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In 2013, a six-year programme (2013-2018) of Vlir-UOS funded inter-university cooperation between Flemish universities and Mzumbe University of Tanzania was launched. One of the four projects of the Gre@t programme focuses on strengthening of academic capacities, activities and outputs in the area of local governance. This brief highlights selected findings from a study on local education governance with a focus on two villages around Mzumbe University (Changarawe and Vikenge). Primary data for this study was collected in mid-2014 through preliminary village studies, a household survey and semi-structured interviews with actors at village, ward and district level who are directly and indirectly involved in the education sector service delivery and governance.

This article explores how gender issues have been dealt with in the context of the aid reform processes laid down in the 2005 Paris Declaration (PD). In doing this, the study draws upon evidence from the Netherlands and Tanzania, two PD champions. The article points to yet unused opportunities to promote gender mainstreaming in policies and systems as well as pressing challenges with regard to projects that are specifically targeted at gender equality and womens empowerment. It argues that the disappointing state of affairs may partly be attributed to the narrowly technocratic way in which the PD has thus far been understood and implemented.

In the context of the Paris Declaration and sector wide approaches (SWAps), the need to invest in well-functioning national health sector monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems is widely acknowledged. Regardless of the approach adopted, an important first step in any strategy for capacity development is to diagnose the quality of existing systems or arrangements, taking into account both the supply and demand sides of M&E. As no standardized M&E diagnostic instrument currently exists, we invested in the development of an assessment tool for sector M&E systems. In order to counter the criticism that M&E is often narrowed down to a focus on technicalities, our diagnostic tool assesses the quality of M&E systems according to six dimensions: i) policy; ii) indicators, data collection and methodology; iii) organisation (further divided into iiia: structure, and iiib: linkages); iv) capacity; v) participation of non-government actors; and vi) use of M&E outputs. We have applied this checklist to M&E arrangements in e.g. the education and health sectors of Uganda. The outcomes of these two assessments are compared in this paper. As we aim to explore the underlying institutions and contextual factors that influence M&E in Uganda, and more specifically M&E in the education and health sectors, we draw upon the insights from the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to structure our analysis.

The recent (draft) decision of the 2012 Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) recognises that a more balanced representation of women from developed and developing countries in the UNFCCC process is important in order to create climate policies that are responding to the different needs of men and women in national and local contexts (UNFCCC, 2012). In the context of the UNFCC, countries that are most vulnerable to climate change list their priority adaptation projects in National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs). Guidelines for drafting NAPAs have been made gender-sensitive drawing upon equality, effectiveness and efficiency arguments. More specifically, climate change affect men and women differently and therefore, policies and programmes that do not take into account the particular needs and capacities of both men and women will fail to be effective and may even worsen the already existing male bias. Against this background of increased acknowledgement of the importance of gender mainstreaming in climate change policies, we aim at confronting rhetorics with reality. Our study investigates to what extent and in what way the 31 available Sub Sahara African NAPAs integrate a gender dimension into the different phases (diagnosis, selection of projects, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation) of the NAPA cycle and the different sectors that are especially related to climate change (in addition to the energy sector, these are the agriculture, forestry, water and sanitation and health sectors). Additionally, we also analyse the degree of participation of women and gender experts in diagnosis and decision-making as well as the gender sensitivity of the format used for participation. The findings of the gender scan among others demonstrate that there is a decline in gendersensitivity throughout the cycle, which is particularly outspoken when translation priorities into budgets and indicators. Next, processes have been more gender sensitive than the actual content of NAPAs which hints at the fact that the gender actors around the table in NAPA decision making have not always been able to influence the content of the NAPAs. This could among others be related to a low track record of these gender actors in the area of climate change. Local climate change experts on the other hand often lack operational ‘gender’ tools and approaches which are framed in their own terminology. When it comes to an integration of gender issues in climate change budgets, our study suggests that the insights, approaches and tools of gender budgeting could be particularly useful.

In order to correct for the initial gender blindness of the Paris Declaration and related aid modalities as general and sector budget support, it has been proposed to integrate a gender dimension into budget support entry points. This paper studies the effectiveness of (joint) gender working groups and the integration of sex-disaggregated indicators and targets in performance assessment frameworks in the context of education sector budget support delivered to a sample of 17 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2005-10. Findings of the qualitative comparative analysis demonstrate that engendering these two budget support entry points contributed to high performance on increasing female enrolment.

The evaluation of the Paris Declaration (PD) is one of the most important and challenging evaluative undertakings of the past decade in the aid sector. The PD evaluation commissioned by the OECD/DAC Evaluation Network consists of a set of independent crosscountry and donor evaluations which were carried out in two phases. The scope and importance of this evaluation makes it a particularly suitable subject for a meta-evaluation. Our evaluation of the evaluation complements the official meta-evaluation of the synthesis report in that it assesses all country evaluation reports available in English (15 out of 21 reports) using the OECD/ DAC Evaluation Quality Standards. Two research questions are central in our undertaking: Is the quality of the country evaluation reports good enough to be included in the synthesis report? Do the reports properly comply with the evaluation framework to permit comparison of evaluation across countries? The findings of the meta-evaluation demonstrate that comparability of country evaluation reports is satisfactory. The quality of evidence, however, is questionable, due to various limitations and constraints that plagued several country evaluations. Therefore, the inclusion of some of the country reports in the evaluation synthesis report is questionable.

The evaluation of the Paris Declaration (PD) is one of the most important and challenging evaluative undertakings of the past decade in the aid sector. The PD evaluation commissioned by the OECD/DAC Evaluation Network consists of a set of independent crosscountry and donor evaluations which were carried out in two phases. The scope and importance of this evaluation makes it a particularly suitable subject for a meta-evaluation. Our 'evaluation of the evaluation’ complements the official meta-evaluation of the synthesis report in that it assesses all country evaluation reports available in English (15 out of 21 reports) using the OECD/DAC Evaluation Quality Standards. Two research questions are central in our undertaking: Is the quality of the country evaluation reports good enough to be included in the synthesis report? Do the reports properly comply with the evaluation framework to permit comparison of evaluation across countries? The findings of the meta-evaluation demonstrate that comparability of country evaluation reports is satisfactory. The quality of evidence, however, is questionable, due to various limitations and constraints that plagued several country evaluations. Therefore, the inclusion of some of the country reports in the evaluation synthesis report is questionable.

Since the turn of the century changes in aid policies and modalities have been proposed with the aim to promote aid effectiveness. This article is a study on the ongoing reform processes within partner and donor countries as seen through a gender lens. It explores more closely how changing aid policies unfold opportunities and challenges for gender mainstreaming policies and gender equality objective. The article analyses in particular how donors are handling gender concerns in the realm of the ongoing changes and zooms into the case of Dutch Development Cooperation, one of change champions. Such a gendered analysis of aid reform processes is of paramount importance as changes in gender and development policies have always largely been influenced by shifts in general aid and development policies.

With the aim to promote aid effectiveness that ultimately contributes to development, changes in aid policies and instruments have been propagated over the last decade. The 2005 Paris Declaration (PD) and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action (AAA), which set out a reform agenda around the principles of ownership, harmonisation, alignment, results-orientation and mutual accountability, are illustrations of the growing consensus in this respect. While the rationale for a gender sensitive PD may easily be built upon equality, effectiveness and efficiency arguments, gender is hardly mainstreamed into the PD and its implementation. In a previous study (see Holvoet and Inberg 2009) we explored how the changing aid architecture unfolds opportunities and challenges for gender mainstreaming policies and gender equality and empowerment objectives. This paper zooms in on the case of Tanzania, one of the donor darlings, and studies how opportunities and challenges materialise on the ground. It analyses how various actors, including government, civil society and donors, are handling gender mainstreaming in the realm of ongoing changes in aid policies and instruments.

Within the context of the 2005 Paris Declaration (PD) and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) recipient countries have committed themselves to setting up transparent results-oriented reporting and assessment frameworks, while donors are expected to use these frameworks and to collaborate with recipients in order to strengthen recipient countries‘ systems. However, progress in this area is slow: only three out of 54 countries in the 2008 PD Survey had adequate results-oriented frameworks. Donors, from their side, are reluctant to rely on systems which are only partially developed, which simultaneously blocks the further elaboration and maturing of recipient systems. Progress at sector level is generally stronger and particularly within health and education sectors where, in the context of Sector Wide Approaches (SWAps), several initiatives have been taken to strengthen monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems. Prior to strengthening an M&E system it is important to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the existing system, taking both M&E supply and demand sides into account. This working paper analyses the M&E system in the health sector of Niger and focuses on issues of policy, methodology, organisation (structure and linkages), capacity, participation of actors outside government and use of M&E outputs. The assessment of the M&E system in Niger‘s health sector shows a mixed picture of a partially developed system. When taking into account that Niger is one of the least developed countries in the world, with very weak scores on many health indicators, this outcome is more positive than expected. The very prominent role of donors might possibly be related to the scores obtained. The authors of this working document, however, argue that if M&E system strengthening is to a large extent pushed from the outside (donors) and not motivated through an internal M&E demand and supply side (both from within as well as outside government), it is likely that the outputs of the system as well as their use will be weak.

Aid policy and practice have been thoroughly shaken up over the past few years. One of the reform areas relates to monitoring and evaluation (M&E). In short, aid recipients are asked to elaborate result-oriented frameworks while donors are expected to harmonise and align their policies and frameworks. This article examines the extent to which joint sector reviews (JSRs) could take the M&E reform agenda forward. JSRs are M&E exercises at the sector level which have the potential to satisfy the M&E needs of various stakeholders while, at the same time, also contributing to the M&E reform agenda. They are increasingly utilised on the ground, yet, so far, there do not exist any systematic stocktakings and/or analyses of them. Our own analysis of a sample of JSRs from the education sectors of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger indicate that JSRs score highly on harmonisation, coordination, leadership and broad-based participation, but poorly on alignment. They generally prioritise accountability over learning needs and largely neglect accountability and learning at the level of the sector institutional apparatus. In this article, findings from the field are contrasted with insights from evaluation theory and practice so as to provide suggestions for on the ground JSR improvements.

Aid policy and practice have been thoroughly shaken up over the past few years. One of the crucial reform areas relates to monitoring and evaluation (M&E). In short, aid recipients are asked to elaborate sound, results-oriented frameworks while donors are expected to harmonise and align their own policies and frameworks. Evidence has revealed that implementation on the ground is slow. This discussion paper examines the extent to which joint sector reviews (JSRs) could take the M&E reform agenda forward. JSRs are M&E exercises at the sector level which have the potential to satisfy the existing M&E needs of various stakeholders while, at the same time, also contributing to the M&E reform agenda. They are increasingly utilised on the ground, yet, so far, there do not exist any systematic stocktakings and/or analyses of them. Our own analysis of a sample of JSRs from the education sectors of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger indicate that JSRs score highly on harmonisation, coordination, leadership and broad-based participation; but poorly on alignment. They generally prioritise accountability over learning needs; focus more on implementation than results; and largely neglect accountability and learning at the level of the sector institutional apparatus (including the M&E system). In this paper, findings from the field are contrasted with insights from evaluation theory and practice so as to provide suggestions for on the ground JSR improvements.