Building on work undertaken for Global Affairs Canada and Australia’s Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Itad, in association with CMI, has been contracted by Norad to investigate the current quality of decentralised reviews, the extent to which they provide credible evidence of results and to understand how and in what ways the reviews are used and what factors influence quality and use.
The study covers 74 reviews/decentralised evaluations finalised in 2014.
Our approach
Our approach has three key components:
- Desk based quality assessment of reviews and decentralised evaluations of Norwegian development cooperation, including final reports, and associated documents, to identify key strengths and weaknesses in evaluation quality;
- Case studies of a sample of review / evaluation processes, to explore the barriers and enablers of quality and to identify how and why decentralised evaluations are used/not used;
- Staff survey to gather wider perceptions on the quality and use of reviews and decentralised evaluation within the Norwegian aid administration, and test findings emerging from components 1-2 among a wider sample of staff and produce findings that are more generalisable.
Findings
The findings from this evaluation will feed into ongoing discussions in Norway on the organisation and management of decentralised evaluations and reviews in the Norwegian development administration.
To undertake this assignment, we have assembled a small team of experts with solid experience in designing and implementing complex and multi-disciplinary evaluations in the field of international development, a strong track record in conducting similar assignments for clients like Global Affairs Canada and AusAID (now DFAT) and an excellent knowledge of Norwegian aid administration and development cooperation.
The evaluation started in June 2016 and will be finalised in November 2016.
Contact Stefanie Wallach (stefanie.wallach@itad.com) if you would like to discuss this project.
Image © Colorful Alesund (Norway). Photo Credit: Edward Dalmulder (CC BY 2.0)
