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2. Project selection

The arid and semi-arid land area of the Sudan lies between latitudes 10° and 18° N and transverses all of the Sudan from east to west. Rainfall is the most critical climatic element and ranges from 100 mm in the extreme northern portion to about 750 mm in the south. Droughts of one or more years' duration are more the rule than the exception, as are extended periods of above-average rainfall. Heat waves and long periods of either above- or below-average relative humidity are also common and occur frequently. (For further information about the Sudan's climate, please refer to Fig. 1 and the accompanying tabular legend.)

The country's agricultural resources are not well utilized. Out of the land surface of 250 million ha, 80 million ha could be used for agricultural production. but only 31 million ha are at present being used (7 million as arable land and the rest for grazing purposes). To tap this unused potential, mainly in arid and semi-arid areas. a number of agricultural production projects have come into operation over the last few years. Previous policy efforts have concentrated on projects designed to raise the productivity of local production factors like land and labour by adding substantial inputs of capital in the form of irrigation equipment, mechanization, improved seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, etc. In addition, emphasis was put on the establishment of a supporting infrastructure to allow processing and marketing of agricultural products. All projects found in the Sudan had resulted either from the carefully planned development of a particular regional potential (e.g., Gezira Scheme) or from the activities of local pressure groups (e.g., Sag el Na'am Project). It was not possible to include all types of projects ever implemented in the Sudan or to describe projects in all geographical areas. Accessibility at the time of investigation and availability of data had to be used as the main yardsticks of selection. Therefore, this presentation does not represent "the'' Sudanese development projects. but it is hoped that it gives a fair picture of typical projects from which many lessons, positive and negative, can be learned.

The projects analyzed in this report were selected according to the following principles:
a) projects outside the very large irrigation schemes. for example the Gezira Scheme, for which enough information has been published elsewhere;
b) projects with target groups of small farmers and families, if possible;
c) projects which show various degrees of implementation:
d) projects of different production types and various organizational systems;
e) projects representing a wide geographical distribution. including different climatic and economic conditions (e.g., different distances to markets, etc.);
f) projects with enough data information available to allow at least a partial socio-economic evaluation of their performance.

An agricultural development project is usually designed to exploit a particular local potential of material and human resources. It can be defined as a planned productive activity supported by public funds. To classify a project further, it is helpful to differentiate roughly according to specific farming activities: rain-fed land use, mechanized farming scheme, pastoral livestock production, intensive feed lot scheme, etc. In addition, the design of integrated rural development programmes requires a careful identification of the target groups of each project in order to enable an evaluation of whether or not the well-being of the people has actually changed as a result of the project.

The various forms of project organization in the Sudan show a definite bias towards the use of particular scheme authorities for implementation of the planned activities. In this context, some authorities show a better performance than others. This study will try to include observations from the project experiences to allow a better judgment of the question of which organizational model to choose in order to reach projected results under given natural and human constraints. The degree of involvement of the local people and their motivation to participate in the project will certainly be a major criterion with which to answer this question and to propose Improvements.

FIG.1. Climatic zones in the Sudan. Scale: 1:10000000. Source: van der Kevie, 1976.

Finally, the state of implementation and data availability played a decisive role in the project selection. Quite a number of projects were in a preliminary implementation stage only, and none could be identified as completed. Therefore, only projects that had been implemented for three years or more were selected. allowing at least some conclusions about their success. if proper data were collected. Not all project reports were available in English and could be used for evaluation. Financial and time restrictions forbade extensive visits to each selected project to collect additional data on the spot, but gaps have been filled by the intimate knowledge of a number of experts who were interviewed to clarify and to explain certain details of the available written reports. Some materials were restricted for official use only. Names of authors have therefore not been quoted whenever this was not advisable. The responsibility for the use and quotation of the written reports is solely with the author of this study. not with the agencies or institutions involved.

Lengthy quotations were found necessary to provide the best information possible under circumstances of limited data availability. Major sources quoted are always mentioned at the bottom of each project heading.

The list of public sector projects in Table 1, taken from the Sudan Government's Six Year Development Plan, was used for the selection of the analyzed projects; it gives an idea of the types of activities defined as "on-going or existing completed projects'' which presently operate in the Sudan. Fig. 2 shows the eight projects selected for review.

The evaluation studies will follow as much as possible a twofold line: the first task will be to measure whether the economic objectives of a project have been reached, and the second will be to ask whether there are additional side effects, positive or negative, outside the immediate project's border which have to be taken into account to reach a balanced view of the total impact.

TABLE 1. Public Sector Projects in Agriculture, Sudan Six Year Plan (1977-82), Completed and On-going

Source: Annexure 1. Six Year Development Plan, Khartoum, 1977. a. In thousands of Sudanese pounds (£S).

FIG. 2. The Democratic Republic of the Sudan

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