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Evaluating Country Programmes
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Twenty-one donor countries or multilateral aid organisations and seven
partner countries were represented at Vienna in March 1999 (see Appendix 1.2).
This paper provides an analytical overview of the presentations and
discussions.
Opening and closing with comments from the DAC and from the Austrian hosts,
the workshop was structured as four plenary sessions in which delegates presented
prepared papers. Between plenary sessions participants divided into four issuebased
discussion groups. These small Working Groups met on three occasions over
the two days, each group discussing a specific aspect of Country Programme Evaluation.
The conclusions of each of the groups were presented to the whole Workshop
in the fourth and final plenary session on the afternoon of the second day.
(See Appendix 1.1).
The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) prepared a background paper for
the Workshop. This reviewed a sample of the CPEs known to have been published
between 1994 and 1999 and described the range of purposes and methodologies
which were apparent in the sample (Conway and Maxwell, 1999). The ODI review
was presented in the opening session and made suggestions regarding what
constituted good practice in Country Programme Evaluation. This set of recommendations
provoked considerable debate: the final list (reproduced here as Box 1.7 in
the Conclusions) incorporates comments made at the Workshop.
The subsequent presentations were each supported by summary papers (see
Bibliography for full list). Five of these were case studies of particular CPEs, presented
by the donor involved. In the case of the presentations by the Netherlands,
Swiss, French and EU delegates, the donor perspective was complemented by
commentaries from national partners. In the four remaining presentations, donors
described their experience with Country Programme Evaluation as an agency-wide
approach, rather than through the examination of a particular case study.
Rather than attempt to summarise each of the individual presentations in turn,
this document provides an analytical overview, drawing out some of the key points
emerging from i) a state-of-the-art review paper, ii) the case study presentations
and iii) the discussion groups (as summarised in the brief presentations in the closing
session).
For consistency, the review which follows is structured under the four thematic
headings which were used as the titles of the discussion groups. The headings are:
i) the rationale, purpose and use of CPEs; ii) methods, approaches and criteria used
in Country Programme Evaluation; iii) the identification, attribution and measurement
of impact; and iv) the current and potential role of donor-partner and multidonor
co-operation in the Country Programme Evaluation process. The final section
pulls together the main conclusions under each of these themes.
OECD 1999