World Food Programme

Objective
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, reaching 80 million people with food assistance in 75 countries each year. KonTerra has been awarded two long-term agreements (LTA) with the WFP for evaluation services. Under these LTAs, it manages evaluations for WFP’s Office of Evaluation, country offices, and regional bureaus—examining the effectiveness, efficiency, and impact of projects. To date, KonTerra has implemented multiple evaluations under these LTAs for a total value of more than $2.5 million.

In 2014, our team evaluated WFP Uganda’s 2009-2013 country portfolio. This was a strategy-focused evaluation designed to assess the strategic alignment of WFP’s portfolio, the factors driving strategic decision-making, and the performance / results of the WFP portfolio. The Uganda CO was a pilot country for WFP’s country strategy process. In light of this, it is an important touchstone for the organization, with important lessons.

Solution
To examine progress on outcomes, the evaluation examined key operational outputs under the country strategy and portfolio. The team consciously maintained its focus on strategic implications of operational decisions and results in order to avoid dispersing focus to the level of specific operations in Uganda.

Result
The KonTerra team assessed the Uganda country portfolio against the common strategic objectives of WFP’s corporate Strategic Plan 2008-2013, and the evaluation examined operational links at the outcome level to draw conclusions on their contribution to the country strategy outcomes. The evaluation report is primarily intended to influence WFP at the country office, regional bureau, and headquarters levels and made recommendations regarding:

• Positioning;
• Sustainability;
• Development of the next country strategy;
• Quality and performance of resilience, agriculture and market support activities and general food distributions; and
• Staff capacity development on gender and protection issues.

Evaluation report is publicly available at this link