Richard Longhurst, Peter Wichmand and Burt Perrin from the Center for Development Impact bring the Practice Paper which advises on how evaluability assessments can support the choice of evaluation approaches for determining impact, based on recent experiences of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour of the International Labour Office (ILO-IPEC). The experiences focused on developing a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation strategy such that some elements of an EA were built into the system and could be deployed at most points in the programming cycle, especially in order to address questions important for the evaluation. When used together with other criteria, such practice allows for a more informed choice of the evaluation method and the related impact.
Above all, the report highlights three key findings:
- ILO-IPEC experience shows that it is worth considering integrating evaluability assessments (EAs) into existing monitoring and evaluation set-ups, in terms of improving the theory of change and stakeholder engagement, and being able to deal with contingencies. Integrated EAs may also be more effective in dealing with complexity.
- EAs may allow early planning for evaluations, which can make stakeholders more ‘evaluation aware’. Built-in EAs, moreover, allow the knowledge base of the agency tobe developed more systematically, and enable better learning and information-sharing among stakeholders. Periodic revisiting of the theory of change will allow for better implementation.
- There may be cost factors to consider, and these need to be weighed (subjectively) against the benefits of conducting an EA. One of the benefits would be capacity building of monitoring and evaluation staff, national stakeholders and others involved in the comprehensive monitoring and evaluation strategy.
Read the full report here.