The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a regional intergovernmental organisation aimed primarily at promoting economic growth and regional stability among its members. It brings together 10 Member States (AMS) of which two are upper-middle income countries (i.e. Brunei and Singapore), five are middle-income countries (i.e. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam) and three are least developed countries (i.e. Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar).  

The ARISE Plus programme is a six-year programme (2016-2022) funded by the European Union supporting the ASEAN regional economic integration under the Focal Sector 1 of the Asian Regional Indicative programme (2014-2020). ARISE Plus consolidates and enhances the results achieved with past EU-ASEAN support programmes. Project started on 01/01/2018 and will last until 30/04/2022.  Period to be evaluated is  01/01/2018 to 30/04/2021 (inception period and three years of implementation). 

The overall objective of ARISE Plus is to support greater economic integration in ASEAN through the implementation of the Economic Community Blueprint (AECB) 2025 and strengthen the ASEAN institutional capacity. 

The ARISE Plus programme has five components: 

1. ASEAN Single Market
2. ASEAN Intellectual Property Rights
3. ASEAN Secretariat capacity building
4. ASEAN Integration Monitoring
5. ASEAN Air Transport

The focus of the mid-term evaluation was the assessment of achievements, quality and results of Interventions in the context of an evolving cooperation policy with an increasing emphasis on result-oriented approaches and the contribution towards the implementation of the SDGs. The Consultant analysed why, whether and how these results are linked to the EU intervention and sought to identify the factors driving or hindering progress. The evaluation provided an understanding of the cause and effect links among: inputs and activities, and outputs, outcomes and impacts.  

• Data collection and background analysis  
• Define and validate the Evaluation Questions
• Hold virtual meetings with the main counterparts (EU, ASEAN, Contractor, government authorities…)  
• Provide and Intermediary Note including the primary info on Data collection and analysis 
• Evaluation using the six OECD – DAC evaluation criteria (relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability + impact) with greater focus on sustainability in order to assess the need and scope for future intervention
• Evaluation of the EU added value 
• Draft two distant documents: Final Report and the Executive Summary.