Report – Netherlands-FAO Trust Fund Co-operation 1985-2000

Over recent decades, co-operation with FAO has played an important part in Netherlands rural development policy. Dozens of projects of varying size and scope were funded in such fields as food security, agricultural development and forestry. This extra-budgetary funding was in addition to the Netherlands’ regular contribution as a member of FAO. For several years, the Netherlands was in fact the largest contributor of such funding to the organisation. Although many of the individual projects were subjected to evaluations, the overall co-operation was never evaluated. In 1991, as part of an evaluation of the Rural Development Programme, IOB did review projects that were executed through FAO. But an assessment of the overall co-operation with FAO was not on the agenda at that time. In the last few years, a number of statements have appeared about Netherlands' development co-operation through multilateral channels. These paint a generally critical picture of the efficiency and effectiveness of such organisations, especially FAO. However, this picture is not really based on broad, in-depth analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation. This evaluation tries to fill the gap by an assessment of the co-operation with FAO over recent decades. To that end a representative sample of projects was subjected to thorough analysis by means of research into the files and field studies. In addition, changes in Netherlands' policy, and their influence on co-operation with FAO, were assessed. The evaluation reveals a relationship that lacked continuity and direction, with the result that projects' performance was modest and, in particular, opportunities were missed.