Aid evaluation plays an essential role in efforts to enhance the quality of development cooperation. This paper from the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee presents a set of principles on the most important requirements of the evaluation process. Development assistance is a cooperative partnership between donors and recipients. Both must take an interest in evaluation to improve the use of resources through learning and to ensure accountability to political authorities and the public.
An evaluation is defined as a systematic and objective assessment of a project, programme or policy and its design, implementation and results. The aim is to determine the relevance and fulfilment of objectives and the efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the outcomes. An evaluation should provide information that is credible and useful, enabling the incorporation of lessons learned into the decision-making process of recipients and donors.
The principles set out below provide general guidance on the role of aid evaluation in the aid management process, with the following central messages:
- Aid agencies should have an evaluation policy with clearly established guidelines and methods. The policy should have a clear definition of its role and responsibilities and its place within the institutional aid structure.
- The evaluation process should be impartial and independent from the policy-making process and the delivery management of development assistance.
- The evaluation process must be as open as possible with results made widely available.
- To be useful, evaluations must be used. Feedback to policy-makers and operation staff is essential.
- Partnership between donors and recipients is essential for the evaluation process. This is an important aspect of recipient institution building and of aid coordination and may reduce administrative burdens on recipients.
- Aid evaluation and its requirements must be an integral part of aid planning from the start. Clearly identifying the objectives of an aid activity is an essential prerequisite for objective evaluation.
In light of these principles, aid agencies need to ensure that they have a clear and defined set of guidelines on evaluation policy:
- They need a policy which addresses both the institutional structures for managing evaluations and the openness of the evaluation process.
- They need a critical mass of evaluation staff with sufficient expertise in their field to ensure credibility of the evaluation process. Evaluations have an important role to play during a project and should not only be conducted after project completion.
- Collaboration between donors is essential in order to learn from each other and avoid duplication. Joint donor evaluations are particularly recommended.
- Aid agencies should elaborate guidelines and/or standards for the evaluation process. These should give guidance and define the minimum requirements for the conduct of evaluations and for reporting.
- Each evaluation must be planned and terms of reference drawn in order to: define the purpose and scope of the evaluation; describe the methods to be used; identify standards against which performance is to be assessed; and determine the resources and time required to complete the evaluation.
- Evaluation reporting should be clear and as free as possible of technical language. Dissemination and feedback must form a continuous and dynamic part of the evaluation process.
