Evaluation of Management of Danish Development Cooperation 20 years after decentralisation

Description

An evaluation which investigates whether and how management principles and practice as it has evolved, supports the aims and ambitions of Danish development cooperation, in light of the changes in Danish development cooperation. In this evaluation, management will be used to describe MFA management of support to development cooperation. This includes the management of both bilateral and multilateral development support at headquarter level in Copenhagen and at embassies/missions. This implies that programmes implemented by other ministries and institutions but managed in Copenhagen will be covered by the evaluation (e.g. Strategic Sector Cooperation (SSC)). Here, focus will be on MFA’s role and management in relation to such activities, not on the management by other actors. Lot 1: The evaluation will be mainly forward looking and focus on learning. The evaluation has three objectives: (1) To assess whether and how changes in development cooperation since 2009 have been addressed by aid management in a relevant and appropriate manner, in line with the intentions behind the decentralisation. (2) To assess whether and how the changes since 2018-19 in management are conducive to fostering conditions for achieving the intentions embedded in the DDD and adaptive management approach. (3) To provide lessons learned regarding strengths and weaknesses in management of Danish development cooperation as well as enabling and hindering factors, and to present issues for consideration, including identification of dilemmas or trade-offs, and recommendations on adjustments as relevant. In order to achieve these objectives, it will be needed to establish a descriptive overview of the main developments in management of Danish development cooperation since the last evaluation in 2009. The description will comprise both developments in Danish development support, including its size, instruments, and composition, and developments in policies and principles that have guided the management of Danish development cooperation, as well as the broader donor landscape/aid architecture and international development agenda. With regards to time frame, the evaluation will cover the period since the last evaluation in 2009, but due to the learning-oriented perspective of the evaluation, it is envisaged that the evaluation will have a particular focus on the evolvement since app. 2018-19, to ensure that lessons and considerations on adjustments also reflect the current situation. A solid contextual understanding regarding trends, changes and rationales is seen as an important foundation for the in-depth analysis leading to forward-looking lessons and considerations. The lessons and considerations shall be relevant for the current development cooperation. The evaluation is not limited in geographic scope, but in order to allow for sufficient depth and specificity in the investigation and analysis, it is suggested to work with case-studies. The cases should comprise multilateral, regional and bilateral support and represent different examples of programmes, projects and constellations of management of development cooperation. As a point of departure, the following cases are suggested: - Multilateral support: Current MFA aid management of multilateral support as exemplified by UN representation in NY, with a focus on UNICEF; possibly with a sectoral focus on support to child protection activities or the interplay with management of support to water/WaSH; - Regional support managed from Copenhagen: Current MFA management of The Danish-Arabian Partnership; - Development support to countries with targeted partnerships, where SSC and/or other types of Danish development cooperation activities are implemented, with support to Vietnam as case; - Development support to countries with expanded partnerships, where both bilateral, decentralised development cooperation and other types of engagements are implemented, with support to Ethiopia and Uganda as cases; and delegated cooperation, with support to Niger as case. It is expected that comparisons are made with other Nordic countries (e.g. Norway and Sweden). The comparisons should comprise the management at policy and strategic level as well as the management of programming and implementation of development support. The comparisons will not imply additional visits. The contracting authority has a maximum budget of DKK 4,500,000.00 net of VAT in relation to the procurement. Tenders will be rejected if they exceed the contracting authority's maximum budget.