Overview
The Strengthening the capacity of the judicial system and promoting the rule of Law in Mali Phase II project, funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, aimed to support national stakeholders for comprehensive reform of the judicial system. The project was implemented between July 2021 and July 2023 with a budget of 2,480,090 EUR and followed an earlier project phase which focused on an assessment of the Malian judicial system.
The project activities comprised training of judicial system actors, study tours to Rwanda and Senegal, digitalisation of the judicial system, and translation and dissemination of handbooks, materials, booklets, and legal documents. The project implementing partner was the Institut National de Formation Judiciaire du Mali – "Maître Demba DIALLO" (INFJ).
The evaluation purpose was to assess the relevance, coherence, efficiency, effectiveness, likelihood of impact and likelihood of sustainability of the project, together with cross-cutting issues including gender and human rights; to identify good practices and any challenges the project encountered; to identify lessons to be learned; and to formulate recommendations, to inform similar projects in the country and elsewhere.
The evaluation followed a mixed-methods approach consisting of key informant interviews (33) and a participants survey (267 responses) as the main data collection methods. The main challenge encountered during the evaluation was the timing for data collection, which occurred during the December-January holiday season. The lack of baseline data also made the impact assessment more difficult.