Social Sector, Governance & Civil Society

A strong civil society, respect for human rights and the rule of law, as well as good governance structures are all key features of stable democratic societies. In many developing countries, moreover, the role of civil society actors such as non-governmental bodies becomes even more important in the context of a weaker government sector and private sector. The upside of this is that the opportunity for well managed NGOs to make a positive contribution to their society is even greater.

New Frontier Services has undertaken numerous consulting engagements in the development or evaluation of various aspects of the social sector and social economy, as well as human rights and the civil society sector sector.

ROM-Based Monitoring of Development Co-operation Projects in the Education and Training Sector:
New Frontier Services provided a 4-person consultant team to undertake a series of detailed monitoring reviews of a number of Development Co-operation Projects in the Education and Schools Sector, using the EC’s ROM-based (results-oriented monitoring) monitoring system. The 16 projects involved monitoring fieldwork in 13 countries and telephone interviews in Brazil, Czech Republic and Austria. As Team Leader, responsible for overseeing the desk research work. Visit programme logistics, fieldwork and reporting for a team of 4 consultants. Undertook monitoring field work myself in Belgium, NL and Germany. The projects involved activities across a variety of sectors, including Education activities in secondary schools, Schools twinning, NGO and Government capacity building and awareness raising on Development Cooperation issues, Decent work and workers rights, Immigration, North-South trade dialogue, Agriculture, Cultural Heritage Protection, and Sexual and Reproductive Health.

Evaluation and Communication Services (Desk Study) for the EIDHR (European Initiative for Human Rights & Democracy)
New Frontier Services provided a team of 4 persons to undertake a number of services for the EIDHR initiative. One work component was to review existing EIDHR evaluations and design an evaluation approach which will achieve some insight into the impact that the project has been having and will provide a programme-level view of the approach. A second and major component was the development of a compendium of more than 2,500 EIDHR projects financed since 2000, and the third component involved developing a new communications tools.

Evaluation of the EC Judicial Pilot Exchange Programme
Working as a sub-contractor to KANTOR Management Consultants and European Consultants Organisation NFS provided the Team Leader on a recent evaluation for DG JLS of the Judicial Exchange Pilot Programme. The work involved reviewing the performance, learning and results of 7 pilot projects. A successful Focus Group/workshop was organized involving stakeholders from all pilot projects, the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) and the Commission. The final report provided some outline recommendations on strategic issues that needed to be addressed for the development of judicial exchanges and training, including governance structures for such an initiative and the role of the EJTN.

ILO-IPEC and French Government: ILO-IPEC: Final Evaluation of the ILO-IPEC Project Combating Worst Forms of Child Labour Time-Bound Programme in Francophone Africa
NFS is currently undertaking the Final Evaluation of the ILO-IPEC Project on Combating Worst Forms of Child Labour (WFCL) in Francophone Africa. The project involves stakeholder interviews, regional fieldwork in Senegal and Burkina Faso and facilitating a stakeholders' workshop, as well as managing the team of 9 consultants working across the 9 African countries participating in this regional project – Benin, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.

Reviewing Governance Scenarios for the Trans-Eurasia Information Network (TEIN2)
The Trans-Eurasia Information Network (TEIN2) is based on the GEANT research networking model and success story in Europe. TEIN2 is the first large-scale research and education network for the Asia-Pacific, connecting ten countries in the region, and provides direct connectivity to Europe’s GÉANT2 network. NFS was selected to undertake the mid-term evaluation of TEIN2, in association with ECORYS Research & Consulting. A key part of the evaluation mandate was to examine possible Asian-led governance scenarios for the network next phase of development, and make recommendations on same.