Current Challenges in Development Evaluation

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, the development industry has changed rapidly and now presents evaluators with a series of new challenges. This article considers this process of change. It argues that there has been a move away from a 'project-based' approach to a broader vision of development centred on the Millennium Development Goals, which has led to a change of the evaluation approach: from an assessment of outputs to an evaluation of results. Furthermore, the increasing complexity of ways in which the development process is conceptualized demands increasingly sophisticated and interpretive approaches to evaluation. Whilst there will remain space for positivist approaches in certain sectors of the industry, it is increasingly likely that other approaches will become more dominant.

Chapitre 5. La (re-)professionnalisation du journalisme tunisien dans la période transitionnelle : le rôle des acteurs extranationaux

“…According to Cracknell, these are dichotomous objectives that cannot be reconciled within a single evaluation (2000: 55). In general, evaluations enjoy a largely unquestioned function of being vital to check the efficiency and effectiveness of tax-payer funds (Chouinard 2013: 238-241), however there are growing concerns of an overemphasis on accountability functions (Armytage 2011;Conlin & Stirrat 2008;Johnson & Wilson 2009: 8;Lennie & Tacchi 2013: 117), and that evaluations are increasingly seen as a mechanism for "demonstrate[ing] success" (Enghel & Wilkins 2012: 9), rather than as a tool for providing a critical engagement with the successes and failures of the approaches.…”

“…Many of the largest and enduring media assistance organizations were established during this 2 period (including Internews, BBC Media Action, Article 19, IREX and Panos). During the same period, attention to evaluation 1 of international development assistance rose dramatically, and there have been significant shifts in the complexity and expectations of evaluation of development interventions since the 1990s and early 2000s (Conlin & Stirrat 2008). Evaluations in the contemporary context need to contend with much broader sites of impact and many more actors, which complicates attribution, and, given the ideal of local ownership of development, has significantly more complicated audiences and purposes to serve (ibid).…”

A Participatory Framework for Researching and Evaluating Communication for Development and Social Change

“…There is growing interest within the development sector in using a broader range of evaluation approaches and methodologies that can more effectively meet the complex challenges and issues that evaluators face with the evaluation of development initiatives (Bamberger, Rao and Woolcock 2010;Conlin and Stirrat 2008;Stern et al 2012). They include participatory, mixed methods, complexity, systems and theory--based evaluation approaches.…”

Evaluation Logics in the Third Sector

“…Here, evaluation and the social development process recognize the importance of narratives, which are never final products but are always in a state of 'becoming' (Conlin & Stirrat, 2008). Similarly, richness invites a rejection of performance measures that can capture but only a small fraction of what is important and invites a focus on the overall story, textures and nuances that can reveal the multiple levels of human experience (Greene, 1999).…”