Independent Evaluation The Role and Effectiveness of SECO Cooperation in Business Environment Reform

Foreword With the purpose of learning and accountability, the Economic Cooperation and Development Division at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) undertakes regular and systematic evaluations of ongoing and/or completed projects, programs or policies in order to identify and to disseminate results about achievements. The aim is to determine the relevance, the development effectiveness, the efficiency, the impact and the sustainability of its different modalities of interventions in partner countries. Based on credible and useful information, evaluations should also enable the incorporation of lessons learned into the decision-making process of both recipients and donors, in order to foster continuous improvements of development support. The Economic Cooperation and Development Division distinguishes and undertakes three different types of evaluations, namely internal reviews, external evaluations and independent evaluations. While internal reviews and external evaluations are under the direct responsibility of the operational units, independent evaluations are commissioned and managed by the Evaluation Function – an independent unit from the operations-and are submitted for discussion to an external Committee on Evaluation, composed of 5 members external to SECO. Independent evaluations are focusing on assessment of sectors, programs, strategies, instruments, country assistance strategies, cross-cutting issues or themes and impact evaluations. On average, the Evaluation Function commissions one to three independent evaluations per year, which can be undertaken jointly with other donors or partner organizations, in line with our commitment to the Paris Declaration. SECO expects evaluations of its development interventions to adhere to the DAC/OECDE standards and to the Swiss Evaluation Society (SEVAL) standards. This report presents the results of the independent evaluation of the Role and Effectiveness of SECO Cooperation in Business Environment Reform. In private sector development, SECO focuses its activities on the mobilization of private sector resources in partner countries, with a particular emphasis on SMEs. The work of SECO is organized around three main pillars: i) business enabling environment (BEE), ii) financial sector deepening and access to finance and iii) sustainable management for SMEs. This evaluation concentrates on the first field of intervention, which comprises around 20 projects with a yearly budget of ~10 million CHF. The report evaluates the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of SECO's support to partner countries. Besides the accountability function, this evaluation shall provide an input to the development of the BEE portfolio in SECO priority countries. This evaluation was conducted as a meta-evaluation, by relying on existing project evaluations and end-of-project reports. Serbia was …