based based decision making - Decentralized Evaluation Final Evaluation of McGovern-Dole-supported Decentralized evaluation for evaluation evidence Decentralized School Feeding Programme in Bangladesh (FFE-388-2014/048-00) March 2015 to December 2017 Evaluation Report September 13, 2018 – Final report WFP Bangladesh Country Office Evaluation Manager: Ezaz Nabi Prepared by Maria Gloria Cano, Team Leader Cristina Murphy, International Evaluator Md. Farrukh Ahmed, National Evaluator Helena Suarez, Analyst Acknowledgements The ET is extremely thankful for the 18 school communities, students, parents, School Management Committee’s (SMC) members and teachers visited during our fieldwork for sharing their experiences concerning the WFP McGovern Dole School Feeding Programme implementation. We would like to extend our deepest thanks as well to the implementing partners BRAC and RDRS, the HEB Distributor, other government officials, the primary education authorities at the national level, at the upazila level and the Gaibandha district level. Our thanks to UNICEF and USDA for their involvement must also be given. All of them provided information and valuable time. Acknowledgements must be made to the WFP staff at the Bangladesh Country Office and the Rangpur Sub-Office for your support and collaboration during the entire evaluation. Disclaimer The opinions expressed in this report are those of the Evaluation Team (ET), and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Food Programme. Responsibility for the opinions expressed in this report rests solely with the authors. Publication of this document does not imply endorsement of the opinions expressed by the WFP. The designation employed and the presentation of material within the maps herein after does not imply the express consent of any opinion on behalf of the WFP concerning the legal or constitutional status of any country, territory or maritime designation, or concerning the delimitation of frontiers. Evaluation Report Template Version Novembre 2015 i | Page Table of Contents Executive Summary ...................................................................................... i Methodology ................................................................................................. i Key Findings ................................................................................................ ii Overall conclusions and lessons learned ..................................................... iii Recommendations ....................................................................................... iv 1. Introduction ........................................................................................... 1 1.1. Overview of the Evaluation Subject (for more detail see Annex 2) ........................ 1 1.2. Context ..................................................................................................................... 4 1.3. Evaluation Methodology and Limitations (Additional information in Annex 3)... 5 2. Evaluation Findings ............................................................................. 7 2.1. Relevance (for additional information see Annex 4) .............................................. 7 2.2. Efficiency (Additional information in Annex 5) ................................................... 12 2.3. Effectiveness and impact (Additional information in Annex 6) ........................... 16 2.4. Sustainability (Additional information in Annex 7) ............................................. 27 3. Conclusions, Lessons Learned and Recommendations ....................... 33 3.1. Overall Assessment/Conclusions .......................................................................... 33 3.2. Lessons Learned and Good Practices .................................................................... 37 3.3. Recommendations (Additional information in Annex 8) ..................................... 39 Annexes ...................................................................................................... 41 Annex 1: Terms of Reference ...................................................................... 41 Annex 2. Evaluation subject ........................................................................ 59 Annex 3. Methodology ................................................................................ 76 Annex 4. Relevance ................................................................................... 100 Annex 5. Efficiency ................................................................................... 110 Annex 6. Effectiveness and impact ............................................................. 115 Annex 7. Sustainability ............................................................................. 145 Annex 8. Recommendations ...................................................................... 151 Documents reviewed - Bibliography ......................................................... 160 List of Acronyms ....................................................................................... 165 Evaluation Report Template Version Novembre 2015 ii | Page Table of Figures Table 1-1 - MGD-WFP SF Programme Factsheet ................................................................. 2 Table 2-1 WFP-MGD Programme expenditure per school per student ............................. 12 Table 2-2 Complementary activity output attainment ....................................................... 18 Table 3-1 Matrix of Recommendations .............................................................................. 40 Figure 1-1 – Timeline of WFP operations and School Feeding support in Bangladesh ...... 2 Figure 1-2 Diagram of methodology approach ..................................................................... 6 Figure 2-1 . Number of days children biscuit distribution was interrupted due to external factors .................................................................................................................................. 15 Figure 2-2 Number of students enrolled vs. who consumed biscuits by gender ............... 16 Evaluation Report Template Version Novembre 2015 iii | Page Executive Summary 1. The WFP Bangladesh Country Office (CO) commissioned Econometría to perform an operations evaluation of the McGovern Dole (MGD) School Feeding (SF) Programme (FFE- 388-314/048-00) implemented by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Bangladesh from March 20151 to December 2017. The evaluation purpose is accountability and learning by assess its performance and results, determine the reasons why certain results occurred or did not occur, draw lessons and provide recommendations. This evaluation is of direct interest to WFP-CO and Sub-offices and other WFP dependencies2, the USDA Food Assistance Division (FAD), the Government of Bangladesh (GoB), the school’s community, the NGO partners - RDRS and BRAC-, other United Nations’ agencies, and other actors such as local communities and suppliers. 2. Bangladesh, a South Asian country, is highly Bangladesh context facts densely populated with 260 million people. Poverty headcount rate (HCR) (HIES, BBS, 2016) 24.30% Recently it graduated as a developing country Gaibandha district HCR rate (Census 2011) 46.70% National literacy rate (HIES, 2016) 65.60% (2018) and received the status of a lower-middle Gaibandha literacy rate (NEP, 2010) 42.80% income country (2015). With almost 22 million Underweighted children (BDHS,2014) 33% children in pre-primary and primary ages, as Global Gender Gap Index (WEF, 2017) 47/144 enrolment rates reached more than 95%, the provision of education of quality became the main challenge for the GoB. The reduction of hunger through SF3 has been an instrument to reach primary education universal coverage, keep boys and girls at school for a longer period of time, and reduce drop out as well as social, gender, and regional disparities. 3. The WFP-MGD SF Programme, with a total investment of USD26 million, had two columns of action with different modalities: 1) Through NGOs: To provide high energy biscuits (HEB) and complementary activities to pre-primary and primary school students in the Gaibandha district (5 upazilas) searching for the reduction of undernutrition and hunger, the improvement of school-age children literacy, and the increase in the use of health and dietary practices4; 2) Directly: At the national level, the provision of technical support to the GoB by constructing institutional capacity and strengthening the SF legal framework. Methodology 4. The evaluation was designed to assess the WFP-MGD SF Programme (2015-2017) in relation to its relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability. The main evaluation questions (EQ) were: 1) How appropriate was the operation? 2) What were the results of the operation? 3) What were the factors that affected the results, positively or negatively? 4) To what extent have the implementation and results been sustainable? 5. In order to respond to the EQ, the evaluation team (ET) used mixed methods, applying triangulation of the available sources and voices. The programme’s framework was a central input as it offered the relation between outputs and outcomes and presented the planned targets to be assessed. The extensive desk review (quantitative and qualitative), combined with the information from the fieldwork were used to evaluate the programme’s relevance and also if the planned outputs and outcomes were attained. Fieldwork evidence was key to evaluate the effectiveness of the sustainability strategies