Funded by IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund, with a number of other Colombian partners, and executed by Fundación Corona, the Program of Workforce Inclusion for People with Disabilities, also called Pacto de Productividad” was a $3.2 million, five year-long project aimed to improve workforce inclusiveness for people with disabilities as a mean to increase their social and economic opportunities. The project was carried out in the Colombian cities of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, and Pereira.

Luis Bernal, working as an independent, individual evaluation consultant was charged with carrying out the Program’s Final/Impact evaluation which comprised a quantitative and qualitative assessment of its relevance, effectiveness, impact on its beneficiaries, and future sustainability. Likewise the evaluation assessed the extent in which the program achieved its social and economic objectives.

Carried out between September and November, 2014, the evaluation is based on an extensive document review, traveling, site visit, case studying, benchmarking, quantitative data analysis, as well as focus groups and interviews with near 200 people including people with all kinds of disabilities, business owners and staff, institutions working on people with disabilities inclusion, as well as policy makers and other program stakeholders at local and national levels.

Beyond analyzing past performance, the evaluation also included a comprehensive analysis of project’s financial, technical, organizational, and political sustainability.

For Luis Bernal working on this final evaluation was kind of a privilege as he has known the program for years since he was charged of its mid-term evaluation back in 2011.

A presentation of the program’s evaluation results was scheduled to be made by the evaluator at a large international conference on workforce inclusion for people with disabilities to be held in April 2015 in Bogotá, Colombia.