Blogs

Bob Picciotto is a former Director General of the Independent Evaluation Group which oversees evaluation in the International Finance Corporation, an agency dedicated to the promotion of private sector development in developing countries. In this guest blog, he argues that the ethical investment community has much to learn from the Objectives-Based Evaluation (OBE) approach used by the multilateral development banks: OBE rates social and environmental sustainability performance as well as economic and financial returns.

Evaluation needs to respond to the changes brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.  As well as direct implications for the logistics of collecting data and managing evaluation processes, the pandemic has led to rapid changes in what organisations are trying to do and how evaluation can best be used to support these changes.   

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to rapid changes in the activities and goals of many organisations, whether these relate to addressing direct health impacts, the consequential economic and social impacts or to the need to change the way things are done. Evaluation needs to support organisations to use evidence to plan these changes, to implement them effectively, and to understand whether or how they work – in short to articulate an appropriate theory of change and use it well. 

Organisations around the world are quickly having to adapt their programme and project activities to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. We’re starting a new blog series to help support these efforts. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring some of the key issues and questions to be addressed. We’ll be structuring these around the seven clusters of tasks in the BetterEvaluation Rainbow Framework: MANAGE, DEFINE, FRAME, DESCRIBE, UNDERSTAND CAUSES, REPORT AND SUPPORT USE. We’ll also be creating a complementary thematic area on the BetterEvaluation website to gather this information and associated resources in a more permanent and accessible manner. We see this as a work in progress – new guidance and resources are being developed rapidly as the evaluation community comes together to support one another in this global crisis.