Sustainability analysis of programme interventions: The case of Root and Tuber Improvement and Marketing Programme in the Central Region of Ghana

The Root and Tuber crop value chain is an important avenue for ending persistent poverty and food insecurity among farm households in most developing countries. Accordingly, several African countries, including Ghana has developed and implemented Root and Tuber crops improvement programme to promote the expansive production, processing and consumption of Root and Tuber crops. Given the huge investment requirement for such poverty and food insecurity reduction programmes, it becomes necessary to first establish the sustainability dimensions of the programme interventions. Programme sustainability is important to ensure that gains made during programme implementation continue to persist long after funding and assistance has been withdrawn by donors and implementers. Accordingly, we analysed the sustainability of RTIMP programme interventions among cassava farmers. 150 RTIMP beneficiary cassava farmers were sampled and data was collected and analysed using a multistage sampling approach. The results show that the RTIMP programme sustainability hinges on three sustainability dimensions (i.e., economic, social, and environmental). Farmers asserted that the interventions and services received contributed moderately to the sustainability of the RTIMP programme along the three identified sustainability dimensions. Accordingly, every intervention activity must impact beneficiaries across these dimensions. Another important outcome from our study was the significant locational variation on the sustainability impact of the intervention along the three sustainability dimensions, hence the needs to frame subsequent policy interventions in such a way that it takes into consideration the effect of location difference on the potential sustainability of the programme.