Summary of the Evaluation of the Geographic Coordination and Mission Support Program
The evaluation took an organizational assessment approach and looked at services provided by Geographic Coordination and Mission Support Bureau (NMD) to missions and geographic branches. The scope of the evaluation included:
- NMD’s overall mandate, roles and responsibilities;
- NMD’s role in providing support to missions for planning and reporting, and advocacy and digital diplomacy services;
- Use of tools and data for planning and reporting purposes, linkages to decision-making and the departmental data strategy;
- Linkages with other departmental divisions with mission support functions.
Key Findings
- NMD plays an important coordination and support function with diverse roles and responsibilities.
- While there are a number of benefits for NMD to be situated within a geographic branch, its role is not well-known or understood within the department.
- Over time, significant work has been done to improve and simplify Strategia. Despite this, system use and function challenges remain.
- The department’s multiple planning and reporting tools undermine the effective use of Strategia as an integrated planning, monitoring and reporting tool.
Key Considerations
- The department would benefit from clarifying its vision for planning, monitoring and reporting at missions and Headquarters across all streams.
- There are risks to be acknowledged when considering the future integration plans for Strategia.
- There is a need to further ameliorate the department’s performance measures
- An assessment of data quality could be beneficial.
Recommendations
- The evaluation recommends that NMD, in collaboration with other branches, develop and share across the department a Bureau Plan that clearly defines its distinct roles and responsibilities, and resourcing requirements.
- It is recommended that NMD, in collaboration with other relevant departmental stakeholders, develop an approach to strengthen the Department’s planning, monitoring and reporting tools.
