Client: The World Food Programme
Dates: January 2022 – November 2022
Country: Global
The World Food Programme (WFP) is committed to strengthening its accountability; as such, there is a growing demand across the WFP for evidence generation and succinct, actionable analysis to inform strategic directions, policies, and programmes.
To support this, we are extracting and synthesising evidence from centralised and decentralised evaluations of the WFP from 2018 to 2021 to provide evidenced conclusions and recommendations.
Our role
Our synthesis aims to contribute to the WFP’s global and regional evidence-base on performance measurement and monitoring and support operational decision-making in the short and medium term.
The synthesis looks at two core areas of WFP’s operations:
- Performance measurement: assessing the outcomes, outputs and processes for WFP’s programmes worldwide to maintain an focus on results and informing operational decision-making including the design of WFP activities.
- Monitoring: tracking, collecting, and analysing the achievements of WFP activities and the overall performance of the WFP’s programmes.
Our approach
As this synthesis is being applied retroactively, we are following a three step process to extract evidence from existing evaluations.
1. Establishing the evaluations that should be included in the synthesis.
The Office of Evaluation identified a preliminary selection of evaluations that could be included in this synthesis. We then conducted a scoping exercise to determine the final sample of evaluations to be included in the synthesis.
To be included in the synthesis, evaluations must:
- be completed between 2018 and 2021;
- meet at least ‘satisfactory’ in the OEV’s independent quality assessment; and
- be either a country strategic plan, policy, strategy or decentralized evaluation.
2. Extracting and organising relevant information
We developed an analytical framework and coding structure to guide the data extraction process. Using MAXQDA, a qualitative analysis software, we extracted and organised information from the evaluation reports and inception reports.
We also conducted a series of Key Informant Interviews and a desk review of supplemental documents.
3. Generating findings through data analysis
Using MAXQDA and Microsoft Excel, we identified and quantified themes across the evaluation report data. These themes were used to generate overall findings, which in turn have informed the synthesis conclusions and recommendations.
Outcomes and impact
Our final report, published by the WFP, provides insights on the credibility, relevant and use of monitoring data and systems at WFP.
Since publication in November 2022, the WFP monitoring function is undergoing adjustments based on key findings and recommendations from our report. The WFP have said:
The synthesis acknowledges that WFP is constantly working to improve its performance management and monitoring systems, and that steps have been taken and efforts are underway to address many of the weaknesses identified in the evaluations reviewed.
To find out more about this project please get in touch.
