INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT:
Since 2016, four Belgian university NGOs including ECLOSIO (the NGO of the University of Liège), Louvain Cooperation (Louvain-la-Neuve), FUCID (Namur) and ULB-Cooperation (Brussels), have decided to implement a common program financed by the Directorate-General for Development Cooperation Belgium (DGD) for a period of 10 years, from 2017 to 2026, under the name of Uni4Coop. Uni4Coop's specificity is to contribute to development by mobilizing the human and scientific resources of the university community.
For the program 2022-2026, Uni4Coop proposed a fully integrated program between Louvain Cooperation and Eclosio in Cambodia. This joint program will enable the two organizations to join forces, strengthen each other, promote exchanges and better capitalize on practices, and generate new expertise at the crossroads of research and development.

 

The Uni4Coop office in Cambodia is located in Phnom Penh. It coordinates a local multidisciplinary team. The thematic areas of intervention are sustainable food systems, food and economic sovereignty (support to family farming, agroecology transition, income-generating activities, rural entrepreneurship, farmer organization) and health (with a focus on non-communicable diseases and a special emphasis on mental health).
Within the outcome of Sustainable Food Systems (SFS), Uni4Coop was granted a PArTNER project (2022 – 2026) which aims at generating economic and social changes in rural farmers families and improving the food market through agroecology transition and gender equity in agriculture. Field-activities are carried out by key partners including (i) the Tramkak Union of Agricultural Cooperatives (TrUAC) in Takeo province, (ii) Battambang Union of Agricultural Cooperatives (BUAC) in Battambang province, (iii) and 3 Agricultural Cooperatives (ACs) in Kampong Thom province, (iv) the Ecosystem Services and Land Use Research Centre (ECOLAND) of the Royal University of Agriculture (RUA), and Development and Partnership in Action (DPA) organization. In addition, several other higher education institutions, NGOs, networks and consultants are collaborating to implement different interventions.

OBJECTIVE
The DGD do not require that a mid-term review is carried by the OSC beneficiary of grants. However, Eclosio and LC are interested to carry out this evaluation in order to measure some of the CAD criteria, such as Durability, Efficiency, Relevance and to gather a set of recommendations that will be implemented for adjusting implementation of PArTNER project in 2025 and 2026. The MTR will have to be completed by November 2024 so to enable Eclosio, LC and their partners to review their future action plans 2025 and 2026 in consideration of the recommendations.

 

The underlying objectives relating to this evaluation exercise for UNI4COOP are to:
• Promote a better mutual knowledge of the different actions and stakeholders involved in order to gather coherence toward the same impact and objectives.
• Use a common reference framework to understand strategic choices, paths of change, and to question the effectiveness and efficiency of current monitoring systems and inform strategic decisions for the last two years of the current program.
• Provide elements for reflection in the process of formulating TOCs for the next DGD program.
• Identify or confirm existing topics relating to knowledge management and capitalization process.

 

MAIN USES
The main users of the recommendations issued by the MTR process are the local participants of the evaluation. They must take the lead, propose and agree upon recommendations, since their ownership over them is crucial to review and adjust the next implementation stages, if relevant. They must fully participate, learn, and contribute to the process in order to maximise their ownership of the evaluation results.
The other users are LC and Eclosio, which will use this initiative’s outputs as a learning process and to adjust their strategy of actions in Cambodia.
The fact that the stakeholders involved in the implementation of the projects take ownership of the evaluation process is also part of a learning approach, aiming for greater consideration and implementation of the recommendations since
they are co-produced by peers.
The MTR is an accountability exercise demonstrating LC and Eclosio good governance principles to the DGD, our main donor, the other cooperation actors, the various stakeholders and the general public.

 

TYPE OF EVALUATION
The Mid-Term Reviews are realised for all the projects implemented by Eclosio and LC. However, for PArTNER project in Cambodia, this is a horizontal evaluation process, intending to stimulate learning among peers.