Through the initiative of the Hanns Seidel Foundation/Germany (HSF), its ongoing program cooperation with the Philippine National Police (PNP) which started in 2008 went through an evaluation process. From 14-20 November 2011, two evaluators from Germany, namely, Dr. Laurent Lafleur andMr. Klaus Heinle, M.A., were engaged to conduct the evaluation of the joint program in relation to human rights and basic rights protection, rule of law and institutional strengthening in support of the Philippine government’s priorities on participatory development and good governance.  Dr. Lafleur is a former prosecutor and currently assigned as Judge at the District Court of Munich, Germany. Mr. Heinle works with the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Munich, Germany under the evaluation unit.

The parameters for evaluation covered the following areas:  context (economic, social, political), relevance (national development framework and objectives vis-à-vis project objectives, partners, intervention instruments), effectiveness (objectives vis-à-vis activities, impact), efficiency (cost vis-à-vis impact), and sustainability (self-sufficiency, structures).

The week-long visit gave the German evaluators venues to meet and discuss the results of the ongoing program cooperation with the representatives of our partner organizations, key government officials, relevant stakeholders involved in human rights promotion and protection, top officials of concerned PNP offices and participants to the HSF-sponsored PNP delegations in Germany as well as with a select group of trainers/facilitators of the training programs from the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP), the academe, judiciary, PNP including NCR-based Human Rights Desk Officers, and other training institutions.  There was also a meeting with students and their professor-adviser from the Department of Political Studies of the Ateneo de Manila University who undertook a research study on the human rights training program of the PNP.

Apart from the meetings and roundtable discussions, they were able to attend a 2-day Seminar-Workshop for Human Rights Desk Officers organized by Police Regional Office-1 in La Union Province which allowed them to observe the conduct of a joint HSF-PNP human rights training activity and closely interact with the participants, as well as participate in the Assessment and Planning Session for our project on Community-based Dialogue Sessions on Human Rights organized by the Alternative Law Groups in cooperation with Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation (NCAF), Philippine National Police Human Rights Affairs Office (PNP HRAO), Armed Forces of the Philippines Human Rights Office (AFP HRO), and the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP).

Overall, they had a productive visit to the country and were grateful to the support and cooperation of the partners and stakeholders for their invaluable inputs and insights to the evaluation process.