Evaluation of Agricultural Growth and Employment Programme (AGEP) in Bangladesh
Nordic Consulting Group is proud to share the results of the "Evaluation of Agricultural Growth and Employment Programme (AGEP) in Bangladesh"
The Evaluation Department of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (EVAL) commissioned Nordic Consulting Group (NCG) and Orbicon A/S to undertake an independent evaluation of support provided to the Agricultural Growth & Employment Programme (AGEP) in Bangladesh during the period 2013-2018. Through supporting development of the agriculture, livestock and fisheries sectors in Bangladesh, Danida has promoted the farmer field school (FFS) approach since the 1990s. An evaluation of FFS was undertaken in 2011 laying the foundations for using the same approach in two components of an Agricultural Growth and Employment Programme (AGEP). The evaluation of AGEP therefore focuses on documenting the achievements and analyzing the outcomes of the FFS approach in the period 2013-18.
The objectives of this evaluation were threefold: i) To document the achievements of the AGEP since 2013; ii) To analyse the outcomes and impact of IFMC and AFSP, where a particular emphasis will be on the adoption of new farming techniques and practices, as well as marketing knowledge promoted through the project components; and iii) On the basis of the lessons learned through the AGEP, to prepare recommendations for the future to be used as inputs for the design of a new country programme for Danida in Bangladesh. Thus, the evaluation covers both IFMC and AFSP as two components of the AGEP which use the FFS approach but with the main emphasis being on the IFMC, which is by far the largest component of AGEP. This also means that the analysis of AFSP in this report is not done with the same depth as is the case for IFMC, and some areas (e.g. institutional and M&E aspects) are mainly dealt with in relation to IFMC.
The team was composed of team leader, Cartsen Schwensen, agriculture expert, Steffen Johnsen and M&E expert Eva Broegaard.This core team was supported by among others, research assistant and gender equality specialist, Louise Scheibel Smed, subject matter specialist on survey and econometrics, John Rand and Senior Statistician, Khandaker Mainuddin.
The evaluation can be consulted and downloaded from the following link: