Evaluation of the German-Chilean Fund for Strategic Reforms

In 2006, Germany and Chile agreed to support political reforms in Chile by means of the "Fund for strategic planning and implementation of self-financed reforms" (implementation period: 1/2007 – 12/2010; German contribution: € 3.4 million; German implementing agency: GTZ). According to the project description, the public administration in Chile has long been characterised by a lack of capacity and instruments for medium- and long-term strategic policy planning, often resulting in only short-lived and not very successful political reforms. The Fund aims at strengthening the capacity of the government to plan and implement strategic reforms.

Project Lead:
Guido Ashoff

Project Team:

Christian von Haldenwang

Participants of the 46^th Postgraduate Training Course:
Ingmar Kreisl
Moritz Pfaehler-Lörcher
Christian Schilling
Martin Stavenhagen
Sonja Wassermann

Time frame:
2009 - 2011 / completed

Co-operation Partner:

Agencia e Cooperación Internacional de Chile (AgCl)
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

Project description

11 policy reforms (in the areas of public administration, social security, justice, environment, health and fight against corruption) were selected for support by the Fund. Germany's financial contribution has been used for the provision of national and international experts, training programs and study visits of Chilean decision-makers abroad. The Fund forms part of the focal area "state modernization" of German technical cooperation.

The Fund was designed as an innovative instrument of technical cooperation with Chile as an emerging country and has the following distinctive features:
(i) The reforms to be supported by the Fund were selected by Chile alone.
(ii) The decision-making power in the steering committee lies with the Chilean partners (with Germany only having an advisory role).
(iii) The financing and the management for results of the reforms are Chile's responsibility.
(iv) Germany's role has been to help trigger reforms and to provide relevant know how according to the partners' needs.
This design is intended to promote specifically the ownership of the partners and the alignment of the German contributions with the partners' priorities and approaches, as stipulated in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

BMZ and GTZ expressed a strong interest in an independent evaluation of the Fund with a view to getting answers to three overarching questions:
(i) Has the Fund achieved its objectives?
(ii) Have the particular features of the Fund proven worthwhile?
(iii) Can the Fund be a model for similar cooperation projects with other emerging partner countries?

The evaluation will be conducted in close contact/cooperation with:
(i) GTZ headquarters and the GTZ country office in Chile,
(ii) AgCI (Agencia de Cooperación Internacional de Chile),
(iii) the Chilean government departments and offices in charge of the 11 reforms supported by the Fund,
(iv) research institutions in Chile with expertise in the area of state modernization.