HLC is an international development consultancy firm that specialises in M&E and social research. We operate through a virtual platform that facilitates our expansive international reach and minimises our administrative expenses. Our firm commenced operations in 2015, in Montreal, Canada, and is registered with the Canadian federal and provincial governments. To build on our global consultancy portfolio, HLC is also registered with the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, and we are exploring a similar presence on the African continent.

Our main goal is to guide development agencies towards sustainable programmatic results that feed into institutional mandates; country priorities for social development and economic growth; and international development agenda. To facilitate development interventions that attain targeted outcomes and generate long-lasting impact, we provide M&E and social research services that enable our clients to become more adept at managing for development results. Our approach involves meeting each client at the point of their specific needs to collaborate on customised recommendations for the way forward.

In support of increased efficiencies during our consultancy mandates, our firm collaborates with a global network of international development professionals. The members of our network are thematic experts in various sectors, with several years of practical experience in their respective fields. By facilitating cross-sectoral and interregional collaboration, our global network plays a critical role in enhancing the technical and contextual reliability of our work.

Our review of the CREAD programme involved comparing the results achieved at mid-term against the established programme objectives and targeted results. We further assessed the extent to which the initial assumptions of the programme were still valid. Based on the results of our analysis, we identified the lessons that had been learned and developed key recommendations to inform the remaining period of programme implementation.

The evaluation of the Youth Association Model took us to the United Republic of Tanzania, where we engaged with street-connected young persons and their families, development agencies and stakeholders from local government. Our aim was to determine the impact of the model as a strategy for empowering street-connected young persons and improving their access to resources that would enable them to leave the streets.

To coincide with the end of the OV Services project, we evaluated the overall effectiveness of the project and provided forward-looking inputs on service delivery and functionalities, as well as UNV’s capacity to operate the OV service. As a contribution towards the next stage of intervention by the UNV, and as a precedent for the mid-term review of the UNV Strategic Framework, our role also involved clarifying and documenting the factors that were affecting project results and opportunities; highlighting unintended consequences; and identifying the broad lessons learnt from project design and delivery.

Our role during this evaluation was to independently assess the services that were being provided by the Secretariat of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), to the ICAO Governing Council and its subordinate bodies. The purpose of the evaluation was to develop key recommendations for enhancing the support services provided by the Secretariat, with emphasis on enhanced accountability and improved organisational learning, to enable the Council and its subordinate bodies to continue to function effectively.

In order for CBM to learn from its humanitarian response to the earthquakes that devastated Nepal in 2015, we used this evaluation to measure the impact of PERIP. We further aimed to support CBM in preventing the reoccurrence of emergent challenges to future interventions, by identifying the lessons that were learned from PERIP to inform the next steps for successful programmes and good practices.

Our formative and summative evaluation of the 12Mexicanxs Project examined seven criteria: relevance; effectiveness; efficiency; design; participation; gender and sustainability. The intention was to facilitate organisational learning based on project performance, and systematise lessons learned to increase results ownership among the project partners, including the targeted beneficiary communities.

We evaluated the PEI in Rwanda to support the integration of lessons learned into a proposal for the UNDP-UNEP Joint Global Programme. The results of the evaluation were to be used to enable the joint programme to run concurrently with the new National Strategy for Transformation, and align with the United Nations Development Assistance Plan for Rwanda and the UNDP Country Programme Document.

During the LL2E evaluation, we explored the extent to which change had been facilitated by project activities in two countries of focus, Nepal and Uganda. Of particular interest to our analysis was how observable changes materialised, with emphasis on the quality of business technical vocational education and training (BTVET); improvements in the lives of rights-holders; and linkages created with employment and/ or entrepreneurship.