What is impact assessment? Why is it important to assess impact and how should this be done? This paper, by Save the Children UK (SC UK), documents the organisation’s development of a framework for impact assessment in order to improve accountability, learn from its work and maximise impact. It describes lessons learned from the implementation of its Global Impact Monitoring (GIM) framework and draws conclusions about improving impact assessment processes.
Until recently, the social mission of most Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) has tended to exempt them from the levels of scrutiny on issues of performance and accountability that are found in the private or public sectors. However, in the last few years, NGOs working in international development and relief have paid increasing attention to demonstrating the impact of their work on those they are attempting to help.
Overall, SC UK’s assessment framework, GIM, proved successful as a practical way to mainstream impact assessment in the organisation’s programmes and policy work. It was a practical way to put Child Rights Programming principles into practice. However, it was better understood and implemented by programmes with more experience of rights-based approaches. Furthermore:
- Measuring impact in relation to children’s participation and active citizenship, and equity and non-discrimination, proved difficult.
- The GIM processes created opportunities for learning by making time and space for analysis. This included analysis of impact and also the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches.
- Engagement in impact assessment processes has enabled partners and other stakeholders to better understand SC UKs goals and principles and facilitated a rich exchange of experience and information.
- Creating safe spaces in which children and their communities are able to highlight negative and positive impacts is a sensitive and skilled task, as is analysing the data arising from impact assessment processes.
- The GIM process was relatively successful at producing examples of impact, though negative impacts were less frequently reported. The quality of evidence used to back up claims about impact varied.
- Regional level impact assessment proved particularly useful while global level was the least well defined. It proved harder to report impact where programme objectives were not change-oriented.
Much can be done to improve understanding and learning about the impact of development and relief work. But improved impact assessment will not result from any one framework alone, however strong.
- A culture of constructive criticism must be created in which external stakeholders can speak frankly about interventions and NGO staff are more reflective and are rewarded for acting upon learning.
- Senior NGO managers should make the case that learning processes are an investment and an essential part of the development process.
- Impact assessment needs to be integrated into programmes’ existing planning and review mechanisms so that impact data can be collected and analysed on an ongoing basis.
- International NGOs need to take a proactive approach with funding agencies to reach agreement about useful ways of measuring organisational impact and performance.
- The burden on staff of multiple reporting should be reduced, particularly for southern NGOs.
- NGOs must strive to find an acceptable balance between measurement, management and accountability.
