Sustainable Economic Development in Myanmar
Together with the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval), CEval supported three projects on sustainable economic development in Myanmar, aiming to create the preconditions for identifying and assessing their impacts. The support focussed on three projects in the fields of vocational training, private sector development and financial sector reforms, and they should provide the basis for the development of a coherent programme on sustainable economic development.
Accordingly, it was the task of CEval, together with DEval:- contribute to quality, relevance and completeness of the project conceptions and to the implementation of a coherent goal and impact system
- establish the preconditions for identifying and evaluating project impacts
- contribute to programme designs
- conduct an impact evaluation.
- developing an encompassing impact model,
- defining an encompassing table of indicators,
- implementing a baseline study, and
- developing an impact-oriented monitoring system.
Independent Evaluations in the Sector Rural Development: Sustainable Management and Use of Natural Resources and Capacity Development in Central America
In this cycle of independent evaluations, there were three international development programs (all executed by the GIZ) to be evaluated by CEval:
- Promoting sustainable use of resources and local economic development in Honduras (PRORENA), Honduras
- Sustainable resource management and promotion of entrepreneurial competencies (MASRENACE), Nicaragua
- Developing and strengthening competencies and capacities to manage natural resources in Central America (Alianza de Aprendizaje)
The evaluation aimed at studying all emerged (positive, as well as negative, intended as well as non-intended) changes in order to define the project results. Based on the logic of the funnel approach, first all sector relevant changes were detected and then the causal link to the program interventions were analyzed (–>result attribution).
To attain the relevant information and to construct the counterfactual situation, CEval used a mixed-methods approach. Concretely, CEval performed the following services:
- Developing an overarching results model of the three interventions based on the project documents for assessing the project results,
- Conducting qualitative interviews with key actors and focus group interviews with beneficiaries,
- Administering a quantitative survey on the level of beneficiaries,
- Bio-technical analyses of soil samples and biodiversity factors (e.g. investigating the basal area and the number of tree species).
As a final step, the cross-cutting analyses of all three programs were merged in a synthesis report.
Assessing the Impacts of Multinational Corporations on Global Development and Value Creation (Global Value)
The importance of multinational corporations for furthering global economic and social development is well established. Corporations invest in foreign countries, provide jobs, and thus generate formalized labor relations and income. Furthermore, they pay taxes that contribute to the provision of public services. At the same time, multinational corporations particularly have received criticism by being accused of supporting exploitative employment conditions and human rights abuses, causing environmental deterioration, and failing to mainstream responsible conduct in developing countries.
The GLOBAL VALUE project developed an innovative framework for assessing impacts of multinational corporations on issues related to sustainable development, working conditions, human rights, transparency, and anti-corruption. It shed light on institutional arrangement; analysed systems of governance for responsible business practices; explored responsible competitiveness; assessed the complementarity of public and private sector activities; and derived recommendations for decision makers in business, policy and non-governmental organisations.
The project was carried out by universities and civil society organisations from Europe and ICPC countries. A toolkit for impact evaluation was developed and tested in close collaboration with leading multinational corporations (BATA (garment, Bangladesh), OLAM (food, Tanzania) and NOKIA (ICT, India)).
The main responsibility of CEval was the development of an indicator-set for the framework which is based on Millennium Development Goals, human rights, gender & diversity, and anti-corruption & transparency and takes corporate management approaches (supply chain management, life cycle analysis and base-of-pyramid) as well as systems of governance for responsible business practices, competitiveness, and complementarity with official development aid (ODA) into account. In addition, it carried out two research case studies focusing on the complementarity of ODA with multinational corporations´ activities.
Evaluation of the PTB blended-learning course “Quality Infrastructure for Sustainable Development” (QuISP)
The Center for Evaluation (CEval) had been mandated to conduct an evaluation of the blended-learning course Quality Infrastructure for Sustainable Development (QuISP) which was developed and implemented by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). The course aims at improving the Quality Infrastructure (QI) in developing countries by building up individual and institutional capacities particularly with regard to standardization and related disciplines.
The objective of the evaluation was to provide relevant information for the improvement of the QuISP training course with regard to its future implementation and potential scaling up.
Trend and impact study on fair trade in Germany
Fair trade had been an issue in Germany for over 40 years now and has received increasing public awareness ever since. The impacts of fair trade in the producer countries of fairly traded goods and products have been the subject of numerous studies. By contrast, insights on how fair trade affects the consumer countries of these goods and products to date are scarce.
The study implemented by CEval on fair trade in Germany addresses this gap. It aimed at identifying the societal changes and trends that have been evoked by fair trade in Germany and to determine how the fair trade movement contributed to these changes.
In doing so, a participative approach made sure that the expertise and perspectives of relevant actors are adequately reflected in the study. Furthermore, the study approached its research subject drawing on a theory-based approach and employed a balanced mix of qualitative and quantitative methods.
An intensive literature study, qualitative expert interviews, focus group discussions, online surveys and a telephone consumer survey were carried out to collect data. The data was evaluated using qualitative content analyses, time series analyses and descriptive statistical evaluations. Once the data had been analyzed, the results of the study were compiled in a report and discussed at a final workshop together with those who commissioned and supported the study.
University Cooperation with Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR), with Funding Provided by the DAAD Program Subject-Specific Partnerships with Universities in Developing Countries
Having completed a successful 3-year cooperation focusing on the further development of the postgraduate study programme Project and Programme Evaluation for Social Development established at Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) in 1995, the Center for Evaluation (CEval) and the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) identified and realised new areas of cooperation. Since 2008, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has supported this cooperation with its funding project for sending German academics to universities in developing countries. Since 2012, the DAAD has also provided funding through the programme Subject-Specific Partnerships with Universities in Developing Countries (2012-2015), financially ensuring the plans to enhance the partnership between the two universities in Germany and Costa Rica.
The goal of the DAAD programme was to improve the teaching situation and to set up sustainable teaching structures in developing countries by facilitating academic exchange. Therefore, the international exchange between students, PhD candidates and lecturers was one of the most important aspects in the context of this enhanced cooperation. The focus also laid on opening up the master programme to other Central-American areas (regionalisation), embedding the partnership into an existing, international network (internationalisation), and adapting teaching of the master programme at UCR to regional demands and ensuing educational needs (creating a distinct programme profile). The four year partnership helped establishing or expanding regional and international professional networks and developing additional capacities regarding teaching and research.
It is planned to continue with the partnership in 2017 and integrate another Latinamerican university into the cooperation.
Development and Implementation of a M&E-System for the Plan Honduras Project "Prevention, Protection and rights Restitution for Girls and Boys survivors of sexual violence"
The overarching objective of the Plan Honduras project was that girls and boys are protected from sexual violence and had access to child friendly and competent prevention and attention mechanisms from local to national level. In order to achieve this objective, Plan Honduras developed an action programme that was to strengthen prevention, protection and attention capabilities for at-risk girls and boys and survivors of sexual violence in the family, community, municipality, departments and at the national level.
The task of the Center for Evaluation (CEval) in this framework was to assist and consult the process of developing and implementing an impact oriented gender sensitive M&E-system that could be used throughout the project cycle and beyond. Therefore the CEval adviced and trained project executives and partners in order to enable them to systematically monitor and evaluate project related activities, to identify the most relevant aspects on all impact levels, to formulate impact oriented qualitative indicators for the project contributing to gender equality, to design a data collection plan and instruments and to solve occurring challenges during the data collection and analysis process.
The knowledge transfer was facilitated through a combination of continuous consultancy, training measures and practical implementation of the consultancy and training content within an accompanied baseline study including a gender analysis as well as an accompanied interim and a final project evaluation.
Impact Evaluation of WIENCO Ghana Ltd. Out-grower Schemes
The overall objective of the impact evaluation was to measure and evaluate the investment of the Agricultural Trade and Investment Fund (AATIF) in two of WIENCO’s out-grower schemes in Ghana. In particular, two out-grower arrangements, the Cocoa Abrabopa Association for cocoa farmers and the Masara N’Arziki for maize farmers, were under investigation. The main interest lied in identifying the causal link between participating in WIENCO’s out-grower arrangements and the following outcomes and their development over time:
- Productivity Levels
- Employment opportunities
- Farm and overall household income
- Living and working conditions
- Risk exposure regarding total household income; and
- Farm-households’ risk coping strategies and mechanisms.
This shall provide AATIF with evidence on the effectiveness of funding out-grower schemes. In addition a simplified tool allowing WIENCO to collect data on the key outcomes shall be designed.
The 5-year evaluation will be conducted by a consortium of the Center for Evaluation (CEval) and the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), together with Ghanaian partners. A mixed-method approach had been embedded in a profound contextual analysis. The evaluation combined a quantitative analysis of household and village surveys with qualitative insight into WIENCO’s impacts derived from focus group discussions (FGDs) and expert interviews. The reports provided the counterpart with robust evaluation results while also presenting practical recommendations to improve WIENCO’s activities.
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Development and Implementation of a Gender-Sensitive Continuous M&E-System for the Plan India Project “ENGENDERED! – Minimizing Gender Gap”
The aim of the project on behalf of Plan International India is to identify and eventually tackle structural causes of discrimination against women in India. To that end, responsible project managers of the partner organization should be enabled to implement gender-sensitive measures and to monitor and evaluate their impacts.
The task of the Center for Evaluation (CEval) was to provide support for the development of verifiable impact hypotheses and a user-friendly M&E system in cooperation with responsible project managers. Right at the beginning of the project, during a workshop in 2008, the LogFrame developed by Plan India had been discussed and revised regarding the measurability of included indicators. Further proceedings were a local training session in 2009 and further consultation services in the course of the project. In 2015, CEval conducted a final evaluation of the project.