EC development education evaluation positive on TRIALOG

In 2008, for the first time EuropeAid has been running an extensive general and pan-European evaluation of the Development Education NGO co-financing over the last 10 years (1998-2007). The aim was to access the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of Development Education/Awareness Raising (DE/AR) programmes and projects. The evaluation was done on 40 selected projects and on TRIALOG and DEEEP as targeted projects. The final evaluation report was now released by the EC in February 2009.

The evaluation has been overwhelmingly positive for TRIALOG as one of the very few programmes which allowed the Commission to take a more strategic approach and give more coherence to the budget line. Even if TRIALOG is not exclusively working in the field of DE/AR (but also supporting national and pan-European coordination and networking, general development policy topics, advocacy towards New Member States/NMS governments and EU institutions, capacity building for NMS civil society organisations in a wide range of development topics etc.), the DE evaluation which only looked at the DE related components of the project has been very positive for TRIALOG.

It states that TRIALOG promotes the compatibility between EC procedures and the beneficiary’s capacity, gives more coherence to the budget line and helped to achieve the objectives of the “Co-financing with European Development NGOs” programme. The evaluation clearly says that TRIALOG has increased the capacity of NGOs in NMS to work in DE and initiate dialogue with their own national government as well as networking within the NGO community. TRIALOG has had an impact on civil society’s involvement in the field of development in NMS, which was not so common at the beginning of the enlargement process. By encouraging experiential exchanges between Old Member States and New Member States (e.g. the DE Partnership Fair which we organised in 2006), TRIALOG promoted the success of the EC programme.

Indirectly, TRIALOG’s lobby work for special eligibility criteria and a separate budget for DE/AR projects for NGOs from the new EU member states was not only proven to be the right approach for the EC but additionally, in the recommendations to the EC it’s mentioned to maintain them.

To read more about the results on TRIALOG in the EC evaluation, please go to: http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/summary-on-trialog-evaluation.pdf
For the full evaluation report, please turn to: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/what/civil-society/documents/de-ar_evaluation2008.pdf

Information provided by Christine Bedoya, TRIALOG