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 forward looking, formative and improvement-oriented.

The main objectives of the evaluation are:

1. To assess the relevance, coherence, complementariness of ADC’s strategic framework for Albania and synergies in its implementation;

2. To assess the effectiveness, overall impact and prospects for sustainability of ADC’s strategic orientation and its implementation in Albania and identify hindering and facilitating factors;

3. To assess the efficiency and effectiveness of funding instruments, implementation modalities and partnerships used by ADC for its engagement in Albania and identify related good practice and challenges;

4. To identify and help sharpen the comparative advantage and added value of ADC’s engagement in Albania.

Expected results

The evaluation will provide evidence for institutional learning at the strategic level and help define the future ADC engagement in Albania, with particular attention to Albania’s accession process to the European Union and related implications for ADC, including a possible phasing over and options for ADC cooperation at a different level. The timing of this evaluation, two thirds into the strategy’s implementation, will allow that its findings, lessons learned and recommendations contribute to developing a possible new Albania Country Strategy for 2021 and beyond. As the current CS is still being implemented until the end of 2020, the evaluation will also help taking stock, reflecting and making adjustments, where needed and adequate, for the remaining implementation period.

Target group / Beneficiaries

The primary users of the evaluation results is ADC’s management, more specifically, strategic decision makers, senior management and program (country desk and thematic) staff across relevant departments at BMEIA and ADA (HQ und field). It is expected that the evaluation will also be useful for Austrian ODA actors and ADC partners active in Albania, which meet on a regular basis institutionalized through the Interministerial Session (IMS).

Activities

ADA’s Evaluation Unit (EVAL) is commissioning a strategic mid-term evaluation of ADC’s 2015-2020 Country Strategy for Albania (thereinafter “evaluation”), more specifically, from the second half of 2014, when ADC’s preparations to develop a new Albania strategy started, until April 2019. The evaluation is to be conducted by a team of external consultants between April/May 2019 and December 2019/January 2020. The Terms of Reference (ToR) for this Evaluation are the main planning document that describes the purpose, scope and main evaluation questions. They are based on existing ADC/ADA guidance on country and regional strategy evaluations and have been drafted through a consultative process with inputs from key stakeholders in Austria and Albania.

The evaluation will reconstruct the Theory of Change (ToC) for all three priority sectors and the cross-cutting issues. In terms of assessing effectiveness, impact and sustainability, two of the three priority sectors will be selected for in depth analysis during the inception phase. The evaluation will also look at how the crosscutting issues and the human rights based approach have been applied within each and across sectors. Even though ADC’s Regional Strategy for the Danube Area / Western Balkans Region is not the focus of this evaluation, the evaluation will take its role in consideration in terms of issues of coherence, complementariness and synergies.

The evaluation will be divided into three phases which each have specific deliverables. Their timely delivery is within the responsibility of the evaluation tam. The evaluation will include visits to Vienna and Albania. A total of three to four visits to Vienna (Kick-Off, Inception Report Presentation and Interviews, Preliminary findings Presentation, Final Draft Report) and one, if needed and as agreed with the ADA Evaluation Unit, two, field trips to Albania are foreseen during the evaluation.

Context

The Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC) has been active in Albania for over 25 years, with Albania being an ADC focus country since 1992 and in-country presence with an Austrian Development Cooperation Office in Tirana since 1995. Austrian Development Policy’s current strategic Three Years Program (3YP) for the period 2019 to 2021 confirms Albania as a focus country and South East Europe as a focus region. For the region and its focus countries, the 3YP outlines an overall prioritization of sustainable economic development and the strategic orientation of ADC’s engagement in the context of the European Union enlargement process and the EU strategy for the Western Balkans. The current Country Strategy for Albania (thereinafter Country Strategy/CS) was developed in late 2014 and spans over six years (2015-2020). Importantly, it includes also a matrix that outlines objectives, results, indicators and actors as formulated at the time of strategy development.