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Evaluating Country Programmes
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environmental sustainability. Activities for which aid had been terminated
provided a clear insight into the main factors responsible by comparing differences
in sustainability among these projects. The potential sustainability
of results was assessed in ongoing activities. This method facilitated the
identification of relevant factors influencing sustainability at (sub-) sectoral
level.
iv) At the country programme level, conclusions were drawn concerning the
main aspects of evaluation on the basis of the sector assessments: policy
relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability. Policy relevance
comprised the orientation of aid towards Egypt’s crucial development
concerns, policy congruence between Egypt and the Netherlands, and
effects of Dutch aid on Egyptian policy. There were no major difficulties in
aggregating findings on policy relevance at the country programme level;
almost all activities addressed serious problems, shifts from commodity support
to technical assistance, and institutional strengthening reflected the
needs in the various sectors and past experiences in the Dutch aid programme.
Effectiveness for programme aid was assessed in the framework of
overall donor support and its contribution to alleviating balance of payments
pressure and reducing the debt service ratio. Aggregating the effectiveness
of project aid posed major difficulties because of the differences among
(sub-) sectors. Therefore, the analysis focused on the identification of factors
influencing success and failure and the role of technical assistance in
strengthening institutions. For efficiency, it proved possible to aggregate
findings at the country programme level by identifying a set of common phenomena
related to programme development and project cycle management.
Also, differences in sustainability among sectors were related to identical
factors: government policy, the orientation towards client demand and the
degree of financial autonomy of public institutions.
Partnership in evaluation
The mandate of the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department of the
Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to independently assess the results of the
Netherlands’ development assistance. Following the reassessment of the Netherlands’
foreign policy in 1996, the Department’s mandate was broadened to include other
aspects of foreign policy besides those of development co-operation. The
Department reports directly to the minister concerned, who then submits the studies
to Parliament. As indicated in each of the studies, the Evaluation Department
does not share responsibility for the content of its reports. Within this mandate,
however, the Evaluation Department attempts to optimise the participation and
contribution of the recipient country in its country programme evaluations.
OECD 1999