Four of the projects have been completed, and the reports have been published in the ministry’s evaluation report series. The reports are available on the ministry’s website www.dep.no/ud/engelsk/publ/rapporter/.

• Report 1/2002 is an evaluation of the Norwegian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights (NORDEM), conducted by T&B Consult of Denmark.
• Report 2/2002 is an evaluation of the International Humanitarian Assistance of the Norwegian Red Cross during the period 1996-2000, conducted by Channel Research Ltd of Belgium.
• Report 3/2002 is an evaluation of ACOPAM, an ILO program for "Cooperative and Organizational Support to Grassroots Initiatives" in Western Africa in 1978-1999. The evaluation was conducted by Scanteam of Norway.
• Report 4/2002 is an evaluation of a civil rights project conducted by the Norwegian Refugee Council in former Yugoslavia, conducted by the Danish Centre for Human Rights in co-operation with T&B Consult.

The following projects were begun in 2002 and the reports will be published in 2003:

• An evaluation of the first five years of the Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries (Norfund), which was founded in 1997. The evaluation is being conducted by the Institute for Applied Social Science (Fafo) and Nordic Consulting Group.
• An evaluation of the Norwegian-financed fund in the World Bank for improving the education sector in countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The evaluation covers the period since the fund was established in 1998, and is being conducted by Finnconsult.
• A joint international evaluation of external assistance to basic education from 1990 to 2001, with particular emphasis on the last six years of this period. The evaluation covers both bilateral and multilateral donors and is being conducted by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada in co-operation with the consultancy firm Goss Gilroy Inc., Canada, and Education for Change, UK.
• A joint international evaluation of the World Bank’s Comprehensive Development Framework initiative. The evaluation covers the period since the initiative was introduced in 1998. It is being conducted by donor and recipient countries under the auspices of the World Bank’s Operations Evaluation Department.
• A joint international evaluation of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), both of which work with health and reproductive health. The evaluation is being conducted by the consultancy firm Options and the University of Heidelberg.
• A study of the social impact of the work of the Norwegian organisations Save the Children in Ethiopia and FORUT, Campaign for Development and Solidarity, in Sri Lanka, which is being conducted by the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) and the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR). The study will examine the results of the organisations’ efforts over a two-year period beginning in 2003.
• A study of the peacebuilding efforts made during the last 10 years by the Netherlands, Norway, the UK and Germany, which are currently members of the Utstein group. The study is being conducted by the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), and a steering group made up of representatives from the respective countries meets regularly to discuss progress.
• A study conducted by PRIO on Norway’s role in the Middle East peace process from 1993 to 1996.
• A study in collaboration with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on the positive and negative consequences of international trade in fishery products for food security. Information on the study can be found at www.tradefoodfish.org.
• A study conducted in co-operation with Denmark, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK of the activities of multilateral organisations in developing countries. In 2003 the study will include evaluations conducted by partner countries’ embassies and missions of the activities of the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, the World Bank and the regional development banks in selected countries.

Development co-operation is increasingly taking the form of co-operation between donors and recipients of assistance, and involves representatives of the countries concerned, international organisations and others. This is the reason why the number of joint evaluation projects is higher in 2002 than in previous years. Among the advantages of joint evaluations are that they provide better information on the overall impact of the assistance and that the developing countries save on the time and effort that would otherwise be expended on separate evaluations conducted by the individual donor countries or organisations.

Technical co-operation

Evaluations must be based on qualified expertise, and the ministry enhances and develops such expertise in various ways.

The ministry takes part in the OECD co-operation on the evaluation of development assistance programmes and activities. This is carried out in the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) by the Working Party on Aid Evaluation. Information about these activities may be found at www.oecd.org. In 2002 the ministry and NORAD were part of the Working Party on Aid Evaluation and worked on the following tasks:

• A study of DAC’s regular reviews of member countries’ development policies with a view to improving the data on which the reviews are based and in particular to improving information about the impact of development co-operation. The study is being followed up by DAC and the OECD secretariat.
• An international conference in Oslo in September 2002 on lessons learned from supporting decentralisation and local government in developing countries. The report will be published at www.oecd.org.
• The Glossary of Key Terms in Evaluation and Results Based Management contains words and expressions used in evaluations of international development co-operation. This can be found at www.oecd.org.

The ministry is also in contact with the other Nordic countries on individual projects and technical matters. In 2002 a meeting was arranged for the exchange of information and another on evaluating co-operation with individual countries. Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK have formed a political co-operation on development issues (the Utstein group), and these countries had a meeting on this topic in 2002 and maintained regular contact on projects and technical matters.

The ministry co-operates with the Operations Evaluation Department of the World Bank on enhancing evaluation expertise in the Bank, in developing countries and in Norway. The co-operation is being carried out within a framework agreement that has a time span of several years, under which Norway provides financial support for evaluations of Bank activities that have special priority. In 2002 this included projects in the field of water supplies and reform of the water and sanitation sector, the social consequences of the Bank’s activities, knowledge development and the Bank’s Common Development Framework initiative.

An overview of the Bank’s evaluation activities can be found at www.worldbank.org/oed.

The World Bank uses the Norwegian support it receives for evaluation activities to involve affected parties more closely in its consultation procedures. In the developing countries the Bank has included representatives of the authorities, private organisations and the business sector in its evaluation activities. Norwegian evaluation experts, including researchers and consultants from the Chr. Michelsen Institute, Scanteam, Interconsult and ECON, were involved in a number of evaluation projects in 2002.

In 2002 the ministry also contributed funds to an annual program for development evaluation training offered by Carleton University in Canada under the auspices of the World Bank. This program, which was being held for the second time, is for professional evaluators working with development matters in national or international organisations and is designed to build evaluation expertise in developing countries. Information about the program can be found at www.carleton.ca/ipdet.

In 2002 the ministry helped to fund the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP), which provides information on good practices in humanitarian relief operations and conducts systematic reviews of evaluations in this field in order to maintain a high standard of quality. The network has 51 full members and about 280 observer members consisting of representatives of governments, organisations and research institutions, and consultants. The ministry participated in the network’s two meetings in 2002, where strengthening co-operation with organisations in developing countries was one of the items on the agenda. Information about ALNAP can be found at www.alnap.org.

In 2002 the ministry continued its support for Bistandstorget’s evaluation network, which is a network to which most of the Norwegian NGOs involved in development co-operation belong, and which offers training in evaluation and in following up evaluations. The organisations’ partners in developing countries are also included in this effort. The ministry’s support was intended to help start the network, and will be discontinued as from 2003. The network’s activities will be evaluated. Information can be found at www.bistandstorget.no.

The Foreign Ministry’s Advisory Committee on the Results of International Development Policy is an independent committee that was set up in 2001 with the following goals:

• to assess the results of Norwegian development policy and activities
• to identify development policy challenges with a view to modernising development activities and making them more effective
• to promote performance orientation and more target-oriented co-operation between the various actors involved in development co-operation
• to encourage public debate on development policy issues
• to propose evaluation projects

The committee is headed by Professor Helge Rønning. The other members are: Regine Andersen, researcher, Per Øyvind Bastøe, senior adviser, Ingvild Broch, research director, Professor Grethe Brochmann, Bjørne Grimsrud, researcher, Ellen Hofsvang, editor, Professor Torbjørn Knutsen, Professor Raino Malnes, Ottar Mæstad, researcher, Petter Nore, assistant director, Professor Sanjeev Prakash, Anne Hege Simonsen, journalist, and Stig Utnem, general secretary.

The ministry’s evaluation section is the secretariat for the committee and the ministry and NORAD participate in the committee’s meetings. In 2002 the committee had two three-day meetings. Meetings are prepared and followed up by an executive committee.

The committee has produced a separate annual report on its activities in 2002. The report characterises the Government’s action plan for fighting poverty in the South as an important development policy document, and discusses how the plan should be implemented. The committee has made a number of recommendations to the ministry and NORAD on how to make their efforts more performance-oriented. The annual report can be found at www.dep.no/ud/norsk/publ/rapporter