Expanding the Scope of Humanitarian Program Evaluation

This article argues that current humanitarian impact evaluations are flawed because they focus on expected impacts. It proposes an alternative methodology that uses an initial pre-intervention quantitative survey; followed by post-intervention qualitative interviews to produce free lists of (1) positive, negative, expected, unexpected impacts and (2) the changes that resulted from the programme; and a post-implementation qualitative survey with questions about the issues identified in the free-listing interviews. The article presents two examples of the use of the approach, in AIDS risk education in Kenya and in psycho-social support in Uganda.