Context

Rural Finance Windows is a rural microfinance project which was transferred to PRIDE Tanzania by The Center International for Development and Research (CIDR) in January 2007. The transfer of the project was preceded by nearly four years of collaboration in piloting the project in Iringa region. Upon the transfer, the project came under the direct management of PRIDE RFW, an autonomous entity span-off from PRIDE Tanzania to manage the project, while CIDR changed its role to become the project’s technical support partner.

Following the successful pilot test of the project in Iringa, a second branch was established in Morogoro in 2008 and six additional branches were opened in Korogwe in Tanga region, Babati in Manyara region, Kyela in Mbeya region, Ifakara in Morogoro region, Singida and Shinyanga in 2010. Two other branches were established in Dodoma and Njombe in 2011 as part of the plan to roll out RFW in various parts of the country.

In 2009, CIDR received a grant from the European Union (EU) under its two-year Food Facility Programme. This evaluation covers CIDR support to PRIDE RFW from November 2009 to October 2011 through the EU funding.

Input

The evaluation assessed the PRIDE RFW programme with regard to its relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability. It found that PRIDE RFW met all the criteria to a very high degree. The programme has had a significant impact in the overall development of the rural financial sector in Tanzania and in its role in poverty reduction and promotion of growth. PRIDE’s credit programme to smallholder farmers and rural households is well aligned with Tanzania Government’s national strategies and policies as described in various Government of Tanzania strategy and policy documents.

This report is a good reference in terms of evaluation practises and can inspire future design of Terms of Reference for program evaluations. There is a comprehensive description of the operating environment as well as of the “Rural Finance Window” model both from the methodology used and the products offered’s perspectives. A robust evaluation methodology was applied, based on the initial logframe and on interviews of a 100 borrowers (out of 29,000) from 4 different branches and two focus group discussions : the process is well documented. The report itself is well presented, concise and to the point, easy to read. Using the logframe to assess performance is good evaluation practise.

Content

The report is organized under six sections, Section 1- Introduction and background ; Section 2 - The Operating Environment ; Section 3 -About PRIDE Rural Finance Window ; Section 4- Findings ; Section 5 - Recommendations, and Section 6 - the Evaluation Opinion & Conclusion.