

English for Academic Purposes 16

Report writing 57

Women in Agriculture

Women in Agriculture 36

Management Process & Efficiency 15

Management Mentoring 12

Training of Trainers 12

Agriculture Capacity Development 27

Participatory Extension and Research Methods

Participatory Extension & Research Techniques 36

Participatory Methods 94

Participatory On-farm Research Methodology – “Use of Excel” Not recorded

Extension Interventions Training 53

Survey & Data Analysis 57

Participatory Methods 78

Extension Interventions 42

Survey & Data Analysis 24

Participatory Rural Appraisal 4

Animal Health and Paravet

Paravet Training, Simulations and Projects 303

Field Epidemiology 209

Leadership and Management of Diseases Emergency Response 18

Computing

Typing Training & Practice Opportunity 2

Basic Computer Training “Basic Computing Skills” 2

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Intermediate Computer Training – “ICDL Applications Training” 10

Computer Training 15

Basic Computing Course 20

Excel Spreadsheets 24

Basic Computing 8

Crop Protection

Crop Protection Training 73

Cocoa Integrated Pest and Disease Management 120

Pest Identification

Pest Identification 47

Pest Diagnostic Refresher 14

Quarantine Systems

Quarantine Attachment 5

Monitoring and Evaluation

M&E and Impact Assessment 15

Research Methodology

Research Project Development and Management 25

Research Methods and Statistics 12

Bee Keeping

Queen Rearing 21

Coffee Processing

Coffee Processing and Drying 39

Information Management

Agricultural information system (MAIS) use and inputting training 2

Specialist Mentoring

Specialist Mentoring Not recorded To determine what kinds of services farmers wanted and needed, community needs assessments were undertaken using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) techniques. The following is a summary of the number of farmers consulted by province and year.

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Province 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Total Choiseul 11 1,218 639 85 22 135 0 2,110Western 4 1,221 547 120 0 100 0 1,992Malaita 44 666 0 415 257 285 32 1,699Temotu 36 82 609 51 722 0 0 1,500Isabel 0 0 0 735 679 139 0 1,553Makira 0 0 0 925 586 0 0 1,511Central 0 0 0 77 322 139 26 564Guadalcanal 0 0 0 0 992 711 91 1,794Renbel 0 0 0 0 0 40 0 40Total 95 3,187 1,795 2,408 3,580 1,549 149 12,763Cumulative total 95 3,282 5,077 7,485 11,065 12,614 12,763

As a direct result of the above needs assessments, the following is a summary of the number of extension and training activities conducted by MAL for farmers.

Province 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 total Choiseul 17 31 42 43 22 8 163 Western 6 24 37 33 21 9 130 Malaita 10 7 54 45 24 16 156 Temotu 18 78 62 71 73 16 318 Isabel 0 0 30 37 66 2 135 Makira 0 0 0 8 47 2 57 Central 0 0 0 4 10 2 16 Guadalcanal 0 0 0 38 41 22 101 Renbel 0 0 0 0 1 7 8 Total 51 140 225 279 305 84 1,084 Cumulative total 51 191 416 695 1,000 1,084

The above activities reached the following number of farmers, by province and year.

Province 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Total Choiseul 328 667 859 1,771 475 157 4,257Western 117 551 1,230 520 878 223 3,519Malaita 204 142 1,896 1,628 873 560 5,303Temotu 190 3,472 3,489 2,828 1,989 532 12,500Isabel 0 0 753 916 2,395 68 4,132Makira 0 0 0 192 2,001 173 2,366Central 0 0 0 98 292 150 540Guadalcanal 0 0 0 1,432 1,645 1,008 4,085Renbel 0 0 0 0 17 235 252Total 839 4,832 8,227 9,385 10,565 3,106 36,954

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Cumulative total 839 5,671 13,898 23,283 33,848 36,954 The following is a detailed list of the types of activities delivered to farmers.

Activities* Derris based pesticide demonstrations Vegetable training/field school Training on appropriate village vegetable farming Cocoa pruning demonstration Cocoa nursery establishment demonstration Cocoa Pod Borer surveillance & awareness Cocoa fermenter & processing construction training Organic liquid fertilizer demonstration Coffee beginners training Coffee pruning demonstration and practical Coffee management training Livestock diseases awareness Mucuna for soil improvement Fruits and nuts trees improvement demonstration Pig breeding demonstration Land soil management – composting demonstration Training on soil fertility/soil improvement Banana varietal collection Giant African snail awareness Crop management techniques training Crop rotation Integrated pest management training for rice Training on village chicken Pig Feed formulation course Smallholder rice beginners course Paddy rice field school Mini rice milling machine training Bee keeping beginners training Bee keeping management training Demonstration on queen rearing and hive splitting Taro beetle control demonstration ITTA model Nambo drier demonstrations Copra dryer construction training Cash and Food crop intercropping Pig castration training Taro variety demonstration trials Market Access Training

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Yellow crazy ant control Food and nutrition training Vetiver contour demonstration Cocoa integrated pest and disease management Fencing and stock yard construction demonstration Poultry housing Cattle pasture improvement Piggery housing Pesticide safety awareness and use Pest management Food crops variety trials Forming farmer associations Duck farming demonstrations Soil tillage /raised bed formation training Fruit and nut propagation Coconut nursery demonstrations Supsup garden demonstrations SRI rice production demonstrations

Component 3 – Rural Business Development To assist rural businesses in securing loans from participating commercial banks, SEF financing was provided for projects proposed and financed by the following banks and in the provinces listed below.

Province ANZ BSP Westpac Total % Honiara 13 13 20.0% Guadalcanal 9 1 1 11 16.9% Malaita 17 4 21 32.3% Western 7 2 9 13.8% Isabel 1 2 3 4.6% Choiseul 3 3 4.6% Makira 2 2 3.1% Temotu 1 1 2 3.1% Central 1 1 1.5% Total 51 11 3 65 100% % 78% 17% 5% 100%

The following is a breakdown by sector.

Sector ANZ BSP Westpac Total % Agriculture 19 3 22 33.8 Tourism 10 1 2 13 20.0

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Transport & Shipping

7 1 1 9 13.8

Retail 4 5 9 13.8 Infrastructure

5 5 7.7

Energy 2 1 3 4.6 Other 1) 4 4 6.2 Total 51 11 3 65 100%

In terms of financing, the following is a breakdown of the full amount of finance leveraged from the participating commercial banks by sector, including the amount and percentage of project financing provided by SEF grants.

Sector SEF Owner’s Equity

Loan SEF/Total 2) Loan/Total 3)

Agriculture 2,350,945 4,119,855 9,013,633 15% 58% Tourism 1,292,607 2,075,614 4,314,638 17% 56% Transport & Shipping

1,547,000 2,582,000 9,714,000 11% 70%

Retail 291,651 232,726 1,047,802 19% 67% Infrastructure 1,237,757 3,521,496 6,322,700 11% 57% Energy 330,000 1,146,000 1,290,000 12% 47% Other 1) 830,333 830,333 2,487,000 20% 60% Total 7,880,293 14,508,024 34,189,773 14% 60%

Component 4 – Program Management The Project financed the following studies: Title Period Number Baseline study 2009 1 Financial audits 2008-2015 8 RDP Evaluation 2013 1 MAL Organizational Capacity Assessment 2013 1

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Annex 3: Economic and Financial Analysis The Project did not conduct an economic analysis to produce the net present value (NPV) or economic internal rate of return (EIRR) either for the Project overall or for the individual components. This was due to the lack of information or rigorous evaluation of past activities, the absence of basic agricultural data on yields and farm systems, the demand driven nature of the investments and the substantial non-quantifiable benefits. The analysis in this section assesses where possible the project effectiveness and efficiency for each of the Components based on a mix of surrogate measures and anecdotal information including some limited ex post analyses conducted using RDP I Component 1 data during design of RDP 2. While there are similar assessments of CDD projects in other countries that might provide useful comparisons to assess Component 1 efficiency, cost levels are highly dependent upon the economic environment within each country. Solomon Islands has particularly high costs due to the distance from foreign supplier markets, and due to the cost of domestic transport from the very few supply centers (e.g. Honiara is the primary supply center for most provinces) to remote, infrequently visited, locations around the country. Unfortunately, there are no standard designs and bills of quantities to allow for a one-to-one cost comparison of similar facilities (i.e. aid posts, or school classrooms) across rural infrastructure projects similar to RDP, but an unpublished background paper on technical sustainability prepared as an input to the Bank-published “Towards Better Rural Investment in Solomon Islands” did include a comparison of costs and approaches between similar projects within the country. The other projects examined were: Micro-projects Program I (MPP I), Micro-projects Program II (MPP II), Rural Advancement Micro-projects Program (RAMP) and the Provincial Capacity Development Fund (PCDF). The report found the cost of RDP-financed subprojects to be comparable to other similar projects in the Solomon Islands. With respect to small-scale buildings, the paper concluded that, while the average cost per m2 for different structures varies, the average cost per m2 for typical RDP structures “is broadly consistent with international practice for low-cost permanent structures.” Table 1, below, provides a cost comparison of three common building types constructed under RDP: kindy (single storey ground level masonry structure); nurse aid post (ground level); and staff housing (raised building structure). All are timber-framed structures. Although the variations in cost per m2 for the kindys and staff houses are rather wide (25-30%) this is not inconsistent with the geographical/local variation. Table 1: Comparison of Typical RDP Building Costs

Building type Province Year Area (m2)

Project cost SBD

Constructor’s sum SBD

Cost per m2 SBD

Kindy Choiseul 2010 92.16 242,973 15,000 2,626

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Kindy Isabel 2012 83.64 161,457 Community work

1,930

Nurse aid post Temotu 2010 116.96 286,397 17,000 2,449

Nurse aid post Isabel 2012 62.4 152,362 13,000 2,442

Staff house Malaita 2010 36.0 168,454 15,000 4,679

Staff house Choiseul 2010 37.5 249,561 25,000 6,654 The technical sustainability paper also examined water supply schemes executed and completed under the various rural development projects in the provinces, providing an indication of the average cost per scheme. While the cost variation is wide, ranging from a very low cost in Western (SBD 3,036) to a maximum in Central (SBD 25,512), most cluster around the average of SBD 5,248 – indicating a broadly consistent approach to the design of the schemes and competitive pricing of the schemes. See Table 2, below Table 2: Average Cost Comparison of Completed Water Supply Schemes, by Province

Province RDP (no)

MPP I (no)

MPP II (no)

PCDF (no)

Total (no)

Total cost SBD

Average cost SBD

Central - - 2 2 4 102,048 25,512

Choiseul 15 1 2 1 19 129,390 6,810

Guadalcanal - 3 18 - 21 204,605 9,743

Isabel 9 8 9 - 26 165,305 6,357

Makira Ulawa

7 13 5 6 31 115,014 3,710

Malaita 10 12 15 3 40 131,329 3,283

Rennell - 7 - - 7 N/A -

Temotu 12 4 - - 16 121,255 7,578

Western 22 15 12 - 49 148,781 3.036

Total 75 63 63 12 213 1,117,729 5,248 Secondly, the quantification of the Project economic costs and benefits for Component 1 was conducted ex poste using the RDP I design as an input into the RDP 2 design. A summary of the Economic Internal Rate of Return (EIRR) for a selection of sub-projects is presented in Table 3. Table 3: Economic return of selected sub-projects Sub-project Category

EIRR1 (%)

Quantifiable Benefits

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Education 19 Time saved for parents; forgone and or reduced transport costs; long-term educational benefits

Health 12 Forgone and or reduced transport cost; time saved; improved access for pregnant women; long term health benefits

Solar power 39 Forgone cost of kerosene Water / Sanitation 21 Time saved; health improvements

1Economic Internal Rate of Return The EIRR for selected sub-project categories range between 12 and 39 percent, which fall within the range of returns for comparable projects. The result of the water sub-projects, which report an EIRR of 21 percent, is particularly positive given that the percent decrease in travel time to access improved water sources is one of the PDO KPIs and hence a core measure of project achievement. A recent World Bank study reported EIRR of 18-53 percent for CDD infrastructure projects, which in comparable terms, suggests the delivery of sub-projects is relatively efficient. The sub-projects are also, based on the sample, efficient in absolute terms. For Component 2, a cumulative project total of US$3.79 million was transferred to provincial MAL offices for conducting Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRAs) to identify farmer needs and to subsequently deliver extension activities. A total of 12,763 farmers were consulted and 36,954 farmers received extension support as a result. Total combined beneficiaries of these activities (acknowledging that most farmers would benefit more than once) comes to 49,717 activity beneficiaries. If this number is divided by the total cost of US$3.79 million, the average cost per beneficiary is US$76/per beneficiary. While it is not possible to establish exact and comparable figures, a scan of nonprofit and private providers of agricultural services in similar circumstances for similar purposes indicate costs of around USD50-100 per beneficiary. Project costs also need to be set within the relatively recent tumultuous political economy of the Solomon Islands. Following the period of prolonged civil conflict during the “Tensions” of 1999 to 2003 (and soon after the food, fuel and financial crisis of 2008 and the economic aftermath) the Solomon Islands moved through a period of post-conflict reconstruction to longer-term development planning. The Solomon Islands however remains a “fragile state, ranked 47 on the often-quoted Fund for Peace “fragile states index”, just next to Lebanon (46). The destruction of infrastructure and depletion of government services during the tensions placed a significant extra cost-burden on the Project. The Project not only provided for the construction of infrastructure, often where it has been completely degraded or was simply absent, but it also contributed to re-building of the almost entirely depleted agricultural extension and support services of the MAL. For Component 3, total financing for SEF-financed projects came to SBD34.2 million, or about US$4.3 million. Only SBD7,880,292, or about US$985,000 (at September 2015 exchange rates) was financed by SEF, slightly less than 25%. This is a significant leveraging factor for investments in rural areas. Administrative costs for RDP are also

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quite low, with the commercial banks bearing most of the responsibility for administering the funds, and RDP mainly just responsible for proposal screening, monitoring and evaluation. While the administrative cost of this component was not explicitly tracked, but rather bundled within overall Project Management costs, it could be estimated as perhaps a total of 4 months of the Program Managers time plus another 2 months of other staff time totalling approximately SBD300,000, or US$37,500. As a percentage of total SEF-financed project cost (US4.3 million), administrative costs come to about 0.9%. There are also processing and management costs on the part of the commercial banks which are not included here, but which should be considered leveraged private co-financing of the management costs. In the absence of economic analyses it is not possible to conclude on the relative or absolute efficiency of Component 2 and 3. The AF1 does indicate that Component 2 activities could lead to an increase of smallholder incomes by three-fold over 10 years in the case of cocoa production and two-fold in the case of pig production, which were two major activities in the project area, although this was not substantiated. Also, the AF1 suggests that the component activities could promote improved nutrition by encouraging the consumption of local produce to reduce the cost and dependency on imports, but again, this was not substantiated. In the case of Component 3 each SEF-funded businesses created on average up to 6.2 jobs and while not documented there is some albeit anecdotal evidence that these businesses created secondary employment in several service businesses. For example, a farm contractor visited during the ICR mission reported that in addition to employing full-time 6 machine operators he also employed, on casual basis, persons to service machinery, provide manual farm labor and for office administration. The failure to conduct a comprehensive and thorough economic analyses however remains a shortcoming of the Project.

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Annex 4: Bank Lending and Implementation Support/Supervision Processes (a) Task Team Members

Names Title Unit Responsibility/

Specialty Lending

Marianne Grosclaude Task Team Leader GFAR Senior Agriculture Economist

Oliver Braedt Natural Resources Management Specialist

LCC6C Program Leader

William Cuddihy Economist Consultant Economist Consultant

Christophe Ribes Ros Consultant GSPGL Local Governance and CDD Specialist

Michelle L. Chen Program Assistant GSURR Program Assistant David Michael Chandler

Sr. Financial Management Specialist

GGODR Sr. Financial Management Specialist

David Whitehead Financial Management Specialist

GGODR Financial Management Specialist

Melinda Good Senior Counsel LEGES Senior Counsel Mazhar Farid Legal Analyst LEGEA Legal Analyst Sheila Braka Musiime

Counsel LEGES Counsel

Cristiano Costa e Silva Nunes

Procurement Specialist GGODR Procurement Specialist

Jean-Claude Balcet Sr. Agriculture Economist

GENDR Sr. Agriculture Economist

Julian Abrams Rural Infrastructure Specialist

Rural Infrastructure Specialist

Gitanjali Ponnambalam

Country Program Assistant

EACNF Country Program Assistant

Carmenchu D. Austriaco

Finance Analyst WFALN Finance Analyst

Lovella Tolentino Morada

Senior Finance Assistant

WFALN Senior Finance Assistant

Supervision/ICR

Erik Caldwell Johnson Senior Operations Officer

GSURR Task Team Leader

Stephen Paul Hartung Financial Management Specialist

GGODR Financial Management Specialist

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Bruce M. Harris Safeguard Specialist EASTE Safeguards Specialist

Susan S. Shen Manager, Operations LLIOP Safeguards Specialist

Ly Thi Dieu Vu Consultant GEN02 Safeguards Specialist

Knut Opsal Lead Social Development Specialist

GSURR Safeguards Specialist

Marjorie Mpundu Senior Counsel LEGES Lawyer

Jinan Shi Senior Procurement Specialist

GGODR Senior Procurement Specialist

Gitanjali Ponnambalam

Country Program Assistant

EACNF Country Program Assistant

R. Cynthia Dharmajaya

Program Assistant GFADR Program Assistant

Janet Funa Team Member EACSB Team Member

Ross James Butler ET Consultant GSURR Safeguards Specialist

Dan Vadnjal Consultant Agriculture Economist

Allan Oliver Operations Officer GFADR Agriculture Specialist

John Victor Bottini CDD Advisor Consultant

Annette Leith Operations officer Operations officer

William Cuddihy Consultant Agriculture Economist

Ruth Alsop Consultant Sociologist

David Leeming Consultant ICT Specialist

Faustinus Ravindra Corea

Consultant GSURR M&E Specialist

Daisy Lopez Zita Finance Analyst WFALN Finance Analyst

Haiyan Wang Senior Finance Officer WFALN Senior Finance Officer

(b) Staff Time and Cost

Stage of Project Cycle

Staff Time and Cost (Bank Budget Only)

No. of staff weeks USD Thousands

(including travel and consultant costs)

Lending FY07 233.44

Total: 233.44 Supervision/ICR

FY08 43.13

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FY09 84.08 FY10 49.85 FY11 74.30 FY12 140.18 FY13 96.35 FY14 115.98 FY15 31.40

Total: 635.30

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Annex 5: Beneficiary Survey Results A beneficiary survey was not conducted.

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Annex 6: Stakeholder Workshop Report and Results A series of informal workshops were held following the end of the project in 2015 along with MAL and MDPAC. These workshops focused discussions around the following key questions: (i) had the Project Development Objective (PDO) been achieved? (ii) how has had the Project performed? (iii) how had the Bank performed? (iv) how had the Borrower performed. The overall impression of the Project’s achievements, performance and that of the Bank and the Borrower were positive to very positive. A frequent comment was the “specialness” of RDP’s approach in allowing communities to fully participate and to decide on their own priorities. There was general recognition that communities required information and assistance to decide on priority needs and to technically design and implement interventions, which remains a very real challenge in the Solomon Islands. There was a general request for more routine reporting both face-to-face and in writing, greater transparency in handling transactions especially in the case of sub-project financing under Component 1, more communication concerning the purpose and achievements of activities under Component 2 and strengthened linkages between provincial governments, the Project Support Units (PSUs) and the RDP in Honiara.

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Annex 7: Summary of Recipients ICR and or Comments on Draft ICR A: Summary of Recipient’s Completion Report

Component 4 – Program Management Finance RDP is a multi-donor supported project managed by the World Bank. The original RDP financing agreement was for US$ 20.4, this was increased twice, once after the mid-term review in 2010 and following a project restructuring in 2013. The final total funds available for the program were USD 37.4 million. Overall RDP drew down SBD 275.50 million from all sources to implement the Project. Approximately USD 2.72 million of the EU funds could not be drawn down before the expiry date of these funds in 2010. The actual expenditure by component are shown in table 1. The percentage of funds allocated to component 1 was originally 42% of the total budget this increased to 50% following the second additional financing and restructure, however, the actual expenditure for Component 1 was 52% of the total expenditure. Component 2 was originally allocated 29% of the budget, which reduced to 25% following the second additional financing, and restructure and the actual expenditure for Component was 24% of the total expenditure. Funds for component 3 were reduced from US$2.37m to US$1.17m during the Mid-Term Review (MTR) as the uptake of this facility was low at that stage and additional funds were needed to effectively implement component 1. Component 4 costs increased form the original planned 17% to 20% of the total project expenditure. Table 1: Actual RDP expenditure by component at end of project

Expenditure SBD million

Expenditure USD* million

%

Component 1 1.1 Capacity building & Provincial support 15.33 2.08 6 1.2 Subproject grants 56.53 7.67 21 1.3 Provincial Support Units 73.07 9.92 27 Sub-total 144.94 19.67 53 Component 2 2.1 Strengthening service delivery 27.95 3.79 10 2.2 Strengthening support to Provinces 38.99 5.29 14 Sub-total 66.93 9.09 24 Component 3 SEF grants total 8.46 1.15 3 Sub-total 8.46 1.15 3 Component 4 4.1 PCU 48.73 6.61 18 4.3 Environment 1.64 0.22 1 4.4 M & E 3.53 0.48 1 45 Communication 1.3 0.18

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Sub-total 55.21 7.49 20 Total Expenditure 275.54 37.4 100

* Estimated based on an exchange rate of US$ = 7.367SBD Component 1 – Local Infrastructure and Service Delivery Table 2 gives an overview of the subproject status as of the end of February 2015. Table 2: Subproject Status by Province as of 28th February 2015

Province

On-Going

Completed Certified Complete

Total Functioning* Cancelled

O&M in

place

Total PARC

Approved

# of SPs

% # of SPs

% # of SPs

% # of SPs

% # of SPs

% # of SPs

# of SPs

Choiseul 15 26 28 49 12 21 40 70 2 4 33 57

Western 16 21 17 23 36 48 53 71 6 8 46 75

Malaita 5 7 7 9 61 80 68 89 3 4 67 76

Temotu 20 31 26 41 16 25 42 66 2 3 14 64

Isabel 6 19 20 63 5 16 25 78 1 3 22 32

Makira/Ulawa 4 10 25 63 8 20 33 83 3 8 18 40

Central 2 15 10 77 0 0 10 77 1 8 10 13

Guadalcanal 9 43 12 57 0 0 12 57 0 0 4 21

Total 77 20 145 38 138 37 283 75 18 5 214 378 *Includes subproject completed and in use and certified complete subprojects Table 2 highlights the following;

A total of 378 community infrastructure subprojects have been approved for implementation by the Provincial Allocation Review Committees (PARC)

283 (75%) subprojects have been completed and 77 (20%) are in still in the implementation phase

Eighteen (5%) of the subprojects approved have been terminated due to issues that could not be resolved by the project

Of the 77 subprojects in the implementation phase the majority are close to completion. Some have run out of funds and the communities are trying to raise the funds to complete the subprojects

For cycle 1, 93% of the subprojects have been completed, 83% of cycle 2 subprojects have been completed, 77% of cycle 3 subprojects completed and 66% of cycle 4 subprojects have been completed and in use. Cycle 4 sub-project implementation has progressed well and the completion time has reduced significantly compared to that for Cycles 1 and 2 with half of the subprojects being completed within 12 months of receiving funds. The number of beneficiaries currently benefiting from (that is have access to) the completed subprojects is 198,340 people, which is about 38% of the population of the Solomon Islands, at least 73,385 of which are female. Approximately 250,900 will

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benefit when all the current 77 ongoing subprojects are completed which is about 49% of the population of the Solomon Islands. A total of $57,130,102 was paid to subproject accounts for subproject implementation during RDP. Of this $41.40m has been acquitted and as of the last bank statements available (31st December 2014) $3.23m was still in subproject bank accounts and $12.50m was still to be acquitted. During 2015 an additional $1.25m was acquitted which included the deposit of $182,286 cash returned from completed subprojects into the RDP account. The bulk of the funds released to subprojects for cycle 1 have been acquitted with only $214,230 (3%) to be acquitted. Overall 80% of the funds disbursed to subprojects have been acquitted and 69% of the total un-acquitted funds (USD11.61m) are from cycle 4 subprojects and 2% and 5% are from cycle 1 and cycle 2 respectively.

Community and other contributions At the time of design, the average cost of a subproject was about SBD230,000, with an average of approximately SBD62,000 (26%) planned to be voluntarily contributed by the community. Based on a sample of 38 completed subprojects where data on the full final cost of the subproject has been gathered as a part of financial certification, the average cost of a subproject is slightly over SBD295,000 with an average of about SBD106,000 coming from community contributions and SBD5,000 coming from other contributions such as provincial government or constituency funds. As shown is Figure C1.6, below, on average, RDP funds comprise 63% of the total subproject cost, community contributions 36% and others about 1%. This is more than double the results target percentage of 15% community contributions.

Operations & Maintenance As of project completion, 214 completed sub-projects had received O&M Training and had O&M Plans in place. It is planned that RDP 2 will continue to work with communities to develop O&M plans and follow up and reinforce the implementation of O&M plans.

SIC composition The average SIC size was seven members of which on average two members were women. The evaluation of Component 1 found that female members that join the SIC increasingly participated within and outside the community. Female memberships and engagement was also found to have positive correlations with project outcomes. Households believe that female participation enhancing cooperation between groups. Most communities seem to understand this and as a result suggest increased women representation as a main suggestion in terms of improving SICs.

Component 1 evaluation summary Compared to the baseline significant improvements were found in access to roads, markets, water, sanitation and electricity, ranging from 11.3 to 1250 %. However, at the same time there was a decline in access to primary schools and health centers. In general

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it was found that RDP villages fared better than non-RDP villages in terms of access to most of these services. For example, the rate of improvements in access to roads, markets and water was higher in villages, which had related RDP projects. Similarly, the rate of deterioration in access to primary schools and health centers were lower in villages that had related RDP projects. This suggests that the RDP has had an impact in improving or providing stability in the access of basic services in the villages that they serve. Improving access to water was one of the main targets of component 1 of the RDP. It was found that on average there was a decrease in the time taken to fetch water in both the wet and dry seasons. This was driven mostly by improvements in villages that decided to choose water related projects. In the baseline survey these villages generally reported longer times in fetching water in both wet and dry seasons compared to villages that did not choose water related projects. This is evidence that the RDP processes with regards to community driven selection performed well. In the follow up, we found that the time required to fetch water in the wet season was lower in RDP villages that selected a water project compared to villages that choose not to do water projects. In the dry season, fetching water is still quicker in the villages that did not choose water projects. However, the difference in time taken across these two types of villages in the dry season has been drastically reduced. This is evidence that RDP projects have generally performed well improving access to, as well as the time taken, to fetch water in both dry and wet seasons. Moving forward, the RDP needs to address the issue of sustainability of improved services. Evidence from access to primary schools, health services as well as water suggest that if coordinated efforts are not put into maintenance of resources there could be deterioration in the future. The analysis suggests that communities lack knowledge as well as experience on how to maintain existing infrastructure projects. Alarmingly, a significant portion of the existing project recipients has no plans for future maintenance of their projects. Given that these are community projects (as opposed to private ones) the incentives at the individual level, to provide efforts unilaterally, are also very little. Thus, it is imperative that RDP designs strategies to raise awareness about the importance of timely maintenance of existing infrastructures. In designing these strategies, consulting existing research on inducing cooperation in common property resources management would be very helpful.

RDP Processes: Selection to implementation One of the most important features that make RDP unique is its objective to foster community participation in every step from project selection to implementation. One of the rationales for this approach is that community participation induces ownership and as a result reduces the inherent perverse incentives associated with consumption of benefits from common property resources. The first strategy that RDP utilized to achieve community participation was by allowing villagers to select their own projects. In our survey we find that the majority of the households actively took part in the project selection process. We also find that people who did not attend selection meetings could not attend because of prior commitments.

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To enhance community participation during the implementation stage, RDP required each village to elect a sub-project implementation committee (SIC). The main purposes of this committee were (a) to be a liaison between the community and RDP and (b) to ensure necessary steps were taken for timely completion of sub-projects. It was found that villagers were relatively satisfied with the SIC and believed it was an effective method of coordinating the sub-project. However, households also believed that if the representation of women and youth increased then these committees would perform even better. Households also believed that there is scope for improvements in SICs financial and project management as well as SICs ability to coordinate activities within the community. It was found that the general quality of RDP projects was good. Households also believed that the quality of RDP projects were better than similar projects undertaken by other agencies. An important reason for this high level of satisfaction amongst villagers is related to RDPs processes to engage the community. However, communities also identified challenges and impediments that they faced. The leaders in the community reported that the level of meaningful community participation (in terms of providing raw materials) was either low or slow. They also identified the RDP process of funding limits as well as delays in the disbursement of funds as cumbersome and detrimental to the timely completion of projects. In remote villages distance from suppliers provided an additional challenge. The evaluation found that women generally participated less in the selection of RDP projects and when they did participate they were more passive compared to men. However, the various strategies undertaken by RDP did have impacts over time. Most households believed the RDP process encouraged greater female engagement. In fact households report that female members that join the SIC increasingly participated within and outside the community. Female memberships and engagement was also found to have positive correlations with project outcomes. Households believe that female participation enhancing cooperation between groups. Most communities seem to understand this and as a result suggest increased women representation as a main suggestion in terms of improving SICs. Component 2 - Improved Agricultural Services With the assistance from RDP the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock has significantly rebuilt its capacity to support farmers through staff training, activity-based planning and improved budget processes. At the end of the project nearly 37,000 farmers from all 9 provinces have participated in extension and training activities and the results targets for Component 2 have generally been reached.

Component 2.1 Strengthening Service Delivery to the Provinces The type and nature of the service delivery provided under RDP depended on the needs and aspirations of the farming communities. Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRA) was the main method used to determine the priority needs and wants of communities.

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Provincial service delivery activities over the life of RDP are summarized in the following tables. A total of 336 communities which included 12,763 farmers were consulted (PRA or other consultative process conducted) to determine their priority needs in regards to agriculture. The number of community consultations was higher in the first year or two of RDP engagement in a province and then tapered off. This is expected as the initial effort is to determine the farmers’ needs and then start addressing them, in the subsequent years fewer consultations were conducted as the program rolled out to new communities. Following the community consultations activities were designed to provide services to address the farmers priority needs identified during the PRAs and other consultations. A total of 1,084 activities involving 36,954 farmers were conducted over the project period. The activities covered 56 different technologies in the areas of food crops, cash crops, livestock, resource management and biosecurity. The number of activities conducted with farmers started to slow in 2013 and declined in 2014 (Table 3) due to limitation of funds for component 2.

Table 3: Number of beneficiary farmers involved in activities by year and province Province 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Total Choiseul 328 667 859 1,771 475 157 4,257 Western 117 551 1,230 520 878 223 3,519 Malaita 204 142 1,896 1,628 873 560 5,303 Temotu 190 3,472 3,489 2,828 1,989 532 12,500 Isabel 0 0 753 916 2,395 68 4,132 Makira 0 0 0 192 2,001 173 2,366 Central 0 0 0 98 292 150 540 Guadalcanal 0 0 0 1,432 1,645 1,008 4,085 Renbel 0 0 0 0 17 235 252 Total 839 4,832 8,227 9,385 10,565 3,106 36,954 Cumulative total 839 5,671 13,898 23,283 33,848 36,954

Sub-Component 2.2: Strengthening Support to Provincial Service Delivery – Headquarters This included Increased Staffing In 2007 MAL had a severe manpower shortage with 109 vacant positions. By mid-2008 MAL had recruited over 100 new staff, which was significantly more than the 35 initially committed as the SIG contribution in the project design. Rehabilitating Offices and Housing- there was a big need for rehabilitation of MAL offices and housing at the start of RDP. Unfortunately the budget initially allocated for these activities was not sufficient to cover all the needs of MAL also during implementation there were budget shortfalls and the activities and expenditure was reprioritized to ensure that service delivery was the priority. RDP assisted with the rebuilding of 9 MAL offices and houses.

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Equipping provincial services included providing boats and vehicles for transport, office equipment and computers, veterinary equipment and other field and laboratory equipment Funding of Operating Costs RDP assisted MAL with the funding of the cost of operations, where funds were available from the MAL recurrent or development budgets or other projects these were used to fund the activities entirely or in conjunction with RDP funds, if funds were not available RDP funded the whole activity as long as it fitted the requirements of RDP and was in the work plan approved at both the provincial and HQ levels. Often the RDP finding was used to complement the Ministry’s development funds, RDP funds would be used for logistics (travel costs etc) and farmer training while the development budget funds would be used to provide inputs for the participating farmers. Conditions of service for MAL staff generally improved during the program, staff had access to better facilities (office equipment and transport, some refurbished office and housing), than previously, had their skill level improved through training, clear processes and procedures to follow and access of operational funds to enable them to provide services to farmers and the ability to develop and implement work plans at the local level all this helped to improve the community perception of MAL.

Upgrading Service Quality A total of 212 staff (or 95% of all provincial staff both MAL established and non-established and provincial staff) have been trained in participatory techniques, 95 in Modern Extension Interventions, 79 students have now successfully completed the SPC Para Vet training, 67 participants have attended the Field Epidemiology Course for animal health and 57 have received Management development training. Currently 10 MAL staff studied for Degrees 4 supported by RDP and 6 by SIG. The training evaluation results from participants’ course satisfaction and relevance feedback were all quite high average scores, over the 114 training events the participants evaluation score averaged 4.7 out of 5 highlighting the participants’ satisfaction with the training delivered. Overall the results from the participants training feedback evaluations, the MAL staff survey and the MAL Managers surveys indicate that the training provided by RDP has been of quality, appropriate, and useful which although there is still more to be done has contributed to changes in the work practices, efficiency and effectiveness of officers with in MAL. Technical Assistance assisted the ministry capacity in the following areas: Livestock, Participatory Extension and On-Farm Research, Agricultural Information, Quarantine, Pest management and Integrated Pest Management (IPM), Human Resource Development (HRD) and MAL organizational structure and support. During 2013 RDP supported a comprehensive “Project Evaluation, Organizational Capacity Assessments and Diagnostic Report” for MAL to “strengthen sustainable agriculture development in the Solomon Islands”. In early 2014 an executive summary of the Diagnostic Report was produced together with a cabinet paper to seek government

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approval for the recommended structural changes to the ministry “Strengthening industry and market linkages for MAL” which was endorsed by Cabinet in July 2014. Component 2 evaluation summary The main goal of component 2 was to increase the take up of improved farming practices, which RDP believes will lead to better livelihood and development. The main instrument that was developed to achieve this goal was village level dissemination of agricultural advice/information and related services through the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAL). The rationale was that improved access to better information would lead to improved agricultural practices. Results from the follow up survey show that compared to the baseline, households were more likely to have received agricultural advice from MAL. Generally, a majority of households that received advice were satisfied with it. This meant that in a significant number of cases households changed farming practices upon receiving advice from MAL. This led to increased agricultural output for these households. However, the intensity of this process was low: at follow up in June 2013 three quarters of the households did not receive advice from the MAL and when they did about half of them changed practices. This alludes to the important need to improve both the scope of dissemination of agricultural advice as well as the take up rate upon receiving advice. One of the reasons for suggesting the aforementioned improvements is because there was a statistically significant relationship between receiving advice and food security. The follow up results showed that 1 % increase in advice received is correlated with a 6 % decrease in the probability of being food insecure. The non-existence of this relationship during the baseline further justifies the rationale for having this strategy as one of the core objectives of RDP. It also alludes that increasing the rate at which advice is disseminated will lead to higher level of food security.

Component 3 – Rural Business Development Demand for Supplementary Equity to enable rural industries to meet requirements of the banking system for loan eligibility has been strong with grants extended to 57 businesses, which is in excess of the target. The SBD7.7 million in supplemental equity provided by RDP has leveraged SBD31 million in commercial bank loans. This component, which has been completed, supported the creation of about 350 new jobs and several businesses would not have been able to secure loans if not for the additional equity financing offered by RDP. An independent evaluation report commissioned by IFAD found the following;

The number of jobs created is in the range of 350 to 400; Additional income from jobs created under the Project is directly related to the

increase in employment. If a typical unskilled wage of SBD500 per fortnight is assumed for 350 new jobs, then the additional annual wage payments would be SBD4.55 million. Since semi-skilled and skilled workers are paid more, this is an underestimate;

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The main direct beneficiaries of the Project are business owners and their employees who have bigger, more profitable businesses or more and more secure employment. In some places farmers supplying coconuts (and copra) or cocoa and other farm products benefit because businesses buying and providing technical support for these commodities have had SEF grants to expand or improve their activities. Communities have benefited through improved economic services – more support for agricultural activities, better supply of goods and services and more reliable transport. In many cases communities have also benefited from donations to local youth, women’s, health and other community organizations from expanded and more profitable local businesses;

Of the total of 58 businesses that received SEF grants, 36 are based outside Honiara and Guadalcanal. These 36 may all be counted as “businesses established or expanding in rural areas”. Eleven of the businesses based in Honiara and Guadalcanal are buyers of farm products from other provinces. Eighty percent of businesses that have received SEF grants are either based in rural areas or their business depends on products from rural areas;

While business turnover has generally increased, reported annual changes vary between -78% and 115% for any one year since receiving an SEF grant. Some of these changes are due to changing economic conditions, especially for commodity traders, but some are clearly linked to new funding that has provided for business expansion; and

The strength of this procedure is shown by the fact that out of 65 loans there has been only one default. This performance may be compared with the 18% bad loan rate for the CBSI loan guarantee scheme

B. Comments on Draft ICR Comments were received from the Recipient and included in the main text of the Bank’s draft ICR.

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Annex 8: Comments of Co-financiers and Others Partners and or Stakeholders From IFAD: “IFAD fully supports the findings and conclusions of the ICR. In particular IFAD found that the performance of the World Bank in project supervision and loan administration including the management of resources from several financiers, was highly effective. This was increasingly so in the final three years of implementation.”

From Department of Foreign Affairs (previously AusAID): “Overall the report looks well balanced and fair on both the successes and areas for improvement. The only specific question … is in relation to gender (Section 3.5). It rates itself alright against its criteria and has favorable evidence, but … it oversells the representation, which … isn’t 50/50. Overall RDP underperformed on gender in phase 1.”

No comments were received from European Commission (EC).

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Annex 9: List of Supporting Documents Additional Financing Project Paper, Report No: 55580-SB, September 14, 2010.

Additional Financing Project Paper, Report No: 80387-SB, September 4, 2013.

Baseline Study, ANUE, 2009.

Country Partnership Strategy for Solomon Islands for the Period FY2013 – 2017.

Evaluation of the Solomon Islands RDP, A. Neelim and J. Vecci, October 31, 2013.

Financial Audits 2008-2015

Joint Donor Review and Implementation Mission Aide Memoires, 2008-2015.

Legal Agreements

Mid-Term-Review Aide Memoire, 2010.

National Agriculture and Livestock Sector Policy, 2009 – 2014.

Project Appraisal Document, Report No: 39718-SB, August 6, 2007.

Towards Better Investment in Rural Communities in the Solomon Islands, 2015, World

Bank.

Solomon Islands Agriculture and Rural Development Strategy, 2007, Ministry of

Development Planning and Aid Coordination

Solomon Islands - Interim strategy note for the period FY10-FY11.

Solomon Islands Smallholder Agriculture Study, 2006, AusAID.

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