In Tunisia, and despite the good technical performance of the Government and the relevant agencies in implementing PIM / IMT processes, the evaluation showed that the main weakness consists in limited sustainability and resulting impacts. This is shown to be caused mainly by:

- the lack of appropriate adaptation of the legal framework to the developments of the process taking into account prevailing constraints and problems encountered

- low financial autonomy of the WUAs due to several legal, technical and socio-economic factors

- the process of creation and capacity building of the WUAs has not been strengthened through the promotion of local, regional and national federations, who could have been key partners in the implementation process

- the lack of an exit-strategy to be applied before the end of the transfer.

These weaknesses should be corrected as part of the implementation of the new sustainability strategy of hydraulic systems that has been formulated in 2009.

On the evaluation of the M&E system developed by SWIM-SM and pilot tested in the country this is   considered as a useful decision support system.

However, the dynamic nature of PIM / IMT processes and the multiple specificities of the regions and irrigation systems were highlighted as potential obstacles to quickly design a standard M&E model applicable to all regions, WUAs and irrigation systems. Therefore, it was suggested to implement a specific project for introducing the conceptual and operational adjustments needed before replicating the model in other WUAs and related organizations/institutions.

Some suggestions to modify specific indicators or the scoring criteria applied were also made with a view to achieving a better adaptation of the system to different conditions (i.e. the type of agricultural development: intensive or semi-intensive perimeter or irrigation, etc.) or to be able to evaluate better additional key elements of the system capacity, e.g. the effectiveness of the irrigation system and the use of water.

Considerable emphasis was also put on the need to secure the sustainability of the overall process and the importance to provide an adequate budget to cover the needs in training, acquisition of hardware and those relating to the operation and maintenance of the system at the National level and in the different regions.

19 stakeholders participated in the event:

- representatives of DG/GREE; the General Directorate of Rural Engineering and Water Use (La Direction Générale du Génie Rural  et de l'Exploitation des Eaux); the  Agricultural Development Groups (Groupementde développementAgricole) promotion Unit at the DG/GREE;

- representatives from the three CRDAs; the Regional Directorates for Agricultural Development (Commissariats Régionaux au Développement Agricole) involved in the pilot implementation of the M&E system; namely Kairawan, Monastir and Sousse, and the respective WUAs promotion cells“cellules de promotion” (CP) des GDAs

- technical officers from the three WUAs involved in the pilot testing of the M&E system at the local level, namely GDAs Bled Abida in Kairawan, Belkata in Monastir and Chott Mariem in Sousse)

The specific objective of this SWIM-SM activity under which the pilot application and self-evaluation workshop in Jordan and Tunisia took place, is to:

1)    Design and implement a user-friendly regional M&E system for the monitoring and evaluation of the PIM/IMT and customize it to suit the national and local conditions in the pilot areas.

2)    Enable national, regional and local authorities in addition to WUAs in selected pilot areas to examine and explore the applicability of the M&E system with due consideration to the country’s particular context / local specificities.

3)    Document the approach and the lessons learnt during implementation for potential replication within the same and/or in other countries.

The system has the capacity to generate two levels of reporting;  (a) evaluation reports and (b) statistical and graphical reports for each of the mentioned levels, which was the main subject of discussion during the Workshop, and consists of four modules as per the objectives listed below:

Module A: assesses the degree of political commitment towards the PIM/IMT process and the adequacy of the existing institutional arrangements in support of the establishment of the WUAs

Module B: assesses the performance of the responsible irrigation agencies at the national and regional levels in the implementation of the PIM/IMT program

Module C: assesses the institutional, financial and technical performance of Water Users Associations

Module D: assesses the impact of WUAs' establishment

The activity has been implemented in close collaboration with CIHEAM-IAM Bari that provided relevant expertise in the design and the programming of the application and will facilitate its follow-up and further development.