Evaluating Country Programmes - OECD Online Bookshop

OECD 1999
Country Programme Evaluations Workshop: The Case of Tanzania
failure to settle the political problem of Zanzibar might lead to major social upheavals
on the islands and lead to a political crisis. Moreover, the large number of refugees
(250 000) located at the borders with Rwanda and Burundi caused some unrest
due to the pressure on local resources and interferences with Burundi.
Finally, the big question remains: How long can Tanzania remain peaceful in a
regional conflictual environment?
Concluding remarks2 How can the effective involvement of partner country officials and beneficiaries
be ensured given prevailing donor needs and requirements for accountability and
professional evaluation standards?
An overview
The management of development process in a country is a partnership
endeavour which should concern every party with a stake in it. In an ideal situation,
the host government takes a lead in the process, its citizens/civil society are fully
briefed on the underlying policies and strategies for country development enabling
them to participate in the development process, and donor countries co-operate in
support, based on local priorities. Hence, the programme design and intervention
strategies should be based on expressed country/target groups’ needs and capacities.
Feedback mechanisms, both top-down and bottom-up, should be included as
well as indicators to address the impact of interventions. Subsequently, the country
programme evaluation (CPE) purpose, criteria and standards should be integral to
the programme design.
Traditionally, and still tending to prevail today, country development issues
were mainly a concern of the host government and donors, while the local population
tended to be excluded from the setting of development priorities. Donors
sometimes even took a lead in projects/programme design, planning, and also
management of the process of implementation, so as to make sure that the standards
and performance as perceived by them were attained. As a result of these
misconceptions, the local know-how in the design and formulation of new programmes
has been curtailed, hence perpetuating the donor-driven and unsustainable
programme initiatives. The generally poor results and impact of such
programmes to potential target groups are indicative of the approaches employed
from their conception to the end result.
Outlook
To reverse this situation, it is imperative to learn first from past experiences
and lessons so that a sound base can be established to anchor the new
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