Bolivia

The purpose of this evaluation was to build an evidence base regarding SDC’s engagement in climate change adaptation and mitigation, including partnerships established by SDC to address climate change adaptation and mitigation at global, regional and national level.

The evaluation was designed to:

• Contribute to strategic decision-making (i.e. for the Dispatch 2021-2024).
• Derive lessons learnt in order to improve institutional performance.
• Serve as one measure of accountability towards the Parliament and the public.

The evaluation : i) assessed the successes, difficulties / challenges (including failures) of programmes and projects in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation implemented by SDC; ii) identified ‘good practices’ and determined how they could be systematically applied within SDC; iii) conducted a comparison / benchmarking of SDC’s performance compared to international practices; and iv) assessed the effectiveness and rate of achievement of projects and programmes.

The evaluation covered activities implemented during a period of six years (2015-2020) from all domains of SDC (i.e. South Cooperation; Global Cooperation; Humanitarian Aid; and Cooperation with Eastern Europe). It concentrated on projects in the area of climate change adaptation (CCA) and climate change mitigation (CCM) that SDC steers or co-steers. This includes direct implemented projects, mandates and contributions to trust or basket funds, etc. It excludes core contributions to multilateral organizations, large Funds (GCF, IDA, etc.) and NGOs.

This independent evaluation of WFP Country Strategic Plan in Bolivia assessed the strategic positionning, added-value and results of WFP operations in the Country from 2018 to 2021.

The evaluation served the double purpose of accountability (performance and result assessment) and learning (why certain results occurred or not, lessons and evidence for decision-making about a potential scale-up). It is envisioned that the evaluation will inform the design of the new CSP for Bolivia, which is scheduled for Executive Board consideration in November 2022.

CSP key sectors and activities included:

• Emergency preparedness (incl. early warning systems) and response (including food for assets/ cash-based transfers)
• Nutrition (including nutritional education) and social protection
• Smallholder farmer support (including market support, training, and links with school feeding)
• Institutional capacity strengthening

Cross-cutting themes include: Gender equality and empowerment of women (GEEW), humanitarian principles and protection, accountability to affected populations (AAP), WFP partnership strategy

The evaluation employed a mixed-method approach that triangulated qualitative and quantitative from a variety of sources. For this purpose, the evaluation team conducted interviews with different stakeholders including WFP staff at HQ, regional and country level, WFP cooperation partners, ministries as well as focus group discussions with the beneficiaries.

Link to the publication: https://www.wfp.org/publications/evaluation-bolivia-wfp-country-strategic-plan-2018-2022

This action contributed to the effective implementation of international human rights instruments, principles and standards, primarily by means of exchange of best practices with partner countries.

The project was conceived to serve and preserve EU values and interests by means of complementary actions. It promoted policy cooperation with partner countries of strategic interest to the EU as well as enhanced the EU's visibility and coherence. This was done through the development of an analysis of the human rights situation in 13 countries, the organisation of seminars/roundtables and outreach activities. This ensured increased human rights awareness and access to human rights knowledge.

The Specific objectives were:

• 1)
  To ensure appropriate follow-up to political and human rights dialogues with partner countries. This includes, inter alia, facilitating south-south cooperation and exchange of ideas, knowledge and expertise on commonly identified human rights issues; providing technical assistance including in the form of trainings and roundtable discussions with governments in partner countries in order to strengthen their human rights expertise; facilitating interaction among representatives from the private sector and government representatives in partner countries to ensure compliance with the internationally recognised human rights framework; and facilitating regular interaction between partner countries with a view to building and reinforcing regional alliances which may contribute to serving EU interests in multilateral fora;
• 2)
  To contribute to bringing together experts from the EU and partner countries such as academics, private sector and government representatives in order to equip the EU to remain innovative and tackle emerging subjects of EU interest as a vehicle of cooperation with partner countries such as artificial intelligence, academic freedom, right to water and sanitation, economic social and cultural rights;
• 3)
  To support and enhance the monitoring of Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) GSP+/ Everything but Arms (EBA) beneficiaries' commitments under the seven GSP core human rights conventions.

Internal studies analysing Human Rights situation in the following countries

• Armenia
• Bangladesh
• Bolivia
• Cabo Verde
• Cambodia
• Kyrgyztan
• Mongolia
• Myanmar
• Pakistan
• Philippines
• Sri Lanka
• Tajikistan
• Uzbekistan

The purpose of this evaluation was to build an evidence base for the implementation of the SDC’s Guidelines on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), and programmes and partnerships established by SDC to address DRR on global, regional and national levels.

The evaluation was designed to:

• Contribute to strategic decision-making (i.e. for the Dispatch 2021-2024).
• Derive lessons learnt in order to improve institutional performance.
• Serve as one measure of accountability towards the Parliament and the public.

The evaluation assessed the extent to which and how DRR practice is currently and should be applied across the SDC. The evaluation team identified successes, challenges and opportunities for DRR within the SDC as well as a comparison of SDC’s performance with other practices when feasible.

The temporal scope was 2010-2017, covering almost three Swiss Dispatches, including but not limited to, an estimated tentative total of approximately 461.9 million CHF, 818 projects with 1,482 ‘project phases’, identified by the DRR Portfolio Analysis. The evaluation was both backward (2010-2018) - and forward-looking (building on good practice to suggest ways SDC can reshape the future of DRR).

The geographic scope of the evaluation was global with an in-depth analysis of five geographic case studies: Peru/Bolivia, Chad, Morocco, Tajikistan and Thailand/Myanmar. In addition, three thematic case studies have been performed: 1.Climate Change and DRR: adaptation (CCA) & mitigation (CCM), 2. DRR Value for Money (V4M); and 3. Modalities: Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit/Secondments, Network, DRR Consultative Group.

While the Whole of Government Approach (WoGA) was explored as was feasible, this was not an evaluation of any specific department, division, department, network, component or project/programme inside or outside SDC.

The global objective was the support in the formulation and negotiation of new Action Document and its annexes in the area of Integral Development in coca-leaf production regions.

The specific objective was to support the EU Delegation to Bolivia in producing the necessary analysis (including cross cutting issues) and draft documentation for the negotiation and formulation of the Action Document based on the existing Concept Note.

The consultants, in support of, in close coordination with and under the supervision of the EU Delegation during the negotiation and formulation process:

• facilitated the scheduling, preparation and reporting of all the necessary meetings with national authorities and/or other parties, and
• produced the draft documents (indicated in the section 2.4. Outputs) necessary for the negotiation and formulation process of The Sector Budget Support for the development of the new National Strategy for Integral and Sustainable Development with Coca (PAPS3).

The Chapeau contract concerned the external financing instruments (EFIs) of the European Union. It was an overarching contract comprising several individual external financing instrument evaluations, a Coherence Report of the EFIs, and the process of co-ordination across all the EFIs.

The objective of each of the individual EFI evaluations was:

• to provide the relevant external relations services of the European Union and the wider public with an independent assessment of the European Union's EFIs, including complementarities/synergies between the given EFI and each of the other EFIs.
• to inform the programming and implementation of the current EFIs, as well as the next generation of the EFIs.

The deliverables of the Chapeau contract were as follows:

• the Development Co-operation Instrument (DCI) Evaluation Report.
• the Greenland Decision (GD) Evaluation Report.

The DCI and GD are two instruments in the set of EFIs which together form the multi-annual financing package for the programming cycle 2014 – 2020.

• the Common Implementing Regulation (CIR) Evaluation Report. The CIR is an 'umbrella' regulation which brings together the implementing rules for the following instruments – DCI, ENI, EIDHR, PI, IcSP, IPA II. The Greenland Decision and INSC follow these rules as well.
• a Coherence Report of the EFIs. The report showed to what extent the existing instruments were, when considered together, still adapted to the evolving international context and still contribute to a consistent Union external action.
• Co-ordination.The objective of the co-ordination tasks was to ensure a reasonably consistent and coherent approach across the set of individual EFI evaluations. The Chapeau contract team leader had the specific role of working with, drawing on and co-ordinating knowledge produced by the evaluations within this contract and the evaluation teams of the other EFI evaluations.

The reports are availble at:

DCI: https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/draft-evaluation-report-external-financing-instruments-development-cooperation-instrument-dci_en

Greenland: https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/evaluation-greenland-decision-gd-draft-report_en

CIR: https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/draft-evaluation-report-external-financing-instruments-common-implementing-regulation_en

The global objectives of the evaluation were:

a) to provide the relevant external and co-operation services and other impacted services of the EU (FPI, EEAS, DEVCO, NEAR) with an independent assessment of the achievement of the intended results of EU election observation missions and b) to identify key lessons and forward looking recommendations in order to improve future actions in this field.

The specific objectives of the evaluation were as follows:

a) The evaluation will assess EU election observation activities worldwide during the period January 2012–June 2016, using two of the standard five DAC criteria for evaluating Development Assistance, namely those of effectiveness and impact. As the evaluation should reflect a results-oriented management approach, these two DAC criteria were selected being the most relevant for this purpose.

b) The difference of this evaluation, compared to the wider one on the EIDHR in the context of the Mid Term Review Report, is that it is more focused on effectiveness and impact and takes also into consideration the beneficiaries' side with field visits of the evaluators in countries in which EU election observation has been conducted. This evaluation has also a shorter time span.