Month: December 2011

RealWorld Evaluation Working Under Budget, Time, Data, and Political Constraints

Second Edition, by Michael Bamberger, Jim Rugh, Linda Mabry. Sage Publications,  Nov 2011,

“This book addresses the challenges of conducting program evaluations in real-world contexts where evaluators and their clients face budget and time constraints and where critical data may be missing. The book is organized around a seven-step model developed by the authors, which has been tested and refined in workshops and in practice. Vignettes and case studies—representing evaluations from a variety of geographic regions and sectors—demonstrate adaptive possibilities for small projects with budgets of a few thousand dollars to large-scale, long-term evaluations of complex programs. The text incorporates quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method designs, and this Second Edition reflects important developments in the field since the publication of the First Edition. ”

See also the associated website: http://www.realworldevaluation.org/ Bamberger and Rugh have presented many workshops on RealWorld Evaluation in many countries. A copy of various versions and translations of the PowerPoint presentations and other materials are accessible on the next pages of this website. Continue reading “RealWorld Evaluation Working Under Budget, Time, Data, and Political Constraints”

First reports published by UK Independent Commission for Aid Impact

…on 22nd November, 2011.

Two cover general areas of the programme:

• ICAI’s Approach to Effectiveness and Value for Money; and

• The Department for International Development’s (DFID) Approach to Anti-Corruption;

Two cover specific programmes in DFID’s country offices:

• DFID’s Climate Change Programme in Bangladesh; and

• DFID’s Support to the Health Sector in Zimbabwe.

See the ICAI website for further details

RD Comment: re “ICAI’s Approach to Effectiveness and Value for Money” paper, see my Comments here. In summary:•

  • This paper is confusingly titled. It is really about the ICAIs overall approach to evaluation, and covers more than “value for money and effectiveness”
  • The 4e’s analysis of the concepts of “value for money and effectiveness” has potential, but seems to be taken nowhere thereafter.
  • The proposed workings of the traffic light system are opaque. It is not clear how these judgements will be built up from subsidiary judgements. Nor what they mean in the simplest terms of success and failure. Nor is there a “None of the above. There is not sufficient information to make a judgement”