Evaluating Country Programmes - OECD Online Bookshop

OECD 1999
Country Programme Planning and Country Programme Evaluation within SDC
The workshop suggested that redefining role and composition of the Co-ordination
Office – based on an analysis of actual functions (what are we really doing?) and functioning
(decision-making, communication/information, management instruments) – should be one of
the next steps. These topics were dealt with at a one-day programme officers retreat on
14 October 1993, at which programme staff of the Co-ordination Office participated.
A self-evaluation workshop was organised on 14-16 November. This workshop, attended by
the programme staff of the Co-ordination Office and the desk officer for Bangladesh at headquarters,
pursued the purpose of evaluating the main project activities of SDC in Bangladesh
on the basis of predefined and agreed criteria, proposing improvements, and drafting a first
dynamic plan of priority sectors (phasing in and out, increase and decrease of focus), and
vectors of activity for the coming 5-10 years. The question of clarification of responsibilities
between the Co-ordination Office and headquarters, and how these responsibilities are perceived
and assumed individually, was also taken up.
Finally, on 18 May 1994, an information feedback workshop took place to inform the project
partners about the progress of the review and provide them with the draft outline of the
future co-operation concept. The partners were invited to give feedback on the rationale
of the new programme and reflect on some crucial aspects. The workshop was attended
by 35 participants (partners, resource persons, and Co-ordination Office staff), including
SDC’s deputy director in charge of bilateral co-operation and the Chargé d’Affaires a.i. of
Switzerland in Bangladesh.
Conferences
The elaboration of a vision benefited a lot from four lectures and talks given by thinkprovoking,
visionary Bangladeshi to a selected audience drawn from the Co-ordination
Office, the Embassy and project partners. The conference, by Dr. Hossain Zillur Rahman, a
young researcher of BIDS, focused on poverty in Bangladesh. The renowned economist, Prof.
Rehman Sobhan, was invited to talk about aid dependency and self-determined development.
Prof. Mosharraf Hossain, another important economist, explained his own mediumterm
development strategy centred around the dynamic forces of the domestic economy
(small farmers, entrepreneurs of the informal sector). Dr. Kazi Faruque Ahmed, Executive
Director of one of the largest NGOs, Proshika MUK, presented his vision on the potential role
and limitations of NGOs in the development of Bangladesh.
SDC regulations and guidelines
The main reference document used for guidance was the “Leitbild” (strategic guidelines).
It provided the criteria for the self-evaluation of the project activities and helped in
selecting the priority vectors and sectors of the programme. Other important reference documents
are SDC’s regulations (Weisung) on country programming and the draft of the
medium-term programme of Section Asia I.
Documentation
To make the process transparent, the different steps were carefully documented. The
design of the review was shown in a concept paper-Methods and results of the workshops
were presented in short reports. Finally, a draft synopsis of the new concept was worked out
and submitted to Section Asia I for comments and approval.
229