Sector Results and Learning:

Agriculture and Irrigation

This Agriculture and Irrigation Sector Results and Learning page is a repository of evidence generated by all MCC-funded agriculture and irrigation interventions. To promote learning and inform future program design, this page captures monitoring data from key common indicators, showcases recent and relevant evaluations, includes all agency lessons from completed agriculture and irrigation evaluations to-date, and links to learning that has been aggregated across completed evaluations in the sector.

What Do We Invest In?

MCC has funded $1.8 billion in agriculture and irrigation interventions as of September 2024. These interventions fall into the following categories: agriculture infrastructure; producer organizational development; policy and regulatory reform and systems strengthening; market development; and agriculture finance and investment.

  • Agriculture Finance and Investment

    These programs address constraints to access to finance and investment in the agricultural economy.
  • Agriculture Infrastructure

    These programs address constraints in the agricultural economy through infrastructure investments such as irrigation, rural roads, and warehouses.
  • Market Development

    These programs address constraints in agriculture and food market systems such as market linkages and value chain development while crowding in the private sector.
  • Policy and Regulatory Reform and Systems Strengthening

    These programs address reforms and supporting institutions in the policy and regulatory environment of the agricultural economy.
  • Producer Organizational Development

    These programs address constraints in agriculture-related organizations such as water user associations and farmer cooperatives.

What Have We Completed So Far?

MCC and its country partners develop and tailor Monitoring and Evaluation Plans for each program and country context. Within these country-specific plans, MCC uses common indicators to standardize measurement and reporting within certain sectors. See below for a subset of common indicators that summarize implementation achievements across all MCC agriculture and irrigation investments as of September 2024.

  • 450,164

    farmers trained

  • 127,112

    farmers who have applied improved practices as a result of training

  • 1,016

    enterprises that have applied improved techniques

  • 206,450

    hectares under improved irrigation

What Have We Achieved?

MCC commissions independent evaluations, conducted by third-party evaluators, for every project it funds. These evaluations hold MCC and country partners accountable for the achievement of intended results and also produce evidence and learning to inform future programming. They investigate the quality of project implementation, the achievement of the project objective and other targeted outcomes, and the cost-effectiveness of the project. The graphs below summarize the composition and status of MCC’s independent evaluations in the agriculture and irrigation sector as of November 2024. Read on to see highlights of published interim and final evaluations. Follow the evaluation links to see the status of all planned, ongoing, and completed evaluations in the sector and to access the reports, summaries, survey materials, and data sets.

Created with Highcharts 11.2.0Evaluations by Type24 (67%)24 (67%)12 (33%)12 (33%)PerformanceImpact
Created with Highcharts 11.2.0No. of EvaluationsEvaluations by Status6611223333PlanningBaselineFinalCompleted010203040
Created with Highcharts 11.2.0No. of ReportsInterim Reports - Expected and Actual Publication Date11112211111122PerformanceImpact20122015201820192020012345
Created with Highcharts 11.2.0No. of ReportsFinal Reports - Expected and Actual Publication Date1111332233222233331111111133222211112211PerformanceImpact20102012201320142015201620172018201920202021202220232025202620270123456

Highlighted Evaluations

What Have We Learned from Our Results?

To link the evidence from the independent evaluations with MCC practice, project staff produce an MCC Learning document at the close of each interim and final evaluation to capture practical lessons for programming and evaluation. Use the filters below to find lessons relevant to your evidence needs.

    • Moldova Compact
    • Transition to High Value Agriculture

    A committed local post compact point of contact facilitates post program evaluation work.

    A committed local post compact point of contact facilitates post program evaluation work. A post compact entity, SDA-Moldova, was created to continue supporting the irrigation sector after the project ended. SDA-Moldova also opened doors for the evaluation byread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Transition to High Value Agriculture

    A realistic timeline for project activities should be developed before investment, considering necessary sequencing of dependent activities.

    A realistic timeline for project activities should be developed before investment, considering necessary sequencing of dependent activities. The Transition to High-Value Agriculture Project was designed to support farmers with irrigation improvements, training,read more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Transition to High Value Agriculture

    A thorough evaluation should document what was implemented.

    A thorough evaluation should document what was implemented. The evaluation answered a question about whether or not the results in the project logic were realized; however, there was very little information provided about implementation. Since this evaluationread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Transition to High Value Agriculture

    Baseline data collection should not occur until the irrigation system has been designed so that the land and landowners who will be affected is clear.

    Baseline data collection should not occur until the irrigation system has been designed so that the land and landowners who will be affected is clear. An initial baseline survey was completed in 2013 based on the feasibility study; however, the irrigationread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Transition to High Value Agriculture

    Cost-benefit models should have realistic assumptions about farmer behavior change and transition rates from low-value crops to high-value crops.

    Cost-benefit models should have realistic assumptions about farmer behavior change and transition rates from low-value crops to high-value crops. The transition rates in the cost-benefit analysis for the project were optimistic. The evaluation reported thatread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Transition to High Value Agriculture

    Don’t underestimate the usefulness of administrative data.

    Don’t underestimate the usefulness of administrative data. The backbone of the evaluation was the data provided by the Water User Associations (WUAs), also known as the WUA administrative data. The WUAs provided information on the number of water users, volumeread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Transition to High Value Agriculture

    Evaluations should ask how benefits were distributed, where appropriate.

    Evaluations should ask how benefits were distributed, where appropriate. MCC’s standard evaluation questions do not currently include a question about how benefits were distributed among beneficiaries. However, without that evaluation question, there may be aread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Transition to High Value Agriculture

    Having five plus years of data on irrigation patterns after project completion was useful to assess producer behavior across both rainy and drought years and reviewing that data annually allowed MCC to apply lessons to other agriculture projects before the final evaluation was completed.

    Having five plus years of data on irrigation patterns after project completion was useful to assess producer behavior across both rainy and drought years and reviewing that data annually allowed MCC to apply lessons to other agriculture projects before theread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Transition to High Value Agriculture

    MCC’s projects should attract the private sector, like commercial-scale farmers, who have already solved the problems of transitioning to high-value agriculture.

    MCC’s projects should attract the private sector, like commercial-scale farmers, who have already solved the problems of transitioning to high-value agriculture. Access to markets, finance, inputs, extension, and post-harvest services are necessary to supportread more

    • Moldova Compact
    • Transition to High Value AgricultureRoad Rehabilitation

    The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Plan should include post program targets for the indicators assessed in the evaluation post program.

    The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Plan should include post program targets for the indicators assessed in the evaluation post program. The evaluation had to compare data collected in 2020 to the end of compact targets from 2015, the only officialread more

    • Armenia Compact
    • Water to Market Farmer TrainingWater to Market CreditWater to Market Post-Harvest ProcessingWater to Market Institutional Strengthening

    A multifaceted development approach requires proactive and visionary management.

    A multifaceted development approach requires proactive and visionary management. The Irrigated Agriculture Project suffered from poor integration of project activities and targeting of beneficiaries. Project activities were broken into several differentread more

    • Armenia Compact
    • Water to Market Farmer TrainingWater to Market CreditWater to Market Post-Harvest ProcessingWater to Market Institutional Strengthening

    Always return to the program logic.

    Always return to the program logic. It is especially important in integrated projects that the rollout is coordinated with complementary activities. In the case of Irrigated Agriculture Project, this means the coordination of the farmer training rollout withread more

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How Have We Aggregated Learning Across the Sector?

MCC has developed a Principles into Practice paper using evidence from completed independent evaluations in the agriculture and irrigation sector – Principles into Practice: Impact Evaluations of Agriculture Projects. The Principles into Practice series offers a frank look at what it takes to make the principles MCC considers essential for development operational in the projects in which MCC invests. The learning captured in this paper informs MCC’s ongoing efforts to refine and strengthen its own model and development practice in the agriculture and irrigation sector. MCC hopes this paper will also allow others to benefit from, and build upon, MCC’s lessons.