The agricultural sector accounts for about 30 % of the EAC’s gross domestic product (GDP), and represents the most important sector in terms of EAC exports to the EU. EAC countries’ export potential in agriculture is held back both by supply side constraints, including skills shortages, weak sector organisation and inadequate production and processing capacities, as well as market access constraints. One of the main challenges of the East African Community (EAC) countries is how to enhance and sustain the connection to regional and global value chains by increasingly meeting requirements in a competitive manner to capture market access, and to enhance their productivity for sustained export expansion. According to the EAC Trade and Investment Report (2018) the region’s economy expanded at 5.7% in 2018, up from 5.6% in 2017, due to increased investment in infrastructure; increased private consumption as well as recovery of commodity exports. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused supply chain disruption globally and this has negatively impacted trade facilitation in the region. 

The Consultant evaluated the whole EU-EAC Market Access Upgrade Programme (MARKUP), financed under the 11th EDF Regional Indicative Programme (RIP) for Eastern and Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean region (EAC Secretariat sub-component). The MARKUP programme involved 3 Financing Agreements: two managed by the EU Delegation in Tanzania, one by the EU Delegation in Rwanda and one by EU Delegation in Uganda. All of these Financing Agreements address agricultural development around global value chains. 

The focus of this mid-term evaluation was on the assessment of achievements and of the quality and results of interventions in the context of an evolving cooperation policy with increasing emphasis on result-oriented approaches and the contribution towards the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Consequently, this evaluation looked for evidence of why, whether or how results are linked to the EU intervention and sought to identify the factors driving or hindering progress.  

3 main objectives of the evaluation were:  

• An overall independent assessment of the past performance of the MARKUP  Programme, paying attention to its intermediate results measured against its expected objectives; 
• Key lessons learned, conclusions and related recommendations to improve current and future interventions; 
• Provide a forward-looking assessment on the opportunity, options and modalities for a new follow-up Programme, to be possibly financed in the framework of the next EU programming cycle. In addition, the evaluation assessed the EU added value and the governing mechanisms of the intervention. 

Moreover, the Consultant considered whether gender, environment and climate change were mainstreamed; the relevant SDGs and their interlinkages were identified; the principle of Leave No-One Behind and the right-based approach was followed in the identification/formulation documents and the extent to which they have been reflected during the implementation phase.  

The evaluation criteria were: effectiveness, perspectives of impact, EU added value, sustainability, efficiency, governing mechanisms, relevance, coherence. 

• Initial documents/ data collection  
• Background analysis
• Drafting of evaluation questions based on the intervention logic and theory of change 
• Inception Interviews and other remote interviews (EU Delegations, EAC Partner States without South Sudan, key partners, relevant government authorities and agencies, MARKUP Regional Technical Committee etc.)
• Reconstruction of the intervention logic
• Identification of information gaps and of hypotheses to be tested in the field phase
• Methodological design of the field phase
• Formulation of the overall assessment; conclusions and recommendations
• Written, provided outputs: Inception Note, Desk Report, Intermediary Note, Final Report with distinct Executive Summary, Concept Note, Slides for different presentations
• Final presentation of the Final Report and the Final Concept Note in Arusha (Tanzania) including discussion during an extraordinary meeting of the MARKUP Regional Steering Committee.