PREFACE

"National Execution: Promise and Challenges" is an independent study of a subject of great strategic importance to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The publication of this work by the UNDP Office of Evaluation and Strategic Planning in its series "Lessons Learned" reflects OESP's continuing commitment to making significant evaluation findings more widely known in order to stimulate feedback, learning and programme policy formulation.

The evaluation of national execution - or NEX as the authors of this volume call it - is based on field studies in eleven countries. After initial visits to Egypt and Zimbabwe where the methodology was developed and refined, the Evaluation Team conducted intensive visits to nine other countries to gather concrete and empirical evidence on the practical functioning of NEX at the national and project level. The Team went to Chile, Peru and Nicaragua in Latin America; Malawi, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso in Africa; and China, Thailand and Sri Lanka in Asia. In all, over 35 projects (or components of programmes) in these countries were subjected to close review.

In addition to this field work, the Team implemented a survey questionnaire which was completed by over 65 respondents including UNDP Country Offices and Regional Bureaux, national governments and UN specialized agencies. The Team also consulted documents, databases and recent reports available at UNDP headquarters, notably the 1995 Triennial Review of UN Operational Activities and recent reports on national execution prepared by UN system bodies. OESP also contracted with a private consulting firm, the Institute for Management and Accountability for Foreign Assistance (IMAC), to carry out a review of the current status of financial reporting and auditing compliance.

Chapter I, Future Direction, highlights the main proposals and directions arising from the Team's report. It contains a statement of the purpose, achievements and challenges of NEX, as well as specific recommendations for a new programme governance system, for improving the participation of UN specialized agencies and for support from UNDP headquarters.

Chapter II, National Execution Background, reviews the evolution and growth of NEX, including prior evaluation findings beginning in 1976. Although there are many instances where agency execution provides a benchmark for analysis, this evaluation is focused on the performance of NEX on its own merits in the Fifth Programming Cycle.

Chapter III, NEX Performance during the Fifth Programming Cycle, probes the degree to which NEX is accomplishing its expected outcomes, what strengths and weaknesses have emerged in its design and implementation, and what indicative lessons inform its future direction. It examines a situation where NEX now comprises the majority of programmes and projects, accounting for 75% of IPF approvals in 1993.

Chapter IV, Selected Country Case Studies, presents three of the eleven country studies prepared by the Evaluation Team, illustrating the diverse environments and forms in which NEX operates.

Chapter V, Changing Institutional Roles, examines the essential change embodied by NEX, i.e. the realignment of programme management responsibilities. No one will deny that the transition to National Execution as the main modality for UNDP-assisted programmes has been a challenging and, in many respects, a wrenching process. The transformation is far from over, however, and major work has yet to be done. This chapter particularly focuses on the organizational challenges to UN specialized agencies, UNDP Country Offices and Government Executing Agencies, the emerging roles of non-governmental organizations, women's participation and issues regarding the use of cost-sharing.

Chapter VI, Promises and Challenges, recommends a new conceptual framework for programme governance, one that entails a new method of management appropriate to a future where NEX will be a universal modality. The chapter also makes recommendations relating to improved agency participation and further supportive actions required of UNDP headquarters.

I am grateful to the independent evaluators, Fuat Andic, Richard Huntington and Ralf Maurer, for a scrupulous, balanced and thought-provoking study which sets high professional standards for other volumes in this OESP series. I also wish to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of George Walters in assembling this study for publication, and to thank my colleague, Abdenour Benbouali, for his effective support to the independent team.

 

Sharon Capeling-Alakija Director
UNDP Office of Evaluation & Strategic Planning