1.3 Evaluation limitations

The desk review explored the scope and scale of the UNDP country programme and progress towards planned results. It covered background documents on the national context, country programme strategic documents, workplans, progress reports, monitoring self‑assessments such as the UNDP results‑oriented annual reports (ROARs) and evaluations conducted by the country office.2 The list of documents consulted can be found in Annex 4.

Key informant interviews were conducted (remotely, given the COVID‑19 pandemic) with about 130 persons at national and subnational level, including government implementing partners, donors, civil society partners, private sector partners, UNDP and other United Nations agency staff. In addition, focus group discussions were held with 71 community beneficiaries of UNDP‑supported interventions. The aim of the interviews and focus group discussions was to understand the views of different stakeholders on the role and contributions of UNDP in the national development agenda, as well as the relevance, effectiveness and sustainability of the results to which UNDP contributes. The list of persons consulted is found in Annex 3.

The effectiveness of the UNDP country programme was analysed through an assessment of progress made towards expected outputs, and the extent to which these outputs contributed to intended outcomes. To better understand UNDP performance and the sustainability of the results, the ICPE examined the specific factors that have influenced the country programme, both positively and negatively. The UNDP capacity to adapt to the changing context and respond to national development needs and priorities was also considered. In line with the UNDP gender mainstreaming strategy, the evaluation examined the level of gender mainstreaming across the country programme and operations.

The evaluation reviewed all the active projects under the country programme at the time, totalling 58 (Annex 5).3

The evaluation used the IEO rating system to score the performance of the country programme against the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development evaluation criteria of relevance, coherence, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability.4 The rating was first computed for each output and then aggregated to arrive at the outcome‑level performance score for the country programme.

The evaluation process and team were guided by the United Nations Evaluation Group Norms and Standards for Evaluation, and Ethical Guidelines for Evaluation.5 The evaluation team acted with independence, impartiality and maintained transparency and confidentiality.

Due to the COVID‑19 pandemic, the evaluation interviews were conducted remotely . Several key informants were not reached, including senior government officials (highlighted in respective sections), and related interventions were assessed based on a review of available project documentation. These were generally not readily retrievable or were of limited utility due to a focus on activity reporting. The few evaluations

2 The country programme evaluation plan for 2018‑2022 included 16 evaluations (including seven GEF project evaluations and the

United Nations Sustainable Development Partnership Framework evaluation). Seven had been conducted by end 2021; five of which are GEF evaluations. Three evaluation reports were subject to the IEO quality assurance system, with one rated as moderately satisfactory, and the other two moderately unsatisfactory. 3 This number changed during the evaluation as some projects closed or new ones were approved. 4 The IEO rating system uses a four‑point scale: 4 = Satisfactory/Achieved, 3 = Moderately satisfactory/Mostly achieved, 2 = Moderately unsatisfactory/Partially achieved, and 1= Unsatisfactory/Not achieved. 5 See: http://www.unevaluation.org/document/library?categoryId=40 .