NCG, in partnership with Orbicon, has recently finalized an evaluation of Danida’s Ghana-Denmark Partnership covering the period 2007 to 2017. Denmark has provided development assistance to Ghana since 1957, when the country gained independence. The main areas of cooperation in the period from 2007 to 2017 have been general budget support, governance (including decentralization and human rights), health, tax/customs and private sector development. The current Denmark-Ghana Partnership Policy 2014-2018 envisages a transition from primarily development cooperation to a strategic partnership, based primarily on political and commercial cooperation.
 

The evaluation concludes that Danida has played an instrumental role in the acceleration of the decentralisation reform process in Ghana over the past 10 years, however the area of civil society is where Danida has left the most significant mark. Danida’s support to developing the National Health Insurance System (NHIS) has also been instrumental in transforming the provider payment system, i.e. the form, scale, quality and scope of health service delivery. The support to tax reforms has been less successful and the limited results obtained may not be sustainable. In general, the enabling environment for transformative change has not been conducive and in the absence of progress on the overall policy framework for private sector development, Danida’s decision to focus on enterprise level support in its private sector programme is assessed to be then right one. 

 

NCG’s team of experts was involved in all stages of the evaluation, including developing the evaluation methodology, field work and field visits, analysis, and drafting of evaluation report, with Per Kirkemann in the role of Private Sector Development Expert, Marina Buch Kristensen as Governance Expert, and Louise Scheibel Smed as Research Assistant.

Click here to read the full Evaluation Report in English, and here for a short resume of the Evaluation’s key findings in Danish.