In August 2025, Integrity began delivering a rapid evaluation of part of the FCDO’s Migration for Development portfolio. This work follows on from Integrity’s evaluation in 2022-2023 of the Better Regional Migration Management (BRMM) programme. As well as the BRMM, our current rapid evaluation covers the new North Africa Migration and Development Programme (NAMAD). These two programmes have a combined value of £28 million, cover 13 countries across Africa and are implemented by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The evaluation is providing robust evidence to support FCDO’s key priority of addressing irregular migration flows, which they define as the movement of people across borders in a manner that doesn’t comply with the laws, regulations, or international agreements set by the countries involved. The purpose is to demonstrate accountability towards achieving migration portfolio objectives, such as making international migration safe and well managed, to further unlock the development benefits that it can bring. Another objective is providing learning on what is and is not working to generate and sustain livelihoods opportunities for potential, vulnerable or returnee migrants.

Our evaluation questions focus on the effectiveness of the portfolio, with an emphasis on individual migrants’ decisions to leave and improved livelihoods opportunities, as well on its impact on improved migration governance at a regional and national level across East and North Africa. There is an interest in collaboration opportunities with other donor-funded initiatives operating in similar contexts within the migration for development space. This includes engaging with the Swiss SDS and Swedish SIDA’s relevant programming in the region.

The evaluation design centres around the Theory of Change and was guided by FCDO’s interest in understanding the extent to which economic development programme activities are leading to sustained livelihoods improvements for migrants, as well as increased protection of vulnerable individuals. One innovation includes leveraging in-house capabilities through Gen AI, to automate some research tasks like transcription, expand our analytical capabilities and refine evaluation products.