Review Report: U4 Anti-corruption Resource Centre Mid-Term Review
“The Mid-Term Review (MTR) was undertaken to assess whether the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre is on track to achieve the objectives in its 2022–2026 Strategy.” The main objective of Finland’s U4 partnership is to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of Finnish development cooperation by increasing the understanding of corruption prevention by those implementing programs and projects. Finland has been a partner of U4 since 2012.
“The MTR finds that U4 has succeeded in remaining relevant to its partners and the anti-corruption sector. U4 generally succeeds in balancing the competing demands of producing original research as a global public good and providing tailored support to its partners.” “It has done well over the strategy period in responding to emerging issues, such as anti-corruption in reconstruction planning in Ukraine.”
“The breadth of its work, covering 17 thematic areas, helps make it a comprehensive resource for the sector, but at the expense of variability in depth of coverage and challenges with delivering on some of its priorities. The MTR therefore recommends moving to a two-year planning cycle with a smaller number of core priorities for in-depth research, and a broader circle of topics where U4 limits its activities to training and synthesis of existing knowledge.”
“The MTR has found it difficult to identify robust evidence of U4’s effectiveness in achieving its strategic objectives. These objectives are high level and depend upon many actions beyond U4’s control, making it difficult to identify U4’s specific contribution.” “The MTR recommends that U4 explore the progressive introduction of outcome-based based planning into its business model.”