Ex-Post Evaluation of Agriculture for Development (A4D)

Sierra Leone is a small West African country with a total land cover area of ca.72 300 km², with nearly 75% of arable land suitable for cultivation and with a population of ca. six million inhabitants (2015). It is a Least economically Developed Country with a GPD per capita of US$675, ranking 167 out of 186 countries (International Monetary Fund Database 2015). Agricultural production contributes ca. 46% of GDP and 70% of total employment. In 2015, the Human Development Index ranked Sierra Leone 181 out of 188 countries: 70% of the population still lives below the poverty line and 49.8% of households are still food insecure (WFP: CFSVA report 2015). The main drivers of poverty and food insecurity are low agricultural productivity, poor road infrastructure, lack of access to safe water, gender inequality, lack of education opportunities, lack of income generation among farming households and vulnerability to shocks including the recent Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak. The economy had recovered strongly since the end of the civil war (2002) with a real annual GDP growth >10% by the end of 2013 but the EVD epidemic and collapse of iron ore prices in 2014 led the country into another crisis with negative GDP growth rates since 2014 (-21.1% in 2015 at the peak of EVD).

The cash crop sector in Sierra Leone, particularly coffee and cocoa, built the country's relative wealth but increasingly went into steep decline from the start of the civil war in 1992. The aim of the A4D was to help rejuvenate the cash crop sector targeting selected crops of highest socio-economic comparative advantage, irrespective of geographical distribution, and strengthening the links in the private sector value chain, so enabling profitability to be increased at every level. The programme had the potential to reduce poverty levels of approximately 140 000 families thereby perhaps one million people overall.

An important event occurred in 2014 that badly compounded during the project implementation: the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). It profoundly disturbed the implementation of all development projects, including the 7 contracts attached to this Financing Agreement.

The main objectives of this evaluation are to provide the relevant services of the European Union, the interested stakeholders and the wider public with:

• an overall independent assessment of the past performance of the Agriculture For Development programme, paying particular attention to its results measured against its objectives;
• key lessons and recommendations in order to improve current (BAFS) and future Actions. It should not only describe what has been achieved or what the Action contributed to achieve but particularly why and upon what conditions results have been achieved or not.

In particular, this evaluation will serve to:

1. Understand the performance of the Action, its enabling factors and those hampering a proper delivery of results as to inform the planning of the future EU interventions and Actions in the same sector;

2. Make an overall independent assessment about the performance of the Agriculture For Development programme paying particular attention to the analysis of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, sustainability, coherence and added value of the processes, systems and approach;

3. Identify key lessons and propose practical recommendations to the main stakeholders of the programme;

4. Highlight the strengths and main shortcomings, and make recommendations on organisational structure, staffing and resources;

5. Identify successes that can be sustained in future agricultural support programming in Sierra Leone.

Language skills of the team:

• English
• At least one team member: familiarity with one or more local languages is considered an asset.

Minimum requirements of the team:

• At least one member of the team has sizeable experience in evaluation of agricultural policies and programmes/projects;
• At least one member of the team: 7 years of experience in agricultural policies and governance, strategic planning, project design and institutional capacity building;
• At least one member of the team: 3 years field experience in agricultural projects in West Africa, familiarity with Sierra Leone will be an asset;
• At least one member of the team: knowledge and experience of the project cycle management of EU funded development aid modalities;
• At least one team member: excellent oral and verbal communication skills in English.