According to the PCR, OCISP strongly contributed to poverty reduction. Participatory
wealth ranking, secondary data from expenditures and consumption surveys and
project hhs surveys all suggest significant changes in income and concomitant
reductions in poverty. In fact, poverty levels across the target population have almost
halved from 49% in PY03 to 26% in PY07. However, how much this is attributable to
the project is uncertain because: i) monitoring did not include counterfactual evidence
from control groups; ii) the project was implemented in a period of impressive
economic growth (over 6% per annum from 1998 to 2008); iii) the project relied too
heavily on the RIMS asset data, which was heavily biased toward wealthier hhs. As
far as rural financial services are concerned, all the 63 VSCSs are established and
generally functioning well. The average repayment rate is 96% and membership has
exceeded by 123%. With regard to other assets, modest increases were showed,
such as land certificates have been handed out to 15% of the target population; 545
pigs, 309 goats, 6250 chickens and 750,000 fingerlings were provided to the
beneficiaries.