Evaluation

Bread and butter, or an opportunity for learning?

Evaluations can be seen as the ‘bread and butter’ of the consulting life.  Trundle through them, usual recommendations, submit the invoice and watch as the report gathers dust on a shelf.

Not interested.

In my experience, evaluations provide a fantastic opportunity for learning: for the institution of course, but also for me and colleagues involved in the process. They require a very similar skillset to needs assessment: a good understanding of emergency contexts, good analytical skills, participatory techniques, the ability to see the big picture and then think beyond the obvious. I have learned an enormous amount from my involvement in evaluations and honestly feel privileged to have been allowed to observe and scrutinise the programming of other professionals.

Evaluations also bring a set of challenges all of their own, especially where programmes have been less successful, where a lack of transparency undermines learning or (worst of all) when the real purpose is just a tick in the box.

I enjoy evaluations in which I feel the process and the recommendations have a strong chance to lead to positive change.  I think an evaluation report deserves a formal management responses – even if it disagrees with my recommendations – and I like agencies with the transparency and confidence to publish  critical reports.  Humanitarian response is hard.  It never goes perfectly, and that’s ok.  We learn and we improve.

An inappropriate ambition:

The key messages of an evaluation process must be simple, easy to communicate, and sufficiently memorable to catalyse change in an organisation. This suggests that the ideal format for communicating these messages might not be the traditional narrative… The cartoons below were amongst a number drawn during team debrief sessions during an evaluation mission – but were never used. Shame, really…

A full list of evaluation contracts is provided below – click on any job title to get a more detailed description and access to reports where these are available.

evaluation consultancy contracts

Evaluation of DRR CCA capacity building programme

2017 – Team Leader – Konterra / WFP for a USD 20m 7 year DRR/CCA capacity building programme
Key evaluation themes: …