Cluster evaluation of “Establishing a Hunger-free Initiative for West Africa” and “Mainstreaming Nutrition in CAADP and Agriculture Policies and Programmes in sub-Saharan Africa”

Challenges integrating nutrition and the elimination of hunger in agricultural programmes persist, especially in West Africa. Difficulties lie in the lack of overall understanding of the links between agriculture, nutrition and food security, in countries’ institutional capacity to concretize agriculture nutrition linkages, minimal coordination amongst key actors from multiple sectors and across countries, as well as the existence of the necessary enabling environment to support nutrition-sensitive agricultural policies. The projects GCP/RAF/476/GER “Establishing a hunger-free initiative for West Africa”, and GCP/RAF/477/GER “Mainstreaming nutrition in CAADP and agriculture policies and programmes in sub-Saharan Africa”, aimed to address the challenge of mainstreaming nutrition and hunger into agricultural initiatives in West Africa, especially the countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). A clustered, final evaluation, conducted from December 2017 to March 2018, assessed outcomes from both projects. The evaluation scope covered all countries in West Africa, while the evaluation team conducted field visits in Ghana, Namibia, Madagascar and Togo. Overall, both projects achieved the majority of intended outputs, and these activities aligned with countries’ needs. However, weak monitoring and evaluation of activities, including less than optimal monitoring indicators, hindered the projects’ ability to fully convey their achievements.