Country Programme (2007-2011/2012) evaluation - UNFPA Moldova

• Group interviews or focus groups where there is an advantage in encouraging reflection and
response, or where time is limited (also semi-structured).
• Site visits were proposed to better understand the context and achievements of the programme, as
well as the dynamic interaction of stakeholders in programme activities.
• Small case studies 13 were considered if appropriate to illustrate results chains or other programme
achievements.
The principles of triangulation (use of multiple sources, including key informants) and stakeholder
participation were implemented for this evaluation.
The assessment of CP strategies was established as a core element for the evaluation exercise, in the terms
of reference. The evaluators felt that the adequateness and meaningfulness of UNFPA’s implementation
strategies could not be properly described by traditional evaluation criteria. In order to capture more
precisely the character of the strategies this evaluation presents in Box 4 below a new set of criteria. We
suggest that UNFPA should consider these new criteria for the description of a CP strategy as a proposal
or an experiment, since they are not part of traditional literature on evaluation. UNFPA should feel free to
consider or reject this proposal as useful for their needs.
All interview partners and site visits were selected jointly between UNFPA and the evaluation team. The
stakeholder consultation process started with a joint meeting between all interview partners to be visited
during the mission, UNFPA and the evaluation team, for presentation of the evaluation purpose and
approach. This “ice-breaking” meeting proved to be useful in the following sense. First, stakeholders and
interview partner were aware of the central approach evaluation approach on outcomes and could get
prepared for the interview meetings with specific documentation, this way avoiding providing only
general information talking from memory. However, before starting interviews and site visits the
evaluators had an initial meeting with the steering committee of this evaluation, composed by high
ranking officials from the main government partners regarding the three CP components. 14 At the end of
the country visit a second multi-stakeholder meeting was realized providing a presentation of preliminary
findings of the evaluation.
Given the very limited time period for the implementation of the data recollection field mission, most of
the stakeholders were not addressed individually. Interviews were frequently conducted as group
meetings with three or more participants. 15
Gender and human rights are crosscutting issues in the CP. They were addressed directly and indirectly.
Specific gender focused activities such as the support to protection of victims of domestic violence were
assessed applying all evaluation criteria defined in the terms of reference. All remaining activities, which
should incorporate gender and human rights issues as crosscutting areas of attention were assessed
13 Boxes within the text of this report
14 The steering committee is composed by vice ministers or department directors within ministries; for a detailed list
of interviewed stakeholders, as well as their position and function see annex.
15 Identity and number of participants in interview meetings can be found in the annex.
UNFPA Moldova Extended Country Programme (2007-2011/12)
Outcome Evaluation
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