Within the context of enhancing Egyptian exports and upgrading environmental performance, an activity was initiated and designed by USAID and the Government of Egypt to offer technical assistance for Strengthening Egypt’s Accreditation System (SEAS). SEAS was one of the activities of the Monitoring, Verification, and Evaluation (MVE) Unit of the Egyptian Environmental Policy Program (EEPP). The primary objective of SEAS was strengthening Egypt’s national accreditation body, the Egyptian Accreditation Council (EGAC) in the areas of laboratory development, training, and institutional building.
MVE commissioned Environics to assess the achievement of SEAS through evaluating its contribution to its ultimate goal of enhancing exports and upgrading environmental performance.
Environics carried out document reviews, interviews, and investigations to develop a comprehensive assessment report that had the following main components:
• Identification of the major objectives of SEAS;
• Review of SEAS deliverables and the degrees to which they fulfilled the objectives;
• Evaluation of SEAS activities through tracing their development and the paces of their implementation;
• Assessing the impact of SEAS deliverables on reaching the ultimate goal, which is enhancing exports and upgrading environmental performance. “Environment” was considered in its wider definition, which includes health and food safety. The term, thus, covered product and process aspects, being the cornerstones of environment-related matters;
• Discussion of issues that might have hindered SEAS from reaching its objectives and ultimate goal;
• Discussion of a number of critical dimensions, especially sustainability and its financial and technical dimensions, and
• Consideration of the activities of other donors in related fields towards the same goal.