Evaluation of Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) – UNICEF Country Programme Cooperation, 2016-2021
Duration: October 2019 – February 2020
Description of Project: According to UNICEF’s Evaluation Policy 2018, every UNICEF Country Programme must be evaluated at least once during every two country programme cycles. As the Zambia Country Programme (2016-2021) neared completion, the consultancy was engaged to carry out a Country Programme evaluation of UNICEF’s performance and provide recommendations that can be used to improve the overall development effectiveness of UNICEF to deliver on its mandate. The evaluation took into account all outcomes and change strategies, in addition to assessing UNICEF’s response to humanitarian crises that took place during the period under evaluation. The evaluation was national in scope, with the emphasis on the strategic level of operations and, specifically, on assessing performance at outcome level. The formative evaluation covered the Country Programme from January 2016 - June 2020.
Tasks: MDS was tasked with developing an inferred Theory of Change as well as carrying out a review and analysis of a substantial number of documents. MDS also carried out remote interviews with more than 100 people, including but not limited to government officials, development partners and UNICEF employees. The consultancy also carried out a contribution analysis in order to determine UNICEF’s contribution to changes witnessed at the outcome level of the Theory of Change.