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Evaluating Country Programmes
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Also, for the CPE Egypt, such a policy report has been sent to Parliament which
will be discussed at short notice by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The Minister’s policy reaction on the CPE Egypt includes a number of intentions
and proposals to increase the relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of
development co-operation with Egypt. Further details about future policy will
become available after discussions in Parliament and consultations with the
Egyptian Government. Therefore, the aspects mentioned below are provisional.
These include:
– The fragmentation of the country programme, due to the large number of
diverse projects, will be further reduced. Attempts have been made in
recent years to streamline the programme.
– This process of bringing more cohesion and coherence to the aid programme
will be based on a careful selection of a limited number of priority sectors,
for which sector support documents will be produced.
– These documents will be based on the Egyptian Government’s policy
papers, some of which have been announced already, e.g. those for agriculture
and health.
– They will specify ways and means to realise joint Egyptian-Netherlands’
development priorities such as poverty alleviation, institutional strengthening,
improvement of the position of women and environmental conservation.
– The Egyptian Government’s privatisation policy, indicating the focus of the
public sector on key activities and tasks, will be further supported; relevant
experiences in projects supported by the Netherlands will be communicated
through the appropriate Egyptian channels for the elaboration of
policies.
– The geographical concentration of the Netherlands’ aid in the Fayoum Governorate
will be continued, and more attention will be given to ways and
means to realise the value-added of geographical concentration at governorate
level.
– Monitoring of aid activities will be improved by focusing more on output and
effects of aid, especially regarding poverty alleviation and improvement of
the position of women.
Conclusions
Country programme evaluation in the Netherlands’ development assistance
has been comprehensive, complex and time-consuming. The CPE for Egypt lasted
for almost three years, cost almost USD0.8 million and involved 25 consultants of
whom 15 were from Egypt. The reason for the long duration was threefold: the wide
scope and ambitious objectives of the evaluation; the complexity of the aid programme
for Egypt; and intensive consultations with stakeholders in host countries.
OECD 1999