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Evaluating Country Programmes
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– Formulation of a coherent cross-project strategy for each priority area which,
among other things, provides information on the medium-term goals of German
assistance, the framework conditions needed to sustain the success of
the development co-operation commitment, the target groups and counterpart
institutions on the partner side, as well as the instruments to be used
and the way in which they are co-ordinated.
– Use of country concepts as a management and monitoring instrument in
accordance with the strategy formulated for the priority areas.
The evaluation revealed some shortcomings in each of these three steps:
– The priority areas of development co-operation were not always identified
in accordance with the guidelines.
– It was noted that a coherent cross-project strategy was lacking for a large
number of priority areas.
– Consequently, the country concepts were not always able to fully fulfil their
management and monitoring function.
In addition, it should be noted that as yet the BMZ’s country concepts have not
been used for the systematic evaluation of country programmes of German development
co-operation.
The following sections look into these points in more detail. But, beforehand,
it is necessary to define the term “priority areas” more precisely, since it is central
to the objective pursued by the country concepts, and the evaluation showed that
some of the points at issue here are often unclear.
The case for a problem- and goal-oriented understanding of priority areas
The BMZ’s country-concept guidelines do not give an explicit definition of the
term “priority area”. Proceeding from various individual references in the guidelines
for determining priority areas, it is, however, possible to give the following definition:
A priority area is defined by the decision as to where best to concentrate
scarce German development co-operation resources and the instruments of German
development co-operation available with a view to achieving the most significant
and sustainable contribution possible towards, solving a core problem in a
partner country.
This definition has the virtue that it is of a substantive and not formal nature. It
resists being equated with terms such as sector, subsector, or region (and the delineation
problems they entail). In addressing a core problem in the partner country
and calling for a significant (i.e. structure-building) contribution, it poses the question
of the relevance and the objective of the German development co-operation
contribution and it refers to the development policy-related search and decision
process associated with the selection of priority areas.
OECD 1999