Desk Screening of Development Projects: Is it Effective?

Abstract

Donor agencies rely to varying degrees on desk reviews by headquarter staff for the selection, monitoring and evaluation of projects initiated by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). If information provided in the various documents submitted by NGOs is inadequate or incomplete then the reliability of desk reviews as a management tool for allocation of project funding becomes questionable. A study of European Union funding of NGO projects compared findings from a desk evaluation of a structured sample of 30 projects with those from a field assessment of the same projects. The findings show that a field assessment on the basis of more complete information from a wider range of stakeholders leads to a markedly lower scoring on most of the standard criteria of project evaluation. An important policy implication is that ex ante screening, monitoring and evaluation on the basis of project documents are an ineffective management tool for donor agencies if not backed up by substantive follow-up in the field. This article places such management tools in the wider context of principal-agent relations.K E Y WO R D S : aid management; desk project review; field assessment; NGO co-funding; principal-agent relationship Evaluation

The European Project, Federalism and Evaluation

“…And, above all, could evaluation expose the relevant evidence in this situation and suggest ways for correcting this dynamic? Holvoet and Renard (2003), for instance, still using a principal/agent model, note that in development projects the EC administration has relied mainly on a desk screening of the reports sent by NGOs that show much better results than would have been obtained by site visits, thus perpetuating opportunistic behaviour in NGOs. Their suggestion is that this situation can be overcome by the creation of better relationships between principal and agents, 25 based on better reciprocal knowledge and on trust -making the agents feel responsible for honest reports and limiting fi nancing to groups that seem trustworthy.…”

Understanding project evaluation – a review and reconceptualization

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"Indicatorism"

“…The above diagram was built on the assumption that contemporary donor aid was mediated through "indicatorism" This assumption is well supported by prior work discussed in Chapter I (Holvoet & Renard 2003;Crittenden & Lea 1992;Holvoet & Inberg 2009;Holvoet & Rombouts 2008). Thus, this research sought to address the question: how was contemporary donor aid to developing countries mediated by possible "indicatorism"?…”

“…And for international aid, M & E has become all but a single-word synonym for indicators, which weakens its meaning as a two-step process of monitoring and evaluating. Thus, some aid experts assert that the indicator emphasis of M & E has subsumed the evaluation function in international aid (Blue & Clapp-Winceck 2009;Holvoet & Renard 2007;Holvoet & Renard 2003;Holvoet & Rombouts 2008), fostering what Holvoet and Rombouts (2008: 581) refer to as the "extolment of indicators", or "indicatorism." The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines indicators as "quantitative or qualitative factors or variables that provide a simple and reliable means to measure achievement, to reflect changes connected to an intervention or to help assess the performance of a development actor.…”