Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) for the Project on Climate Resilient Agriculture (PoCRA) in Marathwada Region
Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) for the Project on Climate Resilient Agriculture (PoCRA) in Marathwada Region
The Government of Maharashtra collaborated with the World Bank to bring transformational changes in the agriculture sector by scaling-up climate-smart technologies and practices at the farm and (micro) watershed level. The project focused on smallholders (farmers up to 2.0 ha of farmland) whose livelihoods are impacted by changing climate conditions and climatic uncertainties. The Project Development Objective (PDO) was to enhance climate resilience and profitability of smallholder farming systems in selected districts of Maharashtra.
The project’s vision was to contribute towards three critical impact areas: a) Water Security, b) Soil Health, c) Farm Productivity, and d) Crop Diversification. The project aimed at supporting–
- Climate-resilient agricultural system: The activities comprised creating a participatory mini watershed plan, promoting on-farm climate-resilient technologies and agronomic practices to enhance climate-resilient development of the project catchment area.
- Climate-smart Post-harvest Management and Value Chain: The project aimed to strengthen Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs), emerging value chains for climate-resilient commodities, and improve the performance of the supply chain for climate-resilient seeds.
- Institutional Development, Knowledge, and Policies for a Climate-resilient Agriculture: Through this component, PoCRA aimed to inform knowledge and policies around climate-resilient agriculture through Maharashtra Climate Innovation Centre.
Sambodhi has been monitoring and evaluating the PoCRA project’s performance to strengthen the implementation processes. The study will understand ‘how’ the program has contributed to enhancing the climate-resilient agriculture system, ‘which’ aspects of the program have contributed, and ‘what’ has been the intervention’s impact on creating a climate-resilient agriculture system. Sambodhi adopted a quasi-experimental double difference design for impact evaluation to identify a comparison group similar to the project group in terms of baseline (pre-intervention) characteristics.
Sambodhi has been performing the M&E with these objectives:
- measuring and assessing the project’s outputs, outcomes, and impacts,
- assessing input delivery mechanisms addressing quality, quantity, and appropriate timings of such supply,
- assessing whether activities are reaching intended beneficiaries and providing recommendations to improve service delivery mechanism,
- identifying gaps, if any, in activity implementations, so that PMU can create strategies and design tools for bridging these gaps,
- promoting accountability in the allocation and utilization of resources and strategizing a transparent and participatory project implementation, and
- encapsulating experiences and contributing to learning, documenting best practices, and promoting policy dialogue.