Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

The main purposes of this evaluation are learning and steering for better strategic decision making, programming and implementation. The evaluation will be formative and improvement oriented. This is the first strategic evaluation of ADC’s engagement in Palestine.

The main objectives of the evaluation are:

1. To assess the relevance and coherence of ADC’s engagement in Palestine and identify hindering and facilitating factors;

2. To assess the effectiveness, impact and sustainability of ADCs engagement in Palestine and identify good practice and challenges;

3. To assess facilitating and hindering factors for the sustainability of development results in general in Palestine;

4. To elaborate lessons learned in relation to relevance, coherence, effectiveness, impact and sustainability based on the findings and issue evidence-based, action-able recommendations for ADC’s future engagement in Palestine and, to the extent possible, in other fragile contexts.

Expected results

The evaluation will provide evidence for institutional and intra-institutional learning, including in relation to strategies, instruments, processes as well as resource needs. This will help understand ADCs role, impact and added value to date and help define its future engagement in Palestine.

Target group / Beneficiaries

The primary users of this evaluation are around 50 persons, more specifically, strategic decision makers, senior management and program staff across relevant departments at FMEIA and ADA (in Austria and in Palestine). It is expected that the evaluation will also be useful for other Austrian ODA actors and ADC partners active in Palestine.

Activities

The evaluation will employ a Mixed-Methods approach to data collection and data analysis, including both quantitative and qualitative methods. A Mixed-Methods design will be used to draw from the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative methods and to improve the internal validity of results through data and method triangulation. As such, the evaluation will use a range of data sources and data collection methods to ensure the reliability of results, promote impartiality, reduce bias, and ensure that the findings are based on the most comprehensive and relevant information possible.

Context

The Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs of Austria (FMEIA) started its bilateral development cooperation with Palestine in 1993 and opened a Representative Office (RO) in Ramallah in 1998 with Palestine being one of ADC’s priority countries since then. The RO Ramallah includes a sub-office in Gaza and covers the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). It fulfills core foreign policy tasks including of economic, cultural and consular nature in addition to its responsibilities as Coordination Office of the Austrian Development Cooperation. The human resources of the Representative Office have varied over time and, as of March 2022, comprise five staff on the ground in Ramallah and Gaza.

The main task of Austrian Development Cooperation in Palestine is to assist Palestine on its way to a two-state solution by supporting the Palestinian Authority (PA) in building efficient, democratically legitimate and controlled institutions for a future sovereign democratic state. EU strategies and key documents form the basis for ADCs work and efforts in Palestine, with Austria participating in the EU’s Joint Programming since 2017 and no separate ADC strategy on Palestine in place. This puts ADC in Palestine in a unique position compared to its other focus countries for which ADC has developed its own strategies.

In terms of financial flows, between 2004 and 2020, Austrian ODA to Palestine totaled EUR 79.29 million, out of which 70.52 million by the Austrian Development Cooperation (FMEIA and ADA). For comparison, the total ODA from OECD DAC members to Palestine amounted to USD 33.6 billion between 2004 and 2019.