Evaluation of Starter Pack 2 Statistical Services Centre University of Reading Malawi 23 August 2000

Execution and delivery in charge of Malawian consultants Teams won contracts through competitive public bidding Team members have worked hard Individuals have acquired technical and project management expertise Evaluation has benefited from Malawian team members knowledge

Technical and managerial accompaniment from the SSC Design of the studies Sampling issues to ensure representative results and generalisable conclusions Information management and analysis Report structure and writing Planning, execution and financial control

Diversity of impacts Production Food security Rural economy Farming practices Nutrition Morale of farmers

Production and food security Maize production rose by 3½ 50-kg bags per household in SP1, equivalent to: –almost a quarter of total maize production –some 2 months of extra food per household The poor have benefited more than the wealthy in terms of household food security

Rural economy Starter Pack inputs are valued by poor & rich farmers alike at around MK250 Though farmers may not have cash to buy SP, all would work 2 weeks - roughly equivalent to MK250 wages The pack had some (limited) impact on income generation, the labour market and household savings

Farming practices Seed availability is more important for farmers than fertiliser - Starter Pack provided new, good quality seed Farmers Dream Pack contains fertiliser, flint varieties of maize, beans/groundnuts SP has encouraged crop diversification, increase in farmland size, mixed cropping

Nutrition We cannot measure the impact of Starter Pack on nutrition, but child malnutrition rates are high and could be higher without Starter Packs contribution to household food self-sufficiency

Morale Impact of Starter Pack on community relations was difficult to measure, but –clearly SP has raised morale –SP is extremely popular with farmers Problems with process of registration and deletion from Starter Pack register caused localised dissatisfaction

Pointers for the future The rich information collected by the Evaluation Teams should be used to help design SP3, e.g. targeting - by poverty and/or gender by geographical area self-targeting through public works programmes (with 4-week requirement) No targeting is better than bad targeting!