Trainer: Megan G. Kennedy-Chouane and Velayuthan Sivagnanasothy
Level: Intermediate/advanced
Language: English
Workshop description:
Relevance, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Impact and Sustainability, these five evaluation criteria first articulated by the OECD/DAC in 1991 have become a core part of evaluation policy and practice. They are widely used to evaluate international development co-operation, and even beyond the development community, a variety of actors (CSOs, governments, and academics) are using these criteria to evaluate local and national activities.
Over the past two years, the DAC Evaluation Network (EvalNet) and our partners have taken stock of lessons learned from using the criteria, and explored the strengths and weaknesses of the current definitions. Based on feedback, we have worked to revise the criteria, and to develop guidance for how to apply thoughtfully the criteria to support better evaluations for learning and accountability. This session will present the current thinking on the criteria, including emerging definitions and principles for use. We will share some of the key lessons that came out of the global consultation, including drawing on participants own experience. We will then focus on how to use the criteria to support learning and accountability in national contexts. Drawing lessons from international co-operation, we will focus on lessons for policy makers, evaluators, and evaluation commissioners involved in evaluations of interventions in a domestic policy context.
This is a unique opportunity to learn first-hand about the new criteria, directly from the OECD staff leading the work. The session will provide new information on the criteria and guidance for their use, much of which is not yet public.
Learning outcomes:
Upon completing this course, all participants will be able to:
1. Fully understand how each criterion is defined and what it means in different contexts relevant to their day-to-day work.
2. Explain the evaluation criteria relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, coherence, impact and sustainability using either plain language or technical language to help different audiences understand evaluation.
3. Use the criteria in their work, and feel comfortable distinguishing between evaluation criteria and formulating good evaluation questions.
4. Be more effective in evaluating interventions and communicating about evaluations to support learning and accountability in their own context. (At the beginning of the session each participant will have the opportunity to set a personal learning goal related to this objective.)