Tag: capacity building

Improving the Evaluability of INGO Empowerment and Accountability Programmes

Shutt, C. and McGee, R. CDI Practice Paper 1 March 2013 Publisher IDS Available as pdf (109kb)

Abstract
This CDI Practice Paper is based on an analysis of international NGO (INGO) evaluation practice in empowerment and accountability (E&A) programmes commissioned by CARE UK, Christian Aid, Plan UK and World Vision UK. It reviews evaluation debates and their implications for INGOs. The authors argue that if INGOs are to successfully ‘measure’ or assess outcomes and impacts of E&A programmes, they need to shift attention from methods to developing more holistic and complexity-informed evaluation strategies during programme design. Final evaluations or impact assessments are no longer discrete activities, but part of longer-term learning processes. Given the weak evaluation capacity within the international development sector, this CDI Practice Paper concludes that institutional donors must have realistic expectations and support INGOs to develop their evaluation capacity in keeping with cost–benefit considerations. Donors might also need to reconsider the merits of trying to evaluate the ‘impact’ of ‘demand-side’ NGO governance programmes independently of potentially complementary ‘supply-side’ governance initiatives.

See also: Tools and Guidelines for Improving the Evaluability of INGO Empowerment and Accountability Programmes Centre for Development Impact, Practice paper. No.1 Annex March 2013

International Conference on National Evaluation Capacities.

 

Date: 12-14 September 2011
Venue: Johannesburg, South Africa

UNDP Evaluation Office and the Public Service Commission (PSC) of South Africa are co-hosting the second International Conference on National Evaluation Capacities. See the official website here.

This is a follow up conference to the 2009 International Conference on National Evaluation Capacities held in Casablanca, Morocco, which was organized by the UNDP Evaluation Office in partnership with the Moroccan National Observatory for Human Development.

Objectives

1. To share experiences from countries with different levels of development of national M&E systems including those who may be considering creating one and have important experiences with other types of evaluation efforts;

2. To identify lessons and constraints in implementing national M&E systems; and,

3. To identify supply and demand for technical assistance in strengthening institutional capacity for national M&E systems under the umbrella of South-South cooperation.

If you have any questions please send your inquiry to: nec.2011@undp.org

Mr. Indran A. Naidoo, Deputy Director General, Monitoring and Evaluation
Office of the Public Service Commission, South Africa

Ms. Azusa Kubota, Evaluation Specialist, UNDP Evaluation Office

Follow in Twitter: @NEC_2011 for the latest information on the International Conference on National Evaluation Capacities – 12-14 September 2011.

US Office of Management and Budget: Increased emphasis on Program Evaluations

Via Xceval: No exactly breaking news (11 months later), but still likely to be of wide interest:

October 7, 2009
M-10-01
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
FROM: Peter R. Orszag
Director
SUBJECT: Increased Emphasis on Program Evaluations

Rigorous, independent program evaluations can be a key resource in determining whether government programs are achieving their intended outcomes as well as possible and at the lowest possible cost. Evaluations can help policymakers and agency managers strengthen the design and operation of programs. Ultimately, evaluations can help the Administration determine how to spend taxpayer dollars effectively and efficiently — investing more in what works and less in what does not.
Although the Federal government has long invested in evaluations, many important programs have never been formally evaluated — and the evaluations that have been done have not sufficiently shaped Federal budget priorities or agency management practices. Many agencies lack an office of evaluation with the stature and staffing to support an ambitious, strategic, and relevant research agenda. As a consequence, some programs have persisted year after year without adequate evidence that they work. In some cases, evaluation dollars have flowed into studies of insufficient rigor or policy significance. And Federal programs have rarely evaluated multiple approaches to the same problem with the goal of identifying which ones are most effective.

To address these issues and strengthen program evaluation, OMB will launch the following government-wide efforts as part of the Fiscal Year 2011 Budget process: ….(read the full text in this pdf)

“Monitoring and Evaluating Capacity Building: Is it really that difficult?’

By Nigel Simister with Rachel Smith. Published by INTRAC.

“Whilst few doubt the importance of capacity building, and the need for effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to support this work, the M&E of capacity building is as much a challenge now as it was two decades ago. This paper examines both theory and current practice, and aims to promote debate on some of the key barriers to progress.

The paper is primarily concerned with capacity building within civil society organisations (CSOs), although many of the lessons also apply to commercial and state organisations. It is based on a literature review and interviews with capacity building providers in the North and South. Continue reading ““Monitoring and Evaluating Capacity Building: Is it really that difficult?’”

Learning purposefully in capacity  development 

Why, what and when to measure?

An opinion paper prepared for IIEP,  by Alfredo Ortiz and Peter Taylor, INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES (IDS), 25th July, 2008

>>Full text<<

Abstract

Many capacity development (CD) programs and processes aim at long?term sustainable change,
which depends on seeing many smaller changes in at times almost invisible fields (rules, incentives,
behaviours, power, coordination etc.). Yet, most evaluation processes of CD tend to focus on short?
term outputs focused on clearly visible changes. This opinion paper will offer some ideas on how to
deal with this paradox, by examining how monitoring and evaluation (M&E) does, or could, make a difference to CD.  It explores whether there is something different and unique about M&E of CD that
isn’t addressed by predominant methods and ways of thinking about M&E, and which might be
better addressed by experimenting with learning?based approaches to M&E of CD.

Contents
1.  INTRODUCTION—WHAT SHOULD MONITORING &EVALUATION (M&E) TELL US ABOUT
CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT (CD)? …………………………… 1
2.  CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT MEANS AND ENDS—“WHAT ARE WE MEASURING AND WHEN
SHOULD WE MEASURE IT?”  …. 5
2.1.  IN SEARCH OF PERFORMANCE AND IMPACT .. 5
2.2.  STANDING CAPACITY  …. 10
3.  WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM M & E OF CD DILEMMAS? … 13
3.1.  DEVELOPMENT BEING A PROCESS ALREADY IN MOTION …….. 13
3.2.  LINEAR VERSUS COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS (CAS) THINKING, PROGRAMMING AND MEASUREMENT ……. 14
3.3.  ATTRIBUTION … 17
3.4.  DONOR ACCOUNTING FOCUS VERSUS OPEN LEARNING APPROACHES .. 18
4.  CONCLUDING THOUGHTS  … 24
4.1.  INCORPORATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING APPROACHES TO M&E OF CD … 26
4.2.  LARGE-SCALE EXPERIMENTATION AND ACTION RESEARCH . 27
4.3.  USE OF THEORY OF CHANGE (TOC) APPROACHES FOR DESIGNING M&E OF CD SYSTEMS ……… 28
4.3.1.  WHAT CAN A THEORY OF CHANGE OFFER? . 28
4.3.2.  HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE OF TOC USE IN EFA ….. 31
4.4.  CONCLUSION ……………………………………. 33
5.  ACRONYMS …………………………………… 34
6.  BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………… 35

A brief summary and links to IDEAS global assembly held in Jo-Burg, March 2009

provided by Denis Jobin (IDEAS VP  2006-2009), in a posting on the MandE NEWS email list…

“Getting to Results: Evaluation Capacity Building and Development”
The IDEAS Global Assembly, Birchwood Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa, March 17-20, 2009.

The International Development Evaluation Association‘s Global Assembly focused on the issues involved in evaluation capacity building, and how such efforts can strengthen the evidence available to countries to inform their own development. Capacity building has been recognized for a decade or more as crucial to development. The measurement (and management) issues embedded in generating and disseminating evaluative information are now understood to be critical to informing decision making. The Global Assembly explored these topics with the objective of clarifying present knowledge on evaluation capacity building, learning lessons from development evaluation experience, and understanding the challenges faced by development evaluators in taking these efforts forward.

The theme of the global assembly underscores the role that evaluative knowledge can play in development in general, and the importance of building and sustaining the capacity to bring evaluative knowledge into the decision making process so as to enhance the achievement of results.

The papers presented at the global assembly may be grouped according to several “themes”.We have provided below the links to those papers which we have been able to make available.

Building Evaluation Capacity in Response to the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action

This strand focuses on the commitments made in the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action to strengthen monitoring and evaluation systems in order to track development performance. Documents

Institutional capacity building

When the focus is on institutional capacity building, issues of supply versus demand in the public, private, and NGO/CSO sectors of society are immediately apparent. The role of evaluation associations, standards for evaluation performance, the role of credentials, national evaluation policies, and incentives for quality evaluations are all significant issues. Documents

Regional Responses/Regional Strategies for building Evaluation Capacity

This topic examines regional efforts and strategies being deployed to strengthen evaluation capacity. Documents

Country / Sector Specific Responses for Building Evaluation Capacity

Case Studies from a range of countries and organizations provide insight into different ways of building Capacity. Documents

Evaluation Capacity Building — Tools, Techniques, and Strategies

Capacity building involves multiple tools, techniques, and strategies. This topic examines the success (or not) of these different components of capacity building.  Documents

The Measurement and Assessment of Evaluation Capacity Building

This topic examines the experiences and the efforts made to actually evaluate capacity building. The assessments describe and analyze the methodological choices and their implications. Qualitative, quantitative methods and mixed methods are analysed, and any unintended consequences are examined.  Documents

Country-Led Evaluation

A series of case studies analyse and evaluate Monitoring and Evaluation efforts in a range of countries. Documents

Symposium: “Getting to Results: Evaluation Capacity Building and Development”

International Development Evaluation Association

Date: March 17-20, 2009

Venue: Johannesburg, South Africa)

CALL FOR SUBMISSION OF PAPER PROPOSALS.

Submission Deadline: January 12, 2009

Please note that scholarships for individuals from developing or transition countries are available.

Introduction:

The Board of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) is pleased to announce its next Global Assembly on March 18-20, 2009 in Johannesburg, South Africa preceded by professional development training sessions on March 17. The theme of the assembly will be on evaluation capacity building and its role in development.

The Assembly will focus on the issues involved in evaluation capacity building, how such efforts can strengthen the evidence available to organizations and countries to inform their own development, and what we know of good practices in this area. Capacity building has been recognized now for a decade or more as crucial to development. The measurement (and management) issues embedded in generating and disseminating evaluative information are now understood to be critical to informing decision making. This conference will explore these topics with the intent to clarify present knowledge on evaluation capacity building, learn of what is working well (or not), and what are the challenges in taking these promising efforts forward. The intention is to inform the results agenda within the development context.

The theme of this coming global assembly underscores the role that evaluative knowledge can play in development in general, and more particularly, how to build and sustain the capacity to bring evaluative knowledge into the decision making process so as to enhance the achievement of results. Thus, the theme of evaluation capacity building encompasses issues of knowledge creation, knowledge transmission, knowledge synthesis, and sustainability. Continue reading “Symposium: “Getting to Results: Evaluation Capacity Building and Development””

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