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Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE) programme, Phase III - Final evaluation

eval_number:

3164

eval_url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/3164

lessons_learned:

themes:

theme:

Planning and programme design

category:

Organizational issues

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comments:

Users are programme global and country teams, supported by implementation partners and trainers/expert working directly with SMEs. Beneficiaries are tripartite constituents and SMEs plus donors as they get better value for money.

challenges:

Development cooperation interventions are conducted most of the time in complex and changing environments. As good practices show, an early feasibility study should be undertaken at the beginning of each phase, and for each country. This allows to better assess political and market environments, policies, regulations and compliance issues, challenge assumptions, and make comparison with competing programmes. This study should include the feasibility of a robust change management strategy and business models. This requires key expertise in business and change management – too often not integrated in development projects.

success:

Good feasibility studies are done early enough and include a business model, market and sales strategy, production operations requirements, capacity requirements, critical risk factors, and financial predictions. The latter include income and cash flow statements, break even analysis and any additional funding required.

context:

It is crucial that analyzing and assessing financial and operational sustainability is done before signing any memorandum of understanding (MoU) with an Implementation Partner. Any business plan provided after signing a MoU should only detail how the implementation partner will operate based on a robust feasibility study completed prior to signing the MoU. It assumes that analyzing and assessing financial and operational sustainability has already been conducted in the feasibility study.

description:

Not all countries underwent systematically a feasibility study for Phase III (e.g. to test assumptions related to the lead buyer model). Stronger contextual analysis, usually conducted during a feasibility study, allows a programme to define, at each phase and in each country, an intervention design that facilitates change (in this case an enabling environment for SMEs). This allows to set the ground for technical, institutional and financial sustainability, notably measuring financial sustainability. The programme did not systematically invest in “fertile” environments that can realistically foster intended outcomes and impact. In some countries, general assumptions were true, in others not. While Evaluation data shows that the programme notably plans to analyse and assess financial and operational sustainability of implementation partners at the end of Phase III, this should be done prior to country / implementing partner selection.

administrative_issues:

A robust feasibility study requires to invest more time and resources to set the ground for a sustainable intervention.

url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/lessons/247153

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location:

country:

Inter-Regional

region:

Inter-Regional

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eval_title:

Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE) programme, Phase III - Final evaluation