Impact Evaluation of EBRD’s Women in Business Western Balkans and Eastern Partnership countries 2014–2021

The evaluation’s purpose is to review Sweden’s present support to Women’s Rights Organisations (WROs) in line with the current Strategy for Sweden’s Development Cooperation with Bangladesh 2021-2025. The focus is to assess the Embassy’s support to women’s and girls’ rights through their WRO portfolio, assessing what has worked well for the organisations, and what more could be done by Sida to support the continued development of a vibrant civil society in Bangladesh, ever mindful of the general decline in freedom of speech and ongoing backlash on human rights and gender equality. The evaluation’s overall observation is that the organisations have achieved the outcomes intended, bringing the organisations and their partners on a sound, gender-transformative path. The lives of the women engaged in the work of all four partners have changed fundamentally. Because of this, the Embassy and Sida are recommended to continue ensuring a sound space of operation for the successful WROs through core funding and to
maintain a lead dialogue role towards their CSO and funding cooperation partners alike. The recommendations furthermore propose ways to accelerate a broader reach for added social norms change.

The Embassy of Sweden in Tbilisi provided financial assistance to the Georgian Farmers’ Association (GFA) to support the implementation of its 2020-2024 strategic plan. This evaluation assesses the relevance of the GFA’s strategy objectives and design, as well as its overall implementation, using qualitative and quantitative methods, including stakeholder interviews, focus group discussions, a survey of GFA members and a review of documentary sources.
Findings show that the GFA strategy is adequate and flexibly adapted to respond to new priorities and challenges, such as supporting Georgia’s EU accession process. The GFA met the key performance indicators and contributed to the achievement of various outcomes set out in the strategy. Furthermore, its advocacy work contributed to legislative processes, although it requires stronger evidence-based analysis. The GFA performance is assessed as very positive based on all sources of evidence.
On this basis, the evaluation proposes that the Embassy of Sweden keep supporting the GFA and provides recommendations to the GFA on potential areas for enhancement, to inform the formulation of its new strategic plan.