Evaluation of programme impact in Warrap State and development of an exit strategy

Background:
NCA has been assisting and strengthening the capacity of the Government and local partners to provide basic services in health, education and Water and sanitation to the local community in Gogrial West County. The objectives of the current intervention are a) to strengthen the duty bearers` ability to deliver basic social services to the rights holders (the state, local authorities and line ministries); and b) to design an exit strategy for NCA to phase out of Warrap state, and specifically Gogrial West county by December 2011. Gender justice, and HIV & AIDS awareness are mainstreamed into all the above three sectors.

Purpose/ Objective:
1) Identify the impact the NCA programme has made in the lives of the lives of the communities of Gogrial West County (Warrab State)
2) Review strategies that NCA has put in place to ensure sustainability of the programme in Gogrial West County
3) Identify capacity development/training needs of the local authorities/communities to continue with the projects that NCA has been managing to ensure sustainability.
4) Design and recommend an exit strategy for NCA that ensures continuity of benefits of service provision to the rights holders
5) Review the relationship between NCA and target communities/rights holders, as well as relationship between NCA and the local authorities.
6) Review the different components of the current programme (Education, Health, and Water and Sanitation) in terms of relevance, effectiveness and efficiency.
7) Identify current assets belonging to NCA programme (Gogrial West County), and propose modalities for eventual handing over to local authorities.

Methodology:
The evaluation was seeking the involvement of most stakeholders at different stages of the process. The evaluation team used several methods to gather required data/information. Such methods included, but were not limited to the following, inter alia: review of relevant documents/literature; interviews with targeted groups (sample basis), focused group discussions; and field visits/observations.

Key Findings:
The findings indicated as follows: NCA programmes are relevant in the sense that they meet the needs and priorities of the beneficiaries, and are in line with the local and national priorities and policies; and have made significant impact on the lives f the target communities. There is need for aggressive mobilization and sensitization of the communities to create awareness on resource mobilization, in particular local resources to shift away from “dependence” syndrome. From the finding it was clear that benefits of the programme are sustainable. Bt there is a great need for capacity building of the human resource involved in the different sectors and strengthening of institutional capacities. The programme, however, does not seem to be financially sustainable, as mechanisms for local resources, logistics for drugs/spare parts/school materials supply, etc. are unclear.

Recommendations:
The following are recommendations to facilitate the programme intervention after the phase out: Firstly, put in place a contingency process of one to two years that will serve as an inter phase in the transition; Secondly, build adequate capacity of key and/or critical staff for the sectors, thirdly finish uncompleted building projects. Fourthly, revamp certain facets of the ongoing intervention (e.g. restock inventories, spare parts, etc.), and fifthly, facilitate sensitization of the communities on the importance of resource mobilization, in particular local resources; and strengthen partnerships with key players & the government who may take over parts of the intervention.