Mid-term performance evaluation of the judicial strengthening project in Macedonia

The project is organized into three components: (1) to support the development of organizations outside the judicial branch to advocate for policies to enhance the rule of law and the independence of the judicial sector (demand); (2) to partially build on the Judicial Reform Implementation Project (JRIP -- second project in the series) work with leading judicial branch actors on developing policies to strengthen judicial independence and improving operations to raise the quality of court processes (supply); and (3) to continue court room automation and judicial training (supply). The project operates in a highly politicized environment dominated by a single party in which continued judicial branch reform is a challenge. The evaluation team sought to provide answers to the following questions: (1) what is the progress to date on the stated project results; (2) how effective has been the project approach and interventions in achieving the expected results to date; (3) how well is the project communicating and collaborating with beneficiaries and counterparts in the implementation of project interventions; (4) based on results to date, is the project likely to engender sustainable and systematic development impacts after USAID funding has stopped [and] what should the implementer do to ensure sustainability and transfer of know-how; (5) given the progress to date, provide recommendation if the optional one year extension of JSP should be exercised; (6) does the project approach need to be modified in order to reflect the current justice sector environment [and] if so, how; (7) which selected actions and cross-cutting themes and corresponding activities should be further emphasized, modified or eliminated and why; and (8) what alternative approaches exist which could lead to better results and greater cost efficiency? The team concluded that, overall, JSP met the targets under the evaluation"s specified requirements, as seen in the project"s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) Plan. Nonetheless, the indicators included in the plan do not fully recognize or capture key project activities relevant to the overall goal of the project. The team concluded that targets were not very ambitious, or were tailored to match actual conditions. By contrast, the results are over-ambitious and at a much higher level of effect than the underlying activities could ever achieve. This is due in large part to the specification of results in the request for proposal and subsequent contract, which are quite difficult for USAID to change, but also to the lack of an explicit and systematically applied theory of change. (Excerpt, modified)