Planning, monitoring and evaluation in the coffee improvement project, Ethiopia

The Coffee Improvement Project in Ethiopia is a large but pioneering or experimental project which aims to intensify peasant coffee production and to protect the country's coffee industry from the potential dangers of an epidemic of coffee berry disease. During its early years the project suffered from weak agronomic foundations to its activities, organisational difficulties, and a lack of perceived farmer benefits from project activities. It is suggested that these problems were inevitable since at the time of project planning very little was known about peasant coffee production and possible means for its intensification. However, better planning of monitoring and evaluation activities might have provided mechanisms for learning from research and experience during project implementation, and for constant modifications of project design and activities in response to this. When such mechanisms were belatedly introduced, project performance rapidly improved, though there is still much to be learnt and the effects and impact of changes in project activities may take many years to benefit farmers.