OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews: Greece 2019
The OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) conducts periodic reviews of the individual development co-operation efforts of DAC members. The policies and programmes of each DAC member are critically examined approximately once every five years. DAC peer reviews assess the performance of a given member, not just that of its development co-operation agency, and examine both policy and implementation. They take an integrated, system-wide perspective on the development co-operation and humanitarian assistance activities of the member under review.
Since its last peer review, a severe economic recession brought about significant cuts to Greece’s national budget – including official development assistance. However, Greece has maintained its commitment to development co-operation. In response to the refugee and migration crisis Greece mobilised resources and its population to provide significant support to asylum seekers and refugees, and adapted its domestic policies to create conditions for peaceful co-existence between refugees, asylum seekers and the Greek population. As the economy recovers and Greece considers stepping up its development co-operation, this review recommends a number of steps that the government might take including building a new vision for development co-operation and putting in place the structures and systems to achieve it.
Greece's results, evaluation and learning
This chapter considers how Greece plans and manages for results in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, building evidence of what works, and using this to learn and adapt. A fit-for-purpose, results-based management system is needed for Greek development co-operation. Greece is not meeting its legal requirement for an annual evaluation of bilateral development co-operation or aggregate evaluation of its development co-operation. In developing an evaluation system, Greece might draw on the experience of members of the DAC Network on Development Evaluation. Deriving a good understanding of the development co-operation results achieved by Greece, and drawing lessons from evaluations, would help Greece to improve decision-making and provide a basis for learning.