Evaluation

The strate­gic evo­lu­tion of eval­u­a­tions in 2018 saw the mid-term reviews (MTRs) become joint exer­cis­es with LuxDev. They are there­fore no longer lim­it­ed to a macro-lev­el review of the Indica­tive Coop­er­a­tion Pro­grammes (ICPs) between Lux­em­bourg and its part­ner coun­tries, but also include pro­gram­mat­ic eval­u­a­tions of bilat­er­al, mul­ti­lat­er­al and human­i­tar­i­an pro­grammes and projects. Sub­se­quent­ly, since 2019, the Min­istry has been car­ry­ing out an exer­cise to learn from mid-term reviews, in order to learn the lessons and essen­tial rec­om­men­da­tions from these eval­u­a­tions and to improve MTR process­es, whether or not joint­ly con­duct­ed, with the ulti­mate aim of opti­mis­ing Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Cooperation’s evaluations. 

In addi­tion, in response to the needs of the Ministry’s oper­a­tional ser­vices, the Min­istry launched six oth­er eval­u­a­tions in 2019, includ­ing eval­u­a­tions of NGOs and pub­lic-pri­vate col­lab­o­ra­tions in the inclu­sive finance sector:

The eval­u­a­tion of four Lux­em­bourg NGDOs, name­ly Aide au Développe­ment de la San­té (ADS), Objec­tif Tiers Monde (OTM), Action Soleil dans la Main (ASDM) and Amis du Tibet (AT), was dif­fer­ent from pre­vi­ous eval­u­a­tions of NGDOs con­duct­ed by Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion in that it addressed, first of all, the organ­i­sa­tion­al and man­age­ment struc­ture of NGDOs that do not nec­es­sar­i­ly have a the­mat­ic link and that oper­ate in very dif­fer­ent coun­tries and con­texts. The eval­u­a­tion had a dual objec­tive: (i) to analyse the organ­i­sa­tion­al and man­age­ment struc­ture and human capac­i­ty of the four NGDOs in Lux­em­bourg and to analyse rela­tions with local part­ners in the field, and (ii) to assess the val­ue of ADS, ASDM and OTM projects based on cri­te­ria com­mon­ly select­ed in the eval­u­a­tion area, as defined by the OECD Devel­op­ment Assis­tance Com­mit­tee (rel­e­vance, effec­tive­ness, effi­cien­cy, impact and sustainability).

The eval­u­a­tion of the NGDOs’ Cer­cle de coopéra­tion (Cer­cle) took place at a time of strate­gic reflec­tion on the restruc­tur­ing of the Cer­cle that was being analysed and guid­ed, for the ben­e­fit of both the Min­istry and the Cer­cle. The aims of the eval­u­a­tion were to analyse (i) the organ­i­sa­tion­al, staff and man­age­ment struc­ture of the Cer­cle (cur­rent and past), (ii) the rela­tion­ship between the dif­fer­ent struc­tures of the Cer­cle, Gen­er­al Assem­bly, Board of Direc­tors and team of per­ma­nent staff, (iii) the rela­tion­ship between the Cer­cle and the Min­istry, (iv) the rela­tion­ship between the Cer­cle and its mem­bers, (v) the com­mu­ni­ca­tion and posi­tion­ing of the Cer­cle in rela­tion to the gen­er­al pub­lic in Lux­em­bourg, in par­tic­u­lar in terms of rep­re­sen­ta­tive­ness and pol­i­cy coher­ence, and on behalf of mem­bers and even non-mem­bers, (vi) the results and impacts of the Cer­cle in rela­tion to its objec­tives and in accor­dance with the OECD DAC cri­te­ria, (vii) the qual­i­ty of advice giv­en to NGDOs in con­sul­ta­tions offered to its mem­bers and the qual­i­ty of train­ing pro­vid­ed by the Cer­cle, and (viii) to guide the Cer­cle and the Min­istry in restruc­tur­ing the Cer­cle.

The main aim of the eval­u­a­tion of the Busi­ness Part­ner­ship Facil­i­ty (BPF), a co-financ­ing instru­ment encour­ag­ing pri­vate enter­pris­es based in Lux­em­bourg and the Euro­pean Union to imple­ment sus­tain­able projects in devel­op­ing coun­tries in part­ner­ship with local actors, was to eval­u­ate the BPF pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship instru­ment from three per­spec­tives: (i) the BPF instru­ment itself (ratio­nale, mech­a­nism), (ii) project selec­tion mech­a­nisms, and (iii) the imple­men­ta­tion of co-financed projects, in accor­dance with the OECD DAC criteria.

The objec­tive of the eval­u­a­tion of the Inclu­sive Finance Net­work Lux­em­bourg (InFiNe), an asso­ci­a­tion which aims to con­tribute to the strength­en­ing and pro­mo­tion of a cen­tre of excel­lence in the field of inclu­sive finance and to the cre­ation and man­age­ment of knowl­edge and know-how through the stim­u­la­tion and coor­di­na­tion of dia­logue between the mem­bers of the net­work and which aims to co-organ­ise, togeth­er with the Euro­pean Micro­fi­nance Plat­form (e‑MFP), the Euro­pean Micro­fi­nance Award, was to eval­u­ate InFiNe’s work in accor­dance with the OECD DAC cri­te­ria and to pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions for future objec­tives and activ­i­ties, as well as ade­quate gov­er­nance so that the network’s planned out­comes may be implemented.

The aim of the eval­u­a­tion of the Euro­pean Micro­fi­nance Plat­form (e‑MFP), an asso­ci­a­tion that encour­ages activ­i­ties that improve glob­al access to afford­able, high-qual­i­ty, sus­tain­able and inclu­sive finan­cial ser­vices by pro­mot­ing knowl­edge shar­ing, part­ner­ship devel­op­ment and inno­va­tion, was to eval­u­ate the work of the e‑MFP in accor­dance with the OECD DAC cri­te­ria and to pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions for improv­ing the work of the e‑MFP as well as sug­ges­tions for activ­i­ties help­ing to achieve the e‑MFP objec­tives and part­ner­ship approach­es to be explored to best sup­port the attain­ment of those objectives.

The objec­tive of the eval­u­a­tion of the Pales­tin­ian NGDO Agri­cul­tur­al Devel­op­ment Asso­ci­a­tion (PARC), an asso­ci­a­tion that aims to improve food secu­ri­ty and reduce pover­ty in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties in the Pales­tin­ian Ter­ri­to­ries by pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able and inno­v­a­tive agri­cul­ture, was to pro­vide an analy­sis of PARC’s organ­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture, the rela­tion­ship between PARC and its local part­ners and the part­ner­ship between the min­istry and PARC with­in the frame­work of the Advance Rur­al Devel­op­ment Invest­ment (ARDI) pro­gramme, as well as of the work car­ried out under ARDI in accor­dance with the OECD DAC cri­te­ria. The eval­u­a­tion will be com­plet­ed in July 2020.

In addi­tion to man­ag­ing and mon­i­tor­ing eval­u­a­tions, the Min­istry focus­es on the work of eval­u­a­tion net­works. In 2019, the Min­istry attend­ed meet­ings of the OECD DAC Net­work on Devel­op­ment Eval­u­a­tion, active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in dis­cus­sions on the def­i­n­i­tion of new eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria. The Min­istry also attend­ed meet­ings of the Mul­ti­lat­er­al Organ­i­sa­tion Per­for­mance Assess­ment Net­work (MOPAN) and sev­er­al meet­ings organ­ised by the Société lux­em­bour­geoise de l’évaluation et de la prospec­tive (SOLEP — Lux­em­bourg com­pa­ny for eval­u­a­tion and forecasting).