'Social development' is article 3 on the budget for Foreign Trade and Development Aid, and spans four themes: Global Health and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR); Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (WRGE); Civil Society; and Education. This periodic review evaluates the Dutch policy instruments in the field of Social development, in the period 2018-2024.
Background
Social progress is under pressure globally. During the period under review (2018-2024), access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) remained low for marginalised communities and people in conflict-affected areas, despite gains in the area of SRHR globally; gender equality declined or stagnated in 40% of all countries (between 2019-2022); civic space has shrunk in many countries across the world; and 251 million children aged 6-18 remained out of school in 2024, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.
IOB has previously carried out a study on Dutch SRHR policy (2023), the Dutch COVID-19 response (2025), and has commissioned a synthesis study on evaluations of education programmes funded by the Netherlands. This periodic review draws on these studies, as well as a number of evaluations of Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and Civil Society programmes funded by the Netherlands.
The previous periodic review is from 2017: ‘Shifting Interests, Changing Relations, Support Under Pressure Policy review of Dutch support to Southern civil society development’.
Central question
The central question of this periodic review is:
What insights can be gained about (the conditions for) the effectiveness and efficiency of the Netherlands’ development cooperation policy instruments for Social Development between 2018 and 2024, and what lessons can be learned for future policy?
Conclusions
The main conclusions with respect to the effectiveness of Social Development policy instruments:
- MFA programmes were effective in the short term, with results mainly delivered at the output, individual, community and CSO levels, and sometimes at the outcome level.
- Although programmes contributed to sub-national policy development processes, they were less effective in strengthening systems and institutionalising interventions.
The main conclusions with respect to the efficiency of Social Development policy instruments:
- The MFA’s flexibility, long-term financial commitments, sizeable programme budgets and sufficient implementation time contributed to programme efficiency.
- Operational inefficiencies hampered programme efficiency. This periodic review cannot draw conclusions on cost-effectiveness based on the underlying evaluation reports.
Measurability
This periodic review faced some limitations with respect to measurability. More specifically, underlying evaluations were often not methodologically robust enough to draw conclusions about effectiveness at impact and outcome level and about cost-effectiveness. This limited the availability of information about the effectiveness and efficiency of Dutch Social Development programmes.
To assess whether the conditions for effectiveness and efficiency were met, the periodic review looked at the sustainability, relevance, and coherence of the Social Development policy instruments. However, none of the underlying evaluation reports measured the extent to which the results achieved continued over time (sustainability), conclusions about the cost-effectiveness could not be drawn, and evaluations presented various findings on different types of coherence. The underlying evaluations did mention several factors that were likely to contribute to or hamper sustainability, efficiency, and coherence. Moreover, the periodic review paid specific attention to two cross-cutting themes: gender and locally-led development.
- Working with national governments and systems, and securing future funding for CSOs contributed to sustainability of programme results.
- The absence of sustainability and exit strategies, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and limited capacity building of CSOs for financial viability hampered the sustainability of results.
- Overall, programmes in WRGE and Education were relevant to the needs of the target groups and country contexts, whereas programmes in Global Health and SRHR and Civil Society were less relevant.
- Relevance in terms of evidence-based programming was mixed, with key assumptions often implicit or unsupported by evidence.
- Coherence within CSO/NGO partnerships went well at times, but was poor between partnerships and with embassies.
- Multilateral instruments were overall well-coordinated globally and thematically aligned with broader Dutch policy objectives.
- Gender received explicit attention and was mainstreamed, but effectiveness was often not measured.
- Attention to locally led development (LLD) increased over time, with some good examples. However, southern partners had limited strategic, programmatic and budgetary decision-making power.
Recommendations
Six recommendations follow from the periodic review. These are each targeted at a specific group: cabinet, high-level MFA officials, and policy officers.
Continue the principle of coordinated and predictable funding of the Netherlands in Global Health and SRHR, aimed at supporting national governments and systems:
- Maintain the combination of unearmarked, flexible and multi-annual funding for multilateral organisations and global funds, and partnerships with CSOs/NGOs in SRHR (albeit in less complicated set-ups). The former have proven to be efficient; the latter add complementarity by involving local partners. Continuing existing programmes also contributes to efficiency.
- Continue efforts to support national governments in integrating health services, such as family planning, pregnancy and childbirth care (including safe abortion care), into national health systems, as this fosters more sustainable health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
- Improve coherence with other donors through existing coordination mechanisms at the country level. Focus on complementarity and support government capacity for donor coordination. This can be achieved through the (global) coordination mechanisms of multilateral organisations and funds (UNFPA, the Global Fund and Gavi) and international finance institutions such as the World Bank (GFF).
- Document lessons from the Dutch emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic to improve preparedness for future (health) emergencies.
Ensure reliable and accountable partnerships with multilateral and international organisations, as well as with CSO/NGO partners:
- In future programmes maintain flexible, long-term financial commitments, sizeable programme budgets and sufficient implementation time (more than five years) for partners.
- Ensure that partners and the MFA (including embassies) have adequate staffing capacity to manage programmes, including specialised monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) capacity.
- Integrate sustainability strategies at the policy design stage, and make sustainability and exit strategies mandatory in programme proposals. Monitor these strategies throughout implementation and during programme handover.
- Continue partnerships with CSOs/NGOs given their added value (e.g. working with a wide range of southern/local partners), but avoid large, complicated partnership set-ups
- Develop realistic policy frameworks and programmes within the Netherlands’ sphere of influence:
- Ensure that the Theories of Change (ToCs) include a detailed intervention logic that outlines the connection between activities, outputs, outcomes and final objectives (impact). This will help translate long-term, high-level objectives into actionable steps and intermediary outcomes.
- Set realistic ambitions, especially with regard to longer-term outcomes such as behavioural, social and political change in five-year programmes.
- Take into account external factors that could hamper the effectiveness of programmes by developing evidence-based ToCs with explicit assumptions and providing sufficient flexibility to adapt them to country-specific contexts.
- Integrate MEL from the design phase onwards, including baselines and mid-term evaluations (MTEs) in programmes. For feasibility reasons, the MFA and its partners could jointly select only a limited number of indicators for monitoring.
- Involve local organisations and target groups in the programme design stage to ensure objectives align with the needs of the target groups:
- Allocate time early in the process to work with local organisations, and where possible, target groups, to develop programmes jointly.
- Combine awareness-raising activities, lobby and advocacy with service delivery to better meet the needs of target groups.
- Continue building on good results and best practices from LLD interventions:
- Establish equal partnerships with local partners that allow for bottom-up decision-making in terms of strategic, programmatic and financial decisions, and ensure upward and downward accountability through joint decision-making.
- Ensure benefits such as long-term commitments, large budgets and flexibility are passed on to local organisations.
- Clearly define, operationalise and monitor equity objectives:
- Support the inclusion of marginalised, vulnerable and remote groups in programmes, and assess the feasibility of reaching these groups.
- Translate an inclusive, intersectional approach to gender equality from policy documents into practice.
- Continue gender mainstreaming efforts, and ensure gender is included from the outset in programme goals, result frameworks, and policy and action plans.