The highly influential DAC evaluation criteria need to be revised. Some say reformed. What will modernised evaluation criteria for development look like? On what basis would we establish such criteria? How will we ensure that they suit different contexts, yet compel evaluation commissioners and evaluators to focus on what matters
These days we talk a lot about “sustainable development”. And about “evaluating impact”. But I continue to maintain that it is useless to evaluate the impacts of an intervention without focusing on whether such impacts have a good chance to sustain.
I do not do "development evaluation". I do not practice the evaluation OF development. I evaluate FOR development. There is a difference. These days we are told that the need for the special category called "development evaluation" has receded because all countries are actually "developing&
This blog post is about how to measure research quality when viewing research from a systems perspective. We all work with 'evidence'. This is often based on research, either by ourselves or others. Research is also crucial for a knowledge economy, and its role in society is as
In my previous post I highlighted the notion of Grand Challenges and where they have been developed. In this post I raise issues to consider when we think about whether the evaluation profession should have its own set of Grand Challenges. Should we have Grand Challenges for Evaluation? The practice
In July 2014 I wrote a short paper for EES Connections in which I asked whether the time was right for the global evaluation community to identify and engage with its own set of 'Grand Challenges'. Everyone is developing them! Why should evaluation - this young profession with all
In 15 years I have not conducted a single evaluation where I did not ask many questions about the reasons why things were working well, or not so well – and triangulating from different perspectives and sources of information.
Here is a concise and useful (I hope!) briefing by EVALSDGs on the value proposition of evaluation for the SDG era. In my previous post I highlighted the first "Call to Action" that flowed from my analysis of lessons for the global evaluation community based on MDG experiences.
No, I don't equate evaluation with toilet paper made of gold - even if it costs a cool US$1.3 million. (I know, this is definitely fodder for jokes). But I want to use the image to make a serious point: that evaluation was neglected during the MDG
Julia Coffman is one of our best-known evaluation leaders working primarily with foundations. I always think of her as innovative, energetic and a consummate professional. She gave me permission to highlight and link to her very timely and important Medium post here: Who are we really as 'evaluators&
