Evaluation ethics, politics, standards, and guiding principles

This is a module taken from the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) program. It elaborates on the potential ethical and political challenges facing evaluators and provides examples of Guiding Principles and Standards that they can apply in their evaluation.

Ethics and politics are issues for all evaluators, especially for those working in countries with poor governance and a history of corruption. Internal pressures within a development organization can also create ethical issues. This module discusses ethical issues and political considerations in evaluations.

This module has three main parts:

• Ethical Behaviour
• Politics and Evaluation
• Evaluation Standards and Guiding Principles

Contents

• Ethics
• Identifying ethical problems
• Ethics issues
• Politics
• Causes of politics
• Political Games by different players and at different stages of the Evaluation
• Managing politics in evaluations
• Balancing Stakeholders with Negotiation
• Program evaluation standards categories and guiding principles