Archive for April, 2011

AusAID’s Information Publication Scheme: Draft Plan & Consultation

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

The 12th April 2011 Draft plan is now available in pdf and MS Word Introduction "AusAID is the Australian Government’s Agency for International Development, an executive agency within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio. Its primary role is the implementation and oversight of the Australian Government aid program. The ...

Towards a Plurality of Methods in Project Evaluation: A Contextualised Approach to Understanding Impact Trajectories and Efficacy

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

Michael Woolcock, January 2009, BWPI Working Paper 73 Abstract "Understanding the efficacy of development projects requires not only a plausible counterfactual, but an appropriate match between the shape of impact trajectory over time and the deployment of a corresponding array of research tools capable of empirically discerning such a trajectory. At present, ...

Impact Evaluation in Practice

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

Paul J. Gertler, Sebastian Martinez, Patrick Premand, Laura B. Rawlings, Christel M. J. Vermeersch, World Bank, 2011 Impact Evaluation in Practice is available as downloadable pdf, and can be bought online. "Impact Evaluation in Practice presents a non-technical overview of how to design and use impact evaluation to build more ...

Evaluation Revisited – Improving the Quality of Evaluative Practice by Embracing Complexity

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

Utrecht Conference Report. Irene Guijt, Jan Brouwers, Cecile Kusters, Ester Prins and Bayaz Zeynalova. March 2011. Available as pdf This report summarises the outline and outputs of the Conference ‘Evaluation Revisited: Improving the Quality of Evaluative Practice by Embracing Complexity’’, which took place on May 20-21, 2010. It also adds additional ...

Purposeful Program Theory: Effective Use of Theories of Change and Logic Models

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

by Sue C. Funnell,  Patricia J. Rogers. March 2011. Available on Amazon. Product Description "Program Theory in Evaluation Practice is a ground–breaking reference that teaches how to develop an explicit causal model that links an intervention (project, program or policy) with its intended or observed impacts and using this ...

Promoting Voice and Choice: Exploring Innovations in Australian NGOAccountability for Development Effectiveness

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

- Exploring innovations in Australian NGO accountability for development effectiveness by Chris Roche, ACFID research paper, 2010 From the Preface "This research paper represents the latest chapter in a body of work, led by ACFID’s Development Practice Committee (DPC), focused on Australian NGO program quality and effectiveness. Over the past ...

Learning how to learn: eight lessons for impact evaluations that make a difference

Friday, April 15th, 2011

ODI Background Notes, April 2011. Authors: Ben Ramalingam "This Background Note outlines key lessons on impact evaluations, utilisation-focused evaluations and evidence-based policy. While methodological pluralism is seen as the key to effective impact evaluation in development, the emphasis here is not methods per se. Instead, the focus ...

NAO report: DFID Financial Management Report

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

Full report - DFID: Financial management report Executive summary (PDF - 73KB) NAO Press Release 6 April 2011... "Sound financial management will be essential at the Department for International Development as its spending increases by a third over the next four years, according to the National Audit Office. The Department has improved its core financial management ...

Sound expectations: from impact evaluations to policy change

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

3ie Working paper # 12, 2011, by Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC) Emails: vweyrauch@cippec.org, gdiazlangou@cippec.org Abstract "This paper outlines a comprehensive and flexible analytical conceptual framework to be used in the production of a case study series. The cases are expected to identify factors that ...

IMPACT AND AID EFFECTIVENESS: Mapping the Issues and their Consequences

Monday, April 4th, 2011

[from the IDS Virtual Bulletin, March 2011] Introduction In this virtual Bulletin we bring together ten articles dating from across three decades. They all address Impact. From the outset, we ...