Mid-Term Review of the AGIR Programme - Sida

2 findings
3 Conclusions
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 government
and, increasingly, the private sector (primarily the natural resource
sector). The CSOs 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 working 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 on 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 how these objectives are met in 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 partners’ 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 to expand the 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.
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