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Enhance the resilience and self-reliance of crisis-affected rural communities (...) - Midterm evaluation

eval_number:

2548

eval_url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/2548

lessons_learned:

themes:

theme:

Monitoring and evaluation

category:

Organizational issues

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comments:

Regional Office of Arab States / Project Team in Yemen

challenges:

The ILO component would have benefitted from an individual M&E strategy that complimented the overall ERRY programme but specifically worked to enhance both the implementation and the monitoring mechanisms of the ILO project team in Yemen. This would have aided the team to strategize on a) which activities and sub activities to prioritize b) how to effectively target both men and women c) how to monitor the progress of the activities in the field. The prioritization of activities and sub activities is important to assess. For instance, the “Upgrading of the Informal Apprenticeship in Yemen” is yet to be piloted in Yemen and in the project team’s own words needed more preparation than the entrepreneurial training (already a well-tested modality in Yemen). The project however did not launch the activities concurrently which means a very complex and multi-layered activity is yet to be implemented in the second half of the project.

success:

-

context:

ERRY’s design was reached after two weeks of intense discussions between the EU, different UN agencies and Yemen’s key stakeholders in Amman in late 2015. The project has a harmonized logical framework and joint workplans. A look at the logical framework of the ERRY project, and the ILO component specifically, does indicate some gaps. The desk review revealed inconsistencies when it came to project targets with different numbers reflected in different progress reports (ILO progress reports and ERRY progress reports were compared), which made it hard to evaluate progress against original targets. An interview with the CTA also revealed that the ILO did not have clear indicators in the log frame, which was raised during the induction workshop held in Djibouti in July 2016, organized by the Joint Coordination Unit (JPU) with all PUNOs and EU participating in the development of a joint annual work plan.

description:

Address M&E Challenges in Future Interventions. Evaluating the progress of an intervention against whether the project is achieving its set targets is not indicative of its success of failure. In volatile settings such as Yemen, logical frameworks should be treated as “living documents” because of the potential for conditions to change at any given time. Equally, scarce baseline data and indicators (as is the case with ERRY) make it hard to monitor results. However, the ILO intervention is working in the context of a harmonized logical framework where other agencies are setting clear targets and reporting progress against them. The lack of consistent targets set per year for the ILO component and misunderstandings of whether the project is on track or not are, in the evaluator’s view, directly linked with gaps in the M&E strategy.

administrative_issues:

In the second half of the project cycle, and even more importantly in the context of ERRY II, consolidated efforts need to be made to make use of a monitoring and evaluation framework (right from the design) and that concerted efforts are made to ensure the capacity of the project team in Yemen in M&E is enhanced through rigorous training. Due to security concerns and limitations imposed on international staff traveling to Yemen, it is recommended for the ILO project team in Yemen to make periodical, capacity building visits to the Regional Office in Beirut.

url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/lessons/217460

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location:

country:

Yemen

region:

Arab States

---

eval_title:

Enhance the resilience and self-reliance of crisis-affected rural communities (...) - Midterm evaluation