A Mid-term evaluation report of Green Livelihoods Program II

Background

The Green LIP II works in western Ethiopia and targets 11 kebeles in three districts of the Benishangul-Gumuz Regional States, namely: Mao-Komo, Agelo and Yaso Woredas. The specific objectives of the program are improved food and nutrition security and income of the community and enhanced competence and improved saving and income of the community. EEMCY-DASSC-WE ACO is halfway through the first phase of the program implementation cycle.

Purpose/objective

The evaluation aim to measure the progress of the program over the past two years, assessing the continued relevance of the interventions, and identifying key lessons and ultimately coming up with actionable recommendations for improving program performance going forward. The evaluation is also intended to provide evidence of the contributions of the Green LIP II interventions on the degrees and levels of empowerment of minority groups and poor farmers at the program interventions areas.

Methodology

The evaluation adopted a qualitative methodology, a consultative and transparent approach with internal and external stakeholders throughout the evaluation process.

Specifically, the design of the mid-term evaluation was informed by the OECD-DAC evaluation criteria and the Empowerment Assessment Tools (EAT) developed by Digni. The OECD-DAC criteria of evaluation assessed the projects relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability whereas the EAT was employed to examine the degrees and levels of empowerment achieved by the program.

Four complimentary tools were used to evaluate the project’s performance. These are i) Review of relevant project documents ii) Key informant interviews iii) Focus group discussions iv) Observations made by consultants during field visit.

Key findings

Results achieved to date, as described in the results framework, are mixed. The evaluation noted that the delay in the initial project approval process and prevailing security concerns led to a late start as well as slow implementation of the project at certain times. But implementation has picked up considerably in mid-2018, resulting in the completion of most of the planned project activities.

While it is too early to assess the performance of the program at an impact level, evidence from the reports and from verification visits confirms that programs are already delivering results effectively despite implementation challenges associated with peace and security concerns in many project sites.

This success has been facilitated by a combination of effective management processes and the use of the “local animators” who have been able to link the community with the program implementer. Furthermore, the alignment of program interventions with the needs, interests, and priorities of the target communities as well as the active participation of local community in the project cycle management happen to be the drivers of success of the program.

Recommendations

Update the program’s logical frameworks to reduce logic gaps so that progress can be measured within the time frame of the program. The program needs to be more specific about what it is bound to deliver and when.

The training content and methodology for the empowerment of disadvantaged groups including women should be redefined in a way that reflects the local contexts. In this regard, special emphasis should be given to business planning for SACCO members.

In order to improve access to local, regional, national and international markets, the program needs to work across all value chain actors, especially by effectively linking producer farmers with traders and exploring market possibilities for local communities.

GREEN LIP should explore possible ways of establishing a local seed supply system in the intervention areas in close collaboration with smallholder farmers Preparation of an acceleration plan. If the peace and security situation remain the same, then the donor must start considering a no-cost or cost extension for the project.

The DASSC should lead and guide and MEL process of the project and provide timely support to the project team on key topical issues to improve the monitoring and evaluation system and particularly establishing a result-based monitoring and evaluation approach.

To ensure sustainability and scalability of project results, GREEN LIP should continue its collaboration with government systems such as development agents and health extension workers. It should also pay attention to building the capacity of these structures and systems on issues related to the core focuses of the program.

Abbabor recommend that staff should receive capacity building support in the areas of result-based monitoring and evaluation, empowerment, conflict resolution, financial / budget planning.

Abbabor recommend that women professionals should be included in the program team.

Abbabor strongly suggest the development of a future project phase around conflict resolution and peaceful co-existence, social justice, poverty eradication and so on.

Comments from NMS/Digni

The evaluation report gives a thorough description of the results and remaining challenges of the project. Case stories help to better understand the context and results. Outcome-level results achieved by the projects seem to be underreported in the annual reporting from the project compared to this evaluation report.

The report states that the project is satisfactory relevant, effective, efficient and sustainable, and that there are indications of a positive impact. Some of the recommendations has already led to changes in the project management, others will be followed up when pos