Mid-term evaluation of the support program for the justice sector in Algeria (PASJA)

The main objective of the program under evaluation is to promote democratic governance by strengthening the rule of law and guaranteeing an independent, impartial, equitable, efficient and accessible justice to all citizens (women and men) so as to consolidate the credibility of the institutions, its actors as well as citizens' confidence in justice. Its interventions centered around three specific objectives, namely:

1. The first specific objective is to strengthen the independence of the judiciary by means of greater operational autonomy, and improve the functioning of the courts through their modernization. Its ultimate goal is to unblock the courts in order to arrive at better quality judgments.

2. The second specific objective concerns access to law and to justice. Its goal is to strengthen a set of operational public services within the reach of all litigants throughout the territory. Particular emphasis is placed on the care of women, vulnerable groups (and minors) and victims of criminal offenses.

3. The third specific objective essentially envisages the professionalization of the actors in the sector, as well as the monitoring of the progress of the reform, with institutional support for a more efficient management of training establishments and human resources within the Ministry of Justice. The aim is to provide support to achieve a higher level of performance for a more efficient and impartial justice system.

A team recruited by Expertise Advisors was tasked with the ex-post evaluation of the programme, with the objective to assess its performance along the OECD-DAC criteria and extract key lessons learnt and recommendations on a future programme funded by the EU.

The project was implemented through (i) an inception/desk research phase (consultation of main project documentation; elaboration of the evaluation matrix/evaluative questions; presentation of preliminary findings in an inception report) (ii) field phase (interviews and focus groups with all key stakeholders to validate and deepen findings) and (iii) synthesis phase (drafting and presenting the final report).