Menarid: Impact Study on Iran

Habib Shahbazi,Mirghasemi. S. A

Abbasifar. APakravan. M. R

Consultants for ICARDA17th June 2014

Institutional strengthening and coherence for Integrated Natural Resources Management

(GEF-MENARID-Iran)

Impact Study on theMENARID Intervention/Practices

in Behabad site (Kamkooyeh village)

• ICARDA Jordan for their kind support & overall coordination, and also for technical support in development of the methodology;

• ICARDA Iran for local coordination & support

• MENARID Iran Team for their kind support and collaboration in data collection and providing useful information, reports and documents about their activities/interventions/technologies in the project especially in the selected pilot village.

• To Ms. Torabi, our contact person in the project team and also Mr. Bagheri (provincial project manager in Yazd province) and his colleagues.

• Finally, my special thanks goes to kind members of the targeted community at Kamkooyeh village for their hospitality and also their cooperation in filling questioners and sharing their perception and ideas about the project.

Appreciation & Acknowledgement

Background & Scope of the Work

• Within the scope of MENARID, ICARDA plans to support a full and details impact study that captures the adoption of all INRM technologies implemented by the Iran MENARID project titled "Institutional strengthening and coherence for Integrated Natural Resources Management",

• Assess a few high potential technologies selected in close collaboration with the local project team,

• Such a study should also explore the gender aspect of the technologies analyzed.

• This approach should contribute to decisions related to up scaling of the activities within and outside of the target project area as wells as learning for policy and decision making in integrated NRM development under similar conditions in the future.

The impact study will focus on attribution and contribution of these technologies in bringing about desired changes, and will also cover relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and replicability. To achieve this goal, it will:

• determine extend and depth of the use of the technologies/practices by the target beneficiaries,

• measure the economic and environmental benefits of using this technology; and

• Undertake a cost-benefit analysis of the technology, considering the full cost of the technology (costs of utilization, costs of promotion, subsidies and etc.).

Evaluate ex-ante the contribution of the activities in restoring and maintaining the ecosystems functions and productivity, and improving targeted communities economic and social well-being;

National project team has selected/introduced a village in the Behabad site (its name is Kamkooyeh) which by following participatory approaches (social mobilization and micro credit mechanism) and capacity building, a “Village Development Group” (VDG) has been established in that village.

Background & Scope of the Work

Location Map of Yazd Province & Behabad Township in Iran

Map of Iran

Map of Yazd Province

Map of Behabad Township

Google earth Image of the study area

Behabad city in upper left corner of the image

Kamkooyeh village in lower left of the image

Meeting with local community for designing irrigation water supply

Beekeeping training in Kamkooyeh village

Interview with local communities

Studying rangelands of Kamkooyeh by Dr Mosleh Arani

Sample photos of VDG meetings and holding training workshops at village level

The selected Activities in Kamkooyeh Villagefor assessing their impacts

A set of complementary activities and measurements have been designed and implemented in the study area by consultation and active participation of the local community/beneficiaries, including:

• (P1): Implementation of irrigation water supply project - pipeline system for improving water supply efficiency;

• (P2): Rangelands rehabilitation through different SLM practices like seeding and plantation in hilly landscapes/terrains;

• (P3): Cultivation of medicinal plants; • (P4): Vermicompost production;• (P5): Beekeeping and Honey production

• (P6): Raising public awareness at communities level through workshops and field visits;

• (P7): Institutional strengthening by establishment of the VDG, establishment of micro credit fund for providing financial support for the project interventions at village level.

Presenting village products in an exhibition fair in Yazd city

Fulfilled Activities

• Preparing a draft methodology (on 18th March 2014).• Holding several meeting with MENARID-Iran team to

discuss about the methodology and also selecting the proper site to do the impact study.

• Collecting all existing data & reports about the Behabad & Kamkooyeh site.

• Reviewing the collected reports/data and extracting required data.

• Revising the methodology based on the available data• Contacting with provincial team of MENARID in Yazd.

• Meeting with provincial & local staff of the project.

• Interview with partner experts about the project and its approach & impacts (Filling in a special questioner to evaluate the expected impacts based on their experiences).

Fulfilled Activities

Dr. Mosleh Arani (Dean of NRM Faculty in Yazd University)

Mr. Hajihosseini (Head of Extension Office in Yazd Agriculture Organization)

Mr. Bagheri (Provincial Manager of MENARID in Yazd)

Ms. Zahmatkesh (Local Alternative Livelihood Expert of MENARID in Yazd)

• Field visit and collecting more data about the pilot site.

• Interview with different community members (Filling in a special questioner to evaluate the expected impacts based on their expectation).

Fulfilled Activities

• Analyzing the collected questioners.

• Identifying gaps in the collected data and searching for suitable references/literature for covering those gaps and doing ex-ante evaluation of the impacts.

• Holding coordination meeting with the MENARID team.

• Analyzing the collected data and calculating different costs and benefits of the MENARID interventions at Kamkooyeh village.

Fulfilled Activities

The Applied Methodology

(based on ex-ante evaluation)

The selected Activities in Kamkooyeh Villagefor assessing their impacts

• (P1): Implementation of irrigation water supply project - pipeline system for improving water supply efficiency;

• (P2): Rangelands rehabilitation through different SLM practices like seeding and plantation in hilly landscapes/terrains;

• (P3): Cultivation of medicinal plants;

• (P4): Vermicompost production;

• (P5): Beekeeping and Honey production

• (P6): Raising public awareness at communities level through workshops and field visits;

• (P7): Institutional strengthening by establishment of the VDG, establishment of micro credit fund for providing financial support for the project interventions at village level.

The Applied MethodologySince the project interventions are short lived (the largest

one is about one year) and we don't expect to see impacts in such a short period, therefore, an ex-ante study (for predicting potential impacts in the future) has been done.

The project team are recommending that the whole package of the activities in that village should be considered in the evaluation of the expected impacts, therefore, for evaluation of these practices (technologies) on maintaining or restoring or improving of productivity, ecosystem functioning and social well-being of local communities, each practice or activity should be separately assessed for a 20 years of life time by considering the following steps:

Step 1 to Step5:

Calculation of economic (improving of productivity), ecosystem functioning (environmental, biophysical and biological impacts) and social benefits/well-being of (P1 ~ P5) activities has been calculated (details in the report).

• Ecosystem functioning (environmental, biophysical and biological) benefits of these activities are including: "Carbon sequestration & CO2 sequestration", “saving of the evaporated water from open canal” and "prevention of deposited sediment" in the canal and reservoir pool, water conservation and "increasing water infiltration", and as a result, "increasing ground water recharge" plus “reducing flood hazard” plus "soil erosion control", improving natural vegetation cover, “biodiversity value”, "soil erosion control“, reducing fertilizer and pesticide uses, reducing tillage practice, increasing soil fertility, increasing water productivity, increasing soil fertility, Increasing quantity and quality of produced crops and also improving biodiversity because of pollination by honeybees .

The Applied Methodology

Step 6. Calculation of social benefits of (P6) activity:

According to Shahbazi (2013), the elasticity of education/training (formal and informal) on Iran's productivity in agricultural and natural resources sector, is about 1.44. Elasticity of Iran's productivity in agricultural and natural resources sector on social benefits, according to Hosseini and Shahbazi (2013) is about 0.62. Therefore, the elasticity/effect of education (formal and informal) on social benefits is about 0.8928 (= 0.62 × 1.44). It means that the social benefit of project with the conducted training workshops is 0.89 percent more than social benefit of the project without the educational/training workshops. There is an expectation that education/training workshops improves/increases the effectiveness of the implemented practices (P1~ P5). So, calculation of social benefits of P6 is as the following equation:

Where SVP6 is social benefit of (P6) activity because of conducted educational/training workshops. SVPi is Social benefits of ith practice and EMPi is employment value of ith practice (i=1 ~ 5).

The Applied Methodology

Step 7. According to Shahnooshi and Shabanzadeh (2012), micro credit fund effect/ elasticity on Iran's agricultural and natural resources productivity is about 0.16 percent. Therefore, social benefit of project in case of existence of the micro credit fund is 0.16 percent more than social benefit of project in case of no micro credit fund. There is an expectation that micro credit fund supports will increase the effectiveness of practices (P1~P5). So, calculation of social benefits of (P7) is as the following:

Where SVP7 is social benefit of (P7) because of supportive impact of micro credit fund mechanism. SVPi is Social benefits of ith practice and EMPi is employment value of ith practice (i=1 ~ 5).

The Applied Methodology

Step 8. Cost benefit analysis of P1~P7 activities.Net annual equivalent uniform benefits of P1~P6 could be calculated according

to SVP1~SVP7 for life period of the projects (for example, 20 years) and then Net annual uniform cost of P1~P7 activities for useful life period of the projects. Cost-benefit analysis would be determined based on the following equation:

Where SVPi is annual social benefits of P1~P7 activities and EMPi is employment value of P1~P5 activities. CPi is net annual uniform cost of P1~P7 activities.

“CPi “ is Capital Cost of the project (Operational & Overhead Expenses), “ n “ is the life time of the project and “ r ” is the annual discount rate. Also “KPi” is the annual Working Capital Cost (Operational & Overhead Expenses + Maintenance cost).

The Applied Methodology

)1r)(1

r)(1r(

SV)EM(SV

C

B

n

n7

1i

7

5iPi

5

1iPiPi

KC pi pi

Step 9. Impacts on economic (improving of productivity), ecosystem functioning (environmental, biophysical and biological) and social benefits/well-being because of P1~P7 activities.

For assessment of P1~P7 activities and other factors (variables) impacts on ecosystem functioning (environmental, biophysical and biological) benefit, regression analysis will be used as the following:

Where, VPj is social benefit share of jth beneficiary. P1~P7 are preferences or degree of agreement with a P1~P7 effect on improving of social benefits (as Strongly Disagree, disagree, neither, agree, strongly agree). AGE is age of beneficiary (Young, middle age or old), LIT is literacy level of beneficiary (in unit of years), EXP is beneficiary’s experience in production system (in unit of years) and OTH is other variables such as case history (illness-as dummy variable) and gender (as dummy variable). e is residual term in econometric regression. β0- β11 are coefficients that are representing extent and depth of this variable such as P1~P7 on social benefits

The Applied Methodology

• The required data for doing this impact study are collecting from different sources. The first part are those data that could be extracted from existing reports (base line study, NGO questioners), field visit and so on.

• For implementation of step 8, the designed questioners would be used. The questioners have been prepared in 2 levels (for the farmers and for those experts that know the MENARID project at different level).

• In a general summery, extracted data from the questioners show that in implementation of interventions 1 to 7, most of the experts believe that these type of activities could have significant impacts on improving income and welfare of villagers.

• Most of the experts are quite agree with public awareness and establishment of micro credit fund (P6 & P7) which are very effective for capacity building and empowering of local communities.

The Collected Data and their sources

Preliminary results for each activity

Summary of the Results (Impact Study on MENARID-Iran Activities in Kamkooyeh Village)

Project codeTotal Social

BenefitsTotal

Project cost

Benefits B/C

Discount Rate (scenario) Discount Rate

12 13 11 12 13 11

1 39744.84 38735 17109.25 17437.52 16787.62 2.32 2.28 2.37

2 5687.97 2290 2012.97 2032.38 1993.96 2.83 2.80 2.85

3 36279.26 9476 12152.41 12232.72 12073.73 2.99 2.97 3.00

4 52006.44 3476 16067.29 16096.75 16038.43 3.24 3.23 3.24

5 14443.74 9596 5617.82 5699.15 5538.15 2.57 2.53 2.61

6 230979.62 11758 70868.03 70967.68 70770.41 3.26 3.25 3.26

7 34631.36 11789 11967.70 12067.62 11869.82 2.89 2.87 2.92

Overall 413773.22 87120 135795.49 136533.83 135072.12 3.05 3.03 3.06

Chalenges in doing the study (at national level)

• Calculation and evaluation of environmental and social benefits are very complex and sophisticated issues and it is almost new even at global level. There are many knowledge gaps in this regard, especially in developing countries like Iran so main challenges in doing this study is poor access to useful references or literatures in the related topics such as:

• Lack of research and studies on valuing ecosystems services and also calculation of environmental benefits

• Unreliable results of EIA studies in the region• Assessment of biodiversity values especially for beekeeping

activities• Difficulties and complexity of measuring social benefits of such

interventions27

• Illiteracy of local farmers• High level of farmer’s age (oldness / elderly)

which is a barrier for doing extension and promotion activities

• Short period of time passing after implementation of the interventions

• High level of poverty at village level28

Chalenges in doing the study (at community level)

Solutions• Doing ex-ante evaluation

• Using relevant expertise in the team of consultant (economist, environmental economist, agricultural economist, socio economic expert, civil engineer and …)

• Searching in internet (and available literature) for finding relevant and reliable references

• Interview with different stakeholders and collecting their expert opinion about the interventions.

• Contacting senior experts at provincial & national level and also local experts at community level (Skillful users)

29

Recommendations:

• Pilot Site selection is very important for success in doing such a study (the selected site should have enough potential and environmental and social capacity for development).

• Working at community level and its complexity (operational and execution challenges), maybe cause less attention to the spirit of INRM (institutional strengthening and coherence) in the MENARID project.

• Doing accurate Base Line study and collecting enough data about the situation before the project interventions.

Thank you

for your attention