Timor-Leste

The Independent Evaluation Office of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) conducts country evaluations called Assessments of Development Results (ADRs) to capture and demonstrate evaluative evidence of UNDP’s contributions to development results at the country level, as well as the effectiveness of UNDP’s strategy in facilitating and leveraging national effort for achieving development results. ADRs are independent evaluations carried out within the overall provisions contained in the UNDP Evaluation Policy. Based on the principle of national ownership, the Independent Evaluation Office seeks to conduct ADRs in collaboration with the national Government whenever agreed and possible.

The Independent Evaluation Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) would like to thank all those who contributed to this evaluation. The evaluation team, led by Vijayalakshmi Vadivelu from the Independent Evaluation Office, consisted of S.V. Divvaakar (governance and poverty reduction), Norma Kriger (Justice Sector), and Lee Risby (environment).

The Independent Evaluation Office of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) conducts country evaluations called “Assessments of Development Results (ADRs)” to capture and demonstrate evaluative evidence of UNDP’s contributions to development results at the country level, as well as the effectiveness of UNDP’s strategy in facilitating and leveraging national effort for achieving development results.

In 2011, the Independent Evaluation Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) conducted an independent country-level evaluation in Timor-Leste. This Assessment of Development Results (ADR) analysed UNDP’s roles and contributions to development results in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste between 2004 and mid-2011. This period includes the previous (2003–2008) and the ongoing (2009–2013) UNDP country programmes. This was the first ADR conducted in Timor-Leste, taking place towards the end of the current 2008–2013 UNDP programming cycle. The ADR assessed the effectiveness of the UNDP strategy to achieve development results by facilitating and leveraging national efforts in the areas of sustainable peace, transition and state-building.

For Timor-Leste, one of world’s youngest countries, the past decade has been a period of consolidating stability and building national institutions, while at the same time dealing with civil unrest. When the first government of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste was established after the restoration of independence on 20 May 2002, the development challenges before it were enormous. Four centuries of Portuguese colonialism, two and a half decades of Indonesian occupation and a violent transition from Indonesian rule in September 1999 had left the country devastated and its people living in extreme poverty. Seventy percent of Timor-Leste’s economic infrastructure (such as housing stock, public buildings and utilities), 80 percent of schools and virtually all medical facilities were destroyed. The extensive devastation of homes, farms and infrastructure throughout the country added to the complexity of peacebuilding and state-building. In addition to the governments’ persistent efforts, the United Nations provided support under several different mandates, such as peacekeeping, capacity-building efforts to strengthen the security and justice sectors, and humanitarian and reconstruction support that contributed to state-building.