Evaluation report 2010:2: Development Cooperation with Ethiopia 2000–2008
Evaluation report 2010:2: Development Cooperation with Ethiopia 2000–2008 (Opens New Window)
By: Axel Borchgrevink, Pirkko Poutiainen, Tassew Woldehanna Kahsay, Mattias Nordström
with contributions from Oyvind Eggen and Sigrun Aasland
ISBN 978-951-724-839-6 (printed)
ISBN 978-951-724-840-2 (pdf)
ISSN 1235-7618
The present evaluation was commissioned by Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, in order to obtain an assessment of the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of Finland’s development cooperation with Ethiopia in the period 2000–2008. All elements of Finland’s aid to Ethiopia are covered: bilateral, multilateral, Finnish NGOs, support to Ethiopian civil society organizations, humanitarian assistance, and the use of other instruments. The evaluation also assesses the management practices of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
The evaluation is based on a document study, interviews and field visit. The following are among the main conclusions: Overall, Finland’s development cooperation with Ethiopia 2000–2008 has been tightly focused, relatively coherent and highly relevant. It has responded to the Ethiopian poverty reduction strategies and has built on specific Finnish expertise, thus contributing to Finnish added value in the two main sectors of cooperation. Seen as a whole, the development cooperation has been reasonably efficient and effective. Its impacts in the water sector have been particularly significant. The evaluation deems the sustainability of the impacts of the development cooperation to be satisfactory.
While Finland generally has been a strong promoter of harmonization and alignment,
the practice of dual funding structures may weaken this profile i.e. the simultaneous
use of World Bank trust funds and bilateral project for channelling aid. The evaluation
recommends that dual funding is only used as a transitional measure, and that
funding through the World Bank be targeted at government capacity building, particularly
with regard to procurement. However, it should be noted that Finland’s parallel
bilateral project complements that of the World Bank, which lacks the strengthening
of the government’s monitoring and evaluation capacity, which is the central element
of the Finnish bilateral project. There are significant weaknesses in the monitoring
and evaluation of Finland’s development cooperation and it is recommended that
special attention be paid to improving these areas.