ERF delivered on its objectives, says third party evaluation

ERF delivered on its objectives, says third party evaluation

Recently, the final Report of the Pakistan ERF Evaluation undertaken by an independent Evaluator was shared with the development sector officials and for the ordinary citizens. The excerpts and findings of the evaluation that was funded by Norway and DFID
have been shared below.

This report was produced after extensive consultation with the relevant stakeholders.

The Report concludes that the ERF has delivered many results according to its objectives, that it is an important mechanism for humanitarian response in Pakistan and that it is a considerable added value in providing funding to a diversity of partners with
a diversity of outreach. The evaluation findings further conclude that ERF projects made an important contribution to results that go beyond the project lifespan. They were relevant to community needs  with a strong focus on gender.

The most significant concerns that were raised focussed on the timeliness of the grant-making process and the weak monitoring framework.

In terms of the timeliness of the grant-making process, the ERF Pakistan proved to be overall faster than many ERFs in other countries. However project processing time remained nevertheless lengthy (average 63 days). Despite the above, many projects provided
timely service and support to the populations in need, with notable exception for time-critical projects. The evaluation report has identified the relevant structures that need to be reformed in order to reduce the processing time of applications.

In terms of the monitoring framework, it is recommended that the ERF Pakistan includes at least two monitoring visits per project: a mid-term monitoring visit, of which the feedback should inform a 2-way discussion with partners in addition to a spot-checking/ad-hoc
visit.  

As an immediate response to the recommendations from the evaluation report, the ERF Secretariat is currently reviewing the ERF instruments (i.e. guidelines, ToRs and templates), and is working with the relevant identified structures to accelerate the grant-making
process. In addition, the ERF Unit is strengthening its monitoring and administrative capacity with additional staff.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=5214

Posted by Fayyaz Yaseen on Nov 30 2011. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry