Evaluation Report - Western Balkan CSOs for Global Development

EVALUATION REPORT

Final evaluation of the project
“Western Balkan CSOs for Global Development”

Edita Bednarova – External Evaluator
August / September 2017

Funded by SlovakAid
Contract No. SAMRS/2015/ZB2/1/2

Implemented by Pontis Foundation
Institute for Democracy and Mediation Albania
and Horizont3000

(22nd
of March 2016 – 21st
of September 2017)

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CONTENTS

Executive summary ..................................................................................................................... 3
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 8
1.1 Project description .................................................................................................................................. 8
1.2 Project partners .................................................................................................................................... 10
2 Evaluation objectives and design ............................................................................................ 12
2.1 Objectives of the evaluation ................................................................................................................. 12
2.2 Evaluation methodology ....................................................................................................................... 12
2.3 Evaluation limits .................................................................................................................................... 13
3 Evaluation findings ................................................................................................................. 14
3.1 Relevance .............................................................................................................................................. 14
3.2 Efficiency ............................................................................................................................................... 17
3.3 Effectiveness ......................................................................................................................................... 19
3.3.1 NGOs in Albania and Kosovo have built capacities in the global development agenda ................ 19
3.3.2 Albanian NGOs are mobilized and began to integrate within existing development networks .... 21
3.3.3 Achievement of project objectives ................................................................................................ 23
3.4 Sustainability ......................................................................................................................................... 24
3.5 Impact ................................................................................................................................................... 25
4 Lessons learnt & recommendations ........................................................................................ 27
4.1 Lessons learnt from actual project ........................................................................................................ 27
4.2 Thematic areas recommended for future projects to be implemented in Albania .............................. 28
Annexes .................................................................................................................................... 30
Annex 1 – List of acronyms ......................................................................................................................... 30
Annex 2 – List of overviewed documents ................................................................................................... 31
Annex 3 – ToR (Terms of Reference) .......................................................................................................... 32
Annex 4 – Guidelines for interviews ........................................................................................................... 36
Annex 5 – List of people interviewed .......................................................................................................... 38

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Executive summary

The project “Western Balkan CSOs for Global Development” has been implemented by
Pontis Foundation in partnership with Institute for Democracy and Mediation Albania and
Horizont3000 within time period of 22nd
of March 2016 and 21st
of September 2017 with the overall
foreseen budget of 105.775,00€. It was funded by the Slovak Agency for International Development
Cooperation (SlovakAid).
The project was result of previous cooperation of all three project partners with an overall
objective, to enhance capacities of Albanian and Kosovar civil society organizations in the area of
global development cooperation and their involvement in EU global development agenda.
The specific objective of the project was to mobilize Albanian civil society organizations and
to build their capacities in order to prepare them for communication with general public and other
stakeholders about Development Education and Awareness Raising (DEAR), international
development cooperation and fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The results of the project were planned as:
1. Non-governmental organizations in Albania and Kosovo have built capacities in the global
development agenda.
2. Albanian non-governmental organizations are mobilized and began to integrate within
existing development networks.

The conclusion of evaluation findings is:

Relevance of the project Rather High
Efficiency of the project Rather High
Effectiveness of the project Medium
Sustainability of the project Rather Low
Impact of the project Rather Low

Relevance
The region of Western Balkan is being supported through SlovakAid “Transformation
Experience Sharing Program” while Albania and Kosovo (in compliance with the UNSCR No.
1244/99) belong to the project countries. The goal of the program is to support democratization
and reform process by sharing Slovak transformation experience with respect to the specific needs
of beneficiaries.
The project reflects the EU enlargement process whereby the EU has developed a policy to
support the gradual integration of the Western Balkan countries. Albania is an official candidate and
Kosovo is a potential candidate country. The project was supposed to interconnect Western Balkan
organizations with the NGOs from EU13 countries, which recently went through similar processes
(based on Trialog project experience lead by the project partner Horizont3000).
Despite the fact that Albania did not yet start the EU membership negotiations, it begun to
bring its national legislation in line with EU legislation in many areas. Regarding the development
cooperation and humanitarian aid, the government of Albania does not have yet any specific
legislation related to official international development policy or relevant institutions. Development
projects are generally rather understood as those ones implemented in underprivileged regions of

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the country and the humanitarian aid has a form of ad-hoc financial support provided by Albanian
government mainly to neighboring countries in case of natural disasters or civil emergencies.
Positive is that Albania, as one of the UN member states, adopted the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development”.
There is already much funding in Kosovo of the international actors, such as UNDP being
dedicated to understanding and internalizing of the SDG agenda. In regards to the preparations and
legislative alignment in the area of development cooperation and humanitarian aid, there are no
assessments of the country’s preparedness since Kosovo is not yet a candidate country.
From the regional point of view of Western Balkan and the fact that majority of the countries
are official EU candidates, sooner or later it will be needed to mobilize and support Western Balkan
CSOs to work together in order to raise public awareness about the need for global education and
engagement in the international development agenda.
Overall, the relevance of the project is rather high.

Efficiency
The overall planned budget of the project was 105.775€ out of which 95.195€ (90%) was to
be provided by SlovakAid and 10.580€ by the project partners. The budget was spent gradually with
few requests for changes yet without any major influence on the total budget or some budget
category.
The only concerns raised by some of the project stakeholders related to cost-efficiency was
the length of the study visit in Bratislava and Vienna as well as the length of one of the national
CSOs’ capacities and platform building meetings in Albania. Both of them could have been shorter
by one day thus more efficient. On the other side, the efficiency was improved when was the second
national CSOs’ capacities and platform building meetings in Albania shortened to one day and it was
connected with advocacy training.
Questioned was the participation of Albanian representative as an observer at CONCORD’s
working group. Although the experience might not be directly transposable, the processes and
mechanisms of CONCORD’s work in the area of advocacy can be used for any policy field and the
main objective of the project activity was capacity building in general.
There were several challenges encountered during the project implementation, especially
low awareness and understanding of development policies and international development
cooperation. Good efforts were made during the project to utilize the potential of two actual topics:
the SDGs and migration. Absence of development policies in Albania resulted to lower participation
of representatives from ministries and government official on advocacy activities organized by the
grantees.
Not all of the project activities took place according the original timeline. There were quite
a few events postponed from the year 2016 to 2017 mainly due to two reasons: lack of interested
CSOs and logistical issues connected with collision of other projects’ activities of either local partner
or one of the other Western Balkan region partners.
In general, the cooperation between all project partners was described as good. Design of
the project was rather complex, with a few overlaps and missing links between proposed activities
and the allocated budget lines. Partners´ roles were in many parts unclear, and seemed to be either
partially overlapping or not sufficiently assigned, which has led to many adjustments and changes
during the implementation of the project.
Overall, the efficiency of the project is rather high.

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Effectiveness
The project brought to Albania and Kosovo very novel topic and the objectives were quite
ambitious as it seems that it was too early for Albania to get involved into international development
cooperation. It seems that the Albanian government and the CSOs are not yet ready to join the
efforts towards global poverty eradication and global justice.
The project activities did not fully lead to fulfilment of expected project results.
According to the project logical framework, the first result (non-governmental organizations
in Albania and Kosovo have built capacities in the global development agenda) should be verifiable
through two types of indicators. The qualitative indicators were defined as satisfaction of the
training participants with the content and form of the trainings and assessment of the policy papers
by the mentors. The quantitative indicators were defined as attendance of six representatives from
Albanian and Kosovar NGOs on two regional workshops (one on global development agenda and
one on global education), five awarded grants, one training organized for grantees and minimum of
five advocacy activities by grantees towards the government, CSOs or civic society on the topic of
international development.
The first project result was rather achieved as capacities of some Albanian and Kosovar CSOs
were built in the global development agenda through the various project activities and their
effectiveness varied. The feedback on both of the workshops was very positive. Appreciated was
especially the opportunity for networking as well as sharing knowledge and ideas in regard
development cooperation and global education activities with the EU13 countries and in-between
the CSOs from Western Balkan region which could confront and compare the situation in their
countries. Quite successful was the granting scheme including the mentoring program and related
trainings for grantees as well as the advocacy activities they have organized.
The second project result (Albanian non-governmental organizations are mobilized and
began to integrate within existing development networks) should be verifiable by two qualitative
indicators: level of engagement of the NGOs (either their interest or concrete activities related to
global education and development cooperation) and shared experience from building ODA systems
and NGDO networks in EU13 countries. The quantitative indicators were defined by the project
logical framework as number of involved NGOs from Albania and Kosovo, organized one study visit
to EU countries for six participants, one organized expert breakfast and at least two national
meetings organized in Albania.
The second objective proved to be too ambitious as the Albanian NGOs were not fully
mobilized and did not begin to integrate within existing development networks. The project
partners with the local CSOs did not manage to establish Albanian development network and none
of the Albanian CSO is showing interest to join some other either at Western Balkan or EU level.
However, the project enhanced capacities of some Albanian and Kosovar CSOs in the area of
international development cooperation and their involvement in EU global development agenda to
some extent. The topic was brought to the forefront of the attention of the state stakeholders and
expert public (academia), and stir some discussion. The mobilization and capacity building of
Albanian CSOs in order to prepare them for communication with general public and other
stakeholders about global education (DEAR), international development cooperation and fulfilment
of SDGs was quite low due to lack of interest and different understanding of development
cooperation.
Overall, the effectiveness of the project is medium.

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Sustainability
In the project document, several measures were introduced to sustain the outcomes and
impact of the project beyond its life cycle. First of all, it was expected that the capacities built and
shared know-how will remain important mental property and knowledge portfolio of local project
partner and other stakeholders in Western Balkan region. The educational methods were actively
involving the participants, supporting critical thinking and providing practical experience. Secondly
it is expected that the partnership with Horizont3000 might attract more follow-up funding. The
project document also expected that gained contacts at the Albanian and Western Balkan region
level as well as the EU level should sustain and will be utilized in the future.
Main challenge in planned sustainability elements during the implementation process was
the readiness of Albanian CSOs to change their thinking about development cooperation and to
attract their interest which is as well influenced by limited support of this topic from local
government.
Despite appreciation of all the educational events by the interviewed stakeholders, only few
declared their interest to get engaged into some project or practical action in regard global poverty
eradication or global justice. On the other side, all of them plan to utilize the contacts from all those
networking opportunities at Albanian and Western Balkan region levels. Majority of the grantees
(or their organizations) plan to promote and follow-up the topics of their respective policy papers.
All in all, the engagement of the direct project beneficiaries into international development
cooperation and global education has rather low chance of sustainability. It is limited not only by
the time the grantees and trainings’ participants will remain active part of the civil society
community but as well by the development policies of Albanian and Kosovar governments.
Overall, the sustainability of the project is rather low.

Impact
The project has directly influenced few dozens of individuals from Albanian and Kosovar
CSOs whose capacities were built through the various project activities. Based on the interviews
with the grantees, the number of people who were directly influenced by their policy papers, had
by the time of the evaluation visit reached approx. 700 people.
Impact of the project can be seen also in the networking between national, regional and EU
stakeholders in order to increase the profile and importance of meeting development cooperation
criteria during the accession process of Western Balkan countries and to prepare the Albanian and
Kosovar CSOs for the implications. However, the Albanian government was not reached much by
the project activities.
Some of the stakeholders interviewed (those who did not participate on any activity out of
Albania) did not know about the regional aspect of the project. On the other side the Kosovar CSO
network – CIVIKOS, was approached by the UNDP Kosovo and offered a project aiming at further
building their capacities to be able to lead the SDGs agenda in the Kosovo non-governmental sector
as well as the dialogue with the state.
Overall the impact of the project is rather low.

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Lessons learnt from actual project
1. The mentoring process of grantees should have been more complex.
2. There were more opportunities to introduce the development cooperation and global
education to Albanian and Kosovar CSOs.
3. Networking at regional level is the way to go.

Thematic areas recommended for future projects to be implemented in Albania
1. Public policy and advocacy considering the EU integration.
2. Capacities development of the CSOs and their bridging with private sector.
3. Youth issues and challenges considering the labor market.

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1 Introduction

1.1 Project description

The project “Western Balkan CSOs for Global Development” has been submitted by Pontis
Foundation in partnership with Institute for Democracy and Mediation (IDM) Albania and
Horizont3000 for funding to Slovak Agency for International Development Cooperation - SlovakAid
(under contract number SAMRS/2015/ZB2/1/2) in 2015.
The project has been running 19 months during time period of 22nd
of March 2016 and 21st

of September 2017 with the overall foreseen budget of 105.775,00€.
The overall objective of the project was to enhance capacities of Albanian and Kosovar civil
society organizations in the area of global development cooperation and their involvement in EU
global development agenda.
The specific objective of the project was to mobilize Albanian civil society organizations and
to build their capacities in order to prepare them for communication with general public and other
stakeholders about Development Education and Awareness Raising (DEAR), international
development cooperation and fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Direct beneficiaries of the project, Albanian and Kosovar organizations, participated on
several regional workshops, re-granting scheme connected with training for the grantees,
presentations of their analysis and meetings with national stakeholders and media, mentorship by
Slovak experts, study visit in Slovakia, meetings and roundtables with various national and
international stakeholders.
The results and the activities of the project were planned as:
1. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Albania and Kosovo have built capacities in
the global development agenda.
a) One regional workshop on global development agenda
b) One regional workshop on development education and awareness raising
c) Five grants within Slovak Balkan Public Policy Fund
d) Training for grantees on engaging in public awareness and policy making
e) Implementation of the funded projects
f) Presentations of analysis and meetings with national stakeholders and media
2. Albanian NGOs are mobilized and began to integrate within existing development
networks.
a) Mapping of Albanian Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) engaged or interested in
development cooperation in Western Balkan partner countries
b) Partners’ strategy meeting
c) One study visit to Slovakia and Austria
d) One expert breakfast with stakeholders and media in Bratislava (Slovakia)
e) At least two national CSOs’ capacities and platform building meetings per year in
Albania
f) Advocacy training
g) Participation of Western Balkan CSO representatives in European development
cooperation / DEAR working groups

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h) One policy digest on relevant global development topics
g) Meetings and roundtable with national stakeholders
h) International advocacy roundtable in Slovakia

The project built on the experience of successful grant mechanism of Pontis Foundation, the
“Slovak Balkan Public Policy Fund” which was coordinated in the past by IDM in Albania. At the same
time, it was utilizing know-how of Horizont3000 from TRIALOG project were Pontis Foundation was
one of the beneficiaries. However, this project was the first complex cooperation of all three project
partners. It was bridging Albania and Kosovo to bigger project “TRIALOG: Western Balkan CSOs for
Global Development” which was submitted by Horizont3000 to Austrian Development Agency (ADA)
and covering the other countries of Western Balkan (Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina). This project has been running 24 months during time period of 1st
of December 2015
and 30th
of November 2017 with some activities as well in Austria, Belgium and Slovenia.

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1.2 Project partners

The implementing organization, Pontis Foundation, is a foundation established in Slovakia
in 1997 as a Slovak branch of the American Foundation for a Civil Society. Its mission is to motivate
individuals, communities and companies to be responsible for themselves and the world around.
Pontis Foundation is carrying out over 50 large projects per year mainly in the areas of education,
civic engagement, cultivating individual and corporate philanthropy, corporate volunteering and pro
bono, awards for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability of the private sector,
know-how sharing, public policy interventions and democratization.
This was the first complex project of Pontis Foundation implemented in Albania yet the
involvement of the organization in supporting capacities of the civil society in Western Balkan is
much longer (since 2008) as well as the expertise in civil society engagement and participation.
The biggest contribution of Pontis Foundation towards the project was establishment of the
cooperation between Slovak expert mentors and Albanian grantees, organizing a study visit in
Slovakia and overseeing the transfer of experience of the know-how from building non-
governmental development sector and Official Development Assistance (ODA) in Slovakia to
Albanian and Kosovar CSOs.

The local partner of the project, International Development and Mediation (IDM) Albania,
is a non-profit organization which was established in Tirana in 1999. Its mission is to advance
societal capacities, generate and provide knowledge, skills and expertise for inclusive policy making
and evidence-based alternatives to bolster democracy and sustainable development.
The organization is combining the advantages of a knowledgeable think-tank and a
resourceful operational non-governmental actor. Its expertise extends in the several thematic areas:
EU enlargement process with a specific focus on Western Balkans’ accession; Human capital
development, management and result oriented performance; Sustainable integrated development
with particular focus on EU development policies; Good governance, decentralization reforms and
inclusive policy processes; Consolidation and development of civil society sector as a powerful actor
to generate broad consent, values and positive change; Security sector reform and specialized
studies on security issues.
The biggest contribution of IDM towards the project was its deep knowledge of local context
and civil society community in the country, established relationships with other organizations
(potential project grantees and local experts / trainers), its commitment towards EU enlargement
process as well as previous experience with “Slovak Balkan Public Policy Fund” and its coordination.

Horizont3000 is an association which was established in 2001. It is the largest Austrian non-
governmental development cooperation organization with main focus to help disadvantaged
people in the Global South to develop in a sustainable and humane way.
Based on the values of nine grassroots Catholic development cooperation organizations and
with the support of the ADA, Horizont3000 has specialized in the implementation of programs and
projects and the deployment of technical assistance personnel. The association focuses on rural
development and protection of natural resources, civil society and human rights and
education. Within these sectors work is being developed on the topics of climate change, economic
development and policy dialogue. Horizont3000 does have several country offices all around the

11
world yet none within Western Balkan region. However, it is engaging its local partners in constant
dialogue with international stakeholders including development agencies.
Horizont3000 was also the lead agency of TRIALOG project which was funded by EU and
implemented between 2000 and 2015. Its main objective was to strengthen CSOs in the enlarged
EU for active engagement in global development. Sharing of this know-how was the biggest
contribution of the association towards the project as well as ensuring the funding from ADA for the
whole Western Balkan region which enabled networking and experience sharing on wider regional
level and complex approach.
Pontis Foundation was one of the many beneficiaries of TRIALOG project and through its
active involvement it has established very good relationships with Horizont3000. The association is
with its expertise and experience very strong, professional and reliable project partner.

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2 Evaluation objectives and design

2.1 Objectives of the evaluation

The evaluation of the project was commissioned by Pontis Foundation with the main aim to
receive sufficient evidence-based conclusions and recommendations in order to make strategic
decisions about future projects to be implemented in Albania.
The structure of the evaluation followed OECD-DAC evaluation criteria (relevance, efficiency,
effectiveness, sustainability and impact).
Following these criteria, the evaluation is compatible and comparable with similar SlovakAid
funded project evaluations. The evaluation’s learning points can also provide information to the
Slovak ODA decision makers and other implementing organizations or local partners for the future
design of their projects.
Finally, the evaluation should also provide an independent feedback to Pontis Foundation as
well as to partner organizations (IDM and Horizont3000) on their management of the project and
possible ways to improve it.
The evaluation was conducted based on the Terms of Reference – ToR (Annex 3) and the
language of this evaluation was agreed to be English.

2.2 Evaluation methodology

The evaluation methodology was developed with and approved by the Pontis Foundation
Project Manager after thorough discussion in order to reflect the most of the expectations of the
organization, especially in the areas where the implementing organization felt the need for further
evidence-based decisions.
In the preparatory phase of the evaluation, the purpose of the evaluation, work plan and
timing were agreed and guidelines for interviews (Annex 4) were created. Its focus was put on in-
depth qualitative research allowing thorough understanding of the projects’ context and
stakeholders’ agendas in the implementation process. The data collection methods were non-
participatory (involving stakeholders as respondents and interviewees, but not as evaluation
designers and planners).
The evaluation was conducted through “evidence-based approach” where the answers to
the evaluation questions were put together through collecting evidence from the desk research and
field research (personal visit in Albania and Kosovo or Skype calls where the personal meetings were
not possible), its verification and triangulation (comparing to each other) and further analysis of
other data received.
Following sources of information were identified:
1. Documents and materials connected to the project and strategic documents describing
Slovak and Albanian strategic interests in the thematic areas (full list of documents reviewed
is in Annex 2).
2. Project management and implementation team including project managers, program
coordinators and financial managers of all three project partners.
3. Donor representatives as the SlovakAid Project Manager.

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4. Representatives of local authorities and governments.
5. Representatives of other NGOs / CSOs, think tanks and universities.
6. Trainers, mentors and speakers from Albania, Kosovo, Slovakia and other Western Balkan
countries.
7. Direct beneficiaries of the project (grantees and events’ participants) including other project
partners involved in various project activities implemented at the level of Western Balkan
region.

List of all interviews, their forms and timeline can be found in Annex 5. The preparation
phase of the evaluation started with face-to-face initial debriefing with Pontis Foundation Project
Manager by the beginning of June. The month of Jun was dedicated to desk research of the project
related and strategic documents. The field visit was done between 29th
of June and 4th
of July. The
individual interviews or the focus groups took usually 1 – 2 hours each. There were some Skype and
phone interviews conducted as well as email consultations due to unsuccessful attempts for a face-
to-face meeting.

2.3 Evaluation limits

There were few challenges encountered during the evaluation process.
The project was still running at the time of the evaluation with last activities still being
implemented. Therefore, the information about sustainability and impact of the project are mainly
based on expectations of the stakeholders involved.
Only very few baseline data are set in the project document which makes it difficult to
measure any success of the project. Therefore, assessing achieving of specific goals and measuring
the efficiency and effectiveness of the project is rather subjective.

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3 Evaluation findings

3.1 Relevance

The region of Western Balkan has been important pillar of Slovak ODA since 2003 as
SlovakAid was established. The region is being supported through “Transformation Experience
Sharing Program” while Albania and Kosovo (in compliance with the UNSCR No. 1244/99) belong to
the project countries. The goal of the program is to support democratization and reform process by
sharing Slovak transformation experience with respect to the specific needs of beneficiaries. There
are several sectoral priorities stipulated by the “Medium-term Strategy for Development
Cooperation of the Slovak Republic for 2014 – 2018” and the project reflects one of them: “building
civil society and cooperation between the governmental and non-governmental sector”.
Thematic priority areas of country strategies for Albania and Kosovo of other donors are
usually focused on rule of law and good governance, economic development including education
and employability, urban infrastructure and energy, health, water management and climate change.
It seems that this is the first project in both countries focusing specifically on global development
cooperation from the point of view were Albania and Kosovo should be the donors actively involved
in the efforts towards global poverty eradication and global justice. Yet both being on the OECD/DAC
list of ODA recipients (2014-2016): Albania within “Upper Middle Income Countries and Territories”
also with all the other states of Western Balkan and Kosovo under “Lower Middle Income Countries
and Territories”.
The project reflects the EU enlargement process whereby the EU has developed a policy to
support the gradual integration of the Western Balkan countries. On 1st
of July 2013, Croatia became
the first of the seven countries to join, and Montenegro, Serbia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia and Albania are official candidates. Accession negotiations and chapters have been
opened with Montenegro and Serbia. Bosnia and Herzegovina (which submitted its membership
application in early 2016) and Kosovo are potential candidate countries. Their participation on the
project includes only several activities in order to transfer the core European values as well as to
keep the process in the field of development cooperation harmonized in the region of Western
Balkan as a whole. The project was supposed to interconnect Western Balkan organizations with
the NGOs from EU13 countries, which recently went through similar processes.
The main source of experience sharing was supposed to be the Trialog project (its lead
agency was the project partner Horizont3000) which was running for 15 years and three years ago
it was concluded and evaluated. It was assisting to EU13 countries as new EU members in three
main areas: European Integration of Development CSOs from the Enlarged EU; Platform Building
Support; Capacity Building for Development CSOs. Trialog project contributed especially to
networking, learning and empowerment and advocacy in EU13 countries. Trialog’s lessons learnt
were the main guidelines while writing the proposal as well as during implementation of this project.
The project was designed as a pilot for mapping the actors and the potential for development
cooperation and assistance among these actors and stir some discussion (which seems as a
successful effort based on the amount of people interested in discussing the results of the supported
papers during the final national meeting in Tirana, and the high quality and in formativeness of the
discussion). This is also linked with the issue of global education and development of critical

15
thinking, tackling religious and political radicalism, which was pointed out by various stakeholders
as much needed in the context of ongoing reform of the education system.

Albania (along with other Western Balkans countries) was identified as a potential candidate
for EU membership during the Thessaloniki European Council summit in June 2003. In 2009, Albania
submitted its formal application for EU membership and in June 2014 it was awarded candidate
status by the EU.
The EU accession process counts between others that a candidate country will define its
policy on development cooperation and humanitarian aid including a field mechanism. That means
creating relevant legislation and financing of development assistance. It is a transition from ODA
recipient to a donor country which includes involvement of the CSOs.
Despite the fact that Albania did not yet start the EU membership negotiations, it begun to
bring its national legislation in line with EU legislation in many areas. Regarding the development
cooperation and humanitarian aid, the government of Albania does not have yet any specific
legislation related to official international development policy or relevant institutions. Development
projects are generally rather understood as those ones implemented in underprivileged regions of
the country and the humanitarian aid has a form of ad-hoc financial support provided by Albanian
government mainly to neighboring countries in case of natural disasters or civil emergencies (e.g.
the latest assistance was provided in 2015 to Macedonian government for people affected by the
floods in Tetovo).
Positive is that Albania, as one of the UN member states, adopted the “2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development”. It is the “Strategic Planning and Development Unit”, within the
“Department for Development, Financing and Foreign Aid”, in the Prime Minister’s Office which is
in charge of SDGs implementation process. There are other institutions (including UN Agencies)
participating as well and an “Inter-Ministerial Committee for achievement of SDGs” was established
which should ensure harmonization with the national strategic framework.
Creation of enabling environment for the CSOs is guided through a strategic document from
2015 “The Road Map for Albanian Government Policy Towards a More Enabling Environment for
Civil Society Development”. Albanian CSOs work predominantly on Albanian issues and operate in
areas of human rights, gender and women’s issues, youth, minority rights, environmental issues,
and the promotion of democracy and good governance. All the above-mentioned circumstances are
not yet creating proper conditions for the activities and projects of Albanian CSOs in the area of
development cooperation and humanitarian aid. Their involvement in the national development
discourse remains fragmented and sporadic. “Albanian CSOs involvement in the field of development
cooperation is limited only to regional projects supporting awareness raising about development
agenda and capacity building activities”.
However, it was pointed out in the study of one of the grantees, that “there are first
examples of the development cooperation by Albanian organizations – although thus far mostly in
partnership with other regional actors”. “Also, there is an increasing amount of ad-hoc involvement
of Albanian players into humanitarian interventions.”

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The membership status of Kosovo is currently a potential candidate. In 2008, the EU
repeated its willingness to assist the economic and political development of Kosovo through a clear
European perspective. Although Kosovo is still far from becoming an EU member, it has managed to
fulfill many domestic challenges and implemented EU related reforms to demonstrate its
commitment to the accession process.
In regards to the preparations and legislative alignment in the area of development
cooperation and humanitarian aid, there are no assessments of the country’s preparedness since
Kosovo is not yet a candidate country. “Eventually Kosovo will have to start introducing adequate
steps and policies in the area of ODA, considering it will change from recipient to donor country”.
There is already much funding in Kosovo of the international actors, such as UNDP being
dedicated to understanding and internalizing of the SDG agenda.
In terms of civic participation and cooperation between CSOs and Government of Kosovo,
there was a “Memorandum of Cooperation between the Government of Republic of Kosovo and
CiviKos Platform” signed 10 years ago with a follow-up “Government Strategy for Cooperation with
Civil Society 2013 – 2017”. “Kosovar CSOs are most active in the sectors of transparency and
accountability, rule of law, democratization, European integration and gender issues”.

Majority of the interviewed project stakeholders expressed an opinion that despite the fact
that Albania and Kosovo will change in the future from recipient to donor countries, the
environment is not yet supported by their governments. “The project did not reflect the needs of the
target groups, it seems that it was written from the desk and it was rather donor driven.”
From the regional point of view of Western Balkan and the fact that majority of the countries
are official EU candidates, sooner or later it will be needed to mobilize and support Western Balkan
CSOs to work together in order to raise public awareness about the need for global education and
engagement in the international development agenda. It was pointed out that “capacities
development of civil society and support of its engagement in development cooperation and
humanitarian aid should not have ended with this project as creation of proper conditions is a long-
term process”.
The refugee crisis in 2016 brought the international development and the role of the
Western Balkan countries into the forefront of the attention of the public and authorities with
emerging of the phenomena as such. This tendency will only be on the rise in the coming years, both
with increasing pressure the Europe is facing to tackle the global issue, as well as with the
intensification of the EU accession process.
The relevance of the project is linked to the fact, that when it comes to the transfer of
experience of Slovakia in building new foreign policy mechanisms, the ODA one seems to be one of
the most successful, and therefore the most suitable “export commodity”. The relevance also
depends from how intense will be the efforts to sustain the momentum created by the project, and
the follow-up activities of local project partners.

Considering the current states of Albania and Kosovo, their position within Western Balkan
region as well as the timing of the project, its relevancy is rather high.

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3.2 Efficiency

The overall planned budget of the project was 105.775€ out of which 95.195€ (90%) was to
be provided by SlovakAid and 10.580€ by the project partners. The actual expenditures were not
provided by the time the evaluation report was compiled but based on approved budget changes,
they should not significantly differ from the plan.
The budget was spent gradually with five requests for change in budget lines submitted to
SlovakAid, (reflecting several changes in project activities due to logistics) yet without any major
influence on the total budget or some budget category. The following graph shows the breakdown
of the planned budget based on the types of expenses:

Significant percentage of the overall project budget was spent on activities (37%). Personal
costs (including small ratio of admin costs) of both project partners were 35%. This amount reflects
the volume of work related to project activities, especially monitoring of the small grants
implementation and coordination of trainers / experts / mentors as well as cooperation and
communication of all project partners at the regional level of Western Balkan.
The only concerns raised by some of the project stakeholders related to cost-efficiency was
the length of the study visit in Bratislava and Vienna as well as the length of one of the national
CSOs’ capacities and platform building meetings in Albania. Both of them could have been shorter
by one day thus more efficient. On the other side, the efficiency was improved when was the second
national CSOs’ capacities and platform building meetings in Albania shortened to one day and it was
connected with advocacy training. However, both activities enabled very fruitful networking and
sharing of knowledge and experience which was appreciated by all interviewed participants. The
feedback on advocacy training delivered by local experts was very positive. The study visit in
Bratislava and Vienna enabled networking not only at Albanian but as well at Western Balkan region
level. Another cost efficiency in regard travel expenses was achieved through additional project

18
timeline changes when was the international advocacy roundtable in Slovakia connected with
partners’ strategy meeting.
Questioned was the participation of Albanian representative as an observer at CONCORD’s
working group. “It was interesting but I have no chance to apply the experience under current
circumstances in Albania.” Although the experience might not be directly transposable, the
processes and mechanisms of CONCORD’s work in the area of advocacy can be used for any policy
field and the main objective of the project activity was capacity building in general.
There were several challenges encountered during the project implementation. „The key
challenge relates to the general lack of awareness and understanding on the issue of international
cooperation and development among Albanian CSOs, followed by a lack of organizations showing
explicit interest on the topic.“ Even representatives of some NGOs who attended some project
events on development cooperation still did not have proper understanding of the topic and it was
still perceived as Albania should be helped and not that Albania should start helping.
This low understanding of development policies and cooperation was transferred to the
quality of submitted grant applications. Even good number of 19 project proposals was received,
only four of them were touching at least partially the desired topics. IDM provided additional
consultancies and education to grantees and some of the selected projects had to be reviewed with
small changes in their narrative parts. There were five policy papers budgeted for funding but the
fifth grant had to be allocated to IDM (Country paper for Albania) due to wrong understanding of
the call for project proposals and lack of suitable policy papers project applications.
As it was quite challenging to introduce the topic of development cooperation as such, good
efforts were made during the project implementation to utilize the potential of two actual topics:
the SDGs and migration (both of them were as well the subject of two different researches).
Absence of development policies in Albania resulted to lower participation of
representatives from ministries and government official on advocacy activities organized by the
grantees. As confirmed by some of the stakeholders it was pretty challenging to attract their
attention despite their lack of interest in development cooperation and global education.
There were several personal changes happening just at the beginning of the project. Some
of the key senior staff in both partner organization, Pontis Foundation and IDM, who participated
on project proposal preparation, were assigned to another organizations’ activities and replaced by
younger colleagues.
It was pointed out by the local project partner that “challenging was as well the limited
flexibility of the donor and especially complexity of financial reporting”.
Not all of the project activities took place according the original timeline. There were quite
a few events postponed from the year 2016 to 2017 mainly due to two reasons: lack of interested
CSOs and logistical issues connected with collision of other projects’ activities of either local partner
or one of the other Western Balkan region partners. Some of the activities were influenced as well
by national events (e.g. June’s elections in both countries, Albania and Kosovo when were some of
the project stakeholders busy with various political agendas prior to the election day).
Second regional workshop was moved to September 2016 and organized earlier by two
months. One of the national meetings was moved to February 2017 and postponed by three
months. One of the advocacy trainings was as well postponed by three months. The policy digest
was postponed by two months to May 2017 and published in June. The training for grantees was
postponed by six months. The study visit to Bratislava and Vienna as well as the experts’ breakfast
which were organized together were postponed by six month. All of these changes are mainly

19
reflecting the higher number of various project stakeholders participating on the project at the
regional Western Balkan level and none had a significant influence on the quality of the activity.
The cooperation between Pontis and Horizont3000 project partners was very efficient. In
regard the cooperation between Pontis and local Albanian project partners IDM, Pontis was
dominant in the project and it took leadership in several activities especially the granting part of the
project (mentoring of grantees and presentations of their policy papers) and in regard the activities
organized at the regional Western Balkan level.
In general, the cooperation was described as good by both project partners. Horizont3000
did not communicate much with IDM and was not much active and visible to Albanian or Kosovar
CSOs. Also, the communication between regional Western Balkan partners was quite good as some
of them knew each other from the past and previous cooperation.
Design of the project was rather complex, with a few overlaps and missing links between
proposed activities and the allocated budget lines. Partners´ roles were in many parts unclear, and
seemed to be either partially overlapping or not sufficiently assigned, which has led to many
adjustments and changes during the implementation of the project.

Considering all the information above, especially the challenges encountered during the
project and how they were dealt with, the efficiency is rather high.

3.3 Effectiveness

This evaluation report aims to go beyond output-oriented quantitative indicators set up in
the logical framework of the project. This data can be easily found in the reports provided to the
donor on regular basis. In this evaluation, the focus was shifted towards more descriptive way of
presenting results showing real outcomes of the project contributing to the overall impact. The
chapter has been divided into two parts following the results as defined in the project document.

3.3.1 NGOs in Albania and Kosovo have built capacities in the global development agenda

According to the project logical framework, this result should be verifiable through two types
of indicators. The qualitative indicators were defined as satisfaction of the training participants with
the content and form of the trainings and assessment of the policy papers by the mentors. The
quantitative indicators were defined as attendance of six representatives from Albanian and
Kosovar NGOs on two regional workshops (one on global development agenda and one on global
education), five awarded grants, one training organized for grantees and minimum of five advocacy
activities by grantees towards the government, CSOs or civic society on the topic of international
development.
The first regional workshop on global development agenda was organized as planned. The
second regional workshop on development education and awareness raising was organized earlier
by two months and the location was changed from Belgrade (Serbia) to Zagreb (Croatia) as it
appeared more convenient for all regional project partners. The feedback received from all the
interviewed participants on both of the workshops was very positive. Appreciated was especially
the opportunity for networking as well as sharing knowledge and ideas in regard development

20
cooperation and global education activities with the EU13 countries and in-between the CSOs from
Western Balkan region which could confront and compare the situation in their countries.
19 project proposals from various subjects (mainly located in Tirana) such as non-profit
organizations (six proposals), individual scholars (eight proposals) and research teams (five
proposals) from universities were submitted to the call. Majority of the proposals were related to
global development agenda (mostly to SDG number 16 – “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies
for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and
inclusive institutions at all levels”) and only three to development policy and awareness raising. All
grantees considered the call for proposals clear and the selection process as fair and transparent.
Additional support from IDM and Pontis Foundation was appreciated by majority of the grantees as
there was the need to elaborate more some narrative parts of the project proposals. For half of
grantees the related reporting was more demanding than expected, especially its financial part.
An independent committee which was composed not only from representatives of two main
project partners, Pontis Foundation and IDM but as well Balkan Civil Society Development Network
(BCSDN), the regional project partner, selected only four projects for funding:
1. Albanian Development Policy and CSO role in the EU accession perspectives (by an individual
scholar),
2. The Use of Good Country Index and Social Progress Index in a Comparative Context (by a
research team),
3. Migrants and asylum seekers rights in Albania: Addressing current and potential threats of
the refugee crisis (by European Movement in Albania NGO),
4. Albania towards sustainable development: reflections on goal 16 of agenda 2030 (by a
research team).
As already mentioned above the fifth project was granted to IDM to prepare the country
paper for Albania as the rest of submitted project proposals did not fulfil the thematic criteria of the
call. The projects / policy papers were supported under the grant mechanism “Slovak Balkan Public
Policy Fund” (which is focused on the young generations of analysts, civil society members,
academics, journalists and engaged individuals) in total amount of approx. 17.500€ (17% of total
project budget).
The two-days training for grantees on engaging in public awareness and policy making was
organized little bit behind the schedule but still appreciated with positive feedback. It was delivered
by a Slovak expert who shared Slovak experience in advocacy, lobbying, grassroots activities and
campaigning as well as about establishing of Slovak ODA. One of the training participant added that
“it seems that the training was focused rather on younger and less experienced researches, yet it
was still interesting and I gained some new contacts which I might utilize in the future”.
Mentoring process was considered as good by majority of grantees. Appreciated was the
opportunity to meet the mentors in person either during the study visit in Slovakia or the
international advocacy roundtable in Slovakia. One of the grantees pointed out that “the mentoring
could have been focused not only on the methodology but also the content of the policy paper”.
Another grantee mentioned that “it would be useful to learn as well during the mentoring how to
increase the impact of that particular policy paper through follow-up advocacy activities”.
Interviewed mentors confirmed commitment and positive attitude of the grantees towards selected
topics and feedback which was provided to them. All in all, the mentoring process was quite
successful activity and especially half of the grantees had very intense communication with their
mentors who were able to shape not just the process and the results of their research but as well

21
the advocacy activities and dissemination strategies which included in one case intense sharing of
the Slovak ODA experience. Additionally, as a side effect, one of the grantee and her mentor
extended the mentoring process to a cooperation between their universities (University of
Aleksander Moisiu in Durres and University of Economics in Bratislava) at the students’ as well as
pedagogues’ level within some EU programs.
Each of the grantee organized the desired minimum of one advocacy activity and majority
of them more than that. Their number and form varied depending on the project topic and the
target group of each grantee’s project. The policy paper “Albanian Development Policy and CSO role
in the EU accession perspectives” was presented during a conference where there were several
CSOs, a representative from German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation (GIZ) and
representatives from three different Albanian ministries (of foreign affairs, interior affairs and
economy). The policy paper “The Use of Good Country Index and Social Progress Index in a
Comparative Context” was presented once to academia and researchers, two times to
representatives from the Ministry of Economy. There were as well five organized classes for the
students. The policy paper “Migrants and asylum seekers rights in Albania: Addressing current and
potential threats of the refugee crisis” was presented three times (two times in Tirana and once in
Bratislava) and one of the presentations in Albania was attended by local media. The policy paper
“Albania towards sustainable development: reflections on goal 16 of agenda 2030” was presented
to students during two lectures and there were two workshops organized for academia,
municipalities and CSOs.
The Project Manager of Pontis Foundation noted that “the advocacy outcomes have
exceeded the project expectations, most notably in three cases: Albanian Development Policy and
CSO role in the EU accession perspectives, Albania towards sustainable development: reflections on
goal 16 of agenda 2030and the Country paper produced by the IDM”. The grantees appreciated the
first-hand experience gained in awareness raising and public debates. It was added by the Pontis
Foundation Project Manager that “the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs added some parts of the
policy paper ‘Albanian Development Policy and CSO role in the EU accession perspectives’ into their
internal documents related to Agenda 2030”. The policy paper “Albania towards sustainable
development: reflections on goal 16 of agenda 2030” qualified for publication in the University of
Aleksander Moisiu journal (Interdisciplinary Journal of Research and Development) based on
reviewers` positive comments. The Country paper by IDM Albania was presented during a national
meeting in Tirana and there were almost 50 participants involved in heated discussion about the
way forward and the priorities of the government with regards to international and domestic
development issues.

3.3.2 Albanian NGOs are mobilized and began to integrate within existing development networks

The project logical framework defines two qualitative indicators: level of engagement of the
NGOs (either their interest or concrete activities related to global education and development
cooperation) and shared experience from building ODA systems and NGDO networks in EU13
countries. The quantitative indicators were defined as number of involved NGOs from Albania and
Kosovo, organized one study visit to EU countries for six participants, one organized expert breakfast
and at least two national meetings organized in Albania.

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The level of engagement of the NGOs was quite low and lack of their interest was one of
the key challenges during project implementation. The mapping process of CSOs was done by IDM
but did not bring satisfying results. The study named 16 potential NGOs in its preliminary list which
might be interested in development cooperation but none of them showed explicit interest on the
topic.
The transfer of experience of the Slovak know-how from building non-governmental
development sector and ODA in Slovakia to Albanian and Kosovar CSOs was done through several
project activities: training for the grantees delivered by Slovak expert, mentorship program for the
grantees by Slovak experts, study visit in Slovakia and Vienna, the international advocacy roundtable
in Slovakia and the regional meeting which was facilitated by Slovak expert. The only question is
how will be all this information utilized by the project beneficiaries as it seems that the international
development policy is not yet a topic in Albania not even in Kosovo. However, it is expected that
increasingly it will be the case in the context of the global processes such as and Agenda 2030.
There were two partners’ strategy meeting organized during the project which enabled to
the project partners to share the actual experience from project implementation and to plan
together how to overcome the challenges. Following partner organizations were involved in the
Western Balkan region project besides Pontis Foundation (Slovak partner), IDM (local Albanian
partner) and Horizont3000 (lead partner from Austria): Balkan Civil Society Development Network
(BCSDN from Macedonia), Croatian Platform for Citizen Solidarity (CROSOL from Croatia), Slovenian
NGDO Platform for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid (SLOGA from Slovenia),
Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE from Austria), Association People’s
Parliament (from Serbia), Civic Initiatives - Citizens’ Association for Democracy and Civic Education
(from Serbia), Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC from Macedonia), Centre for
Development of Non-Governmental organizations (CRNVO from Montenegro) and CONCORD (from
Belgium). As per the EU integration, the situation in regard the international development policy as
well as the engagement of the NGOs in global education and development cooperation varies from
country to country. Albanian participant appreciated these meetings: “It was successful as it was a
good networking, I’ve gained new knowledge and shared experience”.
Valuable was for the Albanian and Kosovar CSOs representatives (including the grantees who
had an opportunity to meet their mentors face-to-face and strengthen the relationship) the
international advocacy roundtable in Slovakia (during October 2016) as well as study visit to
Slovakia and Austria (during May 2017). The study visit was attended by four participants from
Albania and two from Kosovo as planned (besides other CSOs’ representatives from other Western
Balkan countries). It was connected with the expert breakfast with stakeholders and media.
However, it was confirmed by the interviewed participants that unfortunately there were few
external experts and media and it was rather a regional networking event for the project
participants where two of the project grantees got the chance to present their policy papers: one
regional one done by the BCSDN, presenting the situation in relation to the development policies of
the whole Western Balkans region, and one – topical – related to Albania´s response to migration
crisis.
The international advocacy roundtable was part of Pontis Foundation conference -
Development & Democracy. This enabled the participants to meet not only CSO representatives
from Western Balkan (five speakers) during the roundtable but as well various Slovak public policy
actors and other international guests of the conference.

23
One of the participants from Kosovo appreciated the study visit in Slovakia and Austria (the
only project activity she participated on) as “I gained some information about SDGs and their
promotion by CSOs. Recently my organization got engaged with UNDP and we organized a workshop
to other CSOs on SDGs promotion. Especially the 1st
, 3rd
, 4th
and 5th
SDGs were discussed.” Some
participants from Albania noted that “The program of the study visit was good. Though it felt more
relevant in Bratislava than in Vienna. However, there were some limitations in regard
accommodation, food and means of transport.”
These three activities (besides others) enabled the transfer of Slovak experience and all
interviewed participants appreciated the networking, exchange of ideas and sharing of experience
with Slovak and other experts as well as with their peers from other Western Balkan countries.
There were three project activities in the proposal which were combined together during
two events in Albania: meetings and roundtable with national stakeholders, advocacy training and
at least two national CSOs’ capacities and platform building meetings per year in Albania. The
main objectives of them were to bring the Albanian CSOs together in order to learn more about
international development cooperation and global education as well as to establish local network
of CSOs with this focus. IDM representative concluded that “We have try to create the network but
it did not work as the organizations are not yet ready… but the events enabled us good networking
and info sharing in regard the project topic”. One of the grantees added that “It’s pity that we did
not manage to create the network as the potential is there, we just did not try hard enough”.
Even there were no project activities organized directly in Kosovo from the Albanian point
of view “the Kosovar CSOs’ representatives at their level of project participation appreciated all
Western Balkan regional activities, participated actively and were definitely learning”. Two Kosovar
CSO representatives participated actively on the study visit and some attended also the national
meeting in Tirana.
The activity of participation of Western Balkan CSO representatives in European
development cooperation / DEAR working groups was covered by the local partner organization
IDM. As mentioned already above though it was interesting there is not yet the environment in
Albania to utilize this experience. However, the participation on a CONCORD meeting was a very
good supplement to the bigger picture of the European development cooperation.
The last but not least activity was not yet concluded by the time of evaluation. The policy
digest on relevant global development topics was still in progress and local project partner was
reviewing contributions from Albanian and other Western Balkan CSOs. It is expected that the policy
digest will be shared with all project stakeholders including government representatives.
3.3.3 Achievement of project objectives

The project brought to Albania and Kosovo very novel topic and the objectives were quite
ambitious as it seems that it was too early for Albania to get involved into international development
cooperation. It seems that the Albanian government and the CSOs are not yet ready to join the
efforts towards global poverty eradication and global justice. However, the project enhanced
capacities of Albanian and Kosovar CSOs in the area of international development cooperation and
their involvement in EU global development agenda to some extent. The mobilization and capacity
building of Albanian CSOs in order to prepare them for communication with general public and other
stakeholders about global education (DEAR), international development cooperation and fulfilment

24
of SDGs was quite low due to lack of interest and different understanding of development
cooperation.
The project activities (even implemented with the best intentions) did not fully lead to
fulfilment of expected project results. The first one was rather achieved as capacities of some
Albanian and Kosovar CSOs were built in the global development agenda. The second objective
proved to be too ambitious as the Albanian NGOs were not fully mobilized and did not begin to
integrate within existing development networks. The project partners with the local CSOs did not
manage to establish Albanian development network and none of the Albanian CSO is showing
interest to join some other either at Western Balkan or EU level.
However, to some extent the project managed to bring the global development issues to the
forefront of the attention of the state stakeholders and expert public (academia), and stir some
discussion.

Overall, considering the successes and challenges during project activities implementation
and its ambitious objectives, the effectiveness of the project is medium.

3.4 Sustainability

In the project document, several measures were introduced to sustain the outcomes and
impact of the project beyond its life cycle. First of all, it was expected that the capacities built and
shared know-how will remain important mental property and knowledge portfolio of local project
partner and other stakeholders in Western Balkan region. The educational methods applied during
the project trainings and workshops were actively involving the participants, supporting their critical
thinking and providing practical experience which should be useful during day-to-day international
development work. Secondly it is expected that the partnership with Horizont3000 might attract
more follow-up funding e.g. from ADA, local embassies of EU countries or even EuropeAid. The
project document also expected that gained contacts at the Albanian and Western Balkan region
level as well as the EU level should sustain and will be utilized in the future.
Main challenge in planned sustainability elements during the implementation process was
the readiness of Albanian CSOs to change their thinking about development cooperation and to
attract their interest which is as well influenced by limited support of this topic from local
government.
The capacity building elements of the project (trainings, workshops, meetings, roundtables,
study visit and mentoring) were generally evaluated by the participants as very fruitful. They
confirmed that their capacities in the area of advocacy, campaigning, civic engagement as well as
global education, international development cooperation and SDGs were enhanced. However only
few interviewed participants declared their interest to get engaged into some project or practical
action in regard global poverty eradication or global justice. On the other side, all of them plan to
utilize the contacts from all those networking opportunities at Albanian and Western Balkan region
levels.
Majority of the grantees (or their organizations) plan to promote and follow-up the topics of
their respective policy papers. One of them plans to do more researches on SDGs and in couple of
years to update the one which was funded from the project (without funding it will be in much
smaller scale) and “the Agenda 2030 should be added to curricula at the university where I am

25
teaching”. Another grantee plans to do some watchdog activities of the government in regard
Albanian development policy. Just one grantee does not plan to do any follow-up activities and not
to focus on the topic of his policy paper at all as it is out of scope of his job and daily duties. The
commitment and the ownership of the granted analytical projects by the grantees (and their
respective organizations) is another potential sustainability element of the project.
One of the project partner added that “the project is having definitely a potential in the
future but the Western Balkan region is just at the beginning of the whole process of establishing
development policies, there is a long way to go and more intervention will be needed with bigger
timeframe”. It was as well admitted by another project partner that “the project was quite ambitious
and there is lack of ownership as it was donor driven… it also seems that the actual problems in the
Western Balkan countries are more urgent than international development cooperation”.
All in all, the engagement of the direct project beneficiaries into international development
cooperation and global education has rather low chance of sustainability. It is limited not only by
the time the grantees and trainings’ participants will remain active part of the civil society
community but as well by the development policies of Albanian and Kosovar governments.

Overall, the sustainability of the project is rather low.

3.5 Impact

The project has directly influenced few dozens of individuals from Albanian and Kosovar
CSOs whose capacities were built through the various project activities.
Based on the interviews with the grantees, the number of people who were directly
influenced by their policy papers, had by the time of the evaluation visit reached approx. 700 people.
These were mainly the target groups of the various advocacy activities organized by the grantees.
The number of stakeholders reached indirectly is estimated at few thousands (mainly through
sending the soft-copies of the policy paper via e-mail to various contact lists of the grantees and
their institutions). This outreach was a significant contribution towards awareness raising in the
respective topics of the policy papers (Albanian development policy, indexes in a comparative
context, migration and SDGs). At the same it contributed towards recognition of the researchers or
their organizations / universities at national level. Some of the grantees are currently being
approached by ministries as experts on the topic and invited for panel discussions.
Impact of the project can be seen also in the networking between national, regional and EU
stakeholders in order to increase the profile and importance of meeting development cooperation
criteria during the accession process of Western Balkan countries and to prepare the Albanian and
Kosovar CSOs for the implications. However, the Albanian government was not reached much by
the project activities. Raised awareness about development cooperation and global education by
the project partners on one side as well as about the four policy papers’ topics by the grantees could
be considered as sort of the first pressure on the Albanian government.
One of the grantees noted that “the policy paper project had a positive impact on myself as
it was a good challenge to work on the selected topic (it is not from my field of studies) and to
organize all the advocacy activities”. Another of the grantee added that “my policy paper was taken
more seriously thanks to the fact that it was funded by Slovak government”. Some of the grantees

26
admitted that without the grant such research would not be done at all or only at a smaller scale.
Majority claimed that “the money was too small in order to achieve a strong and long-term impact”.
Some of the stakeholders interviewed (those who did not participate on any activity out of
Albania) did not know about the regional aspect of the project and its intention to strengthen
Western Balkans’ civil society and their involvement in efforts towards global poverty eradication
and global justice.
Based on the “track record” which the project provided for the Kosovar CSO network –
CIVIKOS, they were approached by the UNDP Kosovo and offered a project aiming at further building
their capacities to be able to lead the SDGs agenda in the Kosovo non-governmental sector as well
as the dialogue with the state.

Based on this evidence (although too early to fully assess the impact of the project) the
conclusion is that the project’s impact is rather low.

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4 Lessons learnt & recommendations

Based on the evaluation findings and conclusions as well as purpose of the evaluation
defined by Pontis Foundation, following lessons learnt and recommendations were made.

4.1 Lessons learnt from actual project

1. The mentoring process of grantees should have been more complex.

Mentoring process was one of the project activities which has served to transfer the Slovak
experience in the area of development cooperation and global education. It was appreciated by
majority of the grantees as well as the mentors including the opportunity to meet in person during
project implementation. Despite the fact that there were up to nine man-days budgeted for each Slovak
expert it seems that the mentoring could have been more complex and intense. Especially taking into
consideration that the “Slovak Balkan Public Policy Fund” is focused on the young generation of
grantees (analysts, civil society members, academics, journalists and engaged individuals). Besides
research and policy paper writing methodology it could cover also the content (specific topic selected
by the grantee) and even the area which follow-up advocacy activities to choose in order to be more
impactful once presenting the results to the target groups. This was possible only in two cases during
this project. It seems that some mentoring mechanism could be developed e.g. a guideline which
implementation should be monitored and will lead to more consistent approach though the needs and
the working methods of the grantees differ.
2. There were more opportunities to introduce the development cooperation and global
education to Albanian and Kosovar CSOs.

General lack of awareness and understanding of the issue of international cooperation and
development policies among the CSOs was one of the project’s key challenge which was followed
by the lack of explicit interest. During project implementation, there were several topics continuously
discussed in Albania which are connected with development cooperation and are having direct
influence on the country. These were e.g. the SDGs (which were in September 2015 presented by
local UNDP office in the presence of cabinet ministers, representatives of the international
community, civil society and the private sector, including presentation of the progress report of
Albania under the MDGs - Millennium Development Goals), climate change (by beginning of 2015
the World Bank announced that Albania is one of the countries that will suffer the most serious
consequences of the world climate changes with floods being experienced at the present in many
areas of the country with negative economic impact) and migration (Albania has not been affected
largely by recent refugee crisis in comparison to other neighboring countries but Italian and Albanian
officials did meet regularly to discuss a coordinated response to the potential re-emergence of the
Albania-Italy maritime people-smuggling route from early 1990s). All of them carried over during
the whole project implementation period and their global context cannot be ignored. It seems that
more could have been done in order to discuss these topics with the CSOs within context of
development cooperation and global education and to attract their attention and interest. It would
reflect the policy at national level and enabled communication through the topics, which are already
discussed and some grounds were laid.

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3. Networking at regional level is the way to go.

The project enabled quite a good networking at local, regional (Western Balkan) as well as
EU level. Through the project of Horizont3000 funded by ADA, it brought together engaged and
committed regional project partners. The EU’s approach to the Western Balkans is rather regional
despite gradual integration of the countries. There are lot of opportunities for Albania at the regional
level to learn from the experience of other countries and to get inspired not only in regard
development cooperation and global education. Good coordination partner might the BCSDN NGO
from Macedonia with its mission “to empower the civil society and influence European and national
policies towards more enabling environment for civil society development in order to ensure
sustainable and functioning democracies in the Balkans”. Comparisons with the other Western Balkan
countries could be one of the first pressures created on Albanian government in regard development
cooperation and global education.

4.2 Thematic areas recommended for future projects to be implemented in Albania

There were three main areas identified where Slovakia could share its experience with
Albania. The best approach would be to train the trainers so the capacities of Albanians are constantly
developed and fueled locally even after the projects’ conclusion (through non-formal education).

1. Public policy and advocacy considering the EU integration.

• In general, about policy papers and research,
• In general, about advocacy, lobbying, campaigning,
• Various ways of opinion expressions (e.g. public debates and protests’ organizing),
• Analysis of potential changes which the EU policies might bring,
• Sustainable development,
• Active citizenship,
• Good governance, democracy and fighting of corruption,
• Think tanks establishment (and how to be profitable and not get politically affiliated),
• Exchange of know-how and experience between young Slovak and Albanian
researchers in regard to EU integration (e.g. study visits, exchanges, round tables,
seminars).
2. Capacities development of the CSOs and their bridging with private sector.

• Project management,
• Networking,
• Cross-cooperation with state institutions,
• Social enterprises (e.g. agro-tourism),
• CSR,
• Corporate philanthropy.

29
3. Youth issues and challenges considering the labor market.

• Unemployment and its consequences on migration and brain drain,
• Motivation of youth through small social actions,
• How to start a small business,
• Creative thinking and innovations,
• Start-ups acceleration,
• Business ideas incubation,
• Establishing of coworking spaces including incubators and accelerators (especially
out of Tirana),
• Fulfillment of the gap between students’ / graduates’ knowledge and skills and
private companies / employers’ expectations (e.g. through internships, international
exchanges).

30
Annexes

Annex 1 – List of acronyms

SlovakAid Slovak Agency for International Development Cooperation
OECD-DAC Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-
Development Assistance Committee
EU European Union
IDM Institute for Democracy and Mediation (Albania)
DEAR Development Education and Awareness Raising (program)
also referred in this report as ‘Global Education’
SDG(s) Sustainable Development Goal(s)
NGO(s) Non-governmental Organization(s)
CSO(s) Civil Society Organization(s)
ADA Austrian Development Agency
CSR Corporate Social Responsibility
ODA Official Development Assistance
EU13 countries Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
US United States
BCSDN Balkan Civil Society Development Network
NGDO(s) Non-governmental Development Organization(s)

31
Annex 2 – List of overviewed documents

Project related documents:
1. Project document submitted to SlovakAid including the attachments
2. Monitoring reports submitted to SlovakAid including the attachments
3. Requests for project activity / budget changes submitted to SlovakAid
4. Policy papers of four grantees
5. Country paper for Albania by IDM
6. Country paper for Kosovo by BCSDN
7. Project document submitted to ADA by Horizont3000
8. Monitoring report submitted to ADA by Horizont3000

Donor related documents:
9. Medium-term Strategy for Development Cooperation of the Slovak Republic
for 2014 – 2018
10. SlovakAid call for proposals for Western Balkan related projects
11. SlovakAid financial guidelines

EU related documents:
12. The European Consensus on Development
13. Trialog in the Enlarged EU – 15 Years Supporting Civil Society to Engage in Development

Country related documents:
14. Civil Society Index for Albania – In Search of Citizens and Impact 2010
15. Monitoring Matrix on Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development – Country Report
for Albania 2015
16. The 2012 CSO Sustainability Index for Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia
17. The Road Map for Albanian Government Policy Towards a More Enabling Environment for
Civil Society Development 2015
18. Memorandum of Cooperation between the Government of Republic of Kosovo and CiviKos
Platform 2007
19. Government Strategy for Cooperation with Civil Society 2013 – 2017 (Kosovo)
20. EU Commission staff working document - Kosovo 2016 Report
21. EU Commission staff working document - Albania 2016 Report
22. Country Development Cooperation Strategy for Albania of various European countries and
USAid
23. Country Development Cooperation Strategy for Kosovo of various European countries and
USAid

32
Annex 3 – ToR (Terms of Reference)

Terms of Reference – End of Project Evaluation
SAMRS 2015/ZB2/1/2 - Western Balkan CSOs for Global Development

Background
Project SlovakAid Western Balkan CSOs for Global Development is focused on the transfer
of the know-how from building nongovernmental development sector and official development
assistance in Slovakia. Project has a potential to become a part of a wider regional project in the
Balkans, which involves a wide range of actors from the EU28, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro,
Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro. The aim of the project is the active involvement of the Balkan
NGOs in global development cooperation activities to global education and building awareness of
development cooperation. Project supported by the SlovakAid will support organizations from
Albania and build awareness of the development agenda of selected organizations in Kosovo.
Project supported by the Austrian Development Agency ADA will support NGOs in Serbia,
Macedonia, Montenegro and build awareness of selected organizations Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The project reflects the EU enlargement process at a time when Serbia and Montenegro
have opened accession negotiations and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania
are EU candidates. The project involved selected organizations in Kosovo, especially in capacity
building and awareness raising activities. The main reason for including Kosovo (and Bosnia and
Herzegovina within Partner project) in the project is to transfer the core European values as well as
the harmonization process in the field of development cooperation in the region as a whole.
In the coming years, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania will need to develop
mechanisms and define its policy and development cooperation and humanitarian aid and take 30
chapters of the acquis communautaire concerning the EU's external relations and responsibility for
global development. As in the past Europe, the involvement of Balkan NGOs in this process will be
essential. This project has been interconnecting NGOs in the Western Balkans with organizations in
the EU13, which recently went through similar processes and has been preparing them for the
implementation of development projects, educational activities. It aimed at building the first
mechanisms for advocacy activities with local governments and the EU.

The overall objective:
The principal objective of the project has been to strengthen Albanians’ civil society, their
understanding of global development agenda and their involvement in efforts towards global
poverty eradication and global justice.

Specific objectives:
Mobilize and build capacities of the Albanian and Kosovar NGOs in order to be prepared to
communicate with the public and the actors of the global development education (DEAR),
International development cooperation and sustainable development goals.

33
Sectoral priority:
Development of civil society, cooperation of the government and nongovernmental sector
with particular focus on capacity building of NGOs in the area of international development
cooperation, SDGs and global development education.
A variety of activities were to be implemented in order to achieve the above objectives. A
re-granting scheme supported 5 analytical projects on specific themes, resulting in 4 policy analysis
and briefs with recommendations and 1 country paper.
The capacity building needs of the target group were addressed through the advocacy
trainings, meetings of the national network, and the national round – tables.
To strengthen the element of transfer of transitional experience, study visits to Slovakia and
Austria took place in May 2017 and was tailor made to the needs of the Western Balkan partners,
focused on meeting with relevant institution, as well as the civil society partners, involved in building
the system of the official ODA.
The partners also took part in the Pontis´s annual conference event focused on transition
and democracy „Democracy and Development 2016“, in a round-table dedicated to the building of
ODA systems in countries of the Central Europe and the experience of Western Balkans.
In order to strengthen the advocacy angle of the project, a policy digests were prepared by
Slovak and Albanian partners. Project outputs are available on the Pontis website and social media
pages, as well as the partner and grantees.

Completing project activities aimed at the achieving the following results:

Result 1: NGOs in Albania and Kosovo have built capacity in the global development
agenda.
Indicators: CSOs from Albania and Kosovo to participate at the regional development education
activities and actions of public awareness raising on global development issues.

Result 2: Albanian NGOs are mobilized and began to integrate within existing development
networks.

Indicators: CSOs and stakeholders active in or interested to engage in development
education and global development have been mapped in Albania.
At least 2 CSO platform building meetings have been held in Albania. One study visit to V4 countries
(and/or EU28) has been organized.
Experience in building ODA systems and platform building in the V4 region (and/or EU28)
has been exchanged.
1 expert breakfast and meeting with media in Slovakia organized.

34
The purpose of the External End of Project Evaluation - SAMRS 2015/ZB2/1/2
Western Balkan CSOs for Global Development

The external evaluation shall take into consideration these criteria in the assessment of
project: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.
The evaluation should contain the following:
- An assessment of the project implementation strategy, and the degree to which objectives,
outcome and output indicators were accomplished as described in the project document,
especially to what extent did the project led to strengthening capacities of the civil society
for public policy engagement and contacts/dialogue between the public institutions and the
civil society
- Evaluation of the impact of the project on the local community, civil society and the
opportunities for civic participation
- Analysis of the role of Pontis Foundation and local partner IDM Albania and their added value
in managing the project and developing the strategy for its improvement and sustainability.
- Identification of realistic and feasible set of recommendations.

Indicators:
Qualitative and quantitative indicators derived from the logical framework of the project
and/or others proposed by the evaluator.

Target groups and methodology:
The study shall be designed in a manner to evaluate the impact of the project SAMRS
2015/ZB2/1/2 Western Balkans CSOs for Global Development.

Target groups:
- local partner – IDM Albania
- grantees of the project
- mentors/trainers/consultants
- civil society representatives – Albania and Kosovo
- donors and public institutions in Albania
- SlovakAid representatives
- Pontis Foundation representatives
- Horizont 3000 representatives

Methodology:
- Desk research (Analysis of available materials provided by The Pontis Foundation an IDM
Albania – project proposals, reports for donors, evaluation reports, training reports, policy
papers, grantees´ reports and mentor reviews and study visit agenda and reports)
- Interviews (in person, via skype/e-mail)
- Any additional methods proposed by consultant

35
The evaluation should include:
- Information and description of the overall environment within which The Pontis Foundation
and its partner IDM Albania work, with particular attention to the Albanian political context
and the opportunities for civic participation
- Information regarding the implemented activities and analysis of the qualitative and the
quantitative indicators achieved by them
- Evaluation of the added value of the project, according to the set objectives and goals
- Assessment of the results and impact of the project on local community and on the local and
central policymaking (in terms of stirring discussion on the specific topics of concern to the
community, etc.)
- Analysis of the topics of major concern and relevance for the local community, which could
be considered for future interventions in Albania and Kosovo.

Duration:
The Evaluation is expected to start in 5 June 2017 and finish after the submission of the
requested documents by 15 September 2015 2017. By 30 June 2017, the Pontis Foundation will
deliver all materials necessary for the evaluation process.

Work plan:

Deadline for submission
Draft report by 5 September 2017, final by 15 September 2017 the consultant will deliver
the evaluation (in English).

Practical arrangement
The Pontis Foundation and the consultant will sign a contract allowing him/her to deliver the
expected results. The contract will respect the Slovak legislation. The Pontis Foundation will pay the
expert the agreed remuneration, reduced by the taxes required by the law.

36
Annex 4 – Guidelines for interviews

BENEFICIARIES (GRANTEES, NGOs / CSOs, THINK TANKS, UNIVERSITIES)

Engagement questions:
1. When and how has the organization been established?
2. What are the general characteristics of the organization (motivation, similar activities /
stakeholders before this project)?

Exploration questions:
3. How did you / your organization get engaged in the project?
4. Were there any other organizations / donors assisting to your organization before?
5. What has been offered to your organization and has it been delivered as offered?
6. Did the activities go as expected in the original timeline?
7. Did your organization get from the project what you expected at the beginning? What was
it?
8. How have the activities and their results influence development cooperation in Albania /
Kosovo?
9. What has been the most visible change seen?
10. Do you think that this project helped you / your organization to better understand the global
development agenda (DEAR, ODA, SDGs)?
11. How was the cooperation with the three project partners?
12. How was the interaction with local authorities and local experts?
13. How was the interaction with Slovak experts (trainers and mentors)?
14. How did you interact with the other project stakeholders from Western Balkan region?
15. Which challenges did you undergo during the project implementation?
16. What do you think will happen once the project partners will finish their support?
17. What was your personal motivation to be part of the project?
18. What are your personal plans for next five years?

Exit questions:
19. What could have been done better during this project? Any suggestions for improvements?
20. Is there anything else you would like to say regarding this project?

37
PROJECT STAFF

Engagement questions:
1. How has been the involvement of you / your organization in project planning and proposal
writing?
2. Which other similar projects has the organization been involved in? What is the expertise of
the team?

Exploration questions:
3. Is the project relevant to the beneficiaries (CSOs of Western Balkan)? Why?
4. To what extent the project fulfilled the targets groups’ needs?
5. To what extent the main activities and outputs contributed to achieving the planned goals
and purpose?
6. Which factors influenced achieving outputs and goals?
7. Were the results of the project achieved? What helped / prevented the team to achieve
those?
8. Have the financial management and timing of the project gone as expected?
9. Could the same outputs be achieved with fewer inputs (cheaper)? / Could there be more
outputs achieved with the same inputs?
10. What were the successes and challenges of the project and its respective activities?
11. How has the life of the beneficiaries changed as a result of the project?
12. What other changes has this project contributed to (positive and negative, expected and
unexpected, actual and foreseen)?
13. How was the cooperation between the project partners during the implementation of the
project?
14. How was the interaction with the other project stakeholders from Western Balkan region?
15. What are the measures taken to sustain the results of the project beyond its project cycle?
16. To what extent do you expect the project’s benefits sustaining?
21. To what extent has the project contributed to better understand of global development
agenda (DEAR, ODA, SDGs) by its beneficiaries?

Exit question:
17. What is it that partner organizations missed the most during the implementation?
18. If there is a chance to start the project again, what should be done differently?
19. Is there anything else to be mentioned in regards to the project?

Evaluation Report - Western Balkan CSOs for Global Development

Evaluation Report - Western Balkan CSOs for Global Development

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