Evaluation of the MEDEVAC programme

Sweden, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, 2009, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sweden

Background

In 1995 Sweden offered medical evacuations to individuals from Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) to Sweden. This became known as the "MEDEVAC" project. In 1996 the project was extended into the Swedish Medical Programme (SMP) which included in-service training of Bosnian medical personnel who accompanied the medical evacuees to Sweden. The program also began to provide medical equipment to the clinics where patients originated. Additionally, Swedish Medical Teams (SMT) began to travel to Bosnia (and Kosovo as of 2000) in order to build the capacities of the Bosnian medical teams to perform certain medical procedures themselves. The assistance was terminated in 2007 and the Swedish parliament mandated an evaluation.

 

The objectives of the evaluation were to:

• Evaluate the support to MEDEVAC in relation to its goals, applications for support, and reports;
• Examine the relevance of the MEDEVAC program in relation to Swedish development goals from a rights-based and poverty reduction approach;
• Indicate the effects that MEDEVAC has had on long-term medical capacity building at the concerned clinics in BiH and Kosovo;
• Evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the program and measure both its effects on training as well as its overall effects on development;
• Judge the organizational structure of MEDEVAC;
• Judge the possibilities for economic support from other sources.