Evaluation of the Sida Funded Programme of Core Support and Connected Projects in Ukraine
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2015:2 Sida Decentralised Evaluation Cecilia Karlstedt Megan Bick Katerina Stolyarenko Evaluation of the Sida funded Programme of Core Support and connected projects in Ukraine Final Report Evaluation of the Sida funded Programme of Core Support and connected projects in Ukraine Final Report January 2015 Cecilia Karlstedt Megan Bick Katerina Stolyarenko Sida Decentralised Evaluation 2015:2 Sida Authors: Cecilia Karlstedt, Megan Bick and Katerina Stolyarenko The views and interpretations expressed in this report are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect those of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida. Sida Decentralised Evaluation 2015:2 Commissioned by the Swedish Embassy in Ukraine Copyright: Sida and the authors Date of final report: January 2015 Published by Citat 2015 Art. no. Sida61832en urn:nbn:se:sida-61832en This publication can be downloaded from: http://www.sida.se/publications SWEDISH INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION AGENCY Address: S-105 25 Stockholm, Sweden. Office: Valhallavägen 199, Stockholm Telephone: +46 (0)8-698 50 00. Telefax: +46 (0)8-20 88 64 E-mail: [email protected]. Homepage: http://www.sida.se Table of contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................................... V 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1SCOPE OF THE EVALUATION ................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................................. 9 1.3 LIMITATIONS .................................................................................................................................... 11 1.4 DEFINITIONS .................................................................................................................................... 12 2 FINDINGS ................................................................................................................................ 13 2.1 THE APPROACH AND MODALITY FOR CORE SUPPORT ................................................................................ 13 2.2 INTERNAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF SUPPORTED CSOS ................................................................................ 29 2.3 MANAGEMENT OF THE SUPPORT ......................................................................................................... 42 2.4 SYNERGIES AND INFLUENCES ON OTHER DONORS’ SUPPORT MODELS ........................................................... 46 3 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................ 52 3.1 RELEVANCE ..................................................................................................................................... 52 3.2 EFFECTIVENESS ................................................................................................................................. 53 3.3 IMPACT ........................................................................................................................................... 54 3.4 SUSTAINABILITY ................................................................................................................................ 55 3.5 MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................................................ 56 3.6 LESSONS LEARNT............................................................................................................................... 56 4 RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................................................. 60 4.1 SIDA AND THE SWEDISH EMBASSY ....................................................................................................... 60 4.2 PARTNER CSOS................................................................................................................................ 64 4.3 THE DONOR COMMUNITY IN UKRAINE .................................................................................................. 64 ANNEX 1 TERMS OF REFERENCE ...................................................................................................... 71 ANNEX 2 INCEPTION REPORT ........................................................................................................... 80 ANNEX 3 LIST OF PERSONS MET .................................................................................................... 106 ANNEX 4 DOCUMENTS CONSULTED ............................................................................................... 110 ANNEX 5 BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CORE SUPPORT MODEL ....................................................... 113 Abbreviations and Acronyms BOD Board of Directors CB Capacity Building CoE Council of Europe CS Civil Society CSO Civil Society Organisation DANIDA Danish International Development Agency HoO Head of Organisation HRBA Human Rights Based Approach HR Human Rights IDP Internally Displaced People INGO International Non-Governmental Organization IRF International Renaissance Foundation EPL NGO “Environment, People, Law” EC European Commission EU European Union KhPG NGO “Kharkiv Human Rights Group” LGBT Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender M&E Monitoring and Evaluation MLI NGO “Media Law Institute” MP Member of Parliament NGO Non Governmental Organization ED Executive Director OD Organizational Development Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and OECD/DAC Development PO Programme Officer RAF Results Assessment Framework RPR Reanimation Package of Reforms SDA Swedish Development Advisers TOR Terms of Reference TTDI Think Tank Development Initiative UNDP United Nations Development Programme USAid US Agency for International Development Preface The Swedish Embassy in Ukraine commissioned this evaluation of “the Sida funded Programme of Core Support and connected projects in Ukraine” through Sida’s framework agreement for reviews and evaluations. The evaluation was undertaken by Indevelop between October 2014 and January 2015. The members of the evaluation team were Cecilia Karlstedt (team leader), Megan Bick (INTRAC) and Katerina Stolyarenko. Quality Assurance was conducted by Ian Christoplos, Indevelop’s Project Director for the framework agreement. The project manager at Indevelop, Anna Liljelund, was responsible for ensuring compliance with Indevelop’s QA system throughout the process as well as providing backstopping and coordination. The team would like to thank the members of civil society and the international donor community in Ukraine, the Swedish Embassy in Kyiv, as well as everyone else who participated in the evaluation in Ukraine and Sweden for generously giving their time and assistance and sharing their experiences of the programme. In particular we would like to thank Olga Sandakova at the Swedish Embassy in Kyiv for both facili- tating the process and providing valuable insights. Executive Summary This report presents the findings and recommendations of an external evaluation commissioned by the Swedish Embassy in Ukraine of its core support programme to strategic Ukrainian CSOs. Since 2010 the Swedish Embassy has been mainstreaming support to Ukrainian civil society organisations (CSOs) in the prioritised sectors of Swedish support. A core funding modality was conceptualised for the support in co- herence with the overall objectives of the Swedish policy for reform cooperation with Ukraine for 2009–13 and the former Swedish policy for support to pluralistic and vibrant civil society. The modality was designed to strengthen CSOs in their roles as change agents for increased accountability and democratic development. As a pre- condition for the core support, CSOs had to have adequate governance structures and robust internal structures and systems in place. Therefore a two phased structured model was applied with a pre-core phase for institutional development prior to the actual core support phase. Presently 13 CSOs are in various stages of support through the modality. It is complemented by two additional initiatives to enable broader out- reach into civil society - a Think Tank Development Initiative and a capacity building programme for smaller CSOs called the MarketPlace. The overall objective of the evaluation is to analyse “the overall effectiveness, effi- ciency and impact of the programme of core support to CSOs in Ukraine with the reference to its overall goal of promotion of European standards and effectiveness of partner-CSOs to become mission-based and deliver their own strategies.” The evaluation specifically addresses four evaluation questions: 1. Internal transformations of the supported CSOs towards becoming more stra- tegic, accountable, transparent and mission-driven organisations. 2. The relevance and effectiveness of the approach and modality itself, including its strengths and weaknesses, to promote organisational change. 3. Synergies with and complementarity to other donors’ support to civil society in Ukraine. 4. Management of the programme by the Swedish Embassy. Building on desk reviews of documentation from a sample of eight CSOs a field visit in late November 2014 included in-depth interviews with their board members, man- agement and staff and focus group discussions in