Measuring the impact and efficiency of development cooperation programmes
In an ever-changing and frequently difficult international context, the primary objective of the Luxembourg development cooperation programme's evaluation policy is to measure the impact and efficiency of development cooperation programmes to ensure their quality and learn lessons for future interventions. The evaluations also aim to promote an enhanced dialogue with Luxembourg's cooperation partners and assist results-based management.
The second objective of this evaluation policy is transparency, by complying with the obligation to account to Parliament and public opinion for the use of public funds and in view of the development cooperation policy's goal and outcomes.
To this end, evaluations have been carried out at different levels and on a regular basis: performance evaluations of projects and programmes implemented by the government or by civil society partners, country evaluations (mid-term review of indicative cooperation programmes) together with sectoral or thematic evaluations and evaluations of Luxembourg development cooperation strategies.
Multilateral partner evaluation involves inter-alia the Luxembourg development cooperation's participation in MOPAN ("Multilateral Organisation Performance Assessment Network"), a network of 17 donor countries whose common interest is to evaluate the organisational efficiency of the main multilateral organisations they finance.
So that the outcomes and lessons learned from the evaluations are taken into account both in the political and strategic dialogue as well as in development cooperation as practised, the evaluation processes are accompanied by transparent and systematic communication with the parties concerned.
Typically, the Directorate of Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs awards these evaluation assignments to external assessors by means of public contracts. These assignments are directed by the Directorate's "evaluation and quality control" service.