Tag: assumptions

Working with Assumptions in International Development Program Evaluation

By Nkwake, Apollo M., with a Foreword by Michael Bamberger.  2013, 2013, XXI, 184 p. 14 illus., 7 in color. Published by Springer and available on Amazon

Publisher description

“Provides tools for understanding effective development programming and quality program evaluations Contains workshop materials for graduate students and in-service training for development evaluators The author brings together more than 12 years of experience in evaluation of international development programs

Regardless of geography or goal, development programs and policies are fueled by a complex network of implicit ideas. Stakeholders may hold assumptions about purposes, outcomes, methodology, and the value of project evaluation and evaluators—which may or may not be shared by the evaluators. Even when all participants share goals, failure to recognize and articulate assumptions can impede clarity and derail progress.

Working with Assumptions in International Development Program Evaluation probes their crucial role in planning, and their contributions in driving, global projects involving long-term change. Drawing on his extensive experience in the field, the author offers elegant logic and instructive examples to relate assumptions to the complexities of program design and implementation, particularly in weighing their outcomes. The book emphasizes clarity of purpose, respect among collaborators, and collaboration among team members who might rarely or never meet otherwise. Importantly, the book is a theoretical and practical volume that:

·          Introduces the multiple layers of assumptions on which global interventions are based.

·          Explores various approaches to the evaluation of complex interventions, with their underlying assumptions.

·          Identifies ten basic types of assumptions and their implications for program development and evaluation.

·          Provides examples of assumptions influencing design, implementation, and evaluation of development projects.

·          Offers guidelines in identifying, explicating, and evaluating assumptions

A first-of-its-kind resource, Working with Assumptions in International Development Program Evaluation opens out the processes of planning, implementation, and assessment for professionals in global development, including practitioners, development economists, global development program designers, and nonprofit personnel.”

Rick Davies comment: Looks potentially useful, but VERY expensive at £85.50 Few individuals will buy it but organisations might do so. Ideally the author would make a cheaper paperback version available. And Amazaon should provide a “Look inside this book” option, to help people decide if spending £85.50 would be worthwhile. PS: I think the publishers, and maybe the author, would fail the marshmellow test

Rick Davies postcript: The Foreword, Preface and Contents page of the book is available as a pdf, here on the Springer website.

See also:


Evaluation of Governance – A Study of the Government of India’s Outcome Budget

by Anand P. Gupta,  Economic Management Institute, New Delhi, India
in Journal of Development Effectiveness, 2:4, 566-573, December 2010.

[Found courtesy of Public Financial Management Blog]

“In 2005, the Government of India launched an apparently excellent initiative – the Outcome Budget – with the objective of changing the culture of measuring performance in terms of the amount of money spent against the budgeted allocations, to one of measuring performance in terms of the delivery of the outcomes that people are concerned with. This paper describes how the Outcome Budget was launched, articulates the theory of change underlying the Outcome Budget, presents a case study of the Outcome Budget of the Government of India’s Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme, and discusses the lessons that the Government of India may learn from its experience with the Outcome Budget.

The paper argues that the Outcome Budget has failed. This has happened because the assumptions of the theory of change underlying the Outcome Budget have not been satisfied. The failure of the Outcome Budget has extremely important lessons for the Independent Evaluation Office, which the Government of India has decided to set up. The paper articulates the theory of change underlying the Independent Evaluation Office. This theory assumes that policymakers in India currently demand rigorous impact evaluations of public interventions and will continue to demand such evaluations in future, not because they have to comply with any requirement but because they really want to know the answers to the impact evaluation questions of ‘what works, under what conditions does it work, for whom, what part of a given intervention works, and for how much?’, so that they may draw appropriate lessons from these answers and use these lessons while designing and implementing public interventions in future.  However, given Indian public officials’ current culture, the Independent Evaluation Office may not make any visible difference in development effectiveness in India.

The paper, published in Journal of Development Effectiveness, Volume 2, Number 4 (December 2010), is amongst the Journal’s “most read” (downloaded) papers, and is currently on the free download list of most read papers.”

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