The Mozambique Development Programme, 2012-2015, of Norwegian People’s Aid

Background

The NPA programme in Mozambique, with funding from Norad supports civil society organization engaged on issues related to Natural Resource Management , and in particular on redistribution of resources and land conflicts.

The main NPA partners are UNAC (Uniao Nacional de Camponeses) and ORAM (Organisacao de Ajuda Mutua) and some of their Provincial Delegations and Chapters.

The NPA support covers, between the Maputo and the Provinces, a wide range of the activities of UNAC and ORAM: from Organisation Development, to gender policy, to technical and political activities around land and resource conflicts, to technical support to agriculture activities of UNAC members. The evaluation shall cover the whole cooperation agreement from 2012 to 2015

Purpose/objective

1. To evaluate the results achieved by the Programme, and in particular:
2. Results in comparison with the expected results of the NPA-Mozambique Multi-Year Plan
3. Responsiveness of the partners to the support provided by NPA
4. Relevance of the Programme to the current context in Mozambique
5. Relevance of the Partners to the current context in Mozambique
6. NPA value added to the partners in addition to financial support in comparison to allocated resources.
7. Need for re-alignment between the NORAD and the Embassy Programmes

Methodology 

The study has applied the following principles:

1. Centrality of partners’ plans and activities. The NPA inputs have been evaluated according to the added value and the support provided by NPA to the Partners’ objectives, activities, and results.
2. Information has been collected from all stakeholders: NPA HQ, NPA Mozambique Office, Partners, and from Partners’ other counterparts (e.g. INGOs). 
3. Information has been collected through three main methods:
   a) Desk study of NPA and partners relevant documents (i.e. strategy, plans, reports)
   b) Interviews with stakeholders 
   c) Selected field visits.

Key findings

1. The Mozambique Development Programme of NPA is of high relevance to the current context.
2. UNAC and its provincial and local organisations are unique in Mozambique by representing rural, genuine and clear constituencies in terms of mass membership, internal formal democracy a fairly effective functioning. 
3. However, the representativity of UNAC has to be claimed by facts coming out of the planned membership roll in 2016. It is reason to believe that the number of members, both in terms of local associations and individual members, is much lower than what has been claimed in the reviewed documents of NPA and UNAC. 
4. Notwithstanding low quality of the baseline of the 2012-2015 program as well of its monitoring and reporting system, the programme has achieved mixed results in comparison with the plan and what could be expected.. 
5. However, the results are quite impressive regarding advocacy outcomes beyond the community-level, e.g. at national and even transnational levels.
6. Among the partner organisations we find a very high degree of responsiveness to the support provided by NPA. 
7. NPA’s “value added” is considered to be very high among the interview persons, and the evaluator agrees. Five types of ‘value added’ is being accomplished: first, an immediate technical-advisory value, in terms of a trustful and non-imposing approach to partners; second, a political culture value; third, a multi-scale networking value; fourth, the women’s empowerment value of NPA, spearheaded by the Women-Can-Do-It activities; and finally, an advanced managerial-professional value, advocating the principles of results-based management. However, the monitoring and reporting system of the partners are very much activity-centered, opposite to results-centered. 
8. Among other issues raised, is the lack of strategy to increase the financial sustainability of the partner organizations. 

Recommendations

• NPA’s programmes in Mozambique should continue – it should maintain the same objectives as in the 2012-2015 period and keep the same partners.
• The advocacy work at the community level, “to make men and women in local associations claim their rights”, should be strengthened. 
• The objective of increasing the number of “women with land tenure certificates” should be critically reassessed with the partners. 
• The ‘agents of advocacy’ training project of UNAC should continue. 
• UNAC-central should be invited to take a monitoring and advisory role in the province-based components of the new (realigned) programme. 
• UNAC-central and ORAM-central should be encouraged to formulate joint activities with joint goals
• The socio-structural challenge of illiteracy in the rural areas should (again) be put on the agenda. 
• The baseline for the next programme should gain insights into the exact number of local associations, individual paid-up members (men/women/youth). 
• A staff audit for the partners organisations should be carried out with the partner organizations 
• A clearer strategy with well-defined milestones/targets should be set for building women and youth commissions at various levels within UNAC. 
• A strategy for increased financial sustainability, based on own revenue sources, should be developed.