The Presidency and Department of Rural Development and Land Reform commissioned Impact Economix to conduct an Implementation Evaluation of the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP). The Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP) was launched in July 2009 and is government?s strategic priority number 3 within the MTSF. The CRDP aims to achieve social cohesion and development of rural areas by ensuring improved access to basic services, enterprise development and village industrialisation. The CRDP is premised on a three-pronged strategy which focuses on agrarian transformation, rural development and land reform. The purpose of this Implementation Evaluation of the CRDP is to assess whether the institutional arrangements that were set in place to support the implementation of the CRDP are appropriate and clear about their roles and responsibilities; whether the CRDP is achieving its policy goals; and to assess how the programme can be strengthened and up-scaled through learning from what has been done. The evaluation methodology used multiple methods and was informed by a wide range of evidence obtained from various sources including: 18 CRDP site case studies (involving 110 community interviews and 52 focus group workshops involving over 500 CRDP participants and beneficiaries), interviews with government officials, a national CRDP participant institutional survey (responded to by 60 participants in CRDP institutions), a literature review of peer reviewed articles and CRDP programme documents, and international case study papers on other rural development programmes in middle income countries such as India, China, Kenya, Malawi, Brazil, China and Thailand. Report available for download and for additional information and reports.
