Mid-Term Review of the AGIR Programme - Sida

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E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y The major conclusions of the mid-term review are: The AGIR programme is highly relevant to national priorities concerned with an active and engaged civil society. The strengthening of civil society is necessary in an environment where improvements to service delivery, transparency concerns, and measures of accountability are constantly challenged by the government and, increasingly, the private sector (primarily the natural resource sector). The CSOs (Civil Society Organisations) that the AGIR programme has partnered with have attempted to fill this void and add strength to the voice of civil society. The AGIR programme has done well in attracting and working with a large group of CSOs that work with the themes consistent with the programme’s overall focus. While the AGIR programme continues to have low visibility as a programme among other donors, civil society organisations and the Mozambican government, those who do know of it have a high degree of praise for its innovative approach and focus for support to civil society. Within the AGIR programme there has been exemplary application of the Good Donorship principles, which have been enthusiastically supported by the participating CSOs. While it is still early in the programme’s life, the outcomes of this approach seem to have begun to produce results in the level and focus of competency in the affiliated CSOs. The principle of good donorship has, however, posed a challenge to the consistency of the AGIR programme between intermediaries and in the relationships between intermediaries and their CSO partners. The process of identifying high-level objectives for the programme, and the meeting of these objectivesin the field by the CSOs, can be problematic when implementation planning and strategies are based on the workplans of the CSOs. It was not clear to the evaluation team how the programme will ensure that, under core funding, the partner organisations will necessarily implement AGIR activities, and to what extent it avoids the risk of the organisations implementing other activities. Currently, there are 43 CSOs involved in the AGIR programme (it has surpassed the goal of 39 by 2014). This set of partners allows the programme to cover the wide array of activities of the four sub-programmes. Geographically, AGIR covers all provinces and districts through direct partners and AGIR CSO partner’s branches. While the vast majority of direct AGIR partners are central level organisations, local direct strategic AGIR partners have been recruited (especially in 2012) in the central and northern parts of the country to reinforce horizontal linkages at the local level and expand programme impact and long-term sustainability. Nonetheless, the current portfolio still falls short of covering all the planned interventions. The freezing of funding of some partners after management problems has left some gaps in the coverage of activities. Intermediaries state that this has been offset by the integration of new partners. AGIR programme coordination by the intermediary organisations is improving through the focused use of the ICC (Intermediaries Coordination Committee) and technical groups. AGIR is conceived as a programme, but its opera- 7
E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y tionalisation is still mostly done as four sub-programmes that share common areas. Therefore sub-programme consistency is better than programme consistency. Despite efforts in joint coordination, implementation and reporting (apart from the common areas), it is sometimes not clear to what extent subprogramme outcomes and results are feeding into programme impact. The mid-term review team agrees with the conclusions of the 2012 semi-annual report that, while general reporting has improved, the programme needs to start analysing how various outcomes of the thematic areas can be clustered and reported as a set of consistent programme results that clarify and strengthen the ability of AGIR to document and report on outcomes as a cohesive programme. A ‘spheres of influence model’ helps us to understand how AGIR has established these ‘pathways of change’, through which funding and support flow out to partners where change takes place at the organisational level of the CSO, and then through them, to the benefit of beneficiaries. This model can also help in demonstrating that the need for the programme to plan for, implement, monitor and report as a programme is critical to maintaining these pathways as a cohesive approach that decreases the threat of programme fragmentation and less effective implementation and reporting on results. A central mechanism for the capacity strengthening of CSOs within AGIR takes place through the provision of training on a wide range of issues, techniques and processes. This training is focused at both the organisational and individual levels. The mid-term review team however, has found a widespread low level of satisfaction among AGIR CSOs in the area of capacity strengthening as it relates to a range of critical issues. Furthermore, the review team has noted that there is very limited replication of training at the provincial level, where capacity is generally substantially lower than at the central level. Networking within the AGIR programme is generally weak, although some organisations have created networks and linkages. The objectives for AGIR state that networks should be created in relevant areas. While there are relatively strong networks vertically within sub-programmes, there are weak horizontal linkages between sub-programmes. Within AGIR, most contacted partners are part of, or are in contact with, external national and even international networks; and they are able to illustrate how some of these networks/linkages have led to advocacy results. Reporting on outcomes at all levels within the AGIR programme varies but has been improving with support from the intermediaries. As an example, Diakonia (International Non-Governmental Organisation, Swedish) works with partners to build the narrative establishing linkages between interventions and results. Similarly Oxfam, from the beginning of the programme, has been concerned with building a narrative of how outputs lead to outcomes and acknowledging the difficulties of attributing some results to the direct intervention of the programme. Generally, however, all intermediaries claim that partners’ reporting is weak and tends to be activity-focused, hence challenging the reporting on outcomes. Training has been provided in this area, but it is still among the weakest of the skills held by CSO partners. While reporting is improving with the AGIR programme both the intermediaries and partner 8
Page 1: 2013:3 Kevin Kelpin Vibe Johnsen Jo
Page 4 and 5: Authors: Kevin Kelpin, Vibe Johnsen
Page 6 and 7: Abbreviations and Acronyms AAAJC Pa
Page 8 and 9: Preface This evaluation of AGIR (Ac
Page 12 and 13: E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y CSO
Page 14 and 15: E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y imp
Page 16 and 17: E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y eff
Page 18 and 19: E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y iv)
Page 20 and 21: E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y act
Page 22 and 23: E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y ges
Page 24 and 25: E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y des
Page 26 and 27: 1 I N T R O D U C T I O N ited numb
Page 28 and 29: 1 I N T R O D U C T I O N 1.2 EVALU
Page 30 and 31: 1 I N T R O D U C T I O N Field Vis
Page 32 and 33: 1 I N T R O D U C T I O N aftermath
Page 34 and 35: 2 F I N D I N G S tendency for the
Page 36 and 37: 2 F I N D I N G S ganisations work.
Page 38 and 39: 2 F I N D I N G S jor reason for th
Page 40 and 41: 2 F I N D I N G S This observation
Page 42 and 43: 2 F I N D I N G S 2.3.4 AGIR CSO Pa
Page 44 and 45: 2 F I N D I N G S gender policy, -
Page 46 and 47: 2 F I N D I N G S The mid-term revi
Page 48 and 49: 2 F I N D I N G S 2.4 EFFECTIVENESS
Page 50 and 51: 2 F I N D I N G S be relevant for t
Page 52 and 53: 2 F I N D I N G S the AGIR programm
Page 54 and 55: 2 F I N D I N G S production and qu
Page 56 and 57: 2 F I N D I N G S 2.5 IMPACT OF AGI
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2 F I N D I N G S Accountability o
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2 F I N D I N G S Through campaign
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2 F I N D I N G S offices, since th
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2 F I N D I N G S Akilizetho has a
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2 F I N D I N G S political partici
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2 F I N D I N G S support the capac
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2 F I N D I N G S The sustained par
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3 C O N C L U S I O N S AGIR progr
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2 findings 4 Recommendations The ke
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4 R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S Ma
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4 R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S rea
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A N N E X 1 - A G I R P A R T N E R
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A N N E X 2 - T E R M S O F R E F E
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A N N E X 2 - T E R M S O F R E F E
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2 findings Annex 3 - Inception Repo
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A N N E X 3 - I N C E P T I O N R E
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2 findings Annex 4 - Documents Revi
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A N N E X 4 - D O C U M E N T S R E
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A N N E X 5 - P E O P L E I N T E R
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Mid-Term Review of the AGIR Program
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Mid-Term Review of the AGIR Programme - Sida

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