The ASWap and GBI programmes were designed to increase agricultural production and productivity, increase agricultural exports and raise agricultural incomes. Since 2012, the EU has been supporting the implementation of the programmes. As the implementation of the interventions concludes in the fourth quarter of 2022, the global objective of the final evaluation is to provide an overall independent assessment, at the end of the implementation, of the performance of the EU’s support to the implementation of the Programmes, paying particular attention to the different levels of results measured against expected objectives, and the reasons underpinning such results.  

The evaluation was founded on key lessons learned and related recommendations to improve current and future EU actions in the agricultural and food security sectors.  

The specific objective of the evaluation was to understand the performance of the intervention and the reasons behind it to inform the planning of future EU interventions and to assess the programme’s coherence, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability by considering the following:  

• Analyse the success of the programme in producing the planned results and achieving its purpose; 
• Draw out lessons from the experience of programme implementation to date that may be used to plan and implement future activities; 
• Formulate recommendations to the decision-makers in the Government of Malawi and the EU on how the programme should have been implemented within its duration and estimate what has been achieved within the established time frame; 
• Assess the relevance and effectiveness of the different implementation modalities used in achieving the intended objectives. 

The evaluation assessed the project using the five standard DAC evaluation criteria, namely: efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, impact and relevance. Specifically, the evaluation assessed whether gender equality, environment and adaptation to climate change were mainstreamed and the extent to which the principle of Leave No One Behind and the rights-based approach methodology have been reflected in the implementation of the intervention, its governance and monitoring. 

• Conducted interviews with key informants from the Ministry of Agriculture, key institutions and members of the reference group 
• Reviewed indicators, including the development of quantitative or qualitative indicators
• Developped diverse data collection tools, including questionnaires and surveys
• Expert visits to project sites: Rumphi, Mzimba, Nkhotakota, Salima, Dedza, Lilongwe, Dowa, Chikwawa to engage with beneficiaries, implementing organisations and government counterparts.
• Reconstructed the Intervention Logic/Theory of Change and its underlying assumptions. 
• Conducted desk research and facilitated consultative activities to identify priorities, capacities, expertise and knowledge gaps across the public, private and civil society sectors.