In today’s development space, there is no doubt that there are evaluations and “there are evaluations”!
Many evaluations make sense and many don’t.
It is all too familiar to read Terms of Reference for evaluations in developing countries, written in such a way that they are simply “output” focused.
These “outputs” usually refer to an evaluation report (and perhaps a PowerPoint slide deck for good measure)! Added to this, is the very short timeline that is given to have these “quick and dirty” evaluations completed.
In fact, many of these end of project type evaluations are treated as an appendage to the project rather than as integral to programme development, influencing policy formulation and stakeholder learning and development.
