Mid-term Evaluation of the National Solid Waste Management Programme (NSWMP)

Systematic and timely evaluation of its programmes and activities is an established priority of the European Commission. The focus of evaluations is on the assessment of achievements, the quality and the results of Actions in the context of an evolving cooperation policy with an increasing emphasis on result-oriented approaches and the contribution towards the implementation of the SDGs.

From this perspective, evaluations should look for evidence of why, whether or how these results are linked to the EU intervention and seek to identify the factors driving or hindering progress.

Evaluations should provide an understanding of the cause and effect links between: inputs and activities, and outputs, outcomes and impacts. Evaluations should serve accountability, decision making, learning and management purposes.

The main objectives of this evaluation provide the relevant services of the European Union, the interested stakeholders with:

– an overall independent assessment of the past performance of the NSWMP paying particular attention to its intermediate results measured against its expected objectives; and the reasons underpinning such results;

– key lessons learned, conclusions and related recommendations in order to improve current and future Actions (a second phase can be envisaged).

In particular, this evaluation serves to understand the performance of the Action, its enabling factors and those hampering a proper delivery of results in order to adjust its design or implementing modalities if needed.

This midterm evaluation serves to inform the planning of the future EU interventions and Actions in the same sector, in particular a second phase or an extension of the Programme.

The main users of this evaluation were the relevant EU services (mostly the EU Delegation to Egypt) and the stakeholders that are involved in the implementation of the Action to be evaluated and its steering, in particular the Ministry of Environment (direct interest of the Minister for this programme), WMRA, the PMU, the Consulting companies, the donors and implementing partners (SECO, KfW and GIZ).

The evaluation assessed the Action using the five standard DAC evaluation criteria, namely: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and perspectives of impact. In addition, the evaluation will assess two EU specific evaluation criteria:

– the EU added value (the extent to which the Action brings additional benefits to what would have resulted from Member States' interventions only);

– the coherence of the Action itself, with the EU strategy in country and with other EU policies and Member State Actions and other donors (Kfw, GIZ and SECO).

The evaluation team furthermore considered whether gender, environment and climate change were mainstreamed; the relevant SDGs and their interlinkages were identified; the principle of Leave No-One Behind and the rights-based approach methodology was followed in the identification/formulation documents and the extent to which they have been reflected in the implementation of the Action, its governance and monitoring.