Evaluation of Norwegian Development Cooperation 2009

We are better at documenting our results, but have a long way to go A series of reports in 2009 are able to document concrete results for poor people, better than in earlier evaluations.

There has been clear progress in the number of children going to school in Nepal, from 86 percent of the children in 2003 to 92 percent in 2008; an increase which is actually higher when bearing in mind that the number of children has grown. In difficult Northern Uganda, Norwegian NGOs have provided education and shelter for internal refugees, provided income through the breeding of cattle and goats, caused improved awareness of children’s rights and offered energy-saving stoves that reduce the workload and risk for women and children. Norwegian peace efforts in Haiti helped reduce tension at a critical point of time for the country, and Norwegian People’s Aid has by and large reached their objectives with regard to removal of landmines. Norwegian support for local business and industry development has helped create 1500 new jobs in Sri Lanka.

However, there is still a long way to go for Norwegian aid agencies to become sufficiently able to document their results, whether these are good or not. There are several reports to indicate this. Norwegian organisations are not good enough at describing their goal achievement, to quote the report on Northern Uganda. The Norwegian effort in Haiti lacks a system to follow-up and ensure viability of the activities, which goes to show that we need a system for learning and knowledge sharing in our peace promotion efforts. Other reports from 2009 and earlier reveal the same. We do not oversee our emergency aid well enough, is what the report on the state of international humanitarian aid says.