Independent Country Programme Evaluation: Zambia

2020

This evaluation examined UNDP's contributions to national development goals, its relevance and strategic position within the country during the programme period 2016 to 2021 . It provides a set of forward-looking recommendations, with a view to supporting the country office and its partners in the continuous efforts to improve the country programme by learning from the achievements and challenges.

Full Report Infographic Summary Annexes

2010

This report states that UNDP Zambia has in general been effective in its contributions to development in Zambia. However, programme resources were spread too thinly across many initiatives and insufficient attention was given to ensuring sustainability. While cooperating partners and non-governmental organizations would have preferred UNDP to play a stronger role in advocacy, the Government appreciates UNDP as a consistent partner. The evaluation suggests that, within the context of the United Nations country team, UNDP missed opportunities to develop more joint initiatives.

The evaluation recommends that the UNDP’s country programme in Zambia should focus more narrowly on upstream policy-level support in areas where it has clear comparative advantages within its three established primary thematic areas of cooperation, and especially in the area of governance. Moreover, it is suggested that there is much scope for strengthening UNDP’s contribution to gender equality, particularly in cooperation with the United Nations country team, other cooperating partners and civil society. A review of UNDP’s partnership strategy is advised, both as a means of leveraging its support to the Government more effectively and, in this context, of developing a systematic approach towards capacity development. The findings and recommendations of the evaluation thus highlight that there are advantages in providing consistent, long-term support to countries in the achievement of development results, but that UNDP must be ready to adjust its approach in line with its corporate mandate and the changing development environment. It is hoped that this report has provided an opportunity to reflect on UNDP’s contribution to development results in Zambia, and to identify ways in which the country programme can be further strengthened over the coming years.

Full Report

Evaluation Resource Centre

Evaluation Resource Centre (ERC) is an on-line platform, which facilitates UNDP's effort to strategically plan and effectively use evaluations for accountability, management for results, and knowledge management. It provides access to all UNDP evaluation reports, plans and management responses.