Expanding USAID's network of development partners through development grants program (DGP) : performance evaluation of the 2010–2013 USAID DGP in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Agency for International Development in Bosnia and Herzegovina (USAID/BiH), in line with USAID's Evaluation Policy, to examine the 2010-2013 USAID/BiH Development Grants Program (DGP). The DGP's goal was to expand USAID's local NGO (LNGO) network of development partners and to provide capacity-building assistance to the new partners through supporting their initiatives. This performance evaluation answers six questions. The first three evaluation questions examine the nature of the USAID/BiH Mission's outreach and relationships with LNGOs in BiH and its post-DGP ability to directly partner with LNGOs in BiH. The remaining three questions examine how the work of the implementing LNGOs' sub-grantees was perceived and valued by end beneficiaries, whether the LNGOs' capacities changed as a result of their partnership with USAID, and whether they sustained their development efforts. The evaluation team employed a mixed-method approach. To address the evaluation questions, the evaluation team reviewed over 100 program implementation documents and databases and spoke with 143 interviewees. It found that DGP increased partnership opportunities for LNGOs and USAID/BiH Mission's ability to partner with nontraditional partners in the economic growth sector. However, further enlargement of direct partnering with LNGOs in the economic growth sector requires more funding opportunities for LNGOs' economic development initiatives and changes to the present approach of the Economic Development Office (EDO). The EDO's current activities are usually complex and large in terms of budget and scope and focus on achieving system level impacts rather than on increasing implementers' capacity. The DGP increased the implementing LNGOs' capacities to better meet their beneficiaries' needs, and the total number of end beneficiaries reached was substantial. Nevertheless, the achievements of the implemented activities were limited to the output level results. The weakest element of the Program was sustainability of the development efforts -- several organizations sustained their development efforts, but with significantly reduced scopes of work, or in sectors different than those supported by the DGP awards. The main evaluation recommendations for USAID/BiH's considerations (based on lessons learned from DGP and under the assumption that USAID/BiH chooses to continue expanding the LNGOs' network of development partners and providing capacity-building assistance to the new partners through supporting their initiatives in the economic growth sector) include: (1) increasing funding opportunities for LNGOs' economic development initiatives regardless of the funding source (USAID/BiH Mission's country budget in the economic development sector has so far not been used for LNGO prime awards); (2) matching funding levels for LNGOs to the level of their present absorption capacity and including implementers' program management and absorption capacity building in funded interventions' objectives, through gradual increase of amounts of awards to local prime NGO implementers as absorption capacity is built; (3) augmenting EDO's resources/resource division to ensure adequate resources to manage multiple awards to local prime NGO implementers and building of their capacities; (4) improving pre-award assessment tools and processes to focus more on technical and programmatic capacities of potential implementers in addition to financial and administrative capacities; and (5) improving the awards' risk management system. (Author abstract, modified)