Luxembourg's development cooperation - Annual report 2013

‘Evaluation is the systematic and objective assessment of an on-going or completed project, programme or policy, its design, implementation and results. The aim is to determine the relevance and fulfilment of objectives, development efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability. An evaluation should provide information that is credible and useful, enabling the incorporation of lessons learned into the decision-making process of both recipients and donors’.

Definition produced by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee 

In a continued effort to improve the quality of Luxembourg development cooperation through lifelong learning, the Ministry is on the one hand, strengthening its presence in both international networks (such as the evaluation network of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee) and national networks (such as the Luxembourg Society for Evaluation and Forward Thinking, SOLEP). The Ministry is also setting out to improve internal communication between its various services, Lux-Development (the Luxembourg agency for development cooperation) and members of civil society.

The information produced by the evaluations is shared transparently, so that it can be discussed and analysed in a critical manner before the lessons learned are applied, where relevant. 

Capitalising on its substantial and lengthy experience in terms of evaluating NGOs, the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Action has been able to learn lessons across the board from almost 40 evaluations of various NGOs carried out since 2006, in order to reinforce the role played by evaluation.

Thus, the General Terms and Conditions governing contractual relations between the Ministry for Foreign and European Affairs and non-governmental development organisations now impose an obligation on the NGOs to ensure that financial audits are systematically carried out at the local partner and that independent internal evaluations are conducted, above set financing thresholds.

This approach is complementary to that of the external evaluations of NGOs carried out by the Ministry, which will continue to be conducted at key times (e.g. on the preparation of a framework agreement).

With regard to bilateral cooperation, mid-term reviews provide information that makes it possible to evaluate Luxembourg’s contribution to the implementation of its partner countries’ development strategies. They give an account of the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability of the various parts of the Indicative Cooperation Programmes (ICPs) and their data is used in political and strategic dialogue with the authorities of the relevant countries. In view of the changes in the general context and the implementation methods of Luxembourg development cooperation (such as joint programming and diversification of partners), an internal assessment of the mid-term review approach is currently being carried out.

In 2013, the Ministry also launched a meta-evaluation of Luxembourg’s development cooperation interventions in the sub-sector of vocational training in hospitality and tourism. The evaluation’s aim is to collate the observations from the evaluations of interventions implemented in the sub-sector of vocational training in hospitality and tourism in four partner countries (Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cabo Verde and Laos), focusing on two criteria in particular: impact and viability. This evaluation is based on the substantial experience acquired since 1996 and the significant budget allocated to interventions in this sub-sector in the various countries, amounting to approximately 50 million euros. The conclusions of this meta-evaluation will be available around the middle of 2014.