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Skills for local economic development (SKILLED) in Sri Lanka - Final evaluation

eval_number:

2209

eval_url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/2209

lessons_learned:

themes:

theme:

UNDAF and UN Agency coordination

category:

Organizational issues

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comments:

UN Agencies implementing joint projects

challenges:

KII with agency programme managers identified several factors that limited their cooperation. These included: the shortened Implementation period and pressure to spend resources quickly, differences in the various agencies’ modes of operation, lack of commitment to joint approaches versus independent ones which may have been affected by overlapping methodologies and agency tendencies to favour their own methodologies (for example ILO, IFC and UNDP all have their own approaches to entrepreneurship development), and the wide geographic spread of activities which resulted in less overlap in the project implementation sites than had been initially planned. Greater collaboration between the IFC and ILO on component 2 of the EU SDDP was affected by challenges sequencing interventions (most ILO trainees finished their training relatively late in project implementation) and differences in approach (the IFC does not provide grants directly to beneficiaries but works with financial institutions as intermediaries. As such, it is not able to force the institutions to provide assistance to youth if it does not align with their credit policies.)

success:

The ILO shared office space with other UN agencies in both Batticaloa and Vavuniya and met regularly with other agency counterparts during coordination meeting. The ILO engaged in small scale joint efforts with UNOPS, UNDP, IFC and UNICEF that benefited project beneficiaries. • The ILO placed trainees and RPL certificate holders in UNOPS construction sites for jobs and OJT; • The ILO and UNDP worked together to establish a small scale garment factory in Mannar district with the ILO providing training and the UNDP purchasing equipment; • The IFC enrolled vocational training graduates in a programme on entrepreneurship; • ILO and UNICEF collaborated on awareness raising about vocational training opportunities for teachers and career guidance instructors in schools.

context:

The SKILLED project is part of the European Union Support to District Development Programme (EU-SDDP), a 5 year, 60 million Euro programme. The overall programme objective of EU-SDDP was to contribute to poverty reduction in North and East Sri Lanka and to bridge the socio-economic gap with the rest of the country by supporting sustainable regional and local development and good governance in conflict-affected areas. The ILO was one of six lead implementing organisations that include the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United National Office of Project Services (UNOPS) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). After the EU SDDP mid-term evaluation, which cited deficiencies in inter-agency collaboration, the EU-SDDP coordinator organized a workshop that resulted in improved collaboration. During the workshop, the implementing agencies identified specific areas of collaboration and followed up on these in subsequent coordination meetings. This more intentional approach and additional layer of accountability contributed to the examples of programme synergies highlighted below.

description:

To implement successful joint programmes that create synergies among implementing organization, coordination meetings are not sufficient. UN agencies need to have intentional strategies and plans on collaboration. They also need to be held accountable for following through on these strategies and plans. The SKILLED project evaluation highlights some successes but overall weak coordination among the 6 agencies implementing the EU SDDP in Sri Lanka. Despite regular coordination meetings and even sharing office space in some cases, the agencies did not initially coordinate their work in such as way to build significant synergies and offer integrated services to communities and individuals. Various challenges contributed to this result, including some external factors. However, improvement occurred when the EU SDDP Joint Programme Manager facilitated an intentional exercise to identify concrete areas for collaboration which were followed up in subsequent coordination meetings.

administrative_issues:

N/A

url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/lessons/210189

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location:

country:

Sri Lanka

region:

Asia and the Pacific

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eval_title:

Skills for local economic development (SKILLED) in Sri Lanka - Final evaluation