The main purpose of this evaluation is to provide an independent, mid-term assessment of the Norwegian Refugee Council s Information, Counselling and Legal Assistance (ICLA) programme in Afghanistan and Pakistan against six selected criteria: consistency with NRC mandate and overall objective; relevance and appropriateness; effectiveness; coordination; impact; connectedness and sustainability.
ICLA started in Pakistan in 2002 and was extended to Afghanistan in 2003. The two programmes were merged as a regional programme in 2007, with, currently, eight offices in Afghanistan and one office in Peshawar, Pakistan.
This evaluation covers the period from the start of the programme, although the Terms of Reference state that it should put a premium on scrutinizing the most recent work of the ICLA programme and the current programme model . In practice, due to the high turnover of senior staff, consequent loss of institutional memory, and shortage of written records, the focus of this report is almost exclusively on the present situation.