Reports - United Nations Development Programme

COUNTRY EVALUATION: ASSESSMENT OF DEVELOPMENT RESULTS – TURKEY
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process of reassessing its programme in Turkey. The
purpose of this evaluation is to help in the design of a
strategy for enhancing performance and strategically
positioning and focusing UNDP support within national
development priorities and UNDP corporate policy directions.
Based on a review of current and past programmes,
on discussions with stakeholders and on an assessment of
the UNDP’s comparative advantages within the current
human development challenges and goals in Turkey, the
evaluation concludes that key strategic areas for UNDP
support to Turkey in the future would focus on five
thematic areas: governance, poverty reduction,
environment, gender and crisis response. The ADR seeks
to identify the status of outcomes, the factors affecting
outcomes, the UNDP’s contribution to outcomes and the
strategic positioning employed within these five strategic
areas. The time period covered is primarily from 1998 to
the present, but the analysis takes a longer-term view
where this is relevant, and puts a strong emphasis on
evaluating lessons learned so they may be used for future
strategies. Recommendations are designed to be forwardlooking
and to suggest the best use of the UNDP’s
comparative advantages in today’s Turkey.
B. METHODOLOGY
The methodology used in this evaluation is an integral
part of the UNDP’s RBM approach, focusing on
outcomes, which are defined as changes in specific
conditions through contributions from various
development actors. 1 A major aim of the ADR is to draw
a credible link between overall development results and
the UNDP’s contribution to their achievement. It is
focused on determining “higher level” results by
evaluating outcomes, with a principal focus on the
UNDP’s contribution. The emphasis on higher level
results is intended to improve understanding of the
outcome, its status, and the factors that influence or
contribute to change. The evaluation was designed to
facilitate the identification of different outcomes and their
interrelationships, which, in turn, should expedite the
assessment of the overall achievements in a given
country – whether at the outcome or a longer-term
impact level. Following from this, the evaluation attempts
to explain the UNDP’s contribution to results. However,
the approach also considers project level outcomes as far
as possible. Verifiable results achieved through UNDP
involvement represent an important reality check on the
impact that the UNDP has in practical terms and there
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1. For more detailed information on methodology see the TOR in Annexe1.
are important lessons to be learned about how the UNDP
operates, about the opportunities and constraints it faces,
and about its effectiveness as a client-oriented institution.
Therefore, this country evaluation also includes a
“bottom-up” analysis for a sample of the most important
programmes, projects and non-project activities.
The overall objectives of the ADR are to
1. Support the UNDP Administrator’s substantive
accountability function to the Executive Board and
serve as a vehicle for quality assurance of UNDP
interventions at the country level.
2. Generate lessons from experience to inform current
and future strategy and programming at the country
and corporate levels.
3. Provide programme stakeholders with an objective
assessment of results that have been achieved through
UNDP support and partnerships with other key
actors for a given multi-year period.
The preparatory work for the evaluation started with
extensive desk research including programme mapping
and documentation review by the UNDP Evaluation
Office. This was followed by an exploratory mission to
Turkey, which consisted of direct consultations with the
UNDP Country Office and key stakeholders. The
exploratory mission aided in determining the focus of the
evaluation as a basis for the Terms of Reference (TOR).
In preparation for the main evaluation mission, two
targeted, detailed background studies were commissioned:
In-Depth Study on Regional Disparities and Poverty, by
Prof. Dr. Yusuf Ziya Özcan, Department of
Sociology, Middle East Technical University, Ankara
In-Depth Study on Local Governance and Capacity
Building, by Prof. Dr. Çelik Aruoba, Assoc. Prof. Dr.
Nesrin Algan and Mr. Tezcan Abay, Ankara
University, Faculty of Political Sciences
This background work entailed the review of
programme and project documentation, interviews, focus
group discussions and field visits. The results of these
studies were available to the ADR Evaluation Team at
the outset of the main mission and served as a valuable
input into the analysis of the focus areas of governance
and poverty.
The main evaluation mission took place in January
2004 and lasted two weeks. The ADR Evaluation Team
consisted of four members: one national external
consultant, two international external consultants, and
one member of the UNDP’s Evaluation Office. The
Team consulted a wide range of stakeholders from the