Inclusive and sustainable development - PEM Consult

Jobs and livelihoods remain a key global concern. For substantial poverty reduction needed to meet SDG 1, socially-balanced growth is critical. Over the next decade, an estimated 600 million productive jobs are urgently needed to sustain growth and maintain social cohesion. Inclusive growth broadens development discourse beyond alleviating extreme poverty to how growth can be more equitable and inclusive. It emphasises equal opportunities in terms of access to markets, resources, and an unbiased regulatory environment for businesses and individuals. This ensures participation by all in the growth process, and an equitable share in prosperity (SDG 10) resulting from economic growth. Sustainable development ensures a better quality of life (SDG 11) – now and in the future – and economic growth while protecting the environment (SDG 12), with key strategies including economic diversification and technological innovation (SDG 9). PEM's guiding values in this area follow the fundamental principles of the UN Global Compact, international codes of decent work (ILO Agenda and SDG 8), protection of the environment, and fighting corruption

Main areas of expertise:

Improving regulatory framework for SMEs
Strengthening demand-oriented and market-responsive business development
Improving labour market relevance and quality of skills training/TVET
Empowering private/informal sectors to participate in policy dialogue
Enhancing competitiveness through capacity development

Private sector = 90% of jobs

An essential partner in the fight against poverty, the private sector provides approximately 90% of jobs in developing countries. Sustainable market-driven economic development involves all levels of market players from the self-employed in the informal economy, to small and medium enterprises, and transnational companies. A key feature of our approach is to strengthen the private sector’s capacity – employers and employees – to articulate their interests vis-à-vis institutional and other stakeholders, and ensuring that channels exist for advocacy activities and social dialogue.

Our Work - Examples:

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Fostering economic empowerment of women farmers by supporting homemade dairy production through the Farmer Field Schools (FFS) approach

The midterm evaluation objects are the farmer field schools set up and established by FAO in Abkhazia and Samegrelo. The beneficiaries of the farmer field school are women dairy farmers who have improved the quality of their produce, as well as skills to seek self-employment in dairy sector by establishing connections with local dairy shops to increase incomes. This four-year FAO/UN Women project aims at developing a network of groups of farmers gathered in Farmer Field Schools (FFS). FFS are farmer-to-farmer learning platforms to demonstrate upgraded technical practices in terms of improved food safety for dairy products. Up to 40 farmer field schools (20 in Abkhazia and 20 in Samegrelo) will be set-up at the end of the project cycle, which will empower up to 1.000 women with better income generation opportunities. The objective of this midterm evaluation is to assess to what extent the project is on track towards achieving its objectives and indicators as per project’s logical framework. Further, it aims at informing the Swiss Cooperation Office about main recommendations to steer the project towards more sustainable outcomes. The evaluation results will also inform the project team on the necessary adjustments for the successful implementation.

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (Sida) (2022), contract value EUR 33,888

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Independent Evaluation of SDC’s Performance in Agricultural Market Systems Development 2013-2019

Subject to this evaluation is the project “Support to Public Financial and Economic Management with a commissioning value of 11,700,000 EUR. The focus of the project is on strengthening the budget implementation (at the national level, e.g., the central government's budget). The module objective is to support the Malawian Government's efforts to improve public financial management in terms of efficiency, regularity and propriety of budget management, domestic resource mobilization, and internal and external control mechanisms. The central project evaluation was divided into two phases: (1) an inception phase with the preparation of the inception report on the methodological approach and (2) a data collection and evaluation phase with the evaluation mission and the preparation of the evaluation report. Based on preparations during the inception phase, during the evaluation mission to Malawi the necessary data for the evaluation was collected by conducting interviews with the involved stakeholders and by other methods defined in the inception phase. Data was then analysed, triangulated, assessed, and validated systematically. Based on the findings, the evaluation report was elaborated.

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) (2021 - 2023), contract value EUR 57,258

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Independent Evaluation of SDC’s Performance in Agricultural Market Systems Development 2013-2019

PEM has been commissioned to evaluate the performance of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Agricultural Market Systems Development (MSD) 2013-2019. The evaluation purpose is, in particular, to provide evidence on how the SDC MSD development programmes in Agriculture contribute to increasing income, supporting food security, reducing poverty, and improving resilience and livelihoods of smallholder farmers. The evaluation seeks to identify successes, difficulties and failures, as well as good practices of how MSD in Agriculture is implemented and assess to which extent and how such practices could be applied systematically within SDC. The evaluation team will look at the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability of SDC agricultural MSD programmes and projects in all four domains: South Cooperation, Cooperation with Eastern Europe, Humanitarian Aid, and Global Cooperation. Looking backwards and forward, the evaluators will assess accountability and performance, document evidence of results and focus on making strategic use of the findings.

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) (2021) contract value EUR 190,702

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Evaluation of SIDA's results strategy for reform cooperation in Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans and Turkey 2014-2020

PEM consult has recently completed a large evaluation of Sida’s implementation of their results strategy for reform cooperation in Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans and Turkey 2014-2020, covering over 1000 projects and contributions. From inception to data collection, many country visits, leading to the final evaluation and presentation seminar for all Sida staff. The evaluation report will soon be published on Sida’s site and PEM is looking forward to continuing our fruitful cooperation with Sida in the future.

The Swedish International Cooperation Agency (Sida) (2020) contract value EUR 98,054

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Mid-term Review of the Bangladesh Country Programme 2016-2021

PEMconsult has been commissioned by Danida to conduct the mid-term review of the Bangladesh Country Programme 2016-2021. Denmark has been present in Bangladesh for many years, and the development cooperation is just one area of a broad engagement in the country. The Country Programme provides a coherent framework to improve the strategic dialogue and increase the effect of the partnership with a focus on poverty reduction, sustainable growth and promotion of democracy and respect for human rights. PEM’s team consisting of Thorbjørn Waagstein, Ole Houmøller and Greg Moran will carry out work in Bangladesh in March and will make an assessment of the performance and provide recommendations for further implementation of the country programme.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark (Danida) (2019) contract value EUR 120,599