DAC Network on Development Evaluation

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DAC Network on Development Evaluation

• Rob D. van den Berg
• Chairman

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Brief history

• Established by the Development Assistance
  Committee of the OECD in the early 80s
• Role and mandate to improve development
  effectiveness through
• improving evaluation practice and encouraging
  standardisation
• undertaking synthesis studies
• promoting collaboration and joint work
• promoting evaluation capacity development

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Current membership

• Independent evaluation units of DAC members
• Observers
• Evaluation Unit of UNDP
• Operations Evaluation Department of the World
  Bank
• Evaluation Department of IMF
• Regional Development Banks

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Principles

• 1991 DAC High Level Meeting approves the DAC
  Principles of Evaluation of Development
  Assistance
• Evaluation for learning and as basis for
  accountability
• Organisational requirements evaluation policy
  and independence
• Criteria
• Partnership

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Review of principles (1998)

• Overall no need for change
• However, new trends pose challenges
• Collaboration
• New concepts
• Independence and participation
• Learning and accountability
• Moving up and attribution
• Checking up on application of principles in DAC
  peer reviews of bilateral donors

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Collaboration leading to harmonisation

• Where donors finance together, they should
  evaluate together
• Increasing partnership should include partnership
  in evaluation
• Increasing ownership should lead to ownership of
  evaluation
• Recognition that we need to evaluate our
  contribution to development as well as the
  results of our aid

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The challenge
of evaluations
Category
10.000s
Project/activity
1.000s
Programme
1.000s
Sector/thematic
100s
Policy/country
10s
Joined international
?
Global
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Synthesis report from 1998
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Products (1)

• Glossary of evaluation and results based
  management terminology
• Synthesis essays lessons for reconstruction of
  Afghanistan and Iraq
• Synthesis of evaluations
• Participatory development and good governance
• Support to decentralisation and local governance

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Main contribution to RBM
Translated in Chinese, Italian, Japanese,
Portuguese
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Products (2)

• Support for evaluation capacity
• Promoting joint evaluations
• CDF, Basic Education
• General Budget Support
• Peace Building
• Harmonisation of programming of evaluations by
  the Nordics plus
• Support to the peer reviews of bilateral donors

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Monitoring Evaluation

• M E often mentioned together, but they are in
  fact two separate instruments
• Often under M E only M is discussed
• False belief that with good monitoring evaluation
  is no longer necessary
• Monitoring shows whether you are on track
  evaluation shows whether you are on the right
  track

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M E and results

• Results is used for process (increased
  partnership), output, outcome and impact
• Monitoring can in principle take place on all
  these levels
• However, the contribution of aid to development
  cannot be established by monitoring, because it
  requires analysing relationships

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Managing for results and evaluation

• On the higher levels (outcome, impact) evaluation
  plays an important role
• On these levels evaluations take a lot of time
  and resources
• Possible solutions
• more syntheses of existing findings
• interim products
• a strategic long term agenda for management and
  evaluation

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Future work

• Joint evaluation on the contribution of aid to
  development (as challenged by the DAC Chair)
• More synthesis studies and products
• Self-evaluation of the quality of bilateral
  evaluations
• Review of recent experiences in joint evaluations
• Partnerships with broader evaluation community