The finalized Livestock and Fish CRP Commissioned External Evaluation (CCEE) report on the Program’s value chain approach is now publicly available.

The report makes 24 recommendations and 29 suggestions, subdivided according to four main areas of investigation and 12 evaluation questions:

Program design
1) How appropriate are the conceptual framework and theory of change?
2) How appropriate were country and sector selection?

Program management
3) How effective and efficient has been the value chain development coordination and oversight?
4) Have financial and human resources been sufficient?

R4D implementation
5) How appropriate have been the value chain research agendas?
6) How strong are synergies between value chain development and other thematic research?
7) To what extent has there been sufficient and effective multidisciplinarity?
8) How appropriate and effective has been partnership and stakeholder engagement?

Outputs to outcomes
9) What progress has been made in technological and institutional innovation?
10) What progress has been made in value chain upgrading?
11) What are prospects for scaling?
12) What are prospects for achieving progress on the Intermediate development outcomes (IDOs)?

According to the evaluation team,

The main strengths of the value chains approach of the Livestock and Fish Program include: a relatively sound conceptual framework and theory of change, effective and efficient value chain coordination and oversight, mostly appropriate research agendas, sufficient multi-disciplinarity, and appropriate and effective partnerships. Two key areas of concern are the insufficiency and uncertainty of human and financial resources, and relatively weak synergies between the value chains research for development (R4D) and other thematic research.

The finalized report has been sent to:

1. The program management, including all value chain coordinators and program flagship leaders
2. Members of the Evaluation Reference Group (ERG), including the Science and Partnership Advisory Committee representative to the group
3. Senior International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) managers
4. The head of the CGIAR Independent Evaluation Arrangement (IEA)

Over the next few weeks, the program management is required to respond to each recommendation in the form of an action matrix. The management response will be available by 9 January 2015 and will be posted on this website.

Learn more about the CCEE on the Livestock and Fish external evaluation page or follow my blog posts.