El Salvador: Evaluation of European Commission's Co-operation with El Salvador - Country Level Evaluation

Client: EC - Joint Evaluation Unit RELEX-EuropeAid-DEV

Partner(s): DRN- DIE-ODI-PTC-EIAC-ICEI

Start/End Date: 25/11/2008 - 05/02/2010

Description:

The main objective of this evaluation were
* to analyse the performance of the Commission’s assistance to El Salvador over the period 1998-2008;
* to draw lessons from past co-operation in order to improve the implementation of the current and the preparation of the future strategy and indicative programmes in this country.

The evaluation was structured around Evaluation Questions (EQs) covering different aspects of the Commission’s strategy in El Salvador. All the DAC criteria were covered by this set of questions: relevance, effectiveness, impact, efficiency and sustainability. Crosscutting issues and coherence were also covered in order to complement the scope of analysis. Answers to these EQs were based on a reconstructed intervention logic, an analysis of the documents collected, a specific analysis of a representative sample of projects, and on interviews with Commission officials, national authorities and beneficiaries. These answers aimed at developing relevant conclusions and recommendations.

The following services were provided:

* an inventory and typology of the funds delivered to El Salvador, to serve as a basis for the next stages of the evaluation;
* a reconstruction of the intervention logic, allowing to determine evaluation questions, judgement critieria and indicators,
* answers to these evaluation questions based on information gathered through a desk phase and country visits,
* a set of sound conclusions and related lessons and recommendations, to enable evidence-based decision-making,
* an overall judgement on the Commission’s co-operation with El Salvador,
* a dissemination seminar to present the findings, conclusions and recommendations to the Commission’s Services and the main stakeholders in the country.