Evaluation Report: Danish Support to Mine Action

Annex I. Terms of Reference

Evaluation of Danish support to humanitarian mine action (HMA).

1. Background

The strategic framework for Danish involvement in humanitarian mine action is discussed in the working paper entitled “Humanitarian Aid and Human Safety”, which was elaborated on the basis of “Denmark’s Development Policy - Partnership 2000”. Recently, a policy paper was issued on Danish support to HMA in connection with the strategy for Danish Humanitarian Assistance, which is currently being elaborated.

Danish support comprises mine clearance, mine awareness, victim assistance and rehabilitation, advocacy, capacity building and coordination. Support has been given at three distinct levels: At the international level, advocacy for the ban on use of landmines has been supported. National authorities and in some cases UN Mine Action Centres have received support for coordination, prioritisation and planning. Finally, support has been given directly to the operational level in favour of mine clearance activities, mine awareness campaigns, and victim assistance and rehabilitation. HMA operations have mainly been carried out by NGOs.

Implementation and support arrangements for HMA are a product of different national circumstances. In some cases HMA is crisis relief, whereas in others it should be seen in a wider development context. Governance structures, level of operational and administrative capacity, and geographical scope of contamination are amongst the most important variables. Thus, support modalities differ widely in Kosovo compared to e.g. Mozambique or Laos.

Financing of HMA occurs mainly through the Danish humanitarian assistance programmes, multilateral co-operation with the UN system, through bilateral country programmes, and the Environment, Peace and Stability Fund (MIFRESTA). Support is channelled through various organisations, principally the UN system and NGOs. The wide range of technical elements, financial frameworks, and executing agents pose a challenge to Danida. The decision to do an evaluation provides an opportunity to accumulate experiences, which may contribute to improved relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability in Danish support to HMA.

Danish allocations to HMA have increased from DKK 14 million in 1992 to DKK 107 million in 2000. It doubled from DKK 56 million in 1999 to DKK 107 million in 2000 and total amount obligated for 2001 is approximately DKK 108 million. It is within this context that Danida has decided to carry out an evaluation of Danish support to HMA in order to systematize the lessons learned and ensure that improved knowledge and practices are available and used to benefit future activities.

2. Overall Objective

The objective of the evaluation is to assess relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of Danish support to HMA since its start in 1992. The evaluation shall identify strengths and weaknesses of Danish support seen in the light of international trends within HMA, which will constitute the basis for making recommendations for future activities within the framework of “Denmark’s development policy, Partnership 2000” and the new policy paper “Denmark’s support to HMA”.

3. Outputs

The output of the Evaluation will be a report, which identifies lessons learned from Danish support to HMA on the basis of relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability. The Report will recommend actions to be taken in order to improve Danish support along the strategic lines of Danish policy papers relevant to HMA.

4. Scope of work

The evaluation shall provide a description of HMA activities supported by Danida looking at the rationale for its introduction and describing the changes over time as well as the current situation. It will include an account of international trends within HMA, which will be utilized by the team to put Danish support into an international context.

The report should provide an overview of the projects financed by Danida and an assessment of the projects against the five evaluation criteria (ref. Evaluation Guidelines, February 1999, chapter 4):

Relevance of HMA-activities supported by Danida:
Are objectives in keeping with Danida’s and national authorities’ needs and priorities? Are objectives in keeping with international trends, standards and guidelines? Should the direction be changed? Should activities be continued or changed?

Efficiency of HMA-activities supported by Danida:
To what degree have outputs been delivered as agreed? Could it have been done better, cheaper or quicker?

Effectiveness of HMA-activities supported by Danida:
To what extent have agreed objectives been reached? Are the activities supported sufficient to realise the agreed objectives?

Impact of HMA-activities supported by Danida:
What are the positive and negative effects and do the positive effects outweigh the negative effects?

Sustainability of HMA-activities supported by Danida:
To what extent does the positive impact justify the investments? Are the involved parties willing and able to keep projects going and continue on their own? Have viable exit strategies been formulated?

The report should state causes and explain reasons for successes or failures and contribute to making the HMA-activities more relevant, effective, efficient and sustainable, as well as state lessons learned.

5. Issues

To support the above general assessments the evaluation must consider the following issues without necessarily being limited to those mentioned:

Policy and Strategic Issues:

To assess the relevance of Danish support related to both the needs of national counterparts and to Danish development policy.
To assess how HMA can contribute to a broader reconstruction and development agenda (e.g. in light of the statement in Partnership 2000 about intensifying the efforts to ensure the transition from crisis relief to development assistance and as a contribution to socio-economic development).
To assess the strategic coherence between the various elements of Danish HMA-support, and strategic linkages with other types of humanitarian interventions.
To assess the Danish role in international advocacy against landmines, specifically related to ratification and implementation of the Ottawa convention both at the level of programme countries and at multilateral levels such as the UN and EU. The existing methods and resources will be considered and recommendations on how to implement the policy on international advocacy for HMA will be presented.
To assess the long-term socio-economic impact of Danish support to HMA, including recommendations on how to maximise this impact.

Planning and Coordination Issues:

To assess the planning processes involved in support of HMA activities, including an examination of how needs are identified and which criteria are applied in prioritisation and selection of interventions. To which extent has an assessment of opportunity costs been part of the selection criteria?
To review the internal coordination mechanisms within Danida, including an assessment of the extent of coordination between HMA-support and other humanitarian activities and how HMA activities financed outside country-specific funding frameworks are integrated into country programmes.
To assess the extent of coordination which takes place between donors to HMA, including international fora for coordination of HMA-support, e.g. the Mine Action Support Group (MASG) chaired by UNMAS.
To investigate the extent of application of cross-cutting issues such as gender and environment.

Operational Issues:

To assess implementing agencies, e.g. governmental counterparts, UN agencies and NGOs, in order to identify the impact of different practices and strategic coherence.
To assess the coordination process between national authorities and organisations at the operational level. To which extent are competent national authorities overseeing coordination, planning, prioritisation and quality of the operations supported?
To assess Danida’s internal capacity to act as warrant for quality of projects.
To assess support modalities, financial and in-kind, e.g. personnel seconded to UN coordinated Mine Action Centers or mechanical mine clearance capability.
To assess Danida’s support to the development of the Danish resource base, including development of management and technical tools relevant to HMA.

Sustainability Issues:

To assess whether sufficient attention has been given to capacity building of national counterparts at the administrative and operational levels, e.g. training of trainers and on-the-job training.
To assess to which extent the salary levels of implementing partners are adjusted to the local context. Is local ownership feasible?
To assess the extent to which viable exit strategies have been and are sufficiently elaborated in the initial planning of projects, including an analysis of prerequisites for the achievement of sustainability and viable exit strategies for HMA. Is scope of the landmine problem known and is planning on how to overcome it taking place?

6. Methodology

Desk Study:

The base of the evaluation is a desk study, which will be based on a review of existing documentation on projects from the inventory of Danish support to HMA and an account of international trends based on a review of documentation on the latest developments and events within HMA.

The team will engage in a dialogue with representatives from Danida, the UN, NGOs, ICRC and other relevant actors. This phase will include a visit to the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), UNDP and the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) in New York. The findings, in the shape of an overview of issues will be presented to Danida and external resource persons.

Field Study:

The desk study will be supplemented by 3-4 field studies, the purpose of which is to further explore and validate issues and findings identified in the desk study. The team will engage in consultation with relevant stakeholders, including government officials, local authorities, Danish embassy staff, UN representatives, NGO representatives, project personnel, and the target population. The findings will be presented in each of the case study countries and a consolidated presentation will take place in Copenhagen.

The selection of countries for the field study will be done by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in dialogue with the Evaluation Team upon completion of the desk study. The following criteria will be taken into consideration: (i) the countries chosen have received support for different aspects of HMA activities, e.g. clearance, awareness, victim assistance, advocacy or institutional capacity building, (ii) the countries chosen will represent different post-crisis stages - from emergency relief to HMA in a consolidated development context, (iii) the countries should represent 3 sub-continents, e.g. Africa, Asia and Europe (the Balkans).

Reporting:

During this phase the team will synthesize the findings of desk and field studies, compile relevant lessons learned and make recommendations on relevant actions to be taken in order to improve Danish support to HMA according to the relevant policies. A first draft shall be submitted in English and should not exceed 60 pages excluding annexes. It will be presented to Danida and published. At the end of the evaluation a workshop will be held with participation of stakeholders in order to draw out lessons of the evaluation process to guide future evaluations.

Completed and current projects will obviously not be evaluated according to the policies elaborated during 2000 and 2001, but against stated objectives. However, through the analysis it will be identified whether discrepancies exist between current practice and the new policies, and recommendations will be made on relevant actions to be taken in order to ensure streamlining. In order to ensure a wide basis for learning Danida’s practices will be seen in light of international trends and the focus of the evaluation becomes forward-looking towards improving Danish support to HMA.

7. Workplan:

The evaluation is planned to take place from March 2002 to September 2002. The anticipated time schedule is as follows:

Desk study + presentation: March
Field studies: April/May
Presentation: 30 May
First draft: 1 July
Final Report: 15 September

8. Composition of evaluation team:

The evaluation team should consist of a team leader and two team members covering the following areas of expertise:

Evaluation of humanitarian aid and development activities.
Various types of support within HMA, e.g. mine clearance, awareness, victim assistance and rehabilitation, advocacy, and capacity building.
Planning and implementation of HMA and institutional development projects.
Strategic planning.
Institutional/organisational management.
Danish understood by at least one team member.

9. Documents provided:

The following reports and publications provide background information:

Danida’s Evaluation Guidelines, February 1999
http://www.um.dk/danida/evalueringsrapporter/eval-gui/index.asp
Denmark’s Development Policy, Partnership 2000, Strategy and Analysis, October 2000.
http://www.um.dk/publikationer/fremmedsprog/english/policy-strategy/index.asp
http://www.um.dk/publikationer/fremmedsprog/english/analysis-strategy/index.asp
Strategi for Danmarks humanitære bistand, Udenrigsministeriet, februar 2002
http://www.um.dk/upload/forside/Humanit_r_strategi2002.fin_til_hjemmeside.doc
Denmark’s Support to Humanitarian Mine Action, Policy Paper, August 2001
Mine Action and Effective Coordination, the United Nations Policy, A/53/496 – Annex II, 1998.
http://www.mineaction.org/unmas/_refdocs.cfm?doc_ID=280
Report of the Secretary General on Assistance in Mine Action, A/56/448, 8 October 2001.
http://www.mineaction.org/unmas/_refdocs.cfm?doc_ID=424
Report of the Secretary General on Assistance in Mine Action: a Strategy for 2001-2005, A/56/448/add, 16 October 2001.
http://www.mineaction.org/unmas/_refdocs.cfm?doc_ID=437
Report of the Secretary General on Assistance in Mine Action: Sectoral Policy for Information Management in Mine Action, A/56/448/add.2, 17 October 2001.
http://www.mineaction.org/unmas/_refdocs.cfm?doc_ID=452
56th General Assembly Resolution – Assistance in Mine Action, A/RES/56/219
http://www.mineaction.org/unmas/_refdocs.cfm?doc_ID=478

Secretariat for Evaluation
11 February 2002

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