The evaluation was commissioned by the independent Office of Evaluation to provide evidence for accountability and learning to inform the design of the next WFP country strategic plan (CSP) in the Kyrgyz Republic. It covers the CSP design phase in 2017 and WFP activities implemented from 2018 to October 2021.
The evaluation was conducted from August 2021 to March 2022 to assess WFP’s strategic positioning and the extent to which it has made the strategic shift expected by the CSP; its contributions to strategic outcomes (SO); and efficiency and factors that explain WFP performance.
It concluded that:
- The CSP facilitated WFP’s strategic positioning in country capacity strengthening (CCS) and its collaboration with the other members of the UNCT in supporting government efforts to achieve SDG targets. It also contributed somewhat to increased strategic engagement across the triple nexus—despite internal and external limiting factors—and improved operational flexibility and responsiveness.
- WFP successfully contributed to CCS and it achieved most of its output and beneficiary targets, guided by clear targeting and beneficiary selection criteria. Nonetheless, the conditionality of assistance may have excluded extremely vulnerable people or schools unable to meet WFP criteria.
- The design and underlying social protection logic of the CSP supported internal coherence across SOs. In practice, however, the management of the CSP by SO did not facilitate synergies.
- Although WFP’s social protection programming was well received by the Government, the organization’ support to national systems and structures and the targeting of the most vulnerable was constrained by a lack of harmonization of social protection initiatives by the United Nations country team. There is scope for WFP to expand and consolidate its strategic positioning on social protection to support government efforts.
- As a partner WFP took a leading role in coordination with the UNCT, the Government, civil society organizations and funding partners. WFP forged strong technical and service delivery partnerships, creating the potential for greater multisector, multi-actor collaboration across the triple nexus.
- Progress was made towards gender sensitivity, with significant gains in programming and in meeting corporate gender requirements. However, gender transformative approaches were not fully embedded in the CSP activities.
- The CSP benefited from flexible and multi-year funding, but that did not lead to expanded resource mobilization. On the contrary, the CSP remains underfunded and the donor base is shrinking.
- Sustainability remains a challenge for the CSP activities, particularly with respect to the institutionalization of capacity development. Sustainability challenges also stem from the management of projects as standalone activities rather than linked components of long-term, multi-stakeholder programmes.
- While the CSP has potential to make broad contributions to the achievement of the SDGs, there is limited evidence that can be used to identify long-term contributions to development outcomes.
