1. Habib Shahbazi,
Mirghasemi. S. A
Abbasifar. A
Pakravan. M. R
Consultants for ICARDA
17th June 2014
Institutional strengthening and coherence for
Integrated Natural Resources Management
(GEF-MENARID-Iran)
Impact Study on the
MENARID Intervention/Practices
in Behabad site (Kamkooyeh village)

2. • ICARDA Jordan for their kind support & overall coordination, and
also for technical support in development of the methodology;
• ICARDA Iran for local coordination & support
• MENARID Iran Team for their kind support and collaboration in data
collection and providing useful information, reports and documents
about their activities/interventions/technologies in the project
especially in the selected pilot village.
• To Ms. Torabi, our contact person in the project team and also
Mr. Bagheri (provincial project manager in Yazd province) and his
colleagues.
• Finally, my special thanks goes to kind members of the targeted
community at Kamkooyeh village for their hospitality and also their
cooperation in filling questioners and sharing their perception and
ideas about the project.
Appreciation & Acknowledgement

3. Background & Scope of the Work
• Within the scope of MENARID, ICARDA plans to support a full
and details impact study that captures the adoption of all INRM
technologies implemented by the Iran MENARID project titled
"Institutional strengthening and coherence for Integrated
Natural Resources Management",
• Assess a few high potential technologies selected in close
collaboration with the local project team,
• Such a study should also explore the gender aspect of the
technologies analyzed.
• This approach should contribute to decisions related to up
scaling of the activities within and outside of the target project
area as wells as learning for policy and decision making in
integrated NRM development under similar conditions in the
future.

4. The impact study will focus on attribution and contribution of these
technologies in bringing about desired changes, and will also cover relevance,
effectiveness, efficiency, impact and replicability. To achieve this goal, it will :
• determine extend and depth of the use of the technologies/practices by the
target beneficiaries,
• measure the economic and environmental benefits of using this technology;
and
• Undertake a cost-benefit analysis of the technology, considering the full cost
of the technology (costs of utilization, costs of promotion, subsidies and etc.).
Evaluate ex-ante the contribution of the activities in restoring and maintaining
the ecosystems functions and productivity, and improving targeted
communities economic and social well-being;
National project team has selected/introduced a village in the Behabad site (its
name is Kamkooyeh) which by following participatory approaches (social
mobilization and micro credit mechanism) and capacity building, a “Village
Development Group” (VDG) has been established in that village.
Background & Scope of the Work

5. Location Map of Yazd Province &
Behabad Township in Iran
Map of Iran
Map of Yazd Province
Map of Behabad Township

6. Google earth
Image of the study
area
Behabad city in
upper left corner
of the image
Kamkooyeh village
in lower left of the
image

7. Meeting with local community for
designing irrigation water supply
Beekeeping training in Kamkooyeh village
Interview with local communities
Studying rangelands of Kamkooyeh
by Dr Mosleh Arani

8. Sample photos of VDG meetings and holding training workshops at village level

9. The selected Activities in Kamkooyeh Village
for assessing their impacts
A set of complementary activities and measurements have been designed and implemented
in the study area by consultation and active participation of the local
community/beneficiaries, including:
• (P1): Implementation of irrigation water supply project - pipeline system for improving
water supply efficiency;
• (P2): Rangelands rehabilitation through different SLM practices like seeding and
plantation in hilly landscapes/terrains;
• (P3): Cultivation of medicinal plants;
• (P4): Vermicompost production;
• (P5): Beekeeping and Honey production
• (P6): Raising public awareness at communities level through workshops and field visits;
• (P7): Institutional strengthening by establishment of the VDG, establishment of micro
credit fund for providing financial support for the project interventions at village level.

10. Presenting village products in an exhibition fair in Yazd city

11. Fulfilled Activities
• Preparing a draft methodology (on 18th March 2014).
• Holding several meeting with MENARID-Iran team to
discuss about the methodology and also selecting the
proper site to do the impact study.
• Collecting all existing data & reports about the
Behabad & Kamkooyeh site.
• Reviewing the collected reports/data and extracting
required data.
• Revising the methodology based on the available data
• Contacting with provincial team of MENARID in Yazd.

13. • Meeting with provincial & local staff of the
project.
• Interview with partner experts about the
project and its approach & impacts (Filling in
a special questioner to evaluate the
expected impacts based on their
experiences).
Fulfilled Activities

14. Dr. Mosleh Arani (Dean of NRM Faculty in
Yazd University)
Mr. Hajihosseini (Head of Extension Office
in Yazd Agriculture Organization)
Mr. Bagheri (Provincial Manager of
MENARID in Yazd)
Ms. Zahmatkesh (Local Alternative
Livelihood Expert of MENARID in Yazd)

15. • Field visit and collecting more data about the pilot
site.
• Interview with different community members
(Filling in a special questioner to evaluate the
expected impacts based on their expectation).
Fulfilled Activities

16. • Analyzing the collected questioners.
• Identifying gaps in the collected data and searching for
suitable references/literature for covering those gaps
and doing ex-ante evaluation of the impacts.
• Holding coordination meeting with the MENARID team.
• Analyzing the collected data and calculating different
costs and benefits of the MENARID interventions at
Kamkooyeh village.
Fulfilled Activities

17. The Applied Methodology
(based on ex-ante evaluation)

18. The selected Activities in Kamkooyeh Village
for assessing their impacts
• (P1): Implementation of irrigation water supply project - pipeline system for improving
water supply efficiency;
• (P2): Rangelands rehabilitation through different SLM practices like seeding and
plantation in hilly landscapes/terrains;
• (P3): Cultivation of medicinal plants;
• (P4): Vermicompost production;
• (P5): Beekeeping and Honey production
• (P6): Raising public awareness at communities level through workshops and field visits;
• (P7): Institutional strengthening by establishment of the VDG, establishment of micro
credit fund for providing financial support for the project interventions at village level.

19. The Applied Methodology
Since the project interventions are short lived (the largest
one is about one year) and we don't expect to see impacts
in such a short period, therefore, an ex-ante study (for
predicting potential impacts in the future) has been done.
The project team are recommending that the whole package
of the activities in that village should be considered in the
evaluation of the expected impacts, therefore, for
evaluation of these practices (technologies) on maintaining
or restoring or improving of productivity, ecosystem
functioning and social well-being of local communities,
each practice or activity should be separately assessed for
a 20 years of life time by considering the following steps:

20. Step 1 to Step5:
Calculation of economic (improving of productivity), ecosystem functioning
(environmental, biophysical and biological impacts) and social
benefits/well-being of (P1 ~ P5) activities has been calculated (details in
the report).
• Ecosystem functioning (environmental, biophysical and biological) benefits
of these activities are including: "Carbon sequestration & CO2
sequestration", “saving of the evaporated water from open canal” and
"prevention of deposited sediment" in the canal and reservoir pool, water
conservation and "increasing water infiltration", and as a result,
"increasing ground water recharge" plus “reducing flood hazard” plus "soil
erosion control", improving natural vegetation cover, “biodiversity value”,
"soil erosion control“, reducing fertilizer and pesticide uses, reducing
tillage practice, increasing soil fertility, increasing water productivity,
increasing soil fertility, Increasing quantity and quality of produced crops
and also improving biodiversity because of pollination by honeybees .
The Applied Methodology

21. Step 6. Calculation of social benefits of (P6) activity:
According to Shahbazi (2013), the elasticity of education/training (formal and
informal) on Iran's productivity in agricultural and natural resources sector, is
about 1.44. Elasticity of Iran's productivity in agricultural and natural resources
sector on social benefits, according to Hosseini and Shahbazi (2013) is about 0.62.
Therefore, the elasticity/effect of education (formal and informal) on social
benefits is about 0.8928 (= 0.62 × 1.44). It means that the social benefit of project
with the conducted training workshops is 0.89 percent more than social benefit of
the project without the educational/training workshops. There is an expectation
that education/training workshops improves/increases the effectiveness of the
implemented practices (P1~ P5). So, calculation of social benefits of P6 is as the
following equation:
Where SVP6 is social benefit of (P6) activity because of conducted educational/training
workshops. SVPi is Social benefits of ith practice and EMPi is employment value of ith
practice (i=1 ~ 5).
The Applied Methodology

22. Step 7. According to Shahnooshi and Shabanzadeh (2012), micro credit fund
effect/ elasticity on Iran's agricultural and natural resources productivity
is about 0.16 percent. Therefore, social benefit of project in case of
existence of the micro credit fund is 0.16 percent more than social
benefit of project in case of no micro credit fund. There is an expectation
that micro credit fund supports will increase the effectiveness of
practices (P1~P5). So, calculation of social benefits of (P7) is as the
following:
Where SVP7 is social benefit of (P7) because of supportive impact of micro
credit fund mechanism. SVPi is Social benefits of ith practice and EMPi is
employment value of ith practice (i=1 ~ 5).
The Applied Methodology

23. Step 8. Cost benefit analysis of P1~P7 activities.
Net annual equivalent uniform benefits of P1~P6 could be calculated according
to SVP1~SVP7 for life period of the projects (for example, 20 years) and then
Net annual uniform cost of P1~P7 activities for useful life period of the
projects. Cost-benefit analysis would be determined based on the following
equation:
Where SVPi is annual social benefits of P1~P7 activities and EMPi is
employment value of P1~P5 activities. CPi is net annual uniform cost of
P1~P7 activities.
“CPi “ is Capital Cost of the project (Operational & Overhead Expenses), “ n “ is
the life time of the project and “ r ” is the annual discount rate. Also “KPi” is
the annual Working Capital Cost (Operational & Overhead Expenses +
Maintenance cost).
The Applied Methodology
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24. Step 9. Impacts on economic (improving of productivity), ecosystem functioning
(environmental, biophysical and biological) and social benefits/well-being
because of P1~P7 activities.
For assessment of P1~P7 activities and other factors (variables) impacts on
ecosystem functioning (environmental, biophysical and biological) benefit,
regression analysis will be used as the following:
Where, VPj is social benefit share of jth beneficiary. P1~P7 are preferences or degree
of agreement with a P1~P7 effect on improving of social benefits (as Strongly
Disagree, disagree, neither, agree, strongly agree). AGE is age of beneficiary
(Young, middle age or old), LIT is literacy level of beneficiary (in unit of years),
EXP is beneficiary’s experience in production system (in unit of years) and OTH is
other variables such as case history (illness-as dummy variable) and gender (as
dummy variable). e is residual term in econometric regression. β0- β11 are
coefficients that are representing extent and depth of this variable such as P1~P7
on social benefits
The Applied Methodology

25. • The required data for doing this impact study are collecting from
different sources. The first part are those data that could be extracted
from existing reports (base line study, NGO questioners), field visit
and so on.
• For implementation of step 8, the designed questioners would be
used. The questioners have been prepared in 2 levels (for the
farmers and for those experts that know the MENARID project at
different level).
• In a general summery, extracted data from the questioners show
that in implementation of interventions 1 to 7, most of the experts
believe that these type of activities could have significant impacts on
improving income and welfare of villagers.
• Most of the experts are quite agree with public awareness and
establishment of micro credit fund (P6 & P7) which are very
effective for capacity building and empowering of local
communities.
The Collected Data and their sources

26. Preliminary results for each activity
Summary of the Results (Impact Study on MENARID-Iran Activities in Kamkooyeh Village)
Project code
Total Social
Benefits
Total
Project cost
BenefitsB/C
Discount Rate (scenario)Discount Rate
121311121311
139744.843873517109.2517437.5216787.622.322.282.37
25687.9722902012.972032.381993.962.832.802.85
336279.26947612152.4112232.7212073.732.992.973.00
452006.44347616067.2916096.7516038.433.243.233.24
514443.7495965617.825699.155538.152.572.532.61
6230979.621175870868.0370967.6870770.413.263.253.26
734631.361178911967.7012067.6211869.822.892.872.92
Overall413773.2287120135795.49136533.83135072.123.053.033.06

27. Chalenges in doing the study
(at national level)
• Calculation and evaluation of environmental and social
benefits are very complex and sophisticated issues and it
is almost new even at global level. There are many
knowledge gaps in this regard, especially in developing
countries like Iran so main challenges in doing this study
is poor access to useful references or literatures in the
related topics such as:
• Lack of research and studies on valuing ecosystems
services and also calculation of environmental benefits
• Unreliable results of EIA studies in the region
• Assessment of biodiversity values especially for
beekeeping activities
• Difficulties and complexity of measuring social benefits of
such interventions
27

28. • Illiteracy of local farmers
• High level of farmer’s age (oldness / elderly)
which is a barrier for doing extension and
promotion activities
• Short period of time passing after
implementation of the interventions
• High level of poverty at village level
28
Chalenges in doing the study
(at community level)

29. Solutions
• Doing ex-ante evaluation
• Using relevant expertise in the team of consultant
(economist, environmental economist, agricultural
economist, socio economic expert, civil engineer and …)
• Searching in internet (and available literature) for
finding relevant and reliable references
• Interview with different stakeholders and collecting
their expert opinion about the interventions.
• Contacting senior experts at provincial & national level
and also local experts at community level (Skillful users)
29

30. Recommendations:
• Pilot Site selection is very important for success
in doing such a study (the selected site should
have enough potential and environmental and
social capacity for development).
• Working at community level and its complexity
(operational and execution challenges), maybe
cause less attention to the spirit of INRM
(institutional strengthening and coherence) in
the MENARID project.
• Doing accurate Base Line study and collecting
enough data about the situation before the
project interventions.

31. Thank you
for your attention