effectiveness, and sustainability of projects, often to the benefit of the rural poor.
There are many obstacles facing the selection of effective, poverty-focused rural projects.
Projects and programmes for rural development are again and again captured by rural elites for their own advantage, when credit goes to those who least need it (Chambers, 1978:209- 219). What is needed for successful projects is a high degree of fit between programme design, beneficiary needs, and the capacities of the assisting institutions. For example, individual projects can effectively achieve specific targets, if well designed and managed, although the cumulative effects of promoting development in a project model has led to some troubling side effects, such as duplication of efforts, “brain drain” from public administration, proliferation of semi-autonomous organisational units, loosely attached to public-sector entities (Brinkerhoff, 1992:483-503).
The project level is normally the focal point of government‟s action, which takes the form of specific targets for results, timetables, activities, resource input requirements, and other elements which can be monitored and evaluated. Agriculture, according to Hames (1982), is the only reliable source of food. In many countries, it is the largest single employer, and is the main or only source of livelihood for over 50% of the population. According to Feder, Willett and Zijp (1999:1-28), farm families make up 80
%
or more of the population.To ensure a thriving agricultural economy, appropriate intervention is critical for reducing poverty, enabling food security, and managing natural resources in a sustainable fashion.
Agricultural extension is one of the most important vehicles for intervention, in as far as food security is concerned, but according to Feder et al. (1999:1-28), many observers are concerned that extension is not doing enough, not doing it well, and is not always relevant in developing countries: bureaucratic inefficiency and poor programme design and implementation have led to poor performance and incoherent links with client farmers and the research sectors.
The project approach to development assistance driven by extension has been attacked for its inability to make results self-sustaining. This has been attributed to a short time horizon, an inability to pick up recurrent costs, and a tendency to either by-pass or fragment local institutions which therefore neglects the need for local capacity building (Honadle &
Rosengard, 1983:299-305). Agricultural projects are widely employed to better the
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agricultural situation in rural areas. These projects have varied characteristics (Botha &Lombard, 1991:36).
According to Verma (1998:41-51), the expectation in this situation is that extension education programmes will bring about educational changes in the individual, socioeconomic benefits for families, and desirable environmental consequences for committees, as well as cost- benefit analysis which will show the returns of tax-supported investments to justify support for these programmes. The significant question for programme developers and evaluators is whether a programme has the intended impact, or whether the observed impact is attributable to the programme, and in what way. Verma further noted that programme funding and national policy should, therefore, indicate whether the objective is to have an extension system that can be run independently of donor assistance or one that will need continued support. If the objective is to have an extension system that is sustainable without donor assistance, resources such as information, human capital, investment capital, funds for operating costs, and facilities for education and administration must be considered when designing extension strategies. Sustainability of any project or programme requires a continuing political commitment to extension. This means that extension must generate benefit that is perceived as valuable to politicians holding the purse strings, or it must maintain strong clientele support, or both. Second, the extension system must be well organised and managed. This means that the farmer- extension linkages must be strong. A sustainable extension system must be able to adjust to the evolving needs of its clientele over time, because in the public sector it faces increasing accountability demands to justify the allocation of funds and demonstrate that effective, need-based programmes are in place.
To do that, according to Wambura (1995:37-44), participation in extension should focus on joint decision making with regard to problems analysis, solution planning, activities implementation and evaluation of results, because external stakeholders want to know what difference extension education programmes make in the lives of people for whom they are intended.
More demanding and discerning stakeholders, especially funders, government agencies, and legislative bodies at local, state and federal level, want to know the specific outcome of programmes (Wambura, 1995:37-44). For example, in the United States of America (USA), the federal extension system and a number of state extension systems prepare performance- based budgets and report progress and impact on their programmes against predetermined goals. In South Africa, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) meets nine Provinces quarterly at national level, and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) in the North West Province meets its four districts monthly to review
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budget performance. According to Schwartz and Kampen (1992:18-19), two important objectives for all extension systems are increased effectiveness and sustainability.Effectiveness refers to the extension system‟s ability to achieve specific goals. A sustainable extension system must be self-generating in terms of funding, programming, staffing, and clientele support to allow it to function at a constant level of activity. Düvel (2003) pointed out, in his search for an appropriate extension approach for South Africa that the variety of needs-levels of development and available resources in South Africa are such that a very focused or one-sided understanding and approach cannot be afforded. A mix that meets situation specific needs and circumstances should be allowed. Many of the project planning and control techniques currently in use, for example the Critical Path Method (CPM) and the Programme Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), were developed to address the needs of large, complex capital projects. Since then, these applications, which are often client motivated, have become more pervasive. Project Management as a specialised management technique to plan and control projects under a strong single point of responsibility should always be used, and ultimately be the responsibility of senior management, whose decision should be based on informative data (Burke, 2003) that will assist in the selection of the project for future investment that will be crucial for the long-term survival of a project, and if a wrong project is selected, it may precipitate project failure.
The situation regarding projects in South Africa appears to be good in terms of support from government conditional grants, even though there have been some indications of unsatisfactory expenditure in some years. At the inception of the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP), grant funds for the 2004/2005 financial year in an amount of R200 m were allocated to projects by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), benefiting 46 500 beneficiaries in 510 projects. It should be mentioned that during that financial year, 61.5% of the total allocation was spent. The CASP grant funds includes:
(a) funds for projects, (b) funds for Agricultural Training Institutes/Colleges and (c) funds for flood disaster. The amount since then increased substantially to R1 535 b in the 2012/2013 financial year, an increase of 77%. The total budget from 2004/2005 to 2012/2013 is R5 840 b (DAFF, 2013). There are other grant funds, such as Land Care, Provincial Equitable Share, Illima/Letsema, but CASP has funded most of the projects which were selected for the study. The reconnaissance survey for this study commenced in 2006 and during that financial year (2006/2007) an amount of R33 594 m from CASP was allocated to the North West Province and it increased to R168 563 m in the 2012/2013 financial year, an increase of 20% in six financial years (DARD, 2013).