Evaluating Country Programmes - OECD Online Bookshop

OECD 1999
Box 2.5. Recommendations for good practices
in country programme evaluation
Country Programme Evaluation: A State of the Art Review
– The terms of reference (ToR) for a CPE should clearly state the purposes (input to
a programme cycle or to a country strategy more generally (forward-looking
CPEs), or provide a more general review of “lessons learned”, perhaps as the
basis for inter-country comparison or evaluation of agency-wide policy (historical
CPEs); the timing; and the ways in which the findings are to feed into policy or
practice (approval, dissemination and follow-up procedures).
– The ToR should clearly specify the goals (e.g. poverty reduction, growth in certain
sectors) against which country programme success or failure must be judged.
These goals may be those of the individual projects; of the country programme (if
a country strategy is in existence); or of the agency as a whole. If the CPE is to
examine more than one level of goals, or if goals have changed over time, it
should address specifically the relationships (complementary or contradictory)
between goals at different levels.
– The terms of reference for CPEs should generally require the evaluators to
consider the influence of systemic issues, i.e. policy and administrative
constraints affecting the programme, on both the donor and recipient sides.
Appropriate expertise, time and access should be allotted to these tasks.
– Evaluation criteria should be both realistic and explicit. Consideration should be
given to the use of scoring systems (ideally comparable between sectors and
between countries).
– Evaluators should specify comparators. This may be achieved by carrying out
CPEs jointly among a number of donors. Alternatively, evaluators should seek to
obtain programme, sector or project evaluation reports from other donors. This
will allow at least some elements of country programme performance to be
benchmarked.
– CPEs will not necessarily attempt to undertake primary research. Detailed analysis
of impact is always desirable but may be beyond the scope of most CPEs.
Donors should design CPEs on the basis of what is feasible and justifiable in a
given situation: when impact evaluation is impossible or can only be obtained at
a prohibitive cost, this should be acknowledged and the goals of the CPE limited,
realistically, to a rigorous examination of the relevance, efficiency and sustainability
of the country programme.
– More could be done to translate principles of partnership into reality. There are
undoubtedly obstacles to joint or multi-donor evaluations but donors should
continue to try to overcome these obstacles. Mechanisms for information-sharing
between donors could include: consultation prior to design of ToR; partnercountry
or joint partner-donor advisory groups; presentation of draft findings to
stakeholder groups for review; and invitations for a formal partner reaction to
draft and final documents.
– Whoever manages the CPE, the team carrying out the study should consist of
nationals of both the donor and recipient countries.
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