NCG is currently in the process of conducting a mid-term review of the Danish Country programme in Somalia from 2019 - 2023.  
The overall strategic direction for the Country Programme subject to review is within three thematic priority areas:

1. Strengthen resilient, responsive and inclusive governance and service delivery, and fundamental human rights.
2. Develop core economic institutions and strengthen inclusive private sector-driven growth and economic development to diversify livelihoods.
3. Develop protection and safety nets for enhanced resilience, enabling durable solutions and reducing forced displacement

The mid-term review is conducted by a team consisting of Anton Barré from NCG, Hans Henrik Madsen and Søren Langhoff. The team has just returned from field visits to Kenya, Somalia and Somaliland and is currently in the process of finalizing the report. 

The NCG Denmark-led consortium has been commissioned to undertake the Sida Evaluation Services assignment “Core support to the Kosovo Foundation for Cultural Heritage without Borders 2016-2022 (CHwB)”. The project is in line with the Strategy for Sweden’s reform cooperation with the Western Balkans and Turkey 2021-2027 and contributes to the following objectives: better democratic governance and greater respect for human rights and the rule of law; better conditions for inclusive reconciliation processes and conflict and violence prevention efforts; improved opportunities for productive employment with decent working conditions. The objectives of the evaluation are to evaluate relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, sustainability, and coordination of the core support to CHwB Kosovo and formulate recommendations as an input to upcoming discussions concerning the preparation of a new phase of the intervention. The project is led by an NCG Sweden team consisting of James Alan Newkirk (NCG Sweden) as team leader, Juela Shano (NCG Sweden) as a team member, and Dolf Noppen (NCG Denmark) as quality assurance manager.

NCG has finalised its contribution to the Evaluation of the Danish Support to Civil Society for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, covering support to 16 strategic partner organizations (receiving SPA funding) as well as support through the six pooled funds. The evaluation comprised three thematic evaluations: 1) Public Engagement in Denmark; 2) Strengthening civil society in the Global South; 3) Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus.

Across the three thematic areas, the evaluation sought to capture outcome level results and to stimulate learning based on evidence of achieved results.

Two of the three thematic evaluations were led by NCG. The report on Public Engagement in Denmark was conducted by Verner Kristiansen and Mikkel Hansen and the report on Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus was conducted by Anne-Lise Klausen and Ayla Yurtaslan. The last report on Strengthening civil society in the Global South was led by INTRAC and with Frank Runchel as a team member.

The reports can be accessed here: https://um.dk/en/danida/results/eval/eval_reports/danish-support-to-civil-society-22

NCG has finalised an impact study commissioned by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) focusing on their engagement with agricultural cooperatives in Armenia and Georgia. The objective of the programme was to help further planning, decision-making and steering of ADA’s engagement in food security and sustainable rural development. In sum, the report concluded that ADA-supported cooperative projects have suffered from various shortcomings that have affected the ability to achieve the changes along the lines stipulated in the ToC. In light of this, it has been recommended that ADA Review their strategy and policy framework to include a strong and clear commitment to developing programmatic approaches for support to rural development and agriculture, including for agricultural cooperative development. The impact study was conducted by Louise Scheibel Smed, Carsten Schwensen, John Rand, Dr Hrachya Zakoyan and Ms. Keti Getiashvili who provided evidence concerning the effectiveness and impact of instruments, strategies and approaches applied by ADA in its support of agricultural cooperatives with a key focus on learning outcomes.

The report can be accessed here: https://www.entwicklung.at/fileadmin/user_upload/Dokumente/Publikationen/Studien_u_Analysen/ADA_Impact_study_Agri_Coop_Final.pdf