Evaluation of the Norwegian Petroleum-Related Assistance : Case Studies Regarding Mozambique, Bangladesh, East Timor and Angola

The evaluation concludes that the Norwegian petroleum-related assistance has made proper use of the Norwegian petroleum sector knowledge. This has implied that the support to all of the four countries has been successful on petrotechnical capacity building issues. Less emphasis has been put on other relevant areas, such as downstream issues, petroleum economics, Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) especially regarding the external
environment.

The long-term Norwegian commitment to the assistance has been important in "new" petroleum producing countries, ensuring that the basic framework has been put in place, and that basic technical training was supplied, in particular through on-the-job-training supported by resident expatriate advisers during the first periods supplemented by trainee arrangements in Norway and formal training courses in Norway and other countries.

The support has been less successful on the overall institutional capacity development, which has focussed on technical issues and on support for revision of the legal and on the highly important regulatory frameworks for the petroleum sector. Too little emphasis has been put on the development of managerial and administrative capacities. With its focus on one main partner institution in each country, the opportunity has also been missed of developing the
capacities of the full range of institutions needed for national management of the petroleum resources.

Discussions of exit strategies have generally been missing. If exit strategies had been made, they might have contributed importantly to the efficiency and sustainability of the programmes and to a clearer focus of the assistance.

The extraordinary flexibility in the Norwegian assistance has allowed for a demand-driven approach. This has been constructively made use of in the "new" petroleum producing countries like Mozambique and East Timor, while in more mature petroleum producing countries like Bangladesh and Angola it has postponed needed decision-making and led to less efficient programme implementation.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has been the Norwegian partner for implementation of all the programmes evaluated, and initiatives within the key competence areas of NPD have been given priority in the institutional co-operation, which formed the basis of the assistance since the mid-1990s.