Evaluation of FAO’s Regional and Sub-Regional Offices for Africa

Presentation to the 28th Africa Regional Conference, Tunis

Maxine Olson, Team Leader

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations

Office of Evaluation

25 March 2014

Purpose of the Evaluation

To Assess:

• the extent to which the intended decentralization measures have been put in place

• the change in the ability of FAO to deliver country level results, and the performance of the DOs in contributing to these results

FAO Office of Evaluation

Evaluation Findings - overall

Modification in Structures and Authorities

• Two new subregional offices were established, but there was no significant change in resources or personnel numbers since 2005

• Substantial authority transfer occurred only in 2010 in management of the FAOR network, human resource management and procurement. Resources for these new functions were slow in coming.

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Evaluation Findings – FAO core areas of work

Changes in FAOs work:

• Encouraging progress in some areas such as priority setting (CPFs), partnership development and resource mobilization

• Improvements need to be made in program

design, implementation and technical support delivery

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Evaluation Findings – Types of DOs

Regional Office

4 Sub-regional Offices

5 Sub-regional Emergency Response Offices

47 Country Offices

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Evaluation Conclusions – Country offices

• Country Offices are the face of FAO to the Member States

• Have benefitted the least by decentralization:

- still have low levels of authority- few resources

• Do not always receive needed support from other DOs

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Evaluation Conclusions – Sub-regional offices

• Small staff and many vacancies• Strong focus on priority setting, less on

technical support• Among the programmes, more focus on

subregional programmes• Separate, well resourced emergency response

offices

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Evaluation Conclusions – Sub-regional offices

• Not enough focus on supporting Country programmes

• Partnerships with Regional Economic Commissions have been scattered, often times very general and under-resourced

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Evaluation Conclusions – Regional office

• Resources to RAF to carry out the delegated functions were slow in coming from Headquarters

• High vacancy rates in transferred posts. In an attempt to cope, responsibility was further delegated to Sub-regional Offices for Country Office oversight

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Evaluation Conclusions – Regional office

• Regional technical team serving as “back up” to the sub-regional teams

• Relatively little analysis of emerging trends and limited support to strategic policy advice and the contribution of agriculture to overall economic development and employment

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Evaluation Conclusions

• In short—Need to adjust functions among the

Decentralized Offices, in order to serve the countries better

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Recommendations - 1

More focus on the Country Level:• Increase authority of the FAO Representatives,

especially technical to be able to work faster• Empower the FAO Representatives to lead all

work at the country level including country components of sub-regional, regional and global projects

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Recommendations - 2

• Establish short term action plans within CPF frame, based on actual resource availability and organize for results

• Use these national plans to set the work agenda of the Sub-regional and Regional Offices for Country Office support

• Streamline programme and technical clearance processes

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Recommendations at Sub-regional level

• Regroup and strengthen multi-disciplinary teams to increase critical mass and greater specialization among team members

• Focus on supporting country level work.• Periodically adjust skill set• Develop approach to draw on other FAO expertise,

including national personnel• Establish a Management Board by FAO

Representatives for Multi-Disciplinary Teams’ work

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Recommendations at regional level

RAF should provide greater support to Country Offices in:

• Resource mobilization • Communication and public information• Results based management, M&E

“Train and Trust”FAO Office of Evaluation

Recommendations for Regional Office

High level support to Countries:

• Increase capacity for analysis and upstream dialogue to strengthen FAO's role as a thought-leader in the region

• Strengthen support to Regional Conference

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What they say

• “FAO is our closest partner”(Governments)• “FAO is our best partner” (Resource Partners) • “FAO is an essential member of our team” (United

Nations Country Teams) • “But we need FAO to do more, better.” (Everyone)

Further decentralization and empowerment of DOs is fundamental for this to happen

FAO Office of Evaluation

Thank you

FAO Office of Evaluation