The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) is a multilateral development bank with a social mandate. Established on 16 April 1956 in order to assist refugees, its scope of action has progressively widened to other sectors and now directly contributes to strengthening social cohesion in Europe. The CEB employs its resources for the financing of social projects in order to help its 42 member states achieve sustainable and equitable growth. Our Deputy Directors Kath Scanlon and Christine Whitehead recently contributed to some of the CEB’s latest publications on housing and evaluations of CEB’s housing operations.
Holistic evaluation of housing projects and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Some lessons from the field
As part of the “Evaluation Perspectives” series which aims at disseminating knowledge and evidence-based learning on contemporary topics related to CEB’s social development mandate, our Deputy Director Kath Scanlon co-authored alongside Luigi Cuna, Senior Evaluator from CEB’s Office of Evaluation the working paper “Holistic evaluation of housing projects and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Some lessons from the field“.
The first issue of the series is dedicated to the theme of housing. Access to housing remains a critical societal issue in many CEB member countries due to a variety of factors including a growing urban population, surging housing prices and urban transformation trends which exacerbate social inequalities. The 2030 Agenda and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations (UN) in September 2015 both address housing.
This paper makes a case for a comprehensive, holistic evaluation of housing projects that goes beyond the physical intervention. This holistic evaluation is based on a three-level approach. The first-level assessment relates to the physical fabric of the dwellings. Second-level results encompass the direct and indirect effects of housing on beneficiaries, such as the impact on their health, household finances, employment or education. Beyond the effects on the beneficiaries themselves, housing projects often have third-level impacts on the surrounding neighbourhoods, the wider economic and social fabric or the natural environment. Understanding this complex range of effects is necessary in order for housing investments to be sustainable from a human, social, environmental and institutional point of view.
Evaluation Abstract: Housing Operations for migrants returnees and Roma
The Office of Evaluation (EVO) of CEB carries out independent evaluations of CEB-financed operations with the objective of assessing their social performance and deriving key lessons and recommendations. For many years, part of EVO evaluation activities had been organised by evaluation cycles, structured around CEB’s sectors of action or specific themes. In 2018, EVO completed an evaluation cycle focused on CEB-financed housing projects targeted to specific vulnerable groups who are at risk of social exclusion. Those supported encompassed migrants and returnees, as well as households belonging to ethnic minorities, such as Roma population.
Our Deputy Director Christine Whitehead assists CEB as an independent reviewer of several evaluations involving housing operations. In particular, she contributed to the evaluation of housing operations for migrants, returnees and Roma. She also reported that “the evaluation cycle generated several lessons that were documented in individual evaluation reports and shared with relevant stakeholders in a systematic manner, as the cycle progressed. Overall, it has been a very instructive and productive process with many messages to take forward“.
