WRITING THE REPORT

The report writing is multifunctional:

1. it is a record of work undertaken;
2. a repository of data;
3. a rationale of the formulation methods used, allowing for an objective and external
assessment to be made of these;
4. it is a description of a proposed project;
5. a justification for expenditure;
6. a set of instructions on how to implement the project; and, at the most general level,
7. a contribution to the debate within the country on national development planning.
Writing a report which does all these things and more, adequately, is a skilled job. The best
advice which can he given on how to write is to follow the five basic principles, that is keep
the writing:

Simple: avoid unnecessary jargon, long words or elaborate explanations where a

straightforward expression in plain, everyday language will do just as well;

Direct: stick to the point, do not digress unless it serves a real purpose, only introduce
material which is relevant to the theme being discussed;

Lucid: test each sentence or figure or table for comprehensibility can it he

understood by an intelligent reader who is not as familiar as the writer is with the
project? Is there any ambiguity of meaning or interpretation? Is an important issue
being sidestepped or an answer being fudged?

Vigorous: write in a manner which sustains the readers interest; present arguments
with conviction and, if warranted, conclusions with confidence;

Brief: above all, keep the length of writing on a particular topic to the minimum
needed to cover the essential points to which the readers attention should be drawn.
What constitutes an appropriate amount of detail will depend on the part of the report
concerned (i.e. Summary, Main Report or Annex). However, while brevity is generally
a desirable feature of reports, it is important not to sacrifice important material just for
the sake of limiting the length of a section of text. A complex development situation
may require a lot of analysis and the serious reader should be expected to have to keep
reading for as long as is necessary for arguments and explanations to be adequately
presented.

Writing the Annexes

The Annexes of a project formulation report are the building blocks from which the Main
Report is constructed. Hence the order in which the Annexes are presented in the report
should follow the logical sequence of formulation itself in Phases 3 and 4. Thus, for
example, the Annexes on physical planning will be the foundation on which the later Annexes
(e.g. on agriculture or settlement organisation) are based and the latter, in turn, will underpin
the Annexes on financial and economic analysis.
Each Annex should be written in the manner of a small monograph on the particular aspect of
the project concerned. Thus, it should have introductory and concluding chapters with the
body of the text organised around the unfolding of a central theme. Annexes will often contain
specialist bibliographies and should always be thoroughly crossreferenced to other
Annexes.
Writing the Main Report
The purpose of the introductory section of the Main Report is to provide the context and
setting within which the investment proposals have been formulated. It is usual to start with
an outline of the key development issues to which the project proposal is addressed followed
by an indication of how and why the formulation mission received its particular terms of
reference, which may be briefly summarised. (It is a good idea to reproduce the full terms of
reference in an Appendix to the Main Report for ease of reference.) Any major departures in
project concept from that put forward in the interim report should be mentioned.
The background section introduces the important features of current policy on agricultural
and rural development, reviews recent technological, economic and social trends in relevant
sectors or parts of the country and the organisation and function of the major institutions
involved. The objective is to provide reference points so that the various features of the
proposed project which are spelt out in later sections can be related to present priorities,
strategies, plans and programmes. The background section provides the jumping off point
for the presentation of the projectspecific material in the remainder of the Main Report.
The section on the project area or subsector (or both, in some cases) prepares the ground
for explaining the project design decisions which were taken during formulation. The present
development situation and the constraints on, and possibilities for, improvement of this are
summarised, including an indication of what might happen if the project was not forthcoming.
The rationale for the project itself is set out in the next section which includes a concise
description of all the major features of the project particularly its various components
presents a summary cost estimate and financing plan, explains how procurement should be
undertaken and recommends procedures for project accounting and audit The outline of the
basic design concept of the project is crucial to the credibility of the proposals. Sufficient
analytical detail such as assumed levels of activity with and without the project as
conceived must therefore be provided. This section is also the link between the
introductory material about development objectives and the later more specific explanation of
how the project will achieve them. Clarity in the communication of the basic concepts and
objectives is therefore essential. It is often a good idea to coin a noteworthy phrase to
highlight the basic underlying theme of the project, and help the reader keep this in mind as
he or she proceeds through the document.
The organisation and management section of the Main Report should explain how various
institutions and agencies will participate in implementing the project and operating it

subsequently. It should convince the reader that the arrangements proposed are workable and
acceptable to all main parties concerned. The purpose of the markets and prices section is to
show how the inputs and outputs of the project will be traded and to indicate what is expected
to happen to critical prices and price structures in the future. This leads naturally into the
section on financial and/or economic implications while other aspects of the expected
impact of the project and the main risks it faces are part of the broader discussion in the
following section which is concerned with presenting an overall justification of the project.
The section on justification and risks is often the first part of the Main Report to be read by
the busy decision maker (or possibly the second after the project description and rationale). It
is here that implicit objections to the proposals must be acknowledged but shown to be
outweighed by the arguments in favour of going ahead with the recommended design. It is
important to concentrate on the particular benefits of the project in question rather than list a
string of results which could be expected from almost any development project.
The last section of the Main Report should draw attention to any major outstanding issues
which must be cleared up before project implementation can proceed. It is helpful if the report
itself suggests what steps should he taken to hasten progress.
Writing the Summary
The Summary should not attempt to precise or condense all the information contained in the
Main Report. The purpose of a Summary is to highlight the key findings and conclusions
arising from the formulation study, clearly showing the essential options (investigated,
rejected and preferred) which follow therefrom and upon which the investment authorities
must base their decisions. Such summaries are sometimes referred to as executive
summaries to distinguish them from the ordinary type of summary which simply seeks to
shorten a lengthy account.
The writer of the Summary normally the team leader should try to put themselves in the
place of busy officials and administrators, dealing with an endless stream of paper across their
desks. What is their main concern when presented with a project report dealing with a
proposal for a large scale and complex investment? They want to be able to understand
what the project aims to do, how, where, and when, with quantified costs and benefits.
They will need to know how it relates to national priorities and those of funding agencies; and
it would be useful if their attention was drawn to major issues, possible politically
sensitive implications and essential aspects of follow up. And they want to be able to grasp all
this without spending a lot of time searching through several pages of densely argued text.
The Summary should not normally exceed 2 to 3 pages in length, so much information will
have to be either left out or compressed to its bare essentials. The reader should not be
distracted by cross references in the Summary to the rest of the report - if the reader is
interested, the list of contents will provide the necessary information on where to find further
detail.

Practical recommendations

A common fault of project documents is unnecessary repetition, closely followed

by the tendency to include data and analyses just to be on the safe side. This can be
avoided by always following the maxim if in doubtcut out. Repetition in the
Main Report of material in the Annexes and some overlap between Annexes is of
course permissible. What is irritating to the reader is repetition within the Main
Report or within an Annex.

If a section of the report has to be redrafted to improve its clarity, it is often best to
start again from the beginning and write an entirely new text. Attempts to save time
by retaining intact sections of the original draft or a reluctance to discard phrases
which the original writer spent long time thinking up seldom produce the desired
improvement.

The team leader would be advised to resist any suggestion that the report or parts of it
be written by committees or in group session. These are invariably a complete waste
of time; it is much better for individual team members to write first drafts of different
sections and for these to be given to an editor to put into a coherent whole.