TIDE II Final Evaluation

TIDE 2 is the second phase of the dairy development project in South West Uganda aimed at improving dairy sector productivity, milk quality, dairy value chains, and school children nutrition. ISDAP component was developed to address issues specifically affecting smallholder farmers (SHF). The programme had a value of € 15 mln. The evaluation gives a number of lessons learned that are relevant to share.

The report includes important lessons on the effectiveness of TIDE in achieving inclusive development of dairy farming sector in South West Uganda. Key lessons included: trickling down of knowledge and innovations from medium/large farmers to SHF did not happen because while the former have capacity to specialize and invest in dairy, the latter don’t and are diversified to manage risk; strengthening collective capacity does not always lead to better bargaining power particularly for SHF; interventions for inclusive dairy development require a shared understanding of the different starting conditions of SHF. These lessons helped the Embassy and SNV to redesign the successor INCLUDE  programme as a broad farming system and livestock development programme, using a bottom-up participatory approach.