Evaluation of CIDA's Ukraine Program from 2004 to 2009

In 2004, CIDA responded to Ukraine's renewed efforts for economic and political reform, following the country's Orange Revolution. The program focused 95 percent of its funding to support development in two areas reflecting the shared goals of Canada and Ukraine: sustainable economic growth and democratic development. By 2009, CIDA had invested more than $99 million in programs to benefit Ukraine's 45 million people, making Canada Ukraine's fourth- largest provider of official development assistance since 2004.

Why conduct this evaluation?

This evaluation assessed the performance and the results achieved by CIDA's Ukraine Program between 2004 and 2009. The evaluation focused on a sample of 20 projects, representing 57 percent of total program investments.

What did the evaluation find?

The evaluation found CIDA's Ukraine Program to be highly effective in achieving measurable results and that CIDA's projects in Ukraine had become models at CIDA, in Ukraine, and internationally.

• Relevance — The program's high relevance to Ukrainian and Canadian priorities reflected its skillful and responsive design. Economic development agricultural projects, for example, achieved such high levels of relevance that the Government of Ukraine requested they continue.
• Effectiveness — Ukraine frequently followed through to establish institutions, policies, and laws as a result of CIDA project support, for example in the area of civil service and judicial reform, signalling the projects' immediate and promising long-term effectiveness.
• Sustainability — CIDA stood out among Ukraine's donors for flexible project design and durations, to allow projects to consolidate gains and build a basis for sustainable results.
• Crosscutting themes — Programming efforts in the crosscutting areas of gender equality and the environment and in youth did not achieve expected results. Entrenched social attitudes in Ukraine constrained gains in gender equality. Minimal attention to programming in environment and youth yielded only modest results.
• Coherence — The program's design promoted coordination (termed coherence) with other CIDA and donor projects. Coherence was greater in the portfolio of economic growth projects, but there were more limited opportunities to build coherence among democratic development projects.
• Efficiency — Conscientious management of human and financial resources created efficiencies. For example, some projects optimized currency exchange and incorporated local knowledge and skills.
• Management principles — The program implemented the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness management principles and realized stakeholder ownership, but only at the project level, in the absence of a Ukrainian national development plan.
• Management performance — The program implemented results-based management principles, although frequent staff turnover led to some inconsistencies in reporting.

The program needs to find more effective entry points to achieve gender equality results, and to devote more sustained attention to environmental sustainability.

How is the Ukraine Program responding?

• by continuing and by consolidating programming in the areas of sustainable economic growth and democratic development;
• by facilitating greater coherence between national and regional level projects;
• by balancing directive and responsive programming;
• by establishing new partnerships and sharing information;
• by improving gender equality and environmental integration; and
• by enhancing monitoring and evaluation of projects and programming context, in part through decentralization of operations and management.