The European Union financed the action “Programme d’Appui à l’Adéquation Formation-Emploi – Qualification (AFEQ)” from September 2015 to September 2022 to reinforce the role of companies and the economic sector in the process of professional training for university students and the insertion of youth in society. The programme sought to resolve the fundamental problem of incompatibility between the demanding qualifications requested by companies and the economic sector on one hand, and the graduate profiles who lack “employability”. The programme was implemented in seven pilot regions in Algeria.
The overall objective of this evaluation was to provide an overall independent assessment of the action’s intermediate performance and lessons learned to improve current and future actions. In particular, the evaluation served to understand the performance of the actions in addition to the factors enabling or inhibiting the attenuation of expected results. An emphasis was placed on results-oriented approaches and the contribution towards the implementation of the SDGs.
The evaluation was conducted according to the six standard evaluation criteria of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, coherence and early sign of impact, in addition to the EU-specific criteria: value added by the EU, and the coherence of the action with the EU’s strategy in Algeria. An emphasis was placed on the aspects of:

• Compatibility of the needs of national partners compared with local partners
• The fulfilment of expected mid-term results, in addition to positive and negative factors
• The performance of the management of the action, its efficient allocation of resources, and its capacity to adapt to changing conditions
• The transparency and accountability mechanisms
• The coordination and complementary mechanisms
• The contribution to SDGs
• The communication strategy of the AFEQ programme to attract visibility to European aid.

The final output consisted of a Final Report including Executive Summary delivered to the EU Delegation in Algeria, discussing findings, conclusions and recommendations.

• Conducted background and stakeholder analysis
• Reconstructed the Intervention Logic and Theory of Change based on documentation and interviews
• Designed the methodology and evaluation matrix
• Identified missing information and hypotheses to be tested during the Field Phase
• Gathered primary evidence through focus groups and visits to key stakeholders in all seven Wilayas during a Field Phase
• Analysed data to provide final results
• Presented final findings and recommendations to relevant stakeholders
• Managed stakeholders through kick-off, debriefing and final meetings in Algier.