Evaluation Unit EuropeAid

1. Evaluation Unit EuropeAid Martyn Pennington Head of Evaluation Unit- Devco B2 Workshop on Lessons Learned from International Joint Evaluations French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry 6th February, 2012.

2. Budget Support Evaluation MUTUAL TRUST

3. Consensus Building Process • Creation of two groups Present work for further discussion and approval Steering Group Core Group Head of evaluation services OECD/ DAC Delegate Tasks

4. Activities Include: Donor Country • Agreement on the approach • Standard ToR for the evaluation of Budget support • Criteria for the choice of test evaluations • Inventory of BS support interventions and proposal for the tests • Introductory Note to the Partner country to ease involvement • Choice of (a) lead donor(s) for each evaluation • Ongoing work on Institutional Arrangements (multiannual evaluation plan, training issues, quality control, harmonization and capitalization)

5. Partner Country Activities Include: • First contact through the representatives of the donors in partner country: leader in • country is the lead donor at the head quarter level. • Agreement from the partner countries to undertake such an evaluation • Different level of experience in regards to getting Govts on board

6. What worked well? The Case of Mali • Good involvement of the partner country, participation of different stakeholders • Participation of some donors in a Reference Group at country level • Good discussion among the Management Group at HQ level • Important work provided by a small and strong team of consultants • Rapid agreement on the conclusions and recommendations of the report • Clear separation between lead donor and evaluation team (consultants)

7. Management Necessity to have a strong leadership at the HQ level of the lead donor Not enough involvement of the partner country in reading and/or commenting the reports. Important Challenges and how have they been addressed Final decision taken by the lead donor, well documented In-depth work only with the donors available

8. Important Challenges and how have they been addressed Methodology Compromises on the less important issues Acceptable for pilot evaluation but not for regular evaluations. Continuous refinement for simplification and time efficiency purposes. But, budget support is a complex instrument and the evaluation of its impacts is even more complex. Desk analysis, field mission, synthesis phase and the 3 compulsory reports writing (inception, desk, final) Too many versions of the report before reaching final agreement Complexity of the 3 step approach

9. Important Challenges and how have they been addressed them Timing: Basis of work, no compromise Tailored according to the need Work necessary • Finalisation of the ToR (inclusion of the information from every donors time consuming) • Lack of information and too short foreseen field mission • Significant difficulties to consolidate all the comments in an understandable and useful presentation for the consultants

10. Next Steps • Simplification of the approach • Current development of framework for Policy Dialogue for improved understanding (internal and external) and better documentation (back to office reports, e-mail exchanges, etc) • Raising awareness among Government officials, donors, NSAs • on the approach and how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness • of these evaluations. • First intervention : the workshop to be hosted by the Belgium government • ( 21/22 March 2012) • Increase pool of experts that can carry out such evaluation: development • and implementation of training workshops