Evaluation in the ODA. A view from the inside

Abstract

Evaluation is an important part of the project cycle, but it is not confined to projects: any aid‐funded activity can be evaluated. ODA spends about £1/2 million per annum on evaluation (including in‐house staff costs). The policy on evaluation is controlled by the Projects and Evaluation Committee which receives the reports. As the same Committee approves all major new projects there is instant feedback. It is vital that senior management learn recent lessons from experience to supplement their own personal experience which may be out of date. Evaluations need to be done as soon as useful lessons are to be learned—if left too late the findings are likely to have been overtaken by recent changes in ODA procedures. Using outside evaluators brings a welcome element of impartiality. But a balance of in‐house and out‐of‐house evaluators yields the best results. Evaluation reports need to be presented in a systematic way (as appraisals are), and they should be made widely available. Two lessons stand out: the need for in‐depth appraisal and careful monitoring and the importance of good management for successful projects.

From Evaluating Democracy Assistance to Appraising Democracy Promotion

“…The reasoning behind a double shift from activities to instruments and from past performance to future policy is not revolutionary although the context is new. Over twenty years ago an experienced aid manager concluded about economic development assistance, ‘One lesson I consider that we have learnt from the conduct of evaluations is the importance of the initial appraisal ... One cannot over‐stress the importance of a very careful, if necessarily lengthy, appraisal of the project before you actually agree to take it on’ (Browning, 1984, pp. 138–9).…”

Evaluation feedback: so important, yet so neglected!

“…As the onetime Chairman of ODA's Projects and Evaluation Committee, Rex Browning, once wrote: "We must know how WE as an aid agency can do things better, not how things can be done better in some general cosmic sense'' (Browning, 1984).…”

Evaluating development assistance: A review of the literature

“…This explosion of interest in evaluation led O D A in 1983 to call a 2-day conference on the subject at the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex (Cracknell, 1984a). One outcome of the publicity associated with this conference was a fresh interest in ODA's internal evaluation procedures, and this led to the publication of two articles in Public Administration and Development (Browning, 1984 andCracknell, 1984b). It also led ODA to publish a small booklet summarizing its evaluation experiences (ODA, 1983b).…”