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Slovakia Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid Department (DCHAD), Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic (MFEA) Evaluation Mandate Slovakia first joined the donor community with its accession to the OECD and the European Union and became the third OECD member to join the DAC in 2013. The Act on Official Development Assistance designated the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic (MFEA) as the National Coordinator for development assistance. The MFEA subsequently established a budgetary entity, the Slovak Agency for International Development Cooperation (SAIDC) responsible for managing and implementing bilateral and trilateral development projects under the supervision of the MFEA. The mandate for evaluation of ODA is assigned to the Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid Department (DCHAD), a department primarily responsible for development co-operation and humanitarian aid agenda within the MFEA. The DCHAD is staffed by a desk officer, who acts as Evaluation Manager. Evaluations were initially undertaken sporadically without a comprehensive system. To address this, the Evaluation and Monitoring Strategy was developed and approved in 2014. The Slovak evaluation system is undergoing significant change. Detailed evaluation guidelines are currently being prepared. A fully-fledged evaluation framework will be implemented by 2017, including an evaluation policy. The policy will clearly define the roles and responsibilities with a systematic approach to evaluation, including clear budgeting and planning rules and their effective use and follow-up. The purpose of evaluation is to find out to what extent the projects and programmes are carried out in accordance with the set objectives and indicators. The evaluation also provides a reply as how the development activity answers the local needs of the partner countries, what its impact on target groups is and to what extent the development co-operation activities are relevant, efficient, effective and sustainable (MFEA 2014).
Responsibility and scope of activities The DCHAD is overall responsible for preparing an annual evaluation plan, initiating evaluations and disseminating evaluation results internally and externally. The core responsibility of the Evaluation Manager is to select independent evaluators and manage the evaluation process for each assignment under EUR 20 000. The selection procedure exceeding EUR 20 000 is managed by the Public Procurement Department (PPD) in the MFEA. Once an evaluator is selected by the PPD, the Evaluation Manager takes over and manages the evaluation. The Evaluation Manager also quality assures the evaluation. The SAIDC is also involved in the evaluation, but it mainly co-operates with the evaluators by providing documents and consultations on the evaluated activities. Once the evaluation is completed, the Evaluations Manager participates in preparation of the management response and the implementation of resulting actions. Based on the findings from evaluations, the Evaluation Manager also provides recommendations in the preparation of strategies, and project/programme identification and formulation.
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Organisational Structure and Reporting Lines There is no specific unit that conducts evaluations within the MFEA or in the SAIDC, as all evaluations are undertaken by an independent evaluator/team selected through public procurement, and the Evaluations Manager focuses on managing the evaluations. The Evaluation Manager is accountable to the Director of the DCHAD who subsequently reports to the MFEA Director-General for International Organisations, Development and Humanitarian Aid. Central/main evaluation units
Programme/operational units
Other units with evaluation functions
Reporting line
High level policy groups or ministries Lines of communication
Director-General for International Organisations, Development and Humanitarian Aid (MFEA)
Evaluation Advisory Board
Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid Department (DCHAD) Director
Slovak Agency for International Development Cooperation (SAIDC)
Evaluation Manager
Independent Evaluators
The annual evaluation work plan of Slovakia is formulated by the DCHAD together with policy makers and senior management. The new evaluation policy envisages that the evaluation plan is approved by the MFEA, first by the Director-General and followed by the MFEA Board. It will be submitted for final approval to the Government as part of the Annual ODA Strategy. The Evaluation Advisory Board will be put in place in the new evaluation setup. The Board will include SAIDC representatives, Slovak diplomatic missions personnel and independent experts when needed, and will form an indispensable part of the evaluation system, being involved in overseeing the evaluation, assessing the reports and evaluation results and proposing the management response. The members of Advisory Board will be appointed by the MFEA.
Types of Evaluation • Real-time evaluations • Ex-post evaluations • Impact evaluations • Process evaluations • Systematic reviews
When the new comprehensive evaluation policy is introduced, the types of evaluations will be reconsidered according to actual needs.
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Evaluations are conducted in line with the OECD DAC criteria. Besides these primary criteria, other specific criteria can be used depending on the type of development activities and their sectoral and geographic focus.
Resources From 2014, a separate budget line for evaluations of the annual ODA was established. The Evaluations Manager is employed on a fulltime basis, but is also responsible for other ODA activities, not solely evaluations. Since 2003, 51 evaluations have been conducted, although no evaluations were conducted between 2014 and 2015 due to the ongoing reform. Approximately five evaluations are conducted every year.
Principles of Evaluation
Snapshot of evaluation resources Slovakia
Head / Director / Assistant Director
Professional evaluation staff EUR 30 000 0.5% of the ODA budget 5
Average evaluations produced per year (no evaluation conducted 2014-2015 due to the ongoing reform)
Independence The evaluation function is embedded in the DCHAD that is structurally separated from the ODA implementation. The Evaluation Manager or the PPD selects independent evaluators free from conflict of interest to carry out evaluations through international competitive bidding in accordance with prevailing regulations. The future Evaluation Advisory Board will also contribute to the strengthening of independence.
Transparency and participation The results of evaluations are made public on the SAIDC’s website. There is no official management response system however, once the new evaluation system enters into force, it will be incorporated into the system. The management responses will be developed in collaboration with the Evaluation Advisory Board and DCHAD management, with input from other relevant stakeholders. An evaluation follow-up plan will be approved by the Director-General. However, management responses are not intended to be made public.
Competence and capacity building Professional capacity building at all levels of development co-operation management and implementation is deemed crucial for the better Slovak ODA system. Regular training on different aspects of evaluation is provided by the UNDP in Slovakia or the Slovak Evaluation Society on an annual basis for the MFA and the SAIDC staff.
Knowledge management Information sharing is recognised as key for strategic long-term planning of development co-operation and increasing its quality and effectiveness. Within the MEFA, recording and reporting of activities and respective lessons learned was made mandatory in 2014 (MFEA 2013a). Other reference documents for the country’s development cooperation,
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including monitoring and evaluation, are made available to internal staff. The Evaluation and Monitoring Strategy provides basic guidance on standards and procedures, and the guidelines that are being formulated will provide detailed guidance on evaluation processes and products.
Co-ordination with donors and country recipients One joint evaluation has been conducted with the Czech Development Agency.
Note to reader: The section at the beginning of Part II entitled “Introduction and key for the member profiles� provides explanatory notes on the profiles.
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