Provision of Consultancy Services for the Evaluation of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Support to Small States

The Secretariat defines small states as countries with a population of 1.5 million people or less, and vulnerable states as countries with a bigger population but which share many of the same vulnerabilities:

• vulnerability to external events such as natural disasters;
• vulnerability to external economic shocks such as world trade fluctuations;
• limited market diversification;
• limited capacity in the public and private sectors and;
• limited access to external capital.

Based on this definition, thirty-two (32) of the 54 member countries of the Commonwealth are small and vulnerable states (See List of SVS in Annex 1).
The Commonwealth delivers a range of programmes to address the needs of SVS. Programme approaches include global advocacy, capacity and institution building and technical assistance, knowledge sharing and policy development. Support to small states is delivered directly to address country needs and priorities and, indirectly, through pan-commonwealth and regional-level provisions.

The four-year Strategic Plan of 2013/14 was the first to prioritise support for small states with one of the six strategic outcomes (SO) being:
SO 6. Strengthened resilience of small states and vulnerable states
Under the subsequent four-year Strategic Plan of 2017/18, the Secretariat further expanded on this strategic outcome as:

SO 5. Strengthened resilience of small and vulnerable states, including adaptation and mitigation against climate change
This strategic outcome reflected an agreed focusing by Member States on the environmental and climate change issues impacting small states. The outcome however does not fully encompass the cross-organisational strategic focus on ensuring that small states benefit disproportionately from the Secretariat’s delivery. Across each of the other strategic outcomes, a number of projects and programmes recognise and respond to the needs of small states. (See Strategic Outcomes Matrices in Annex 2)

In March 2020, the Secretariat commenced development of a new strategic plan. The Annual Evaluation Plan identified a number of critical evaluations to inform the new Strategic Plan development. These evaluations which will be implemented concurrently will also include results to small states in their scopes:

• Strategic Plan Evaluation, 2020
• Evaluation of Consensus Building, 2020
• Evaluation of the Economic Development Programme, 2020
• Evaluation of the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, 2020

Purpose and Users of the Evaluation

The main purpose of the evaluation is to assess the contribution of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s programmes in delivering benefits to, and promoting the interests of, its small member states. The evaluation is summative as it seeks to take stock of the effectiveness of the Secretariat in assisting its small state members to address their development and public governance challenges. Its findings are also expected to inform the new Strategic Plan from July 2021.