Evaluation
The academic community is engaged in aid effectiveness but sometimes it seems far away from the challenges of implementation. Meanwhile, the analytical capacity of development cooperation administrators is more focused on evaluating separate projects, and on occasions is disconnected from an impact at global level. The guidelines for outcome-management try to assess the input of every actor in relation to poverty reduction objectives.
Based on this idea, the Master Plan promises a new culture of evaluation. Its purpose is to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of poverty reduction policies, or in broad terms, answer the question: How much poverty is reduced with each euro spent? The main objective is to establish a continuous process between policy definition and execution, and the analysis of efficient and well functioning mechanisms. Likewise, it is necessary to incorporate the learning processes within the structures of development cooperation agencies. What are the appropriate instruments to assure both learning and accountability?
Backgrounder by FRIDE
What is Evaluation for? The role of Evaluation is so that the achievements of organisations that have participated in certain activities and policies can be appreciated and recognised, by the way in which they have contributed to produce changes in people that their activities were directed towards, thus it is to design recommendations to improve especially for those that still need to be reached, with the aim of improving aid quality and efficiency.
Paper by the Directorate General for Planning and Evaluation of Development Policies, SECI
Evaluation does not only act as an accountability mechanism but also as, and mainly, a learning instrument. This means the incorporation, throughout the project cycle, of lessons learned, future development activities implemented, thus transforming itself into a compulsory document for management entities that should development an Action Plan.
Paper by Ruben Cano, Responsible for the Tidal Wave Special Plan of the Spanish Red Cross
Perhaps it’s a bit much to expect that all subsidized projects of more than 350.000 Euros be evaluated. Projects may exist that are simply not worth evaluating or where there has been repeated success in the past there shouldn’t be a need to evaluate.
Paper by Nils-Sjard Schulz
“In Spain, the rigid application of the log-frame approach to all types of interventions does not allow for an appropriate focus on development objectives and desired impacts, but insists in an exaggerated specification of activities and budgetary previsions, thereby assuming a linear logic which is often not realistic.”