Page 86 - AERC Strategic Plan 2 July2020

THE AERC 2020–2025 STRATEGIC PLAN

In addition to monitoring, the AERC will need to assess progress towards the themes,
goals, and objectives of its strategic plan and the outcomes articulated in its ToC. This
is what is referred to in the MEF as AERC-wide strategic evaluation. The OECD-DAC
evaluation criteria (and other criteria) are typically used in contexts such as these. At the
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strategic level these criteria include:

» Relevance – which is the extent to which the AERC’s objectives and design
respond to beneficiaries, global, country, and partner/institution needs, policies,
and priorities, and continue to do so if circumstances change. This includes an
assessment of the continuing relevance of the AERC’s objectives as defined in the
current strategic plan and reframed under its ToC.

» Efficiency – which is the extent to which the AERC delivers, or is likely to deliver,
results in an economic, timely, and cost-effective fashion. This would include
an examination of management efficiency of the AERC, i.e. the efficiency of its
management systems and processes; and its allocative efficiency, i.e. the extent
to which it has allocated human and financial resources in a way that is likely to
maximise effectiveness.

» Effectiveness – which is the extent to which the AERC has achieved, or is
expected to achieve, its objectives and its results, including any differential
results across groups and programmes. In the context of strategic evaluation,
the consideration of effectiveness should also include assessing the extent to
which programme managers have made efforts to find complementarities and
synergies between the different programmes and activity clusters with a view to
maximising effectiveness and impact.

» Sustainability – which is the extent to which the net benefits of the AERC’s
programmes continue or are likely to continue. The assessment of sustainability
would examine whether supportive policies have been adopted that improve the
likelihood that the results of AERC’s work can be sustained; whether regulations
or interventions have been adopted that create an enabling environment that
is conducive to sustainability; whether financial resources have been mobilised
in support of activities that will be implemented by the AERC in the planning
cycle; whether appropriate levels of human capital have been built to ensure the
sustainability of results; and whether appropriate levels of organizational capacity
have been built to ensure sustainability (e.g. in partner organizations, government
economic agencies, etc).
» Impact – which is the extent to which the AERC has generated or is expected
to generate significant positive or negative, intended or unintended, higher-
level effects. Impact addresses the ultimate significance and potentially
transformative effects of the AERC, and, in particular, the extent to which it has
contributed to its overarching goal, which is to contribute to greater economic
stability and growth in sub-Saharan Africa through the implementation of
evidence-based economic policy.

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