The project Sustainable Smart Ports for African countries, including SIDS, to “recover better” from COVID-19, which ran from Feb 2022 to March 2026, was designed to strengthen the capacity of selected African countries to manage ports in a more sustainable, energy-efficient, technologically enabled, and resilient manner.
It was developed against a backdrop of increasing pressure on ports to decarbonize and transition towards more sustainable energy systems, improve energy efficiency, adopt cleaner technologies, and strengthen resilience following disruptions such as COVID-19, energy insecurity, geopolitical instability, and rapid digital transformation.
Its primary objective was to strengthen the capacity of selected African countries, including SIDS, to develop Sustainable Smart Ports that promote sustainable energy and technology-driven solutions and contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The project, with a total budget of USD 600,000, was implemented by UNCTAD in Ghana, Mauritius, and Morocco, with port authorities serving as the principal national focal points, alongside ministries, regulators, utilities, private operators, and regional organizations. To achieve this, the project pursued two main expected outcomes:
- Enhanced knowledge of relevant stakeholders in selected countries in Africa of: (i) the potential of national ports to emerge as Sustainable Smart Ports (SSP); and (ii) cross-sectoral policies and measures that promote the realisation of this potential.
- Improved capacity of policymakers in selected countries in Africa to formulate and implement roadmaps/action plans that enable ports to meet the SSP status.
The project focused on three countries: Ghana, Mauritius, and Morocco, which were selected based on elements such as maritime connectivity, relevance of blue economy strategies, renewable energy potential, interest in sustainable transport solutions, and the likelihood of generating tangible results within the project’s timeframe.
The intervention targeted a broad set of beneficiaries, including port authorities, transport and energy policymakers, electricity utilities, environmental and infrastructure agencies, logistics and terminal operators, shipping associations, energy and technology firms, academia, and regional organizations. This reflected the cross-sectoral nature of sustainable port transformation.
Evaluation purpose, objectives, scope and intended users/ audience
The purpose of the evaluation was to ‘systematically and objectively assess project design, project management, implementation, overall results, and the mainstreaming of UN cross-cutting issues such as gender and environmental sustainability’ as well as to ‘provide accountability to the management of UNCTAD, the Capacity Development Programme Management Office of UN DESA, project stakeholders, as well as UNCTAD Member States.’
As its specific objectives, the evaluation therefore (i) assessed the extent to which desired project outcomes and outputs have been realized with a focus on Relevance, Coherence, Efficiency, Effectiveness (including Impact), Sustainability and UN cross-cutting issues; (ii) identified lessons learned on project design, management, implementation and mainstreaming of UN cross-cutting issues that could feed into and enhance implementation of related or future interventions.
The scope of the evaluation covered: the entire project timeframe, the 3 beneficiary countries, and the evaluation criteria of focus, namely the five OECD-DAC criteria (relevance; coherence, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability) and three cross-cutting themes. Primary users of the evaluation include: the management of UNCTAD; the Capacity Development Programme Management Office of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA); Project stakeholders; and UNCTAD Member States.
Evaluation methodology
The evaluation was undertaken using a theory-based and utilization-focused approach complemented by participatory and cost-effective methods.
The evaluation used both primary and secondary sources of data to answer the evaluation questions. The evaluation was based on stakeholder engagement from the start of the process. Where possible, information and views from interviews were triangulated from other sources, such as documents and data.
A survey was also disseminated to stakeholders to gather a wider range of views on the project. The selection of key informants was based on purposive sampling, engaging stakeholders best positioned to provide detailed responses to the evaluation questions.
This process was supported by a desk review of all relevant documents available for in-depth analysis.