12 Jahre Ostzusammenarbeit - Evaluation 2003/4 - Band 2 - DEZA

institutional aspects and management; over the years, however, the approach of the financial
assistance was considerably more integrated. The efforts of seco to better balance the instruments
are reflected in a slow change towards the other instruments. However, private
sector promotion, as well as trade and environment-friendly technology promotion could have
played a more substantial role in seco’s programme from the start. Hence, an increasing
proportion of seco’s projects are parallel financing and co-financing with Bretton Woods Institutions
and EBRD. On the one hand they allowed for a better embedding of Swiss efforts,
however, particularly concerning co-financing, several weaknesses were identified, such as:
little visibility of Swiss support, high dependency on the “big” partner, and small learning effect
for seco.
The cooperation of seco and SDC has generally been appraised by counterparts as flexible,
needs-oriented and non-bureaucratic.
Given the large “unfinished agenda” in many countries in transition, and bearing in mind the
good results and experience acquired from the cooperation of seco and SDC with the East, a
continuation of the Swiss cooperation is strongly recommended. Any possible Swiss contribution
to the cohesion fund of the European Union, or the financing of projects through other
channels in favour of immediate EU candidate countries, should not be made at the expense
of the cooperation programmes of seco and SDC.
Lessons learnt
The scope and time requirements needed to cope with the challenges of the transition process
were initially underestimated by the donor community as well as by the recipient countries.
The often unpredictable dynamics and changing national priorities required a permanent
adjustment of policies and instruments. SDC and seco were able to apply the various
instruments in a flexible manner. The overall success of the Swiss programme was mainly
due to: a) a blending of Swiss know-how and investments with local needs and capacities, b)
a continuous improvement of the professional quality of cooperation and a valorisation of
learning processes, c) an improved collaboration between SDC and seco with increasing experience
by taking advantage of the different strengths of the various cooperation instruments,
and d) the establishment of joint cooperation offices with country programmes in 12
countries. These joint efforts allowed the further delegation of implementation to local partners
(governmental as well as civil and private sector), to improve monitoring and controlling,
and to strengthen the policy dialogue. Flexibility in designing the approaches, selecting the
instruments and in administration are particularly appreciated by the local partners.