Mid-Term Evaluation of the Technical Assistance to the Cooperation Support Facility (CSF) II Programme (2022)

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

• An overall independent assessment of the past performance of the Cooperation Support Facility II, paying particular attention to its intermediate results measured against its expected objectives; and the reasons underpinning such results.
• Key lessons learned, conclusions and related recommendations in order to improve current andfuture Interventions.
• The main users of this evaluation will be the Delegation of the EU to Timor-Leste and theMinistry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Timor-Leste (NAO services).

In this context, the evaluation activities were set out to:

• The matching of the needs of national and local partners.
• The materialisation of the expected results of the CSF decision and of the related contractsand their facilitating and contrasting factors.
• The performance of the management and its capacity to adapt to changing conditions,especially in consideration of the Covid19 pandemic.
• The governing mechanisms of the Intervention.
• The contribution to SDGs (main SDG goal 17; secondary SDGs goals 5 and 16).

The evaluation mission to Timor-Leste was realized between in 2022, starting with briefings at the EUD and the NAO Support Unit, This Field Phase has been following a foregoing Inception Phase (output: Inception Report) and Desk Phase (output: Desk Note), based on the projectdocuments provided by the EUD. During this period, meetings with more than 30 stakeholders have been held in Timor-Leste. The main purpose of these interviews was to obtain first hand and unbiased comments from all categories of stakeholders concerning their perception of the Programme, especially concerning its design, implementation and possibilities to achieve the targeted result, as well as to verify preliminary conclusions and recommendations formulated by the evaluator. In order to facilitate an open and critical discussion, the evaluator has assured the interviewees that their comments (and especially the critical ones) would only be used in a “neutralized” form, without disclosing the individual source of the information. A de-briefing presentation of preliminary observations and recommendations has been organised on June 06 at the EUD in Timor-Leste. Comments made during this de-briefing were subsequently included in the Final Report, which has been prepared home-based during the final Synthesis Phase.