Good Practices in the Management of External Development Evaluations

This guide from the Just Governance GroupĀ (JGG, archived link) identifies a number of good practices and key issues that should be taken into account when managing external evaluation.

Excerpt

"Through the review of key documents, JGG has identified and summarized common approaches, and techniques in the management of external evaluations. The compilation of these findings is based on the referenced documents of leading international, intergovernmental and bilateral organizations.

  • Evaluations should correspond to the needs and priorities identified in the Terms of Reference (TORs) prepared by the contracting agency and/or the implementing institution.
  • In order to fully respond to the TORs it is important to ensure that there is effective collaboration among the evaluation managers (the representative of the evaluation team, the contracting agency, and the implementing institution).
  • Evaluation managers should establish the mechanisms for collaboration among stakeholders and define clear roles and responsibilities within each participating agency or institution.
  • Key stakeholders should be prepared to commit the time and energy necessary to play an integral role in the evaluation.
  • Quality assurance mechanisms ensure credibility of the evaluation and strengthen the acceptance of findings.
  • Lead evaluators should invest initial time and resources to review existing qualitative and quantitative data and assess if this data can be used and what additional data is required.
  • During the planning stage, evaluators should clearly describe the data collection methods that will be used in the evaluation.
  • Evaluation managers should reflect on, revise and refine evaluation strategies to ensure they incorporate methods and practices that have proven to be effective."Ā (JGGĀ 2012)

Sources

Just Governance Group (JGG), (2012). Good practices in the management of external development evaluations. Retrieved from website: https://web.archive.org/web/20151121232456/http://justgovernancegroup.org/en/home_eng.htmĀ (archived link)